[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.”