Aneirin

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Aneirin [ 'aneirin ], also Aneurin , originally Neirin [ ' neirin ], is considered to be one of the first named poets of the British Celts and is said to be the author of the epic Y Gododdin . According to the text of this work, Aneirin was court poet or bard .

life and work

Neirin is referred to as Cynfeirdd ( Cymric for " ancient poet"), along with his contemporaries Taliesin , Talhaearn, Blwchfardd and Cian (not to be confused with the hero Cian of Irish mythology ). All of them are believed to have lived in Hen Ogledd (northern England and southern Scotland) in the second half of the 6th century . The name Neirin is used until the time of the Historia Brittonum (around 830), although the version Aneirin was in common use earlier.

According to the Historia Brittonum (des Nennius or Gildas ), Neirin wrote in the inadequately traditional Cumbrian language from which the Cymrian (Welsh) language is said to have developed. Tradition has it that the epic Y Gododdin written in this language is attributed to him. The work is contained in the Llyfr Aneirin ("Book of Aneirin"), an incomplete parchment manuscript from around 1250. There are some stanzas of this poem in two different versions and four other verses, which are also ascribed to Aneirin. An original oral tradition is assumed, but the history of its origin has not yet been fully researched. Literary historians suspect that only part of the work comes from Aneirin, the greater part of the elegies were added on later occasions in honor of the senseless sacrifice of the death-defying Gododdin (Votadini).

The poem celebrates a battle that occurred around 600 near what is now Catterick in North Yorkshire . According to Y Gododdin , Aneirin had joined a troop of soldiers sent from Wales to fight in the war against the Saxons . The British lost the battle and Aneirin seems to have been the only one in his force (according to another version, one of four) who got away with life. However, one of the elegies reports that there was no survivor:

A chet lledessynt wy lladassan. Neb y eu cu tymhyr nyt atcorsan.
“Even though they were killed, they killed. Nobody returned to his country. "

However, if Aneirin was a participant at all, he must have survived the battle as the later author of the elegies.

See also

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. Helmut Birkhan: Nachantike Keltenrezeption. P. 111.
  2. ... only one came back ... (Y Gododdin LXI A&B, 94); ... four came back ... (Y Gododdin XXI, 240); from Helmut Birkhan: Celts. Attempt at a complete representation of their culture. P. 1047, note 2.
  3. Y Gododdin XXXI, 361; from Helmut Birkhan: Celts. Attempt at a complete representation of their culture. P. 120.
  4. Helmut Birkhan: Celts. Attempt at a complete representation of their culture. P. 1047.