Llywarch Hen

Llywarch Hen [ 'ɬɘwarx heːn ] ( Welsh "Llywarch the Old") is the name of a legendary figure from the Hen Ogledd ("Old North") in British mythology . However, he is also mentioned as the real king of South Rheged (from around 570 to 613).

mythology

Llywarch Hen is mentioned as the cousin of King Urien of Rheged, who is said to have lived in northern Britain at the end of the 6th century . Later traditions, however, connect his life with North Wales . In a cycle of poems by Llyfr Coch Hergest ("Red Book of Hergest") from the 9./10. In the 19th century, his fate and that of his sons are described. After Urien's death he fled with his head and was pursued by the enemy. He finally has to go to Powys (according to another version to Gwynedd ) into exile, where he spends the last years of his life as a court bard .

The poem Cân y Henwr (“Song of the Old Man ”) tells how the grown-up Llywarch Hen mourns the death of his 24 sons, all of whom he asked to go into battle and who fell there in defense of their father. The dark, difficult-to-understand poem is likely to have been the climax of a prose story, written in verse, the knowledge of which one could evidently assume from the audience at the time.

Some literary historians attribute Lywarch Hen to the cynfeirdd , the "old / early bards ".

See also

• Myths and legends from Ireland
• List of Celtic gods and legendary figures
• Celtic mythology

literature

• Bernhard Maier : Lexicon of Celtic Religion and Culture (= Kröner's pocket edition . Volume 466). Kröner, Stuttgart 1994, ISBN 3-520-46601-5 , p. 213 (for the entire text).

Web links

• William Owen Pughe ( transl .): The heroic elegies and other pieces of Llywarç Hen. London 1792.
• Felicia Dorothea Browne Hemans: The works of Mrs Hemans: The lament of Llywarch Hen. William Blackwood & Sons and Thomas Cadell, London 1839, p. 226 ff.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Wolfgang Meid : The Celts. Reclams Universal Library , Stuttgart 2007, ISBN 978-3-15-017053-3 , p. 222.