I've been re-reading some of the Myrddin poems in Peter Goodrich's anthology, The Romance of Merlin (New York: Garland, 1990), and here are some thoughts on them.
The first one I looked at is "Yr Afallennau," or "The Apple Tree Stanzas." Like a lot of the Myrddin poems, it's prophetic, or purportedly so. Medieval prophecy was often political, and generally was concerned with one of two themes: how the Welsh were going to kick the Saxons out of their country, and how the Welsh were going to kick the Normans out of their country. The prophet would first of all establish his credibility, however, by accurately predicting events that were actually in the past to the readers.
Naturally, most prophetic verses were faked.
The first stanza of "The Apple Trees" predicts a victory over Saxons. Wednesday, it seems, will be a day of slaughter, but “Thursday will come / rejoicing to the Welsh.” On that day, they will play ball with Saxon heads. The second stanza predicts a victory over the Angles. The third stanza predicts a victory over a combined army of Irish and Picts: Seven ships they will come across the broad water, and seven hundred, across the sea to conquer. Of those that come, they will not go from us, except for seven half-empty after their sorrow This sounds an awful lot like “Preiddeu Annwn (The Spoils of Annwn),” a Middle Welsh poem which describes Arthur leading an assault on Annwn, the Welsh Otherworld; although three shiploads of heroes attack Annwn, only seven return. That's a common theme, apparently, in Welsh literature--in the tale of "Branwen, Daughter of Llyr," only seven heroes return alive from Bendigeidfran's attack on Ireland. (As in "The Spoils of Annwn," this raid is to retrieve a magical cauldron.) Here, though, the epic formula refers to the Saxon defeat--the Welsh, Myrddin claims, will destroy all but one percent of the Saxon warriors.
The fourth stanza contains information about the speaker: he has contended for a maiden with sword and shield, and has slept alone in Celidon Wood. He speaks to a little pig. Stanza 5 explains how the apple tree hides him from Rhydderch’s men, and lists those who do not love him: Gwenddydd, who is perhaps his wife, perhaps his sister, Gwasawg, one of Rhydderch’s supporters and, apparently, a woman, for “I have destroyed her son and her daughter.” Although he wore a golden torc at the battle of Arfderydd (in 572), now no one salutes him, he has no lover, and no amusements. In stanza 6, Myrddin laments the fact that he did not die before killing Gwenddydd’s son, and he mentions the anger of Gwasawg. Towards the end of the poem, he mentions the magical property of the apple tree: “Although it be sought, that will be vain because of its special virtue” (stanza 9), and he returns to the theme of sitting beneath the apple tree “with a fair, playful maiden, a slender and queenly one” in stanza 7, before speaking of his current deprivations: for fifty years, he had wandered in the wild. He contrasts his erstwhile “irreproachable goods and pleasing minstrels” with his current situation, “want with wildness and wild ones.” He fears on behalf of his leader, Gwenddolau.
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