Texts

Y Gododdin

Incoming data

A catalogue entry is available.

A long heroic poem, or series of verses (awdlau), in Early Welsh.

Manuscript witnesses

Text

Aberystwyth, National Library of Wales, MS 13240B

Transcript by William Owen Pughe

Text

Cardiff, Central Library, MS 2.81

pp. 1–38

Sources

Primary sources Text editions and/or modern translations – in whole or in part – along with publications containing additions and corrections, if known. Diplomatic editions, facsimiles and digital image reproductions of the manuscripts are not always listed here but may be found in entries for the relevant manuscripts. For historical purposes, early editions, transcriptions and translations are not excluded, even if their reliability does not meet modern standards.

[ed.] Williams, Ifor, Canu Aneirin, Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 1938.

The standard edition

[ed.] [tr.] Jarman, A. O. H., Aneirin. Y Gododdin: Britain’s oldest heroic poem, The Welsh Classics, 3, Llandysul: Gomer, 1988.

[ed.] [tr.] Koch, John T., The Gododdin of Aneirin. Text and context from Dark-Age North Britain, Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 1997.

[tr.] Jackson, Kenneth H., Aneurin. The Gododdin: the oldest Scottish poem, Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1969.

English translation of Y Gododdin, with introduction and notes.

[tr.] Thomas, Gwyn, Gododdin: the earliest British literature, Llandysul: Gomer Press, 2012. 144 pp.

comments: An English translation of Y Gododdin, with introduction

[tr.] Ford, Patrick K. [tr.], The Celtic poets: songs and tales from early Ireland and Wales, Belmont, Massachusetts: Ford & Bailie, 1999.

[tr.] Clancy, Joseph P., Medieval Welsh poems, Dublin: Four Courts Press, 2002. 400 pp.

[tr.] Wiliams, David Gwyn [ed. and tr.], The burning tree: poems from the first thousand years of Welsh verse, London: Faber & Faber, 1956.

Internet Archive – 1979 reprint: on loan only: <link>

Selections.

Earlier (less reliable) translations

[tr.] Anwyl, Edward, “The Book of Aneirin”, Transactions of the Honourable Society of Cymmrodorion 1909–1910 (1911): 95–136 + plates.

Welsh Journals Online: <link>

120–136

[tr.] Skene, William F., The four ancient books of Wales, containing the Cymric poems attributed to the bards of the sixth century, vol. 1, Edinburgh, 1868.

Internet Archive: <link> Internet Archive – originally from Google Books: <link>, <link>, <link>

374–430

Secondary sources (select)

Roberts, Brynley F. (ed.), Early Welsh poetry: studies in the Book of Aneirin, Aberystwyth: National Library of Wales, 1988. 212 pp.

A collection of essays that were previously presented at a conference held in 1984.

Isaac, Graham R., “Readings in the history and transmission of the Gododdin”, Cambrian Medieval Celtic Studies 37 (Summer, 1999): 55–78.

Charles-Edwards, T. M., “The authenticity of the Gododdin: an historian’s view”, in: Rachel Bromwich, and R. Brinley Jones (eds), Astudiaethau ar yr hengerdd / Studies in old Welsh poetry: cyflwynedig i Syr Idris Foster, Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 1978. 44–71.