Gelli Fach

Gelli Fach

I'm a cell, I'm fragmented, I change my form;
I'm a repository of song, I'm a dynamic state.
I love a wooded slope and a snug shelter,
and a creative poet who doesn't buy his advancement.

Wyf kell, wyf dellt, wyf datweirllet;
wyf llogell kerd, wyf lle ynnyet.
Karaf-y gorwyd a goreil clyt,
a bard a bryt ny pryn y ret.


From: Legendary Poems from the Book of Taliesin, edited and translated by Marged Haycock





Tuesday 1 February 2011

February and an Irish Imbolc poem

St Bride by Margaret Tarrant
                                       

The month of February, a feast is rare,
the spade and the wheel are hard at work...

Mis Chwefrol, anaml ankwyn,
llafurus pal ac olwyn...

The Verses of the Months, Welsh, circa 15th century



 Imbolc

Tasting every food in order
This is what behoves at Imbolc
Washing of hand and feet and head
It is thus I say.

Fromad cach bíd iar n-urd,
issed dlegair i n-Imbulc,
díunnach laime is coissi is cinn,
is amlaid sin atberim.

(From an Irish calendar poem in Hibernica Minora, edited by Kuno Meyer,translation by Kenneth Jackson.)