This has been the subject of many discussions, and has recently found a
place in the columns of "NOTES AND QUERIES." I do not propose to take
any part in the present discussion, but it may be of some service to
historical students for me to introduce to public notice a much older
authority than any that has yet been cited.
It is known to but few antiquaries out of the principality, that the
ancient poetry of Wales throws more light on the immediate post-Roman
history of Britain than any documents in existence. These poems vividly
pourtray the social condition of the period, and contain almost the only
records of the great contest between the natives and the Saxon invaders;
they prove beyond a doubt that the Romans had left the province in an
advanced stage of civilisation, and they supply us with the means of
affirming decisively, that the vine was cultivated here to a very
considerable extent.
The antiquity of these poems admits of no reasonable doubt; on that
point the _Vindication_ of Turner enables the antiquaries of Wales to
make this assertion with confidence: and having recently translated most
of our old poems, with a view to future publication, I feel myself
warranted in assuming them to belong to the sixth and seventh centuries
of our era. One of these bards, Aneurin by name, belonged to the British
tribe, described by the Romans as Ottadini, and by themselves as the
people of Gododin. This people were situated at the junction of England
and Scotland, and the poems of this bard chiefly refer to that district;
but as the bards were a rambling class, and as the bulk of the people
from Chester to Dumbarton were the same race as the people of the
principality, we are not surprised when we find this bard sometimes
among "the banks and braes of bonny Doon," and sometimes in North and
South Wales. In one of his verses he thus describes the kilt of a
British chief:--
"Peis dinogat e vreith vreith
O grwyn balaot ban ureith."
These lines may be found in the _Myvyrian Archæology_, vol. i. p. 13.
col. 1.; and a most unwarrantable translation of _dinogat_ may be found
in Davies' _Mythology of the Druids_; but the literal rendering would be
this:
"Dinogad's kilt is stripy, stripy,
Of the skins of front-streak'd wolf-cubs."
_Peis_ or _pais_ is the word now used for the article of female attire
known as a petti-coat, which in form bears a sufficiently close
resemblance to the male kilt to justify me in using that word here. It
also occurs in _pais-arfau_, a coat of arms, and _pais-ddur_, a coat of
mail. The words _vreith vreith_ have been translated word for word; in
the Kymric language it is a very common form of emphatic expression to
repeat the word on which the emphasis falls, as _yn dda da_ for _very
good_; but a more idiomatic translation would have been, _very stripy_.
_Vraith_ with us also stands for plaid, and in the Welsh Bible Joseph's
"coat of many colours" is named _siacced vraith_.
Now I will not attempt to determine what relation this kilt stands in to
the kilts of the Highlands, whether the Gael borrowed it from the
Briton, or the Briton from the Gael, or whether the dress was common to
both at the time in which Dinogad lived; but thus much appears to be
clear, that we here have a _kilt_, and that that kilt was striped, if
not a _plaid_; and it only remains for us to determine the period at
which Dinogad lived. Most persons are acquainted with the name of
Brochmael, Prince of Powys, the British commander at the battle of
Bangor in 613, on the occasion of the dispute between Augustine and the
primitive British church; Dinogad stood to him in the following
relation:
BROCHMAEL
|
CYNAN GARWYN
|
+-----------+-----------+
| |
SELYF OR SALOMON. DINOGAD.
Of Dinogad himself there is but one fact on record, and that took place
in 577. His brother Selyf fell at the battle of Bangor or Chester in
613. If we take these facts together, we may form a pretty accurate idea
respecting the period at which he lived.
Viewing this matter from a Cambrian standpoint, I feel myself warranted
in hazarding the following remarks. In the lines of Aneurin, the thing
selected for special notice is the excess of stripe; and therefore,
whether it was the invention of Dinogad, or whether he borrowed the idea
from the Scots or Picts when he was at Dumbarton in 577, it is quite
clear, from the repetition of the word _vreith_, that his kilt had the
attribute of stripyness to a greater extent than was usually the case;
while it is also equally clear, that amongst the Britons of that period,
kilts of a stripy character were so common as to excite no surprise. We
may therefore affirm,
1. That in the beginning of the seventh century the British chiefs were
in the habit of wearing skin kilts.