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The Book of Taliesin - Ep 26
227 Plays4 years ago
Kim talks to Erin Kavanagh, a poet and geomythologist based in Wales about the old Welsh “Book of Taliesin”, especially the recent translation into English by Gwyneth Lewis and Rowan Williams. How much can we learn about the post-Roman period of Britain from the literature of the time?
Links
Contact
- Twitter: @prehistpod
- Twitter: @geomythkavanagh
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Transcript
00:00:01
Speaker
You're listening to the Archaeology Podcast Network.
Introduction and Podcast Overview
00:00:11
Speaker
So, hello again. It's time for some more pre-histories, except today it's a little different. Hi, I'm Kim Bedelf. I'm an archaeologist from the UK, but I mainly work in museums now.
00:00:25
Speaker
I love telling stories, that's the thing, and I'm fascinated by the stories all around us, particularly ones about the past, obviously. I just finished reading Lanny, a book by Max Porter. Has anyone else read it?
00:00:41
Speaker
It's a strange novel, set in a little commuter village near London, which quite describes really well the place I live in.
Discussion of 'Lanny' by Max Porter
00:00:49
Speaker
A child goes missing. He's a strange child, Lanny, who seems to be able to talk to dead people. Who has taken him? The local weirdo artist? Or dead papa toothwort? The green man. He remembers when the hillfort was built.
00:01:05
Speaker
When a Roman legionary was raped by his commanding officer. When a medieval woman rode by on her horse. The book was full of snatched conversations in the village that dead Papa Toothwort seemed to love to hear and taste. The strange modern phrases we all trot out. There's one.
00:01:23
Speaker
And it got me thinking about the everyday speech of previous generations. Was it just as lacking in poetry as ours? Or am I being unfair? Is there poetry in some of the words? I want to, um, actually, where is that book now? Paul's not entirely riveting lecture. Worst plant sale in a decade. Toodle pit, my soaps are starting.
00:01:46
Speaker
These are the kind of things, you know, how every day and banal they are that we say to each other nothing very poetic, but maybe it is. What did previous generations say to each other? But I digress.
00:02:06
Speaker
Last month I talked to Michelle Paver, the author of Viper's Daughter.
Interview with Michelle Paver and Mesolithic Scandinavia
00:02:12
Speaker
That made my daughter extremely happy. I hope it will introduce many other children to Michelle's amazing series set in Mesolithic Scandinavia slash Siberia.
00:02:24
Speaker
the series of books that started with Wolf Brother, which I talked about in, um, is that episode one of the podcast? Possibly? Or very early on. There's still time to tell me what you thought of it.
Upcoming Episode on Post-Roman Britain
00:02:38
Speaker
Tag me on Twitter at prehistpod, or you can leave a message on the episode page on archaeologypodcastnetwork.com forward slash prehistories.
00:02:57
Speaker
Today, we're moving on to another time and place. The definition of prehistory is a time before writing, but we're going to look at a time when there was writing and see what it can tell us. I have become quite interested in the post-Roman period in Britain in the fifth and sixth century AD. I've been doing some work on public programming at Billingsgate Roman House and Baths in the city of London, and it appears to have occupation into the second quarter of the fifth century. So I, the prehistorian, I'm trying to wrap my head around what's going on at that time.
00:03:27
Speaker
So one of the books I came across when looking around this topic is a new translation of the book of Talizin. Have I said that right? Taliesin. Taliesin. I'll introduce you in a second. Okay, by Gwyneth Lewis and Rowan Williams, who is the ex Archbishop of Canterbury.
00:03:45
Speaker
The original was written in Old Welsh, though not necessarily set in Wales.
Interview with Erin Cavanagh on the Book of Taliesin
00:03:51
Speaker
I'm joined, and you've already heard her, by my lovely guest, the poet and geomythologist and deep mapper Erin Cavanagh. Hi, Erin.
00:04:02
Speaker
from deepest west as well. Yeah, so it's wonderful that you're actually in Wales, but obviously it's not great for recording a podcast, is it? No. We don't do technology here. We've had a little bit of back and forth. Can we use Ncaster? Can we use Skype? Can we use Zoom? In the end Erin is underneath her desk in the normal place that she records our podcasts.
00:04:27
Speaker
The only place where the sound is actually quite good. I'm so sorry. That's all right. It makes a change from sitting in car parks on my phone, explaining to the police why I'm more than five miles from my house.
00:04:45
Speaker
Oh, it's such a strange time. I thought that I would be able to get on with this podcast really easily now, you know, Oh, right. We're in lockdown. I don't have any other things apart from work. I am still working, but you know, I'm not doing anything in the evenings anymore and all that stuff. Let's, let's restart this podcast. And, um, but it's, it's so difficult to concentrate on getting anything actual physical actually done, is it? Yep.
00:05:13
Speaker
which is great when you've got the deadline to go-go. Everybody needs to speak to you via email and Zoom. You have to go for a long drive.
00:05:26
Speaker
I know when the only way you can actually interact with people is on the internet, you really have to have good internet. And that's, that's just supposed to be so, I mean, I'm in Buckinghamshire, so we're pretty well connected. You know, we're basically a satellite of London, but yeah, it's not the same for you. I am in Taliesin land here. We have no trains. We have no buses.
00:05:53
Speaker
We have very little internet. We're almost out of the 7th century, but the battles are still being waged between pagans and Christians. We haven't quite emerged yet.
00:06:06
Speaker
Well, that's pretty good, then. I mean, you're a very good guest for this particular podcast.
Comparative Literature: Welsh and Irish Traditions
00:06:12
Speaker
But of course, you've been on the podcast before. I was just going through, actually, the old series and seeing how many that you'd been on. You and I first talked, I think, in episode 10 on the Poetry Special with Gavin McGregor from Northlight Heritage. That was lovely. And then we also talked about Mezzalith, the
00:06:33
Speaker
Do you remember that the graphic novel that everybody else loved? And we thought we questioned a little the representation of women in that. That was episode 18. And then we last time we talked actually was about the Aardman film. Do you, early man? Oh, yes.
00:06:56
Speaker
Oh, I've still got mixed feelings about that film. Yes, I mean, it's a bit of fun, but it was just, oh, it's like, yeah, it was very odd. Anyway, but there you go. So it's been, I always love having you on the podcast, Erin, and we should have you more and more. Obviously, I try and have other people as well at some point.
00:07:18
Speaker
If you want to do the Tree History of Mermaids, that's quite good. That would be good. Let's do that at some point. Yes, I'll put that on the list. That sounds great. What I'm trying to do is kind of really string my things together a little bit better so that
00:07:34
Speaker
When people listen to one podcast, they know what's coming next rather than I kind of went with, oh, I don't know what I'm going to be talking about next. So next time I'm going to be talking to Reena McGuire about the Ulster cycle. So it's quite a nice follow on from this actually, talking about Welsh literature. You could have had a fight on it once.
00:07:57
Speaker
Yes, I could have, but I thought I would divide it so that we could give more time to Welsh literature and, you know, separate to the Irish, but I think they kind of follow each other quite well. The one I did last was about Mesolithic Scandinavia, so it was completely unconnected. Yes, it's so nice to hear from you, actually, because, you know, the last time I saw you, was it at the Theoretical Archaeology Group or was it in France?
00:08:25
Speaker
when we happened to bump into each other in the bout of his hair. Happened to bump into each other by prehistoric art in the middle of France.
00:08:34
Speaker
Yes, that was amazing. I just noticed, I think on Twitter that you said you and Martin Bates were in France. And I was like, you're not in the Veldervez Air as well. And we were just about to come over. So we met up at Lascaux, didn't we? We met at Lascaux, yes. That was great. The last time was definitely Tag Diva.
00:09:03
Speaker
When I had you, Shanks, Gaffney, Ben Gehry, Tom Paine, all doing your wonderful thing.
00:09:16
Speaker
It was a wonderful session. It really was. I did feel, I've been feeling imposter syndrome for years now. And, um, I don't know, I think that made it slightly worse for me to follow, you know, Michael Shanks. Uh, so yeah, but it was, it was an amazing experience. I mean, nobody,
00:09:43
Speaker
Nobody slash everybody was in the same boat. You know, we had, I had Shanks there talking about the frontier of theoretical archaeology. Really, everybody present was an imposter in that context. He loved yours. Your presentation was his favourite. He was raving about it afterwards. Oh, seriously? That's amazing. Oh, well. It makes me feel slightly better.
00:10:10
Speaker
He didn't fall asleep. This is a compliment of high order. He didn't, no. Yes, well, I will take that compliment and I will keep it close to my heart. Anyway.
00:10:26
Speaker
after that lovely catch up because we haven't actually you know spoken in a while and it just feels like that during lockdown doesn't it that whenever we speak to someone we've got to really reminisce about the good times when we could be in the same room together and travel places and stuff. I confess I quite like not going anywhere.
00:10:48
Speaker
I mean, you do, well, not Jet Set, but you go, you have been invited to quite a few interesting places. Yeah, it was very weird. I had to do a summary of the work I've done academically in the last 18 months. And I was looking at it going, Japan, Canada, France, China, Iraq, and going, hmm,
00:11:12
Speaker
Hmm, I don't think Bloomberg's going to be very pleased with me. I haven't been anywhere. It's amazing. I haven't been anywhere for years. The last place I went was Cork and I said after going to Cork, I'm not going anywhere for a while whilst I
00:11:32
Speaker
I regroup and think about this travel business. Yeah, it does. I'm sure it sounds really glamorous, but it can it can weigh you down going all over the place and especially on academic matters, I guess. Yes. And actually, this is to bring this to to Taliesin, of course, the individuals who are being talked about in these stories were well traveled. You know, we're not even though it's often described as insula.
00:12:01
Speaker
This tradition, the individuals were moving around substantially, particularly the Irish side, when a lot more settled. But I mean, the Irish side is all about pilgrimage and finding the deity and the history and movement, which is where this notion of Irish exile comes from, which we don't have in the Welsh. It's one of the few differences really between the Irish and the Welsh.
00:12:30
Speaker
poetry of this period.
00:12:33
Speaker
in its relation to history and archaeology. So this is, I have mentioned, it's not my era at all, and it's something I'm learning. I'm just learning about. I'm coming to Telly Essin and, you know, I'm reading some academic papers about this period as well and trying to find out what's going on because it's not something that I've looked at a lot. So you're going to have to really help me, Erin, and you as well to do it. So that's good. So you were just talking about imposter syndrome.
00:13:02
Speaker
So I am speaking from West Wales here, where just up the road for me, we have John Corke, we have Ayan Constantine, Margaret Haycock, Patrick Sims-Williams.
00:13:16
Speaker
I mean, Rachel Bromwich was here, you know, good one, Evans. But yeah, but I mean, not at all. I don't think so. I want to talk to you. I enjoy your insights into literature and mythology and archaeology and how they all interact.
00:13:44
Speaker
So I think, you know, it has been recognised quite recently, hasn't it, that your insights are quite useful and interesting. So let's go on to Tell Yes and Then. So this new translation, Poems of Warfare and Praise in an Enchanted Britain, was a new translation published last year by Gwyneth Lewis, who is at one point the Welsh
00:14:10
Speaker
Poet Laureate, I think, is that right? And Rowan Williams. Yeah. And I thought I saw it. I love the front cover because it's kind of green mannish and, you know, and all enchanted stuff. And I did judge it on its cover and picked it up. And it was interesting. I was thinking, all right, I'll find out all about Welsh literature here. And I feel I don't feel hugely like I've got a good grasp of it. I mean,
Taliesin: A Historical and Legendary Figure
00:14:38
Speaker
Because these poems are quite, not ephemeral, they're slippery, aren't they? Who was Taliesin? Was he a real person? I would start with the big question, why don't you? OK, well, Taliesin is both a historical person and a legendary figure and a voice. So what we have
00:15:05
Speaker
with the Taliesin we know of here and now is a type of poetry, a type of bardism, so a voice. And so within the translations that the Archbishop Gwyneth have done here, which is seminal, this is the first full book in a hundred years. So it's a very, very important translation. They
00:15:35
Speaker
cover both who Taliesin may have been as an historical figure and then the voice of Taliesin in the later works. And part of the confusion identifying who he was or may have been is that the poetry points both forward and backwards.
00:16:04
Speaker
And so it's very hard to tell sometimes if it's being actually prophetic or if it's written in the future set in the past. Pretending to be prophetic. Pretending to be prophetic. So all of that muddles, muddles together. Um, but the historiosity of, of Taliesin and Anarin, who you, you might talk about
00:16:28
Speaker
in your next podcast as well, is often taken from the historian of Britain, the memorandum of the five poets that we have both for Keon, Talon, Tadaon, and Aaron and Taliesin. Right. And so for a long time, that's AD 547, I think. And so that was taken as defining this is when Taliesin lived. He was one of these great first poets. But there are questions over the
00:16:58
Speaker
veracity of that particular dating system. So that source and all the others tangled together. So one source, of course, has read another source, and then they've based their work on somebody else's work. And so you think you have a tertiary source, it can be a primary source, but it's a primary source, it can be a secondary source. And they're all referring back and forth from one another.
00:17:28
Speaker
And it's immensely complicated and we need historical linguists to deal with this. People like John Cork, who's the king of this particular subject at Kalk, to untangle what's going on here. So in that respect, Taliesin was a person we think we can possibly date for the sixth century.
00:17:55
Speaker
but it's more, much, much more than that. Does that answer the question? It's a very difficult question.
00:18:04
Speaker
I know I started with the hardest one. I mean, to kind of explain a bit more behind that, the poems are not written down until much later, are they? Or are they? So I very much like the way you open the podcast by saying that you're coming from a time of prehistory with no writing, a time where there is writing, because actually we're talking about
00:18:34
Speaker
a period where writing begins in the Welsh and the Irish corpus. So what we're seeing is this first transition from Masonic or communication to this post-Roman Latin literacy. And you have a tension between the two
00:19:01
Speaker
And that's part of what is difficult with analyzing the poetry and also the advantage of it, because it isn't yet stabilized. The writing is just beginning. And so, you know, the Welsh are allegedly learning to write from the Irish, just that's coming in. And so you've got these different dialects, you've got archaicisms in what's written being used later.
00:19:31
Speaker
Yeah, which confuses the period. So it's a really fascinating time where these stories emerging from a possible all culture of straightforward, but, you know, interactive Buddhism in the way we see in indigenous cultures around the world to a literature. They interrelate so closely that it
00:19:59
Speaker
it's almost a nonsense to try and untangle them. Yeah, I think that's that's what's really doing my head in, frankly, to use a very non poetic phrase. But yeah, for instance, like I am fiery teleessing, which is number 35 in this translation, where they describe how that it's thought at the so he's he's said to be the the poet to you'll have to you'll have to say the Welsh here for me.
00:20:28
Speaker
Um, Mel Grinn. Mel Grinn, yes. Yeah, yeah. Mel Grinn. So, who is... Yes! But John Corcoran says that's not right. So, I'm not going to argue with John.
00:20:46
Speaker
But it says that, you know, that this is thought to be really early elegy, but actually it's got, it seems to have like old-fashioned phrasing built into it to make it sound older than it actually is. I think as kind of an example of what you were just saying, basically. I mean, I can give you, I mean, we're still doing it, still doing it now. I mean, I use it as layers in the landscape, but then I call it more follows talliescent.
00:21:15
Speaker
You know, there were multiple, multiple poets from the last hundred years who, after the last translation into English, which is, I think, 1913, 1915, many poets, modern poets have picked up this archaic language. The point of that is to show an authentic voice, to say, look, I know what I'm talking about.
00:21:43
Speaker
This is how, you know, you write the poetry, you use an, an, an, you know, you work with this rhyme, you work with this meter. These are the terms, this is the patterning that we use that shows I am of this place and I have credibility. And so it's a little bit like when a student is learning to write in a discipline and they study the writing of experts in that discipline.
00:22:13
Speaker
And then you read the essay and it's written in the language of 30 years ago. It's a similar, it's a bit more going on that, but it's a similar thing. So you learn how to write by copying, but then you also give credibility to the way you're writing by using voice. But you're also connecting to this shamanic history.
00:22:41
Speaker
that makes you part of the corpus. Now, I mean, I came into learning Taliesin 40 years ago and I still know nothing. Well, I don't feel so bad then. That's four school years. Obviously, I haven't been studying it every day for four school years, but that is a long time of being part of the tradition. This adds to the
00:23:11
Speaker
the confusion. I'm a fiver of Taliesin, I'm number 35. I mean, it's halfway through the translations. Now, the Archbishop and Guiness have started with the earliest texts and then moved through. So we know at this point, just by looking at the shape of the book, we're not dealing with the original Taliesin at this point.
00:23:38
Speaker
Yeah, so it's going to be something like the early books, which are to basically praise poetry of the warrior king.
00:23:47
Speaker
Urien most of the time. Those are the earliest ones. And it's interesting, I find those early ones because it's in Welsh, it's Welsh literature obviously, but it might have been written in North East England, what is now North East England. Is that right? Did I read that right? I'm betting when you got this book after admiring the cover, the next thing you did was look at the map.
00:24:16
Speaker
Yeah. I love maps. I know you love maps, but I bet you looked at the map and went, hang on, what? What's going on there? So the territory of Wales that we know today didn't exist until office dyke. Yeah. And the large part of the Corpus in Cefertelius in is his pre-eighth century. So it's when Wales
00:24:46
Speaker
was, you know, Bithonic. So we're talking about the modern territory of Wales, the northwest of England, the northeast of England and southern Scotland. So Cumbria, Yorkshire, Northumbria. I mean, Northumbria is massive in these stories. It's all, it's Northumbria and Gwynedd, this power battle between the pagans and the Christians is a large plot line here.
00:25:16
Speaker
But we're going all the way up to Carlisle.
00:25:18
Speaker
So it's, you know, I grew up in Yorkshire and we never talked about that history at all. It was, it was, we started with, I'm sure we started with Vikings and it was all about, you know, Grimsby and Weng and all that stuff. And it was all of the, it was the place name evidence that we went with that was like, we're a, you know, we're an Anglo-Saxon Viking. And it, it's almost this kind of mirroring this horrible,
00:25:47
Speaker
debate that's being raged about the use of the term Anglo-Saxon. It's almost like just ignoring everything that went... It wasn't even before. This was part of the history of that period. Anyway, yes. It did surprise me. It is what most of the book is about. It's about this relationship between
00:26:16
Speaker
the native paganism of Britain and the rising church. And where Taliesin sits in this is that his writing displays a knowledge of this esoteric, shamanic, possibly indigenous knowledge and then a very solid knowledge of Roman Catholicism.
00:26:42
Speaker
of the Roman church. And we see this, you know, when it, when he recounts going and celebrating Easter in Northumbria, this is deeply accurate descriptions of, for the, the, the science, natural science, and the theology at the time to say, look, you know, Taliassen knows his liturgy. He knows the church. He understands the Roman religious history and its relationship with this land.
00:27:09
Speaker
But at the same time, we have the Battle of the Trees.
00:27:13
Speaker
You know, we have... Yeah. And so... And it's kind of the praising of these warriors who are going out killing people, and yet they're also great Christians. And I mean, obviously that's just looking from our time. That seems incongruous, but it wasn't incongruous back then at all. No, I mean, you could be a little careful with the praise side of things, because the praise poetry is the earliest. So that's the heroic age.
00:27:42
Speaker
where it's all about laments and battles. And then that changes as we come out of this sixth, seventh century. But it's understandable that the poetry of that time is talking about actual historical battles because they were rife. It's not actually a particularly interesting period in many ways.
00:28:09
Speaker
Because there's just all these little skirmishes going on between the Picts and the Anglo-Saxons and the Welsh and the Irish and the... It's just all these little battles that then are being... The poet's job is to praise whoever's paying him.
00:28:33
Speaker
So it's propaganda for the period. But it feels also like having the bard there is a very pre-historical thing. As you say, the shamanic, it harks back to pre-Roman to indigenous. It does, but it's also very Christian. Go and bless the battle sites.
00:29:00
Speaker
Yes, it is. It's got that Christianity there. Yes, spend the night kneeling before the altar, before you go into battle. It's as Christian as it is pagan. And Taliesin is both of these. To me, that is what makes him so interesting, in that he is embodying, the voice Taliesin is embodying this transition from Iron Age,
00:29:30
Speaker
Britain through the Roman, the influence, you know, because this is happening at the end. You know, the Romans begged off fifth century, but we've still, we've got people who were British, who were Romano British. So you've got this native paganism. You've got the infiltrating Christianity. You've got the high church coming from Ireland in Irish.
00:29:54
Speaker
which I'm sure you'll hear about in the Annals. And then you've got Northumbria and the Anglo-Saxons coming in. And, you know, I've returned to paganism for like two years, 633 to 635, where the thing reverts. It's not Christian anymore, they're pagan for two years. So you've got all these relations between the battles. And you've got strange little characters like the Battle of Chester, which I'm going to throw in there because I'm from Chester, right absolutely in the middle of
00:30:24
Speaker
old Wales. Well, you know, we have this, the monastery in Bangor and Dee, and the monks come to the battlefield, the F or fifth battlefield, you know, and they're slaughtered, but you have monks going into battle. So you're, you know, you're throwing up this point that today we think all Christians should be, should not be pro warfare. But of course at the time, it's not working like that. This is, this is God's will.
00:30:55
Speaker
Um, and so, you know, we, it's, it's all tangled together. The religion is tangled together. The culture is tangled together. The languages are tangled together and the time period is tangled together. So no one's going to come to this, this wonderful translation and then go, Oh yeah, I get it now. Everyone's going to come to this translation. We're a little bit more confused than they were to begin with.
00:31:24
Speaker
But it's a more informed confusion. Yes. I like that. That's good. A more informed confusion. I think that's my permanent state.
00:31:39
Speaker
What I thought was a slight shame about this is, I mean obviously it's a translation into English, that's the whole point of it, but there's a little bit of Welsh in there, but I would have liked to have seen them both side by side, even though I don't understand Welsh and I can't speak it as I've demonstrated.
00:32:00
Speaker
quite well today. But there's something about the... I don't know the poetry of it and the music of the words and the phrasing and the meter and scansion that all is... I mean, obviously, it's still lovely poetry, but I feel that maybe some of that has been lost in the translating into English. I don't know what you think about that. I'm interested that you say that.
00:32:31
Speaker
because it's definitely a problem I have with this. So can you imagine the size of the book? If this had been included, not just including the original, but then including. A modern Welsh translation as well, presumably that would be useful. Not even that, if we just went from, if we have the original text and we have the translation.
00:33:01
Speaker
Then you have to have, the original text is written in multiple different forms of wealth. So then you have to have the study of that. That has to be explained. You can't just put the text there and leave it floating and then have the text to it.
00:33:19
Speaker
So it would be enormous. I suppose you're right. Because there's this tangled web of time periods, as you say, and voices and stuff, then yes, I hadn't thought about that, that the Welsh is all... It's not all from one particular time, is it? It's not a specific... No, they're really quite different. Understanding how
00:33:43
Speaker
How the language is used is how we date the poetry, and it's how we also date historical events. And how we date then, how is the poetry relating to the historical event? Because the whole of the book is written in mono rhyme,
Welsh Poetry and Historical Linguistic Influences
00:34:02
Speaker
aldol. So it's a pre-Kanghanith, so it predates the 24 whilst metrical forms we have in traditional poetry.
00:34:12
Speaker
in Wales now. They occur in the middle ages. But this is the forerunner to it, this and an errand. They're the forerunners of this. So what we see is quite a simplistic form. Where we have the rhyme, then the end line, we have a steady rhyme pattern. And then that informs us how to pronounce it, and it informs the thing.
00:34:42
Speaker
And from that we then untangle the accent, the region, and we need to handle the date. The snag in all of this is that in some respects it's been possibly mis-transcribed. It has not necessarily been written down, actually. But so we learn a lot by studying the meter and the rhythm. And I particularly love this because when we write modern poetry in the Welsh tradition,
00:35:13
Speaker
were still using these patterns to explain our own historiosity. And so it's fascinating to see that the sixth century, when we study that poetry, were having to do the same process. So the actual way the poetry written is so incredibly important. And it can translate, when it's done,
00:35:41
Speaker
When it's written directly into English, you can get a feeling of it. But English doesn't do what modern Welsh does, and modern Welsh can't do what old Welsh does. And so we really are getting a very distant echo of the original.
00:36:03
Speaker
Yeah, I think that's what I found difficult to deal with, even though that was the only way that I'd be able to access the text at all. My daughter's just in lockdown, decided to teach herself Welsh. She picked it out of all the languages on a very well-known language learning site that I shouldn't probably promote, but it's very good.
00:36:28
Speaker
And yeah, she just picked Welsh and so she's been doing it for like 65 days straight. She does it every single day, even on weekends, which is wonderful. So, you know, maybe she'll be able to help me with some Welsh words at some point. The reward of caution with a particularly well-known language learning act, whilst I recommend it wholeheartedly, it's again a very particular type of Welsh. So I don't recognise the Welsh that
00:36:58
Speaker
we speak here and code again in the Welsh that is not in that app. It's not how we speak. It's not how we pronounce things. The terms used, like the terms for girl and boy are different. The phraseology, the negatives are different. The pronunciation, it just, you know, I can play things and go, I have no idea what they're saying.
00:37:23
Speaker
And then I see it written down and I go, well, we say that completely differently with the same words. Yeah. How weird. I don't know how much that applies to other languages. I'm not, I know that French can do similar things, but it's in Wales, this can vary within five mile radius. So when the world's government tell us to stay within our locale, they're basically saying, stay inside your own accent.
00:37:52
Speaker
As soon as you hear people speaking a different accent, turn around and go back.
00:38:01
Speaker
It is actually still that specific. Thank you. I didn't realise that. I suppose I should have really thinking about it, but not having learned it myself. No, but you're right. I do speak French and it's very clear that the Parisian accent is very different to the Leonet accent, which is very different to the accent where my family lives, which is down in Agin.
00:38:26
Speaker
Everybody would say Agen, even in France, except for the Agené, which call, say, Agène. So it's, I can see, I can, I mean, that's just a very, it should be a very obvious thing. So do you think it's like maybe South Welsh, the particular thing? It's Cardiff Book Welsh, that they're mostly teaching. And I'm not, I don't mean to denigrate that.
00:38:54
Speaker
But it isn't the same thing as that which is spoken. So, for example, I'm from North Wales. I'm from the border land between Keward and Cheshire. The language there is very different to the language here. I know I still have a Gorg accent in my world, even though I've lived in West Wales for 25 years.
00:39:23
Speaker
And my son even, who is really called Gridyon, so he's very much in the North Welsh space. His accent is quite goggy. And he was born, he was born in Eberistrath. He got it from you. He got it from me. I'm spending a lot of time up there. Midwales is where we think the scribe who wrote Pally Essen's work down
00:39:52
Speaker
we believe is from mid Wales, which is interesting in its own right. Um, I'm still pushing that to find out more, uh, on that, but the, and is that because of the particular particularities? Yes. Sorry, God. Yeah. Particularly somebody it's written down. Um, and the West, the West whalian accent, Midwest whalian accent has a lot to do with Lancashire and Yorkshire farm.
00:40:21
Speaker
and the South. And so we have this, the Old North influence in the regional accent of mid Wales. So, you know, we're still even today, and this accent is dying out rapidly now as standardised Welsh response schools. But so we're seeing even in the voices today that I, you know, I step out and speak to my neighbour, Emir, and he will speak to me in an old code again.
00:40:51
Speaker
same age as me, but they speak to me in an old Canadian accent that has a huge amount of influence from Lancashire and Yorkshire, from Googler's Hand, from the Old North. So it hasn't gone yet from here. We're still in Italian space in our language and our rhythms.
00:41:19
Speaker
And so when we're analyzing poetry and we're looking, it's very easy to be thrown by archaic turns and twists and usages and think, oh, well, therefore that is older, which isn't necessarily the case. I'm going to say a verse from something here.
00:41:45
Speaker
Usual after arrogance is loss. Usual after loss comes repentance. I, not I, sunk in the willow wood, bear witness to the ball and flood. Now that follows, that's absolutely archaic. So you've got usual after traditional sixth century pattern. You've got cross rhyme, arrogance, repentance, but repetition, loss, loss. You've got the idle end rhyme, wood, floods. You've got I, not I, which is death of the author.
00:42:15
Speaker
centrally, bearing witness. So you've got the Christian element, you've got the ball tied in with the flood. And I wrote that this morning. But that is absolutely, you know, sixth century style poetry. Very easy to fake.
00:42:34
Speaker
very easy to fake. Thank you for sharing. I hoped that we would hear some of your poetry as well today. It's all fascinating and I really would like to hear some of the Welsh somehow, so I'm going to have to have to find some of that. Martin Haycock is the one, you know, look for Margaret's work.
00:43:04
Speaker
You were talking about the phrase poetry element of it. And the phrase poetry part is possibly the bit that interests me in many ways the most because it's using poetry as moral philosophy. But it's also propaganda, it's politics.
00:43:30
Speaker
it's social storytelling of the kind we have in our newspapers today, but we also have in our art centers. It mixes all of these things together. But there's a fantastic paragraph by Gildas the Wise. So sixth century monk, and he says, your excited ears do not alter the praises of God, but only your own praises.
00:44:00
Speaker
You're excited to hear not the praises of God from the sweet voices of the tuneful recruits of Christ, not the melodious music, but empty praises of yourselves from the mouths of criminals who grate on the hearing like raving hucksters, mouths stuffed with lies and liable to pursue bystanders with their foaming phlegm. That's a sixth century criticism of praise poetry.
00:44:28
Speaker
Fairly Caustic. Imagine starting up at a conference and saying that, you know, about one of our cherished poets today. He was Caustic about a lot of things, though, Gildas. He was, he was. But it just, it situates this poetry in a different way, because we think, oh, it's amazing, they're going around saying how wonderful people are.
00:44:57
Speaker
And telling everyone about the stories isn't as useful. And Gildas is going, no, no, just stop a moment here. They have an agenda. They have that whole agenda. Exactly. Look why they're doing this, yes. I mean, it's... You have to... It's teleasting a little bit like the Fox News of his time. Oh, absolutely. You have to treat his poetry as politics.
00:45:27
Speaker
Do not treat this as some aesthetic art form. It's politics. It's private politics. And they're referencing each other. It's rap. The closest we've got today would be rap, would be George the poet. He's a modern, he's more of a modern-day Taliesin, any Welsh poet I could really think of. Apologies to
00:45:57
Speaker
all the amazing modern-day Welsh poets. I mean, we do have quite a lot who are excellent, even more who are less excellent. But this is what? These are political discussions marking the death of somebody killed by somebody else due to a political skirmish, this use of rhyme, use of meter, use of interreferencing. And then they're bouncing it back off one another in a rap battle.
00:46:27
Speaker
as well. It's very fresh still, it's very fresh, it's very modern. Yeah, I think that referencing Old Wales literature, comparing it to rap is maybe where we'll finish this discussion. Yeah, I recommend people to read some Taliesin and then listen to George the Poet.
00:46:50
Speaker
Yeah, I do recommend it. It's amazing. You will hear the relationship between the two. I'm going to listen to some George the Poet. Thank you. I will do that. I wanted to bring in the MAB, but I think that maybe we won't do it any justice in just two minutes. So we'll have to talk about the Mabinogion another time.
00:47:14
Speaker
Oh, yes, that's a whole other thing. It's a whole other thing, really, even though it's lumped, well, I suppose I lump it together, actually, that's where I'm coming from. And yet I shouldn't lump it. And there was a lovely translate, well,
00:47:34
Speaker
a poetic rewriting, I guess, by Matthew Francis that I got hold of. So I will, I mean, I'm going to put that in the show notes so people can read that as well. And maybe at some point we shall come back to that. But we also want to, to talk about what is what was it that is that you wanted to talk to me about? Oh, I do. Mermaids.
00:47:59
Speaker
That's it mermaids. Yes, I definitely want prehistoric mermaids would be brilliant. I think that would be a really good one. I think I might have someone I know. Just to come back to the Mabinogi for a moment there, it's worth noting that Taliesin, the Taliesin stories, some of them reference stories in the Mabinogi. So he talks about Gudjon. He talks about, I mean, obviously he comes from
00:48:27
Speaker
in that the mythology of Paleosyn's birth comes from Caradven. And so we're immediately into this space where we're taken into the mythical characters in the Mabinogi. But he talks about country very a lot. He talks about Gridian and Olwen.
00:48:54
Speaker
even though he's supposedly much earlier. So there's some really interesting relationships there. It's best to completely ignore Arthur, because that's a whole other thing. Yeah, let's ignore him. I mean, at some point, at some point, I probably am going to have to go into it, but not for a while. I think I need to be much braver before we tackle that subject.
00:49:19
Speaker
Reading this translation by the lovely Rowan and Gwyneth, we'll give an idea of what was going on in Wales and in Wales as in Britain.
Translating Taliesin: Accessibility and Challenges
00:49:38
Speaker
So everywhere apart from the southeast of the British Isles, it would give you a very clear idea
00:49:46
Speaker
and the intense relationship between Britain and Ireland is clear in the language. The book has a nice little couple of paragraphs before each translation to situate it. They've been as clear as they can to give a linear pattern to it. They've been very strongly influenced, as they should be, by Margaret Paycott.
00:50:13
Speaker
And also her husband, Patrick Sims-Williams, who's an Irish scholar. Well, a scholar of Irish literature and its relationship to Wales. So it's very easy to read. It doesn't overweight you with the history. It gives quite, other than the battle of the trees, it gives quite a balanced view of where the poems situate and what they're about and why and how.
00:50:42
Speaker
Given that it is written in part by an archbishop, he does give a nice sensitive to both the paganism and the Christianity. It does lean heavily towards the Christian side, but that's understandable. As you want to say, it's a vampire introduction that you will never grow out of.
00:51:12
Speaker
And it's always good to have books like that on your shelf. Yeah, absolutely. That's my distance mark. Yeah, thank you. You've done a great, a great outro for me there. I don't really need to say much, much else really. Except thank you so much, Erin, for joining me again today. And this, hopefully we will be speaking again at some point. We've got loads of ideas, so that's fantastic.
00:51:38
Speaker
And I just hope that we get to meet up sometime. Maybe I'll just leave it there sometime.
Engagement and Next Episode Preview
00:51:48
Speaker
Sometime 2021 maybe. Maybe, maybe.
00:51:52
Speaker
Zoom tag. Zoom tag, yeah, I think so, yeah. So thank you so much. And if you want to ask Erin anything, I'll just follow her because she's amazing. Her Twitter handle is geomythcavena. So I'll have to, I will put that in the show notes as well. So you'll be able to click on that and follow very easily or ask her any questions. So thank you so much. That's been really great to talk to you.
00:52:25
Speaker
So, if you've been inspired, get hold of the recent translation of the book of Taliesin by Gwyneth Lewis and Rowan Williams, both themselves poets in their own rights of course. Let us know your thoughts on the episode page or on Twitter at prehistpod. What have you been reading in lockdown though? Have you read Taliesin? Have you read something else? Have you been furloughed and been able to catch up on your reading list?
00:52:51
Speaker
Have you tackled something that you've been putting off for years? I've read a strange collection of books, like Lanny, of course, that I mentioned earlier, but also The Good Girl's Guide to Murder by Holly Jackson. My Name is Why by Lem Sizay. Those two are both for my book club. My Cousin Rachel by Daphne du Maurier. That was quite good.
00:53:10
Speaker
Children of Blood and Bone by Tomi Adeyemi, which I love and I need to get the second one. I even reread The Three Musketeers by Alexandra Dumas. I haven't read so much since I was a kid. I've found escape in the stories. Some time when I wasn't thinking about the pandemic, but perhaps the lockdown has left you unable to read.
00:53:31
Speaker
Hopefully, we can inspire you to pick up a book again. Before the lockdown, I read Morgan Clewellyn's On Raven's Wing, which is a retelling of the story of Cucullan from the Ulster Cycle. They're Irish legends. She has a huge number of books based on Irish legend and history, and next time I'll talk to Reena McGuire about the archaeology behind some of the stories.
00:53:54
Speaker
If you've read that book, On Raven's Wing or anything by Morgan Clewellyn, let me know what you thought. Do you love it? Can you pick holes in it in terms of the history? What do you think? I'll put your thoughts to Rina and we'll have a chat. So hopefully, listen again in a month to that discussion I have with Rina. Speak to you soon.
00:54:39
Speaker
This show is produced by Chris Webster and Tristan Boyle and was edited by Chris Webster.
00:54:44
Speaker
This has been a presentation of the Archaeology Podcast Network. Visit us on the web for show notes and other podcasts at www.archpodnet.com. Contact us at chrisatarchaeologypodcastnetwork.com.