Reviews

The Gododdin: the oldest Scottish poem by Aneirin, Kenneth Hurlstone Jackson

trisha_thomas's review

Go to review page

3.0

" There was food for the ravens, the raven there did triumph."

I'm sad to admit this is my first gamble into Celtic older reading. I tried to imagine this as a bard song, something sung at a community hall area where everyone is drunk on mead (beer) and telling stories.

And this is quite a story. So many deaths, so many widows. There is so much blood on the ground, you can almost see it all. The poem is well done but I"m sure there are about a 1000 other details I missed since I'm not used to reading like this.

I think the piece that kept me going was just imagining the Raven Boys digging through old poems of war and really digging all the references to wolves and birds of prey - and of course, Ravens.
More...