Preiddeu Annwfn

Manuscript and dateThe poem is uniquely preserved in the Book of Taliesin (Aberystwyth, NLW, MS Peniarth 2), which has been dated to the first quarter of the 14th century.[1] The text of the poem itself has proved immensely difficult to date. Estimates range from the time of the bard Taliesin in the late 6th century to the completion of the manuscript. On the basis of linguistic criteria, Norris J. Lacy suggests that the poem took its present form around AD 900.[2] Marged Haycock notes that the poem shares a formal peculiarity with a number of pre-Gogynfeirdd poems found in the Book of Taliesin, that is, the caesura usually divides the lines into a longer and shorter section.[3] She contends, however, that there is no firm linguistic evidence that the poem predates the time of the Gogynfeirdd.[4]