The Battle of the Trees: Prehistory and the I am/Have been... poems

Lady Charlotte Guest translated this fragment, completing it with material from several manuscripts, and included it in her well-known edition of the Mabinogion (1848).

Prehistory and THE I AM/HAVE BEEN POEMS.

From The White Goddess By Robert Graves

It seems that the Welsh minstrels, like the Irish poets, recited their traditional romances in prose, breaking into dramatic verse, with harp accompaniment, only at points of emotional stress. Some of these romances survive complete with the incidental verses; others have lost them; in some cases, such as the romance of Llywarch Hen, only the verses survive.

The Red Book of Hergest also contains a jumble of fifty-eight poems, called The Book of Taliesin, among which occur the incidental verses of a Romance of Taliesin which is not included in the Mabinogion. However, the first part of the romance is preserved in a late sixteenth-century manuscript, called the 'Peniardd M.S.', first printed in the early nineteenth- century Myvyrian Archaiology, complete with many of the same incidental verses, though with textual variations.

Lady Charlotte Guest translated this fragment, completing it with material from two other manuscripts, and included it in her well-known edition of the Mabinogion (1848).

CAG ODDEU

(The Battle of the Trees)

(The Battle of the Trees)
I have been in many shapes,
Before I attained a congenial form.
I have been a narrow blade of a sword. 
(I will believe it when it appears.)
5
I have been a drop in the air.
I have been a shining star.
I have been a word in a book.
I have been a book originally.
I have been a light in a lantern.
10
A year and a half.
I have been a bridge for passing over
Three-score rivers.
I have journeyed as an eagle. 
I have been a boat on the sea.
15 
I have been a director in battle.
I have been the string of a child's swaddling clout. 
I have been a sword in the hand.
I have been a shield in the fight.
I have been the string of a harp,
20
Enchanted for a year
In the foam of water.
I have been a poker in the fire. 
I have been a tree in a covert.
There is nothing in which I have not been.
25
I have fought, though small,
In the Battle of Goddeu Brig, 
Before the Ruler of Britain, 
Abounding in fleets. 
Indifferent bards pretend,
30
They pretend a monstrous beast, 
With a hundred heads,
And a grievous combat 
At the root of the tongue. 
And another fight there is
35
At the back of the head.
A toad having on his thighs 
A hundred claws,
A spotted crested snake, 
For punishing in their flesh
40
A hundred souls on account of their sins. 
I was in Caer Fefynedd,
Thither were hastening grasses and trees. 
Wayfarers perceive them,
Wirriors are astonished
45
At a renewal ofthe conflicts
Such as Gwydion made.
There is calling on Heaven,
And on Christ that he would effect 
Their deliverance,
50
The all-powerful Lord.
If the Lord had answered,
Through charms and magic skill, 
Assume the forms of the principal trees,
With you in array
55
Restrain the people
Inexperienced in battle.
When the trees were enchanted 
There was hope for the trees
That they should frustrate the intention
60
Of the surrounding fires....
Better are three in unison,
And enjoying themselves in a circle, 
And one of them relating
The story of the deluge,
65
And ofthe cross of Christ,
And ofthe Day ofJudgement near at hand. 
The alder-trees in the first line,
They made the commencement.
70
Willow and quicken tree,
They were slow in their array.
The plum is a tree
Not beloved of men;
The medlar of a like nature, 
Overcoming severe toil.
75
The bean bearing in its shade 
An army of phantoms.
The raspberry makes
Not the best of food.
In shelter live,
80
The privet and the woodbine,
And the ivy in its season.
Great is the gorse in battle.
The cherry-tree had been reproached. 
The birch, though very magnanimous,
85
Was late in arraying himself; 
It was not through cowardice, 
But on account of his great sqe.
The appearance of the . . .
Is that of a foreigner and a savage.
90
The pine-tree in the court, 
Strong in battle,
By me greatly exalted
In the presence of kings,
The elm-trees are his subjects.
95
He turns not aside the measure of a foot,
But strikes right in the middle, 
And at the farthest end.
The ha^elis the judge, 
His berries are thy dowry.
100
The privet is blessed. 
Strong chiefs in war
Are the . . . and the mulberry. 
Prosperous the beech-tree. 
The holly dark green,
105
He was very courageous:
Defended with spikes on every side,
Wounding the hands.
The long-enduring poplars 
Very much broken in fight.
110
The plundered fern;
The brooms with their offspring: 
The fuije was not well behaved 
Until he was tamed.
The heath was giving consolation,
115
Comforting the people.
The black cherry-tree was pursuing. 
The oak- tree swiftly moving,
Before him tremble heaven and earth,
Stout doorkeeper against the foe 
120
Is his name in all lands.
The corn-cockle bound together, 
Wss given to be burnt.
Others were rejected
On account of the holes made
125
By great violence
In the field of battle.
Very wrathful the . . . 
Cruel the gloomy ash. 
Bashful the chestnut-tree,
130
Retreating from happiness.
There shall be a black darkness,
There shall be a shaking of the mountain, 
There shall be a purifying furnace,
There shall first be a great wave,
135
And when the shout shall be heard—
Putting forth new leaves are the tops ofthe beech, 
Changing form and being renewed from a witheredst 
Entangled are the tops of the oak.
From the Gorchan of Maelderw.
140 
Smiling at the side of the rock
{Was) the pear-tree not of an ardent nature. 
Neither of mother or father,
When I was made,
Was my blood or body;
145 
Of rune kinds of faculties, 
Of fruit of fruits,
Of fruit God made me,
Of the blossom ofthe mountain primrose, 
Of the buds of trees and shrubs,
150 
Of earth of earthly kind. 
When I was made
Of the blossoms of the nettle, 
Of the water of the ninth wave, 
I was spell-bound by Math
155 
Before I became immortal.
I was spell-bound by Gwydion, 
Great enchanter of the Britons,
OfEurys, ofEurwn,
Of Euron, of Medron, 
160 
In myriads of secrets,
I am as learned as Math.... 
I know about the Emperor 
'When he was half burnt.
I know the star-knowledge
165 
Of stars before the earth (was made), 
Whence I was born,
How many worlds there are.
It is the custom of accomplished bards
To recite the praise of their country.
170 
I have played in Lloughor,
I have slept in purple. 
Was I not in the enclosure 
With Dylan Ail MOT, 
On a couch in the centre
175
Between the two knees of the prince 
Upon two blunt spears?
When from heaven came
The torrents into the deep, 
Rushing with violent impulse.
180 
(I know) four-score songs,
For administering to their pleasure.
There is neither old nor young,
Except me as to their poems,
Any other singer who knows the whole of the nine hundred
185 
Which are known to me, 
Concerning the blood-spotted sword. 
Honour is my guide.
Profitable learning is from the Lord.
(I know) of the slaying of the boar, 
190 
Its appearing, its disappearing,
Its knowledge of languages.
(I know) the light whose name is Splendour, 
And the number of the ruling lights
That scatter rays of fire 
195 
High above the deep.
I have been a spotted snake upon a hill; 
I have been a viper in a lake;
I have been an evil star formerly.
I have been a weight in a mill. (?)
200
My cassock is red all over. 
I prophesy no evil.
Four score puffs of smoke
To everyone who will carry them away: 
And a million of angels,
205 
On the point of my knife. 
Handsome is the yellow horse, 
But a hundred times better
Is my cream-coloured one, 
Swift as the sea-mew,
210 
Which cannot pass me
Between the sea and the shore.
Am I not pre-eminent in the field of blood? 
I have a hundred shares of the spoil.
My wreath is ofred jewels,
215 
Of gold is the border of my shield.
There has not been born one so good as I, 
Or ever known,
Except Goronwy,
From the dales of Edrywy.
220 
Long and white are my fingers,
It is long since I was a herdsman.
I travelled over the earth
Before I became a learned person.
I have travelled, I have made a circuit,
225
I have slept in a hundred islands; 
I have dwelt in a hundred cities. 
Learned Druids,
Prophesy ye ofArthur?
Or is it me they celebrate,
230
And the Crucifixion of Christ,
And the Day of Judgement near at hand, 
And one relating
The history of the Deluge 
With a golden jewel set in gold 
235 
I am enriched;
And I am indulging in pleasure
Out of the oppressive toil of the goldsmith.

Commentators, confused by the pied verses, have for the most part been content to remark that in Celtic tradition the Druids were credited with the magical power of transforming trees into warriors and sending them into battle. But, as the Rev. Edward Davies, a brilliant but hopelessly erratic Welsh scholar of the early nineteenth century, first noted in his Celtic Researches (1809), the battle described by Gwion is not a frivolous battle, or a battle physically fought, but a battle fought intellectually in the heads and with the tongues of the learned. Davies also noted that in all Celtic languages trees means letters; that the Druidic colleges were founded in woods or groves; that a great part of the Druidic mysteries was concerned with twigs of different sorts; and that the most ancient Irish alphabet, the Beth-Luis-Nion ('Birch-Rowan-Ash') takes its name from the first three of a series of trees whose initials form the sequence of its letters.