The Stanzas of the Graves or Englynion
y Beddau (also known as 'The
Graves of the Warriors of Britain') are found in a
number of Welsh manuscripts. The earliest and most
important collection is in the Llyfr Du
Caerfyrddin (Black Book of Carmarthen)
which contains seventy-three stanzas; sixty-nine of
which were copied in the second quarter of the
thirteen century and the other four (numbers 70 to
73) in the second half of the same century. Five more
stanzas occur amongst the Llywarch verses in the Llyfr
Coch Hergest (Red Book of Hergest)
and it is known that these five were once in the
earlier (fourteenth century) Llfyr Gwyn
Rhydderch (White Book of Rhyderrch).
Similar stanzas are found in two later manuscripts
(Peniarth MS.98 and Wrexham MS.1); some of these are
variants on Black Book stanzas.
While
the earliest manuscript containing them (the Black
Book of Carmarthen) dates to the 13th-century there
can be no doubt that the vast majority of the englynion
are far older than this - Jones dates the original
text to the 9th- or 10th-century but as records of
oral tales and folklore they may well represent much
older traditions. Certainly later court poets of the
princes appear to be drawing on this information.
Arthur
Of the
73 stanzas in the Black Book, only three (8, 12 and
44) mention well-known Arthurian characters and of
these the most important is st. 44 which names Arthur
himself:
[There
is] a grave for March, a grave for Gwythur, /
a grave for Gwgawn Red-sword; / the world's
wonder (anoeth) [is] a grave for
Arthur.
The
poet's implication is that the graves of these
Arthurian heroes are known but that of Arthur himself
cannot be found, probably because he was rumoured not
to be dead.
Vortigern
Only
one stanza (40) mentions Vortigern and his supposed
grave in Ystyfacheu, but with the apparent note that
this is in doubt. Since Vortigern's grave is usually
not given in any version of his tale, this seems not
surprising. I have not been able to trace the place.
A transcript of the
relevant stanza can be found here
