The Welsh Triads (, "Triads of the Island of

Britain Britain most often refers to: * Great Britain, a large island comprising the countries of England, Scotland and Wales * The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, a sovereign state in Europe comprising Great Britain and the north-eas ...

") are a group of related texts in

medieval In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the 5th to the late 15th centuries, similarly to the post-classical period of World history (field), global history. It began with the fall of the West ...

manuscripts which preserve fragments of Welsh

folklore Folklore is the body of expressive culture shared by a particular group of people, culture or subculture. This includes oral traditions such as Narrative, tales, myths, legends, proverbs, Poetry, poems, jokes, and other oral traditions. This also ...

mythology Myth is a genre of folklore consisting primarily of narratives that play a fundamental role in a society. For scholars, this is very different from the vernacular usage of the term "myth" that refers to a belief that is not true. Instead, the ...

and traditional history in groups of three. The triad is a rhetorical form whereby objects are grouped together in threes, with a heading indicating the point of likeness; for example, "Three things not easily restrained, the flow of a torrent, the flight of an arrow, and the tongue of a fool."

The texts include references to

King Arthur According to legends, King Arthur (; ; ; ) was a king of Great Britain, Britain. He is a folk hero and a central figure in the medieval literary tradition known as the Matter of Britain. In Wales, Welsh sources, Arthur is portrayed as a le ...

and other semi-historical characters from

sub-Roman Britain Sub-Roman Britain, also called post-Roman Britain or Dark Age Britain, is the period of late antiquity in Great Britain between the end of Roman rule and the founding of Anglo-Saxon kingdoms. The term was originally used to describe archae ...

, mythic figures such as

Brân the Blessed Brân the Blessed ( or ''Brân Fendigaidd'', literally "Blessed Crow") is a giant and king of Britain in Welsh mythology. He appears in several of the Welsh Triads, but his most significant role is in the Second Branch of the Mabinogi, '' ...

, undeniably historical personages such as Alan IV, Duke of Brittany (who is called ''Alan Fyrgan'') and

Iron Age The Iron Age () is the final epoch of the three historical Metal Ages, after the Chalcolithic and Bronze Age. It has also been considered as the final age of the three-age division starting with prehistory (before recorded history) and progre ...

characters such as Caswallawn ( Cassivellaunus) and Caradoc ( Caratacus). Some triads simply give a list of three characters with something in common (such as "the three frivolous bards of the island of Britain") while others include substantial narrative explanation. The triad form probably originated amongst the Welsh

bard In Celtic cultures, a bard is an oral repository and professional story teller, verse-maker, music composer, oral historian and genealogist, employed by a patron (such as a monarch or chieftain) to commemorate one or more of the patron's a ...

s or poets as a

mnemonic A mnemonic device ( ), memory trick or memory device is any learning technique that aids information retention or retrieval in the human memory, often by associating the information with something that is easier to remember. It makes use of e ...

aid in composing their poems and stories, and later became a rhetorical device of Welsh literature. The Medieval Welsh tale '' Culhwch and Olwen'' has many triads embedded in its narrative.

Examples

As edited and translated by Rachel Bromwich, two characteristic examples of the Welsh triads are:

36. Teir Gormes a doeth y'r Enys Hon, ac nyt aeth vrun dracheuyn:
Ỽn o nadunt Kywdaỽt y Corryanyeit, a doethant eman yn oes Caswallawn mab Beli, ac nyt aeth ỽn un onadunt dracheuyn. Ac or Auia pan hanoedynt.
Eil, Goemes y Gwydyl Fychti. Ac nyt aeth ỽr un onadunt dracheuyn.
Tryded, Gormes y Saesson, a Hors a Hengyst yn benaduryeit arnadunt.
:Three Oppressions that came to this Island, and not one of them went back:
One of them (was) the people of the Cor(y)aniaid, who came here in the time of Caswallawn son of Beli: and not one of them went back. And they came from Arabia.
The second Oppression: the Gwyddyl Ffichti. And not one of them went back.
The third Oppression: the
Saxons The Saxons, sometimes called the Old Saxons or Continental Saxons, were a Germanic people of early medieval "Old" Saxony () which became a Carolingian " stem duchy" in 804, in what is now northern Germany. Many of their neighbours were, like th ...
, with
Horsa Hengist (, ) and Horsa are legendary Germanic peoples, Germanic brothers who according to later English legends and ethnogenesis theories led the Angles (tribe), Angles, Saxons and Jutes, the progenitor groups of modern English people, in thei ...
and Hengist as their leaders.

46. Teir Pryf Uuch Enys Prydein:
Brech, buwch ỽaelgỽn Gwyned,
a Thonnllwyt, buwch meibyon Eliffer Godgordỽawr,
a Chornillo, buỽch Llawuroded ỽarỽaỽc.
:Three Principal Cows of the Island of Britain:
Speckled, cow of Maelgwn Gwynedd,
and Grey-Skin, cow of the sons of Eliffer of the Great Warband,
and Cornillo, cow of Llawfrodedd the Bearded.

Earliest surviving collection

The earliest surviving collection of the Welsh Triads is bound in the manuscript '' Peniarth 16'', now at the

National Library of Wales The National Library of Wales (, ) in Aberystwyth is the national legal deposit library of Wales and is one of the Welsh Government sponsored bodies. It is the biggest library in Wales, holding over 6.5 million books and periodicals, and the l ...

, which has been dated to the third quarter of the 13th century and contains 46 of the 96 triads collated by

Rachel Bromwich Rachel Bromwich (30 July 1915 – 15 December 2010), born Rachel Sheldon Amos, was a British scholar. Her focus was on medieval Welsh literature, and she taught Celtic Languages and Literature in the Department of Anglo-Saxon, Norse and Celtic ...

. Other important manuscripts include ''Peniarth 45'' (written about 1275), and the pair White Book of Rhydderch (Welsh: ''Llyfr Gwyn Rhydderch'') and Red Book of Hergest (Welsh: ''Llyfr Coch Hergest''), which share a common version clearly different from the version behind the collections in the Peniarth manuscripts.

Later collections

The 18th-century Welsh antiquarian Iolo Morganwg compiled a collection of triads, which he claimed to have taken from his own collection of manuscripts. Some of his triads are similar to those found in the medieval manuscripts, but some are unique to Morganwg, and are widely believed to have been of his own invention.

Notes

References

*Rachel Bromwich, editor and translator. ''Trioedd Ynys Prydein: The Welsh Triads''. Cardiff: University of Wales Press, Second Edition 1978. *Rachel Bromwich, editor and translator. ''Trioedd Ynys Prydein: The Welsh Triads''. Cardiff: University of Wales Press, Third Edition, 2006. *W. Probert (trans) (1977), Iolo Morganwg, '' The Triads of Britain''

External links

Triads from the Red Book of Hergest
{{Welsh language Medieval Welsh literature Welsh-language literature British traditional history Welsh mythology Works of unknown authorship