please note:
- the content below is remote from Wikipedia
- it has been imported raw for GetWiki
The Book of Aneirin () is a late 13th century
Welsh manuscript containing
Old and
Middle Welsh poetry attributed to the late 6th century Northern
Brythonic poet,
Aneirin, who is believed to have lived in present-day Scotland.The manuscript is kept at the
National Library of Wales, Aberystwyth.NEWS, Historic Book of Aneirin put online by National Library,
weblink 8 December 2013, BBC News, 8 December 2013, It is made of
parchment and was written in Wales around 1265, probably in a monastery, but is probably a copy of a lost 9th century original. The text of the manuscript is rendered in a
proto-gothic hand. There is minimal decoration, consisting of only of a few colored
Lombardic Capitals. Paragraphs are broken by similarly colored
pilcrows and where the text breaks before the right margin, simple illustrated linear termini are provided. The poetry recorded in the book, which has only 38 pages,WEB,
weblink Book of Aneirin, National Library of Wales, 21 March 2020, would previously have been kept alive through
oral tradition. The best-known poem contained within its pages is
Y Gododdin, an early
Welsh-language poem commemorating the warriors from
Gododdin (
Lothian in modern
Scotland) who fell at the
Battle of Catraeth (probably
Catterick in
North Yorkshire) around the year 600. Parts of this do appear to be contemporary with Aneirin, who, it is claimed, was a survivor of the battle. Military activities are described in great detail in the poem.BOOK, Stephen S. Evans, The Lords of Battle: Image and Reality of the Comitatus in Dark-Age Britain,
weblink 2000, Boydell & Brewer Ltd, 978-0-85115-662-0, 61, The other poetry, with no connection to this battle, includes, amongst others, "
Peis Dinogat", a short poem for a child named Dinogad, in the form of a
lullaby, describing how his father goes hunting and fishing.BOOK, Gwyn Williams, An Introduction to Welsh Poetry: From the Beginnings to the Sixteenth Century,
weblink 1953, Faber & Faber, 47, The literary scholar, Sir
Ifor Williams, suggested that its incongruous presence within the Book of Aneirin might have been the result of it having been written in the margin of the original manuscript.The other works in the volume are an elegy to a victim of a massacre, and "The true verses of Gorchan Adrefon and Gorchan Maeldderw", which is attributed to the poet
Taliesin. Sir Ifor Williams proposed that the contents of the manuscript demonstrate that the Welsh language was spoken in northern parts of the
British Isles.During the 15th century, the poet
Dafydd Nanmor owned the manuscript, and it later passed into the hands of
Robert Vaughan of Hengwrt, a well-known collector. It remained in the Hengwrt collection until the 1780s, when it was stolen.
Thomas Price (Carnhuanawc) later acquired it and, following his death in 1848, it was bought by another collector,
Sir Thomas Phillipps, 1st Baronet. In 1896 it was bought by
Cardiff Free Library and thus passed to the
National Library of Wales, where it has been restored and rebound.
References
{{reflist}}
External links
- weblink" title="web.archive.org/web/20041116124659weblink">Llyfr Aneirin, ca. 1265 from the weblink" title="web.archive.org/web/20071119123113weblink">Gathering the Jewels website. Includes full colour images of the entire manuscript.
- weblink" title="web.archive.org/web/20090607090718weblink">The Book of Aneirin English Translation, from the weblink" title="web.archive.org/web/20070430131728weblink">Celtic Literature Collective website.
- content above as imported from Wikipedia
- "Book of Aneirin" does not exist on GetWiki (yet)
- time: 9:18am EDT - Sat, May 18 2024