WArmes Prydein is an early 10th-century Welsh prophetic poem from the Book of Taliesin.
WBedd Taliesin is the legendary grave (bedd) of the poet Taliesin, located in Ceredigion, Wales. The Bronze Age round cairn is a listed Historic Monument. It is a round-kerb cairn with a cist about 2m long. The capstone has fallen; the side stone slabs are more or less in their original positions.
WThe Black Book of Carmarthen is thought to be the earliest surviving manuscript written solely in Welsh. The book dates from the mid-13th century; its name comes from its association with the Priory of St. John the Evangelist and Teulyddog at Carmarthen, and is referred to as black due to the colour of its binding. It is currently part of the collection of the National Library of Wales, where it is catalogued as NLW Peniarth MS 1.
WThe Book of Taliesin is one of the most famous of Middle Welsh manuscripts, dating from the first half of the 14th century though many of the fifty-six poems it preserves are taken to originate in the 10th century or before.
WBranwen ferch Llŷr; "Branwen, daughter of Llŷr" is a legendary tale from medieval Welsh literature and the second of the four branches of the Mabinogi. It concerns the children of Llŷr; Bendigeidfran, high king of Britain, and his siblings Manawydan and Branwen, and deals with the latter's marriage to Matholwch, king of Ireland. Matholwch's mistreatment of the British princess leads to a mutually destructive war between the two islands, the deaths of most of the principal characters, and the ascension of Caswallon fab Beli to the British throne. Along with the other branches, the tale can be found in the medieval Red Book of Hergest and White Book of Rhydderch. It is followed directly by the third branch, Manawydan fab Llŷr.
WThe Four Ancient Books of Wales is a term coined by William Forbes Skene to describe four important medieval manuscripts written in Middle Welsh and dating from the 13th, 14th, and 15th centuries. They contain primarily texts of poetry and prose, some of which are contemporary and others which may have originated from traditions dating back to as early as the sixth and seventh centuries. These also contain some of the earliest native Welsh references to King Arthur.
WLady Charlotte Elizabeth Guest, later Lady Charlotte Schreiber, was an English aristocrat who is best known as the first publisher in modern print format of The Mabinogion which is the earliest prose literature of Britain. Guest established The Mabinogion as a source literary text of Europe, claiming this recognition among literati in the context of contemporary passions for the Chivalric romance of King Arthur and the Gothic movement. The name Guest used for the book was derived from a mediaeval copyist’s error, already established in the 18th century by William Owen Pughe and the London Welsh societies.
WThe Hanes Taliesin is a legendary account of the life of the poet Taliesin recorded in the mid-16th century by Elis Gruffydd. The tale was also recorded in a slightly different version by John Jones of Gellilyfdy. This story agrees in many respects with fragmentary accounts in The Book of Taliesin and resembles the story of the boyhood of the Irish hero Fionn mac Cumhail and the salmon of wisdom in some respects. It was included in Lady Charlotte Guest's Mabinogion.
WThe Misfortunes of Elphin (1829) is a short historical romance by Thomas Love Peacock, set in 6th century Wales, which recounts the adventures of the bard Taliesin, the princes Elphin ap Gwythno and Seithenyn ap Seithyn, and King Arthur. Peacock researched his story from early Welsh materials, many of them untranslated at the time; he included many loose translations from bardic poetry, as well as original poems such as "The War-Song of Dinas Vawr". He also worked into it much satire of the Tory attitudes of his own time. Elphin has been highly praised for its sustained comic irony, and by some critics is considered the finest Arthurian literary work of the Romantic period.
WPreiddeu Annwfn or Preiddeu Annwn is a cryptic poem of sixty lines in Middle Welsh, found in the Book of Taliesin. The text recounts an expedition with King Arthur to Annwfn or Annwn, the Welsh name for the Celtic Otherworld.
WRheged was one of the kingdoms of the Hen Ogledd, the Brittonic-speaking region of what is now Northern England and southern Scotland, during the post-Roman era and Early Middle Ages. It is recorded in several poetic and bardic sources, although its borders are not described in any of them. A recent archaeological discovery suggests that its stronghold was located in what is now Galloway in Scotland rather than, as was previously speculated, being in Cumbria. Rheged possibly extended into Lancashire and other parts of northern England. In some sources, Rheged is intimately associated with the king Urien Rheged and his family. Its inhabitants spoke Cumbric, a Brittonic dialect closely related to Old Welsh.
WUrien, often referred to as Urien Rheged or Uriens, was a late 6th-century king of Rheged, an early British kingdom of the Hen Ogledd. His power and his victories, including the battles of Gwen Ystrad and Alt Clut Ford, are celebrated in the praise poems to him by Taliesin, preserved in the Book of Taliesin. He became the "King Urien of Gorre" of later Arthurian legend and his son Owain mab Urien was later known as Ywain.
WCharles Walter Stansby Williams was a British poet, novelist, playwright, theologian, literary critic, and member of the Inklings.