Really enjoyed this, brings so many strands together. Thankyou!

This has got to be one of my favourite Celtic Source videos, Gwil! I'm always recommending it to people.

Very glad to see you back!👍I learn a lot from watching these videos💚

I read Legendborn and Bloodmarked which you helped prepare and translate Welsh for! You’re doing amazing work, diolch!

Thank you professor! I enjoy your show :)

Awesome video! Thanks for all that!

Hello Dr! Great to see you posting wonderful videos again! Around the 11:30 mark you discuss the ambiguity about what exactly is revolving; the music or the fort. I agree that the image of a revolving fort is intriguing, and I think a strong case can be made for it. The German Arthurian tale Diu Crône (early 13th c) includes an otherworldly revolving castle, surrounded by decapitated heads on stakes. Evidently, a 15th c French Arthurian romance also has a revolving castle similarly removed from the rest of the world by various obstacles and challenges. One would have to suspect that these stories descend from more original Welsh ones. Also, you say later Taliesin poetry invokes the otherworld as a kind of spiral? Bizarre, what’s that all about?

I love this poem, I think it demonstrates how the more organized religions didn't have the market cornered on interesting motifs and metaphysical thought. Gwair is a particularly interesting figure to me, the fact that he's described as the first prisoner of the otherworld makes me wonder what exactly he did to find himself in that state, particularly because it suggests he might play a significant role in the bardic lineage. It's also somewhat surprising that bards could insult the clergy in poems performed before the court, I would think that would be taken as blasphemy, but perhaps it suggests an acknowledgement of the fallibility of priesthoods.

Dr. Morus-Baird, thank you for drawing so heady a brew from the cask of Welsh mythology. I thirst no more! Sir, I have been wanting to find information on a particular goddess, Aeronwen, and have been disappointed to discover how little She is portrayed. Amazingly, Aeronwen doesn't seem the type of deity one simply overlooks! Correct me if I am wrong, but is She not the Welsh equivalent of the Irish Morrigan? Dr. Morus-Baird, can you point me in any direction, or to any publications concerning Aeronwen? I thank you for your consideration.

I have understood much of it a little differently, but then Im not Welsh and it is ambiguous as you said. I suppose I have understood this to be like climbing the "dark tower" that all noble knights dare not mention, because as well as rescuing the sacred maiden at the top of the tower, they first needed to pass through the level which housed their deepest or darkest or worst fear also known as "the hearts rest" which I assume relates to the heart chakra of eastern based spiritual ways. So I was wondering if perhaps the Fort of Petrification, is descriptive of being petrified with fear at facing their deep or darkest fear? Just a thought, I am by no means an expert, I just have had Arthurian type dreams on and off since childhood, thus my personal fascination, which is possibly similar to others inspired to try to understand it. I assume my mum must have told me a childhood version of Arthur and the Knights of the round table when very little, and this opened the way for my imagination and idealism of that era to be archetypally represented in my dreams. I also had one nightmare in the same vain, which I still vividly remember to this day, which was actually quite ridiculous and didnt really make sense and although it does make a little more sense now Im in my 60s, still not quite fully enough to say I truly understand it yet. I am very much enjoying your channel, the food for thought and open mindedness it encourages. ETA, as I read what I have written here, I had an ahah moment, that relates that nightmare with what is happening now. Isnt it strange how things seem to suddenly make sense and fall into place, just in the nick of time? hahahah!

What are the source readings for the Brindled Ox...what did you say before you mentioned Triads, Brindled Ox one of the three prime Ox'en of the island of Britan?..want to make sure I have the spelling write for looking into it futher. Thank you Evania Morris from New Zealand. Also just want to know more about this topic in general what is this legendary creatture used by the Triads as one of the three principal Oxen of the Island of Britain. Find it interesting that it is reported that Willlam Tyndale , in the course of a dispute with a promminent clergyman who disparaged this proposal, he said, "If God spare my life, ere many years I will cause a boy that driveth the plow to know more of the Scriptures than thou dost.

Could Caer Rigor allude to a petrifying well? They're obviously magical. As other possible allusions, calcite is glassy, and a calcified body might poetically be said to be chained.

I know some of the forts have various possible translations and I'd love to see a comparison with respective confidences for each. Caer Rigor as the "petrification" fort is the one that has always particularly grated in my head. I don't like that it uses a Latin derivation; I know some real world British toponyms do have Latin origins, but surely a Welsh otherworldly place in a Welsh language poem should have a Welsh name. And the end result just seems like an unlikely name for a fort as well. I have seen suggestions that it might be related to an old Celtic word something like Rig (king), and a kingly fort just sounds altogether more likely...? I also wonder if there's any link to Camlan as another Arthurian pyrrhic victory, where similar language is used about the number of men that returned / survived...?

i see alot of references to the otherworld and to the celestial realm of starry heaven and all those old beliefs that connect the two.

Maybe the Glass Fort is synonymous with the Fomorians' last stronghold where they were driven to by the Tuatha De Danann? I don't know, there is a slight Irish flavor to this poem. Thanks for all you do. 😃

Yn nhermau gweithiau fel Preiddiau Annwfn, un o'm hoff bethau am y Gogynfeirdd yw'i allu i ddefnyddio iaith amwys i lunio hanesion a chwedlau sy'n diddorol ac yn cadw'i gynulleidfa'n meddwl am y cudd-ystyron sy'n sibrwd i'r Cymry (a phwy arall bynnag sy'n diddori ) am eu gorffennol... heb ddiflasu nhw, fel mae'r cerddi crefyddol yn wneud (i mi, n'de)👀 Ta waeth, mae'n hwyl ceisio dyfalu ystyr rhannau amwysach y cerddi 'ma. Ymholiad braidd ar hap, ond ydach chi'n ymwybodol o bobol heddiw sy'n perfformio neu'n adrodd hen gerddi, fel Preiddiau Annwfn, mewn ynganiad a modd perfformio'r 12g? Fel mae David Crystal a'i fab yn wneud hefo Shakespeare, e.e.