Image by E. Wallcousins, 1912. "In Caer Pedryvan, four its revolutions; In the first word from the cauldron when spoken, From the breath of nine maidens it was gently warmed".
Preiddeu Annwfn or Preiddeu Annwn (English: The Spoils of Annwfn) is a cryptic poem of sixty lines in Middle Welsh, found in the Book of Taliesin. The text recounts an expedition with King Arthur to Annwfn or Annwn, the Otherworld in Welsh.
Preiddeu Annwfn is one of the best known medieval British poems. English translations, in whole or in part, have been published by R. Williams (in William Forbes Skene's Four Ancient Books of Wales), by Robert Graves in The White Goddess and by Roger Sherman Loomis, Herbert Pilch, John T. Koch, Marged Haycock, John K. Bollard, Sarah Higley. At points it requires individual interpretation on the part of its translators owing to its terse style, the ambiguities of its vocabulary, its survival in a single copy of doubtful reliability, the lack of exact analogues[clarification needed] of the tale it tells and the host of real or fancied resonances with other poems and tales.
A number of scholars (in particular, Marshall H. James, who points out the remarkable similarity in Line 1, of Verse 2 in "Mic Dinbych", from the Black Book of Carmarthen) have pointed out analogues in other medieval Welsh literature: some[which?] suggest that it represents a tradition that evolved into the grail of Arthurian literature. Haycock (in The Figure of Taliesin) says that the poem is "about Taliesin and his vaunting of knowledge", and Higley calls the poem "a metaphor of its own making—a poem about the material 'spoils' of poetic composition".[1]
PreiddeuAnnwfn or Preiddeu Annwn (English: The Spoils of Annwfn) is a cryptic poem of sixty lines in Middle Welsh, found in the Book of Taliesin. The...
Annwn is a land within Dyfed, while the context of the Arthurian poem PreiddeuAnnwfn suggests an island location. Two other otherworldly feasts that occur...
Prydwen plays a part in the early Welsh poem PreiddeuAnnwfn as King Arthur's ship, which bears him to the Celtic otherworld Annwn, while in Culhwch and...
1909), J. Ceredig Davies (Folk-Lore of West and Mid-Wales, 1911). PreiddeuAnnwfn, in which Arthur sails to Annwn (the Otherworld) to retrieve a magic...
Geoffrey's description of it draws on earlier Welsh traditions found in PreiddeuAnnwfn, Culhwch and Olwen, and the Historia Brittonum. The shield is also...
Efrawg part of the Mabinogion. In PreiddeuAnnwfn, the nine virgin priestesses of the otherworldy island of Annwfn (Annwn, the Welsh version of the Celtic...
Irishman in Culhwch and Olwen, the cauldron of the Head of Annwn in PreiddeuAnnwfn and the cauldron of Cerridwen in the tale of Taliesin. Pair Dadeni...
Pwyll's descent into Annwn in the Welsh Mabinogion PreiddeuAnnwfn, King Arthur's expedition to Annwfn as recounted in the Book of Taliesin Other Japanese...
attributed with any special power. However, the earlier poem PreiddeuAnnwfn (The Spoils of Annwfn), refers to an adventure by Arthur and his men to obtain...
earliest tales are based on oral traditions: the British Y Gododdin and PreiddeuAnnwfn, along with the Germanic Beowulf and Nibelungenlied. They relate to...
in The Wandering Fire, is the analogue of Caer Sidi from the poem PreiddeuAnnwfn, a poem that is, in the trilogy, ascribed to Taliesin, one of the names...
lyrics are based on a fragment of Cad Goddeu, and sung in Sanskrit. PreiddeuAnnwfn Thomas Stephens, Literature of the Cymry, 1848, quoted in Nash, op...
Chair of Cerridwen") XVII "Kanu Ygwynt" ("The Song of the Wind") XXX "PreiddeuAnnwfn" ("The Spoils of Annwn") LV "Kanu y Byt Mawr" ("Great Song of the World")...
of the British Royal Navy Prydwen – ship of King Arthur in the poem PreiddeuAnnwfn Flying submarine Submarine films List of boats in The Adventures of...
"conflict" before Caer Vandwy, an otherworldly fortress mentioned in PreiddeuAnnwfn. Over time, Gwyn's role would diminish and, in later folklore, he was...
connection with the Caer Ochren raided by Arthur in the earlier poem PreiddeuAnnwfn. Various writers have asserted that this chapter supports a historical...
poems in the Book of Taliesin (14th century). The poem of Taliesin PreiddeuAnnwfn contains the fullest description of the Briton “other world” that mythological...
Historia Brittonum attributed to Nennius Annales Cambriae, anonymous PreiddeuAnnwfn attributed to Taliesin Pa Gur yv y Porthaur (transl. Who Is the Gatekeeper...
Taliesin, including the Armes Prydein (The Great Prophecy of Britain) and PreiddeuAnnwfn, (The Spoils of Annwn), and the Book of Aneirin has preserved an early...
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