Cad Goddeu
Encyclopedia
Cad Goddeu is a medieval Welsh
poem preserved in the 14th-century manuscript known as the Book of Taliesin
. The poem refers to a traditional story in which the legendary enchanter Gwydion
animates the trees of the forest to fight as his army. The poem is especially notable for its striking and enigmatic symbolism and the wide variety of interpretations this has occasioned.
;
Cymraeg/Welsh
Bum cledyf yn aghat
Bum yscwyt yg kat
Bum tant yn telyn.
English
I was a sword in fist
I was a shield in battle
I was a string on a harp.
culminating in a claim to have been at "Caer Vevenir" when the Lord of Britain did battle. There follows an account of a great monstrous beast, of the fear of the Britons and how, by Gwydion
's skill and the grace of God, the trees marched to battle: then follows a list of plants, each with some outstanding attribute, now apt, now obscure;
Cymraeg/Welsh
Gwern blaen llin,
A want gysseuin
Helyc a cherdin
Buant hwyr yr vydin.
English
Alder, front of the line,
formed the vanguard
Willow and Rowan
were late to the fray.
The poem then breaks into a first-person account of the birth of the flower-maiden Blodeuwedd
, and then the history of another one, a great warrior, once a herdsman, now a learned traveller, perhaps Arthur
or Taliesin himself. After repeating an earlier reference to the flood, the crucifixion and the day of judgment, the poem closes with an obscure reference to metalwork.
record it as a "frivolous" battle, while in another poem of the Book of Taliesin the poet claims to have been present at the battle.
According to a summary of a similar story preserved in Peniarth MS 98B (which dates from the late sixteenth century) the poem describes a battle between Gwydion and Arawn
, the Lord of Annwn
. The fight broke out after the divine plowman Amaethon
stole a dog
, a lapwing
, and a roebuck
from Arawn. Gwydion ultimately triumphed by guessing the name of one of Arawn's men, Bran (possibly Bran the Blessed
).
In the Mabinogi story of the childhood of Lleu Llaw Gyffes
, Gwydion makes a forest appear to be an invading force.
The Cad Goddeu, which is difficult to translate because of its laconic allusiveness and grammatical ambiguity, was the subject of several nineteenth-century speculative commentaries and English renderings. Thomas Stephens held the poem to concern "a Helio-Arkite superstition, the metempsychosis of a Chief Druid, and a symbolical account of the Deluge". Gerald Massey
's monumental work on African origins suggested that the poem reflected Egyptian religion.
David William Nash believed it was a poor-quality twelfth-century romance overlaying a romance or story of the Arthurian era and put together with other poetic fragments. W. F. Skene rejected the antiquity of the prose account and thought the poem reflected the history of the north country during the Irish incursions. Watson followed Skene and Ifor Williams posed the question 'What about the Battle of Celyddon Wood?'
Robert Graves
took up a speculation that had been considered and rejected by Nash; that the trees that fought in the battle correspond to the Ogham
alphabet, in which each character is associated with a particular tree. Each tree had a meaning and significance of its own, and Gwydion guessed Bran's name by the alder
branch Bran carried, the alder being one of Bran's prime symbols. Graves argued that the original poet had concealed druidic secrets about an older matriarchal Celtic religion for fear of censure from Christian authorities. He suggested that Arawn and Bran were names for the same underworld god and that the battle was probably not physical but rather a struggle of wits and scholarship: Gwydion's forces could only be defeated if the name of his companion, Lady Achren ("Trees"), was guessed and Arawn's host only if Bran's name was guessed.
Graves, following Nash, accepted that the poem is a composite of several different sections, among which he named a Hanes Taliesin
(History of Taliesin) and a Hanes Blodeuwedd
(History of Blodeuwedd).
Marged Haycock and Mary Ann Constantine reject the idea that Cad Goddeu encodes ancient pagan religions as Graves believed but rather see it as a burlesque, a grand parody of bardic language. Francesco Bennozo argues that the poem represents ancient fears of the forest and its magical powers.
for his piece "Duel of the Fates
" in his score for the film Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace
. He also directly based the second movement of his 2004 Horn Concerto on the "Battle of the Trees."
Welsh language
Welsh is a member of the Brythonic branch of the Celtic languages spoken natively in Wales, by some along the Welsh border in England, and in Y Wladfa...
poem preserved in the 14th-century manuscript known as the Book of Taliesin
Book of Taliesin
The Book of Taliesin is one of the most famous of Middle Welsh manuscripts, dating from the first half of the 14th century though many of the fifty-six poems it preserves are taken to originate in the 10th century. The manuscript, known as Peniarth MS 2 and kept at the National Library of Wales,...
. The poem refers to a traditional story in which the legendary enchanter Gwydion
Gwydion
Gwydion fab Dôn is a magician, hero and trickster of Welsh mythology, appearing most prominently in the Fourth Branch of the Mabinogi, which focuses largely on his relationship with his young nephew, Lleu Llaw Gyffes...
animates the trees of the forest to fight as his army. The poem is especially notable for its striking and enigmatic symbolism and the wide variety of interpretations this has occasioned.
Poem
Some 248 short lines long (usually five syllables and a rest), and falling into several sections, the poem begins with an extended claim of first-hand knowledge of all things, in a fashion found later in the poem and also in several others attributed to TaliesinTaliesin
Taliesin was an early British poet of the post-Roman period whose work has possibly survived in a Middle Welsh manuscript, the Book of Taliesin...
;
Cymraeg/Welsh
Welsh language
Welsh is a member of the Brythonic branch of the Celtic languages spoken natively in Wales, by some along the Welsh border in England, and in Y Wladfa...
Bum cledyf yn aghat
Bum yscwyt yg kat
Bum tant yn telyn.
English
I was a sword in fist
I was a shield in battle
I was a string on a harp.
culminating in a claim to have been at "Caer Vevenir" when the Lord of Britain did battle. There follows an account of a great monstrous beast, of the fear of the Britons and how, by Gwydion
Gwydion
Gwydion fab Dôn is a magician, hero and trickster of Welsh mythology, appearing most prominently in the Fourth Branch of the Mabinogi, which focuses largely on his relationship with his young nephew, Lleu Llaw Gyffes...
's skill and the grace of God, the trees marched to battle: then follows a list of plants, each with some outstanding attribute, now apt, now obscure;
Cymraeg/Welsh
Welsh language
Welsh is a member of the Brythonic branch of the Celtic languages spoken natively in Wales, by some along the Welsh border in England, and in Y Wladfa...
Gwern blaen llin,
A want gysseuin
Helyc a cherdin
Buant hwyr yr vydin.
English
Alder, front of the line,
formed the vanguard
Willow and Rowan
were late to the fray.
The poem then breaks into a first-person account of the birth of the flower-maiden Blodeuwedd
Blodeuwedd
Blodeuwedd or Blodeuedd, , is the wife of Lleu Llaw Gyffes in Welsh mythology, made from the flowers of broom, meadowsweet and the oak by the magicians Math and Gwydion, and is a central figure in the fourth branch of the Mabinogi.-Role in Welsh tradition:The...
, and then the history of another one, a great warrior, once a herdsman, now a learned traveller, perhaps Arthur
King Arthur
King Arthur is a legendary British leader of the late 5th and early 6th centuries, who, according to Medieval histories and romances, led the defence of Britain against Saxon invaders in the early 6th century. The details of Arthur's story are mainly composed of folklore and literary invention, and...
or Taliesin himself. After repeating an earlier reference to the flood, the crucifixion and the day of judgment, the poem closes with an obscure reference to metalwork.
Interpretations
There are contemporary passing allusions to the Battle of Trees elsewhere in the mediaeval Welsh collections: The Welsh TriadsWelsh Triads
The Welsh Triads are a group of related texts in medieval manuscripts which preserve fragments of Welsh folklore, mythology and traditional history in groups of three. The triad is a rhetorical form whereby objects are grouped together in threes, with a heading indicating the point of likeness...
record it as a "frivolous" battle, while in another poem of the Book of Taliesin the poet claims to have been present at the battle.
According to a summary of a similar story preserved in Peniarth MS 98B (which dates from the late sixteenth century) the poem describes a battle between Gwydion and Arawn
Arawn
In Welsh mythology, Arawn was the king of the otherworld realm of Annwn, appearing prominently in the first branch, and alluded to in the fourth. In later tradition, the role of king of Annwn was largely attributed to the Welsh psychopomp, Gwyn ap Nudd...
, the Lord of Annwn
Annwn
Annwn or Annwfn was the Otherworld in Welsh mythology. Ruled by Arawn, or much later by Gwyn ap Nudd, it was essentially a world of delights and eternal youth where disease is absent and food is ever-abundant. It later became Christianised and identified with the land of souls that had departed...
. The fight broke out after the divine plowman Amaethon
Amaethon
In Welsh mythology, Amaethon was the god of agriculture, and the son of the goddess Dôn. His name means "labourer" or "ploughman", and he is cited as being responsible for the Cad Goddeu, or "Battle of Trees", between the lord of the otherworld, Arawn, and the Children of Dôn .-Sources:The...
stole a dog
Dog
The domestic dog is a domesticated form of the gray wolf, a member of the Canidae family of the order Carnivora. The term is used for both feral and pet varieties. The dog may have been the first animal to be domesticated, and has been the most widely kept working, hunting, and companion animal in...
, a lapwing
Northern Lapwing
The Northern Lapwing , also known as the Peewit, Green Plover or just Lapwing, is a bird in the plover family. It is common through temperate Eurasia....
, and a roebuck
Roebuck
Roebuck may refer to:* male Roe Deer, a type of deerPeople* Alvah C. Roebuck , American businessman and co-founder of Sears, Roebuck and Company* Henry Disney Roebuck, builder of Midford Castle in 1775...
from Arawn. Gwydion ultimately triumphed by guessing the name of one of Arawn's men, Bran (possibly Bran the Blessed
Bran the Blessed
Brân the Blessed is a giant and king of Britain in Welsh mythology. He appears in several of the Welsh Triads, but his most significant role is in the Second Branch of the Mabinogi, Branwen ferch Llŷr. He is a son of Llŷr and Penarddun, and the brother of Brânwen, Manawydan, Nisien and Efnysien...
).
In the Mabinogi story of the childhood of Lleu Llaw Gyffes
Lleu Llaw Gyffes
Lleu Llaw Gyffes is a hero of Welsh mythology. He appears most prominently in the Fourth Branch of the Mabinogi, the tale of Math fab Mathonwy, which tells the tale of his birth, his marriage, his death, his resurrection and his accession to the throne of Gwynedd...
, Gwydion makes a forest appear to be an invading force.
The Cad Goddeu, which is difficult to translate because of its laconic allusiveness and grammatical ambiguity, was the subject of several nineteenth-century speculative commentaries and English renderings. Thomas Stephens held the poem to concern "a Helio-Arkite superstition, the metempsychosis of a Chief Druid, and a symbolical account of the Deluge". Gerald Massey
Gerald Massey
Gerald Massey was an English poet and self-educated Egyptologist. He was born near Tring, Hertfordshire in England.-Biography:...
's monumental work on African origins suggested that the poem reflected Egyptian religion.
David William Nash believed it was a poor-quality twelfth-century romance overlaying a romance or story of the Arthurian era and put together with other poetic fragments. W. F. Skene rejected the antiquity of the prose account and thought the poem reflected the history of the north country during the Irish incursions. Watson followed Skene and Ifor Williams posed the question 'What about the Battle of Celyddon Wood?'
Robert Graves
Robert Graves
Robert von Ranke Graves 24 July 1895 – 7 December 1985 was an English poet, translator and novelist. During his long life he produced more than 140 works...
took up a speculation that had been considered and rejected by Nash; that the trees that fought in the battle correspond to the Ogham
Ogham
Ogham is an Early Medieval alphabet used primarily to write the Old Irish language, and occasionally the Brythonic language. Ogham is sometimes called the "Celtic Tree Alphabet", based on a High Medieval Bríatharogam tradition ascribing names of trees to the individual letters.There are roughly...
alphabet, in which each character is associated with a particular tree. Each tree had a meaning and significance of its own, and Gwydion guessed Bran's name by the alder
Alder
Alder is the common name of a genus of flowering plants belonging to the birch family . The genus comprises about 30 species of monoecious trees and shrubs, few reaching large size, distributed throughout the North Temperate Zone and in the Americas along the Andes southwards to...
branch Bran carried, the alder being one of Bran's prime symbols. Graves argued that the original poet had concealed druidic secrets about an older matriarchal Celtic religion for fear of censure from Christian authorities. He suggested that Arawn and Bran were names for the same underworld god and that the battle was probably not physical but rather a struggle of wits and scholarship: Gwydion's forces could only be defeated if the name of his companion, Lady Achren ("Trees"), was guessed and Arawn's host only if Bran's name was guessed.
Graves, following Nash, accepted that the poem is a composite of several different sections, among which he named a Hanes Taliesin
Taliesin
Taliesin was an early British poet of the post-Roman period whose work has possibly survived in a Middle Welsh manuscript, the Book of Taliesin...
(History of Taliesin) and a Hanes Blodeuwedd
Blodeuwedd
Blodeuwedd or Blodeuedd, , is the wife of Lleu Llaw Gyffes in Welsh mythology, made from the flowers of broom, meadowsweet and the oak by the magicians Math and Gwydion, and is a central figure in the fourth branch of the Mabinogi.-Role in Welsh tradition:The...
(History of Blodeuwedd).
Marged Haycock and Mary Ann Constantine reject the idea that Cad Goddeu encodes ancient pagan religions as Graves believed but rather see it as a burlesque, a grand parody of bardic language. Francesco Bennozo argues that the poem represents ancient fears of the forest and its magical powers.
Other uses
John Williams used a version of Cad Goddeu translated into SanskritSanskrit
Sanskrit , is a historical Indo-Aryan language and the primary liturgical language of Hinduism, Jainism and Buddhism.Buddhism: besides Pali, see Buddhist Hybrid Sanskrit Today, it is listed as one of the 22 scheduled languages of India and is an official language of the state of Uttarakhand...
for his piece "Duel of the Fates
Duel of the Fates
"Duel of the Fates" is a musical theme recurring in the Star Wars prequel trilogy and the Expanded Universe. It was composed by John Williams and recorded for the film soundtrack by the London Symphony Orchestra and the London Voices. This symphonic piece is played with both a full orchestra and a...
" in his score for the film Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace
Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace
Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace is a 1999 American epic space opera film written and directed by George Lucas. It is the fourth film to be released in the Star Wars saga, as the first of a three-part prequel to the original Star Wars trilogy, as well as the first film in the saga in terms...
. He also directly based the second movement of his 2004 Horn Concerto on the "Battle of the Trees."