Yn y bennod gyntaf hon trafodwn y gerdd (neu’r casgliad o gerddi cysylltiedig) a briodolir i’r bardd Aneirin, gan archwilio dadleuon sy’n cefnogi – ac sy’n herio – y gred gyffredin mai’r farddoniaeth hon yw’r testun llenyddol Cymraeg cynharach sydd wedi goroesi. A yw’n bosib bod gwaith llenyddol am frwydr a ymladdwyd tua’r flwyddyn 600 yn yr Hen Ogledd (sef de’r Alban a gogledd Lloegr) wedi’i gadw mewn llawysgrif Gymraeg o’r 13eg ganrif? Beth mae’r Gododdin yn dweud wrthym am y traddodiad barddol Cymraeg yn gyffredinol? A beth yw tarddiad y gair Cymraeg ‘meddwi’ a beth a wnelo hynny â’r Gododdin? Dyma rai o’r cwestiynau sydd dan sylw.

In the beginning there was the Gododdin (well, maybe . . .)

In this first episode we discuss the poem (or the collection of connected poems) attributed to the bard Aneirin, examining arguments which support – and which challenge – the common belief that this poetry is the oldest surviving Welsh literary text. Is it possible that a literary work about a battle fought around the year 600 in the ‘Old North’ (that is, southern Scotland and northern England) was preserved in a Welsh manuscript from the 13th century? What does the Gododdin tell us about the Welsh bardic tradition? And what is the origin of the Welsh word meddwi, ‘to get drunk’, and what does that have to do with the Gododdin? These are some of the questions considered.

Cyflwynwyd gan: Yr Athro Jerry Hunter a'r Athro Richard Wyn Jones

Cynhyrchwyd gan: Richard Martin

Cerddoriaeth: Might Have Done gan The Molenes

Dilynwch ni ar Trydar: https://twitter.com/YrHenIaith

Tanysgrifwch yn eich hoff ap podlediadau i derbyn y pennod nesaf ar cyhoeddiad.

Darllen pellach:

- Ifor Williams (gol.), Canu Aneirin (Caerdydd: Gwasg Prifysgol Cymru, 1938

[adargraffiad: 1978])

- A. O. H. Jarman (gol. a chyf.), Aneirin: Y Gododdin [:] Britain’s Oldest Heroic

Poem (Llandysul: Gwasg Gomer, 1990),

- Kenneth H. Jackson, The Gododdin: The Oldest Scottish Poem (Caeredin:

Edinburgh University Press, 1969).

- John T. Koch, The Gododdin of Aneirin: Text and Context from Dark-Age North

Britain (Caerdydd: Gwasg Prifysgol Cymru, 1997).

- Patrick Sims-Williams, ‘Dating the Poems of Aneirin and Taliesin, Zeitschrift für

Celtische Philologie 63 (2016), 163-234.

Further reading:

- A. O. H. Jarman (ed. and trans.), Aneirin: Y Gododdin [:] Britain’s Oldest Heroic

Poem (Llandysul: Gomer, 1990),

- Kenneth H. Jackson, The Gododdin: The Oldest Scottish Poem (Edinburgh:

Edinburgh University Press, 1969).

- John T. Koch, The Gododdin of Aneirin: Text and Context from Dark-Age North

Britain (Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 1997).

- Patrick Sims-Williams, ‘Dating the Poems of Aneirin and Taliesin, Zeitschrift für

Celtische Philologie 63 (2016), 163-234.