Canu Heledd

Canu Heledd (modern Welsh /'kani 'hɛlɛð/, the songs of Heledd) are a collection of early Welsh englyn-poems. They are rare among medieval Welsh poems for being set in the mouth of a female character.

Summary

Dorothy Ann Bray summarised the cycle thus:

The entire cycle of the Heledd poems ... is a statement of mourning from which a background story has been deduced: Cynddylan, prince of Powys, and his brothers along with his heroic band are slain in battle, defending their country against the English in the mid-seventh century. Heledd, his sister, is one of the few survivors, who witnessed the battle and the destruction of Cynddylan's hall at Pengwern. She has lost not only all her brothers, but also her sisters and her home, and the poems suggest that she blames herself for the destruction of Cynddylan's court because of some ill-spoken words.^[1]

As with the other so-called 'saga englynion’ (pre-eminently Canu Llywarch Hen and Canu Urien), there is considerable uncertainty and debate as to how the poems of Canu Heledd might originally have been performed. It is usually assumed that they must have been accompanied by some kind of prose narrative, to which they provided emotional depth; but this is not certain.^[2]

Contents

As edited by Jenny Rowland, the contents of Canu Heledd are as follows:^[3]

Manuscripts and dating

The poems are attested principally in the late fourteenth-century Red Book of Hergest. They were also included in the White Book of Rhydderch, but are now lost due to damage to the manuscript. However, they are attested in two later manuscripts descended from the White Book, Peniarth 111 (made by John Jones of Gellillyfdy in 1607), whose spelling is very close to the White Book's, and London, British Library, Add. MS 31055 (made by Thomas Wiliems in 1596), which is a less conservative copy.^[4] Some other late copies of lost medieval manuscripts of the englynion also exist: National Library of Wales 4973 contains two copies of the cycle, both copied by Dr John Davies of Mallwyd, one of Wales's leading antiquarians and scribes of his day, before 1631.^[5] The first copy, NLW 4973a, derives from a lost manuscript closer to the White Book than the Red. The second copy, NLW 4973b, is more complex and may represent a conflation of multiple medieval sources, but seems to have at least some independent value as a witness to the lost arhcetype of the poems. It is fairly clear that all these manuscripts descend from a lost common original, to which they are all fairly similar, making the creation of a critical edition of the poems relatively straightforward.^[6]

Despite surviving first in fourteenth-century manuscripts and in largely Middle Welsh orthography, Canu Heledd is thought mostly to have been composed in Old Welsh and transmitted orally and/or in manuscript, due to their archaic style and occasionally archaic spelling: Jenny Rowland dates the cycle to the ninth century.^[7]

Historicity

Although neither Cynddylan nor Heledd are attested in historical sources such as the Harleian genealogies, Cynddylan is the subject of a lament in awdl-metre, Marwnad Cynddylan (not to be confused with the englynion of the same title in Canu Heledd), which is thought to date from the time of his death, and scholars have not doubted that Cynddylan and Heledd were historical figures in seventh-century Powys. However, while some scholars have thought of other details of Canu Heledd as also being good evidence for seventh-century events, other sources suggest that seventh-century relations between Mercia and Powys were more cordial, and that there was no catastophic invasion of Powys by the English in this period. Such invasions did characterise the ninth century, however, when Canu Heledd was probably composed. Thus the poems are generally now thought more to reflect ninth-century imaginings of what the seventh-century must have been like, telling us more about ninth-century realities than seventh-century ones.^[8]

Example

As edited and translated by Jenny Rowland, stanzas 57-65 of Canu Heledd, entitled 'Ffreuer', run:^[9]

Gwynn y byt freuer mor yw dihent. heno gwedy colli kenueint. o anffawt vyn tauawt yt lesseint. Gwyn y byt freuer mor yw gwann heno. gwedy agheu eluan. ac eryr kyndrwyn kyndylan. Nyt angheu ffreuer. am de heno am danorth brodyrde. duhunaf wylaf uore. Nyt angheu ffreuer am gwna heint o dechreu nos hyt deweint. duhunaf wylaf bylgeint. Nyt angheu ffreuer am tremyn heno. am gwna grudyeu melyn. a [choch] dagreu dros erchwyn. Nyt angheu ffreuer a erniwaf heno namyn my hun. [yn] wanglaf vym brodyr am tymyr a gwynaf. Ffreuer wenn brodyr ath uaeth. ny hannoedynt or diffaeth. wyr ny uegynt vygylaeth. Ffreuer wenn brodyr ath uu. pann glywynt gywrenin llu. ny echyuydei ffyd ganthu. Mi a ffreuer a medlan. kyt ytuo cat ym bop mann. nyn tawr ny ladawr an rann.		Blessed is Ffreuer — how painful it is tonight after the loss of family. Because of the misfortune of my tongue they have been slain. Blessed is Ffreuer — how sad it is tonight after the death of Elfan and the hero of Cyndrwyn, Cynddylan. It is not the death of Freuer which torments me tonight. Because of the ?slaughter of my ?ardent brothers I wake, I weep at morning. It is not the death of Ffreuer which causes me grief tonight from the beginning of night till the dead of night. I wake, I weep at daybreak. It is not the death of Ffreuer which moved me tonight and cayses me to have yellow cheeks and (shed) tears of blood over the bedside. It is the death of Freuer which I grieve for tonight, but rather for myself, weak and ill. I mourn for my brothers and my land. Freuer Wen, brothers nurtured you — they did not spring from among the wicked — warriors who did not nurse fear. Freuer Wen, you had brothers. When they heard of a powerful host ?faith did not leave them. Myself and Ffreuer and Meddlan — though there might be battle everywhere it does not worry us — our side will not be killed.

Editions and translations

• Ifor Williams, Canu Llywarch Hen, 2nd edn (Cardiff, 1953)
• Jenny Rowland, Early Welsh Saga Poetry: A Study and Edition of the 'Englynion’ (Cambridge: Brewer, 1990) (includes editions pp. 404–18 and translations pp. 468–76)
• Jenny Rowland, (ed.) A Selection of Early Welsh Saga Poems (London: Modern Humanities Research Association, 2014) (selected texts)

References