Moreover, a tradition prevails, that Owain the son of Urien was actually engaged in the battle of Cattraeth. Thus Lewis Glyn Cothi, a poet of the fifteenth century, observes;—
“Bwriodd Owain ab Urien
Y tri thwr yn Nghattraeth hen.
Ovnodd Arthur val goddaith
Owain, ei vrain a’i fon vraith.” (I. 140.)Owain son of Urien overthrew
The three towers of Cattraeth of old;
Arthur dreaded, as the flames,
Owain, his ravens, and his parti-coloured staff.
But to the view which would identify our hero with the son of Urien there is this objection, that the poem describes the former as the son of Marro or Marco; nor can the difficulty be got over, without supposing that this was another name of Urien. Or if that be inadmissible, the line, in which Owain’s name occurs, may be translated,—
Alas, the beloved friend of Owain;
an alteration, which will do no great violence to the allusion about the ravens.
[82a] Al. “March,” as if addressing the horse of the slain;—
O steed, in what spot
Was slaughtered, &c.
[82b] “Cynhaiawc,” (cyn-taiawg.) Adopting this version for the sake of variety, and under the impression that all the different readings of this poem are not the mere result of orthographical accident, but that the forms of obscure or illegible words were sometimes determined by tradition, we must believe that the taiogion, who composed the army of Madog, were simply his own tenants or dependants.
[83a] “Diffun,” (di-ffun.) Ffun is any thing united together, and is used at line 803 for a band of men. Some read “diffyn,” (protection or defence) and in that case the sense of the passage would seem to be,
He brought protection to women, and mead he distributed.