Cad Goddeu (English: The Battle
of the Trees) is a medieval Welsh poem preserved in the 14th-century manuscript
known as the Book of Taliesin. The poem refers to a traditional story in which
the legendary enchanter Gwydion animates the trees of the forest to fight as
his army.
The poem is especially notable
for its striking and enigmatic symbolism and the wide variety of interpretations
this has occasioned.
Some 248 short lines long
(usually five syllables and a rest), and falling into several sections, the
poem begins with an extended claim of first-hand knowledge of all things, in a
fashion found later in the poem and also in several others attributed to
Taliesin;
culminating in a claim to have
been at "Caer Vevenir" when the Lord of Britain did battle. There
follows an account of a great monstrous beast, of the fear of the Britons and
how, by Gwydion's skill and the grace of God, the trees marched to battle: then
follows a list of plants, each with some outstanding attribute, now apt, now
obscure;
The poem then breaks into a
first-person account of the birth of the flower-maiden Blodeuwedd, and then the
history of another one, a great warrior, once a herdsman, now a learned
traveller, perhaps Arthur or Taliesin himself. After repeating an earlier
reference to the Flood, the Crucifixion and the day of judgment, the poem
closes with an obscure reference to metalwork.