Y Gododdin - Cultural Influence

Cultural Influence

There are a number of references to Y Gododdin in later Medieval Welsh poetry. The well-known 12th-century poem Hirlas Owain by Owain Cyfeiliog, in which Owain praises his own war-band, likens them to the heroes of the Gododdin and uses Y Gododdin as a model. A slightly later poet, Dafydd Benfras, in a eulogy addressed to Llywelyn the Great, wishes to be inspired "to sing as Aneirin sang / The day he sang the Gododdin". After this period this poetry seems to have been forgotten in Wales for centuries until Evan Evans (Ieuan Fardd) discovered the manuscript in the late 18th century. From the early 19th century onwards there are many allusions in Welsh poetry.

In English, Y Gododdin was a major influence on the long poem In Parenthesis (1937) by David Jones, in which he reflects on the carnage he witnessed in the First World War. Jones put a quotation from the Gododdin at the beginning of each of the seven sections of In Parenthesis. Another poet writing in English, Richard Caddel, used 'Y Gododdin' as the basis of his difficult but much-admired poem For the Fallen (1997), written in memory of his son Tom. Tony Conran's Poem 'Elegy for the Welsh Dead, in the Falklands Islands, 1982' opens with the line 'Men went to Catraeth', using the original poem to comment on a contemporary conflict.

The poem has also inspired a number of historical novels, including Men Went to Cattraeth (1969) by John James, The Shining Company (1990) by Rosemary Sutcliff and The Amber Treasure (2009) by Richard J Denning. In 1989 the British industrial band Test Dept brought out an album entitled Gododdin, in which the words of the poem were set to music, part in the original and part in English translation. This was a collaboration with the Welsh avant-garde theatre company Brith Gof and was performed in Wales, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands and Scotland.