Arthur in Medieval Welsh Literature by Oliver James Padel

Author:Oliver James Padel [Oliver James Padel]
Language: eng
Format: epub

Tri ffren sy dda i rryw,

kelyn ag eiddew ag yw,

a ddeilia’u [dail] yn i byw:

Trystan pie fi yni fyw!

(Three trees are of good kind,

holly and ivy and yew,

which keep their leaves while they live:

Trystan shall have me while he lives!)

Arthur’s role is as an arbiter and peacekeeper, and as the leader whose warriors act as intermediaries to persuade the lovers to come out of the forest. Gwalchmai’s role as tactful negotiator is his usual one, as seen in the romance of PEREDUR, for example; but Cai is not normally successful in that capacity, and to find him as a lover is even more at variance with his earlier, sharp-tongued, character.

The three poems collectively show the figure of Arthur being used in a tradition of dialogue-poetry (circulating probably in both written and oral forms) in the twelfth century or later, for purposes largely independent of the conventional Matter of Britain, but doubtless showing its influence here and there. This poetic tradition was long to continue in Welsh, and three other items of the same kind deserve mention in this context. They survive only in post-medieval versions, with no reason to be claimed as early. In one dialogue, Arthur seems to ask his sister for lodging, but she does not recognize him (hints of ‘Pa wr yw’r porthor?’, and of ‘King Arthur and King Cornwall’); in a second dialogue, the dying Arthur seems to give an account of the battle of Camlan to Gwenhwyfar: Mario Medrod, mine hayach (‘Medrod is dead, I too nearly so’); and a third poem is a lament spoken by Cai for the wounded Dillus the Bearded after the two (working together!) had been hunting the Fox of Arllechwedd (in Gwynedd), in order to bring it alive to Arthur’s court (hints of CULHWCH, to which reference is made by an allusion to the hunting of Twrch Trwyth – using that form, as in CULHWCH). The evidence of ‘Arthur and the Eagle’, ‘Melwas’ and ‘Ystorya Trystan’, combined with these later pieces, shows that the figure of Arthur played a part in this well-established poetic tradition of englyn dialogues, with its roots going back to the ninth century, although there is no evidence that Arthurian dialogues were composed as early as that. We have already seen how Arthur came to play a similar, though very minor, role in the English ballad tradition.

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