Y Gododin: A Poem of the Battle of Cattraeth

The poem records a martial expedition from the north to a doomed battle, offering alternating tributes to individual leaders and stark accounts of combat and its aftermath. A bardic voice enumerates valor, armor, and the habits of fighting men, interweaving vivid battle scenes with lamentation for the slain and reflections on fame, loss, and fate. Short memorial stanzas name and praise warriors, while lyric passages and variable metre shift tone between heroic celebration and elegiac sorrow. The work preserves oral-era detail about social bonds, martial code, and ritual remembrance, combining evocative imagery with concise catalogues of death to mourn communal catastrophe.