[160d] “Glas heid,” (glas haidd) green barley. It is rather singular that the words, without the slightest alteration, will admit of another simile equally beautiful and appropriate, viz.—glas haid, a blue swarm of flies. The word glas may be indicative of the prevailing colour of the dress or armour of the men,
“As from the rocky cliff the shepherd sees
Clustering in heaps on heaps the driving bees,
Rolling, and blackening, swarms succeeding swarms,
With deeper murmurs and more hoarse alarms;
Dusky they spread, a close embodied crowd,
And o’er the vale descends the living cloud.” (Pope’s Homer, b. ii. l. 111.)
[161a] “Hedin;” this word seems of kindred nature with haidd (barley) and is here translated accordingly; (hedeg, to shoot out, or to ear, as corn.) Another version gives “hediw,” (heddyw, today.)
[161b] It is still very common in Wales to call the cause or origin of any thing by the name of mam: thus, for instance, we say “mam y drwg” of the chief instigator of mischief. What we are to understand by the “mother of the lance” it is not very easy to determine; it might have been courage or the sense of wrong, or quarrel, or any other cause which excited the Britons to fight.
[161c] Al. “They marched and chanted, clad in coat of mail.”
[162a] “Vawr dru,” &c. Al. “miserable hero.”
[162b] This confirms the view we have taken of the “milcant a thrychant” at line 86.
[162c] “Gloew dull;” in bright array. It may refer also to the viands.
[162d] “Mai;” Taliesin, in like manner, says of Urien, that he was,—
“Un yn darwedd
Gwin a mal a medd.”One who was generous of wine, and bounty, and mead.