The antiquity of these poems admits of no reasonable doubt; on that point the Vindication of Turner enables the antiquaries of Wales to make this assertion with confidence: and having recently translated most of our old poems, with a view to future publication, I feel myself warranted in assuming them to belong to the sixth and seventh centuries of our era. One of these bards, Aneurin by name, belonged to the British tribe, described by the Romans as Ottadini, and by themselves as the people of Gododin. This people were situated at the junction of England and Scotland, and the poems of this bard chiefly refer to that district; but as the bards were a rambling class, and as the bulk of the people from Chester to Dumbarton were the same race as the people of the principality, we are not surprised when we find this bard sometimes among "the banks and braes of bonny Doon," and sometimes in North and South Wales. In one of his verses he thus describes the kilt of a British chief:—
"Peis dinogat e vreith vreith
O grwyn balaot ban ureith."
These lines may be found in the Myvyrian Archæology, vol. i. p. 13. col. 1.; and a most unwarrantable translation of dinogat may be found in Davies' Mythology of the Druids; but the literal rendering would be this:
"Dinogad's kilt is stripy, stripy,
Of the skins of front-streak'd wolf-cubs."
Peis or pais is the word now used for the article of female attire known as a petti-coat, which in form bears a sufficiently close resemblance to the male kilt to justify me in using that word here. It also occurs in pais-arfau, a coat of arms, and pais-ddur, a coat of mail. The words vreith vreith have been translated word for word; in the Kymric language it is a very common form of emphatic expression to repeat the word on which the emphasis falls, as yn dda da for very good; but a more idiomatic translation would have been, very stripy. Vraith with us also stands for plaid, and in the Welsh Bible Joseph's "coat of many colours" is named siacced vraith.
Now I will not attempt to determine what relation this kilt stands in to the kilts of the Highlands, whether the Gael borrowed it from the Briton, or the Briton from the Gael, or whether the dress was common to both at the time in which Dinogad lived; but thus much appears to be clear, that we here have a kilt, and that that kilt was striped, if not a plaid; and it only remains for us to determine the period at which Dinogad lived. Most persons are acquainted with the name of Brochmael, Prince of Powys, the British commander at the battle of Bangor in 613, on the occasion of the dispute between Augustine and the primitive British church; Dinogad stood to him in the following relation:
| BROCHMAEL | ||||
| | | ||||
| CYNAN GARWYN | ||||
| | | ||||
| ————————————————— | ||||
| | | | | |||
| SELYF OR SALOMON. | DINOGAD. | |||
Of Dinogad himself there is but one fact on record, and that took place in 577. His brother Selyf fell at the battle of Bangor or Chester in 613. If we take these facts together, we may form a pretty accurate idea respecting the period at which he lived.