MP3 P.D. Brown - Three Tales of the Island of Britain

Here are three Welsh stories dating back to the sixth century, when the Welsh, or Britons, held nearly all of what is today England and Scotland. Together they make an epic telling of the erosion of their hold on the land by the Angles, the people who lat

3 MP3 Songs in this album (68:22) !
Related styles: SPOKEN WORD: Storytelling, SPOKEN WORD: Poetry



Details:
Each Welsh king retained a bard to compose elegies in his honour. Incredibly, some of these poems have survived to the present day. Many of them concern the characters whose stories are here told and, in translation, have been woven into the tales' fabric. They have a high, heroic tone, yet tinged with the sadness of a people in decline.

These bards used a mnemonic device; memorising names, events and facts in groups of threes, or triads, which helped them remember the stories behind them. Some of these have also survived and are collectively known as the Triads of the Island of Britain (Trioedd Ynys Prydein).
Some are mentioned in these stories, serving to set the tales against the wider backdrop of Welsh oral tradition.

Sadly, most of the stories alluded to in the Triads have not survived, but here are three researched and reconstructed tales. Mingling myth, legend and history, there is one from each of the three Triads they are named after, told to the fitting accompaniment of the harp, for you to enjoy.