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THE PREDICTION OF PEREDUR, THE BARD OF PRYDAIN. 1

When the sovereign 2 country shall bewail a stratagem,
And sorrow and dispersion happen to the secluded populace,

p. 366 p. 367

Blessed the lips that shall easily, and in confidential secrecy,
Pronounce three words 1 of the ancient and primitive language.
                     Composed by Peredur the Bard.


Footnotes

365:1 p. 364 It is not quite clear whether "Bardd Prydain," means here the Bard of Britain, that is, the Isle of Britain, or the Bard of Prydain, the son of Aedd the Great. Among the Gwyddoniaid, which was the name by which the priests and public teachers were known previous to the reformation of Bardism under Prydain, we meet with a son of Peredur Wrawn; and if this Gwrawn was the same as Gwron, one of "the three primary Bards of the Isle of Britain," Peredur, in point of time at least, might well be called the Bard of Prydain. There were two others of the same name, who lived some time after the Christian era; Peredur, the son of Eliver Gosgorddvawr, who lived about the close of the fifth century, and Peredur, the son of Evrawg, a chieftain who flourished in the early part of the sixth century, and is mentioned by Aneurin as having fallen in the battle of Cattraeth. Neither of these, however, is represented as of the Bardic order. We may remark here, that, whenever the island of Britain is mentioned in old documents, p. 365 it is almost invariably described as Ynys Prydain, a circumstance which gives force to the supposition that Peredur, in the heading of the above Prediction, was meant for the Bard of the son of Aedd the Great.

365:2 "Gwarthefin " is also one of the Names of the Deity, and is derived from gwarthaf, a summit, or a surface.

367:1 p. 366 These are the three primitive letters, , the secret of which was known only to the Bards.


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