Aneurin

Aneurin, a Welsh poet (603), who, according to the received account, was the son of Caw ab Geraint, chief of the Otadini. Some have, however, identified him with Gildas, the British historian; whilst Mr Stephens makes him Gildas's son. After being educated at St Cadoc's College, at Llancarvan, he joined the bardic order; was present at the battle of Cattraeth as bard and priest, and in his poem Gododin, he mentions the hardships he endured as a prisoner. When released, he returned to Llancarvan, where it is believed he secured the friendship of a brother poet, Taliesin. In later life he lived with his brother, Nwython, in Galloway, and is said to have perished at the hands of Eidyn ab Einygan. His epic poem, the Gododin, which in its present form contains more than 900 lines, tells of the defeat of the Britons of Strathclyde by the Saxons at Cattraeth, but it has been found impossible to gain from it a satisfactory account of the British defeat, owing to the obscurity of the language and the difficulty of interpretation. Edward Davies asserts that the subject of the poem is the massacre of the Britons at Stonehenge in 472 A.D.; while Mr Stephens fixes the date of Cattraeth as 603, identifying it with the battle of Dogstan or Dawstane in Liddesdale. Aneurin is also said to have written twelve stanzas on the Months. The Gododin was published with an English version and notes in 1852, by Rev. J. Williams ab Ithel, and the text appears with a translation in W. F. Skene's Four Ancient Books of Wales (1866). The Cymroddorion Society published, in 1885, a new edition, with translation, by the late Thomas Stephens.