Trioedd Ynys Prydein

The Triads of the Island of Britain
3rd Edition

Edited with introduction, translation and commentary by Rachel Bromwich

Rachel Bromwich’s magisterial edition of Trioedd Ynys Prydein has long won its place as a classic of Celtic studies. This substantially revised edition shows the author’s continued mastery of the subject, and will be essential reading for Celticists and for those interested in early British history and literature and in Arthurian studies.

Early Welsh literature shows a predilection for classifying names, facts and precepts into triple groups, or triads. ‘The Triads of the Isle of Britain’ form a series of texts which commemorate the names of traditional heroes and heroines and which would have served as a catalogue of the names of these heroic figures. The names are grouped under various imprecise but complimentary epithets, which are often paralleled in the esoteric language of the medieval bards, who would have used the triads as an index of past history and legend.

This edition is based upon a full collation of the most important manuscripts, the earliest of which go back to the thirteenth century. The Welsh text is accompanied by English translations of each triad and extensive notes, and the volume includes four appendices which are also an important source of personal names. The Introduction discusses the significance of Trioedd Ynys Prydein in the history of Welsh literature and examines the traditional basis of the triads.

Rachel Bromwich is a former Reader in Celtic Languages and Literatures at Cambridge University. She now lives in Aberystwyth. Her many publications include studies of Culhwch and Olwen and Dafydd ap Gwilym.

CONTENTS

PREFACE

INTRODUCTION:

            I. MANUSCRIPTS AND VERSIONS

           II. ORIGIN AND DEVELOPMENT OF TRIOEDD YNYS PRYDEIN

            Trioedd Ynys Prydein and Bardic Instruction

            Trioedd Ynys Prydein and the Chwedlau

            Trioedd y Meirch

            Antiquity and Provenance

THE APPENDICES 

TRIOEDD YNYS PRYDEIN: TEXT, TRANSLATION AND NOTES

APPENDIX I.              Enweu Ynys Prydein: The Names of the Island of Britain

APPENDIX II.            Bonedd Gwŷr y Gogledd: The Descent of the Men of the North

APPENDIX III.           Tri Thlws ar Ddeg Ynys Prydein: The Thirteen Treasures of the Island of Britain

APPENDIX IV.           Pedwar Marchog ar Hugain Llys Arthur:The Twenty-four Knights of Arthur’s Court

NOTES TO PERSONAL NAMES

ABBREVIATIONS

SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY

INDEX

INDEX TO PLACES

INDEX TO TRIOEDD Y MEIRCH

GENERAL INDEX

ILLUSTRATIONS 

Peniarth 6., fo.50r 

First page of Trioedd Ynys Prydein in Y Diarebion Camberäec