The Gododdin charts the rise and fall of 363 warriors in the battle of Catraeth, around the year 600AD. The men of the Brittonic kingdom of Gododdin rose to unite the Welsh and the Picts against the English, only to meet a devastating fate. Composed by the poet Aneirin, the poem was originally orally transmitted as a sung elegy, passed down for seven centuries before being written down by two medieval scribes. It is comprised of one hundred laments to the named characters who fell, and follows a sophisticated alliterative poetics. Former National Poet of Wales Gillian Clarke is the first poet to create a translation. She animates this historical epic with a modern musicality, making it live in the language of today.
