Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 5.djvu/330

318 CELTIC LITERATURE I oets from the 7th to the llth century. Religious poems in Black Book Poems at tributed to Myrdin. The Welsh bards. and interesting examples of a sort of proverbial philosophy in which each proverb or wise saw is accompanied by a reference to some natural feature, such as " Bright the tops of the broom, " which serves as a kind of mnemonic catch word. This catchword is sometimes the same in every verse, as in the poem Eiry mnyd, mountain snow. Welsh tradition has preserved few poems of the period between the end of the 6th century and the end of the llth, a period of 500 years, nor for the matter of that even the names of poets, a circumstance which is in telligible enough if we consider that Welsh literature really began with the llth century, but inexplicable according to the ordinary views of Welshmen. In the Black Book are five poems attributed to three poets who lived in the early part of the barren interval, Meigant, whose name also occurs in Irish literature; Elaeth, to whom are attributed two out of the five poems, which are of a religious character; and Cuhelyn, a bard of the 9th century. The two poems attributed to the last are of very great importance, because in them occurs the earliest mention of the goddess Ceridwen, who plays so conspicuous a part in the modern bardic system of Neo-Druidism. The anony mous religious poems of the Black Book, apart from the language, may belong to any time from the 6th to the 12th centuries ; they probably belong in great part to the 1 1 th and 12th centuries, and were most likely the work of the monks in whose monastery the Black Book was compiled. The ninth and last division of the early Welsh poems are those which covertly allude to passing events in Wales, and can therefore be no older than those events. Two of them refer to Powys in Norman times, the Satire of Cynan Garwyn, son of Brochwael, in the Book of Taliessin, and the elegy on Cyndylan in the Red Book. The others are the poems which Mr Skene groups together under the head " Poems which mention Henry or the son of Henry; 1 the most im portant of them are those attributed to Myrdin or Merlin, such as the Dialogue between Myrdin and his sister Gwendydd, a Fugitive Poem of Myrdin in his Grave, containing a number of predictions, and the Songs of the Little Pigs, each stanza of which begins with " Oian a par- chellan" " Listen, O Little Pig." The structure of the last poem being like that of the poem called the Avellenau, each stanza of which commences with that word " Sweet Apple-tree," both are classed together, and in the Myvyrian Archaiology are attributed to Merlin. The Avellenau is, however, found in the Black Book, and is every way an older poem; but it is needless to add that none of the poems of Merlin are genuine, and that with the exception perhaps of the Apple-tree poem, they all refer to times later than the 1 2th century, and to the present Wales. Before discussing the second division of Welsh poetic literature, or poems written by or attributed to poets who lived in Wales in the 12th and succeeding centuries, we must say a few words on the Welsh bards. The organiza tion of the classes of learned men in Wales was far less developed than in Ireland. According to the laws each king or prince had a household bard, who appears to have performed the functions of the Irish Sai and Fill, and also that of harper. His position was honourable, and on in vestiture he was presented by the king with a harp, and by the queen with a gold ring. Beside the Bardd Teuleu, or household bard just spoken of, a Pencerdd, chief of song, is mentioned in the laws, who in North Wales was an officer of the household, but in South Wales was not, his posi tion there being apparently that of a privileged personage entitled to make a circuit and so spend his time where he pleased. The chief of song was also called a chaired bard, because he was one of the fourteen entitled to a chair at court. The installation of a bard to a chair appears to have been attended with some ceremony, for the judge of the king s court was entitled as a perquisite of his office to the bugle-horn, the gold ring, and the cushion which was under the bard on the occasion. The Pencerdd represented the Irish Ollamji Fill, and like him appears to have kept a school of poetry, for he was entitled to receive 24 pence from each minstrel who completed his course of instruction, to their services " as a man placed in authority over them," and to the Gobyr or Amobyr of their daughters, that is to the fee payable to the lord on the marriage of a maiden. Among his emoluments was a fee of 24 pence from every maiden on her marriage. In the court his seat was on the side of the judge of the court, and he lodged with the Edling, that is the heir-apparent of the king or prince, corresponding to the Irish Tanaiste. A villain or serf could not become a bard, nor a smith without the permis sion of his lord; nor could a bard practise his art after he had taken holy orders. Should a serf or a stranger happen to become a bard he became personally a free Cymro or Welshman, but his children were not free, though the time in which his descendants might rise to the privileges of a free Cymro was shortened. A minor bard was forbidden to solicit a gift without the permission of the Pencerdd, but the latter might ask a gift though all others should be forbidden to do so. The duty of the chief of song was to commence the singing or recitation of poetry by singing two songs on entering the hall, one concerning God and the other about kings; the household bard then repeated the third song below the entrance of the hall. This is nearly all that the laws contain about bards. There is not Neo-Diuid- a word about the Ovydd, or the Druid-bard, nor about the ism- sky-blue dress of the former, the emblem of peace and truth, nor of the white robe of the Druid, nor of the green robe of the Ovydd, the colour of nature, nor of the robe of the Awenydd or bardic student striped with the three colours, nor of the Gorsedd or assembly of bards. If any of these things existed in the 12th century, the most brilliant period of Welsh poetry, we should expect to find them in the Welsh laws. But so far from any relics of the ancient Druidic organization having survived at that period, it is probable that even the organization above given from the laws was in part at least the work of Gruffyd ab Cynan. They are, in fact, the inventions of later times when Wales had lost its political liberty. We have the first stage of the invention in the Triads, and it seems to have been com pleted by that extraordinary man Edward Williams, whom we have already mentioned as one of the editors and the principal contributor of the Myvyrian Archaiology, who pre tended to be the head of the bardic order of South Wales, and accordingly assumed the bardic title of lolo Morganwg from his native county of Glamorgan. He is probably the source whence the Rev. Edward Davies derived the chief part of the material for his marvellous system of Neo-Druidic philosophy. According to the supporters of this system, the religion of the Druids, a medley of sun- worship and Jewish Noachian traditions, the emblems of which were the bull, the horse, and fire, survived the intro duction of Christianity, and continued to be believed by the bards, and its rites practised in secret by them. The principal source whence evidence was derived in support of this assumption was the early poems which we have been discussing. Davies gave what he called transla tions of some of those poems, in which the simplest and plainest phrases are made to express mysterious and abstruse doctrines. In the religious poems which contain such expressions as " Christ the Son," " Merciful Trinity," Mr Davies omits the latter, or treats them as mere phrases introduced to deceive the uninitiated, and make them be lieve the pagan bards were Christians. Among the doctrines attributed to the Neo-Druids was that of metempsychosis.

The chief source from whence evidence was derived in