{115a} “Gwyn dragon;” probably Hengist, who bore, as his arms, a _white prancing horse_ upon a red field. There is here accordingly an allusion to the first arrival of the Saxons, which was the cause to the Britons of all their national calamities for many a long year after. Al. “Had it not been for the two hundred (al. ten hundred) men of the white-bannered commander.” {115b} Or, “we were not—until.” &c. {115c} Lit. “thorn bushes.” For an illustration of the advantage which the natives would derive from their woods and thickets in times of war, the reader is referred to a story told of Caradoc in the Iolo MSS. pp. 185, 597. which on account of its length we cannot transfer into our pages. {115d} Or more sententiously, as Davies has it, “Base is he in the field, who is base to his own relatives.” The construction adopted in the text, might allude to the marriage of Rowena with Vortigern. {116a} “Llwyeu,” from “llwyv,” a _frame_, a _platform_, a _loft_. Or it may be “llwyv,” an _elm tree_, in reference to the devastation of the groves just mentioned. The elm was very common in the island at the period under consideration. Taliesin celebrates a battle entitled “Gwaith Argoed Llwyvein,” which means “the battle of the forest of elms.” “A rhag gwaith Argoed Llwyvain Bu llawer celain.” (Myv. Arch. vol. i. p. 53.) Al. “When we were deprived of our sharpened weapons.” {116b} Thus in Gorchan Maelderw,— “There trod not, in Gododin, on the surface of the fosse, When deprived of his sharpened weapon, none more destitute.” {116c} One reading has “the weapon of death,” another, “the death-formed weapon, is broken and motionless.” {116d} If we give an affirmative meaning to the words “angkynnull agkymandull agkysgoget,” the couplet might be thus rendered,— “They assembled in arms, and in complete array they moved along, And rolled through the mighty horde.” It is observable that Carnhuanawc adopted this affirmative form in a similar passage with which “Gorchan Tudvwlch” opens, thus: “Arv ynghynnull, Yn nghymandull, Twrv yn agwedd; Y rhag meiwedd, Y rhag mawredd, Y rhag madiedd.” They assemble in arms, The forces are marshalled, Tumult approaches: In the van are the warlike, In the van are the noble, In the van are the good. And he moreover traces a similarity between this style and that of Tacitus, wherein the latter describes the effects of Galgacus’s address upon his British followers;— “Jamque agmina, et armorum fulgores, audentissimi, cujusque procursu, simul instruebantur acies.” (See Hanes Cymru, p. 96.) {117a} Al. “llawr,” “and _prostrate_ the horde of the Lloegrians.”