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The Swarm: Cattraeth

Later we read, - "The heroes marched to Cattraeth with the dawn; Their peace was disturbed by those who feared them; A hundred thousand with three hundred engaged in mutual overthrow; Drenched in gore, they marked the fall of the lances; The post of war was most manfully and with gallantry maintained, Before the retinue of Mynyddawg the Courteous. The heroes marched to Cattraeth with the dawn; Feelingly did their home friends regret their absence; Mead they drank, yellow, sweet, ensnaring; That year is the point to which many a minstrel turns; Redder were their swords than their plumes, Their blades were white as lime; and into four parts were their helmets cloven, Even those of the retinue of Mynyddawg the Courteous."

After the battle of Cattraeth, - "Yudvwlch and Cyvwlch the Tall drank the bright mead together by the light of torches; though pleasant to the taste, a fatal foe. Gwarthleo was of the number, young, Mead rich, ever pressing forward, and there too was the gigantic Gwrneling. In the early dawn bright was the horn in the hall of Eiddin, pompous the feast of mead at the meeting of reapers. Men drank transparent wine with battle-daring purpose. The reapers sang of war, war with the shining wing; the minstrels sang of war, of harnessed war, of winged war. "The heroes who marched to Cattraeth were renowned, Wine and mead out of golden goblets was their beverage, That year was to them one of high solemnity, Three hundred and sixty-three chieftains, wearing the golden torques; Of those who hurried forth after the excess of revelling, But three escaped by valour from the funeral fosse. The two war-dogs of Aeron, and Cynon the dauntless, And myself from the spilling of blood, the reward of my pure song. "When Caradawg rushed into battle, It was like the tearing onset of the woodland boar; Bull of the army in the mangling fight, He allured the wild dogs by the action of his hand; my witnesses are Owain the son of Eulat, And Gwrien, and Gwynn, and Gwriad; But from Cattraeth, and its work of carnage, From the hill of Hydwn, ere it was gained, After the clear mead was put into his hand, He saw no more the hill of his father. The warriors marched with speed, together they bounded onward; Short-lived were they, - they had become drunk over the distilled mead. The retinue of Mynyddawg, renowned in the hour of need; Their life was the price of their banquet of mead." "My limbs are racked, And I am loaded, In the subterranean house; An iron chain Passes over my two knees ; Yet of the mead and of the horn, And of the host of Cattraeth, I Aneurin will sing What is known to Taliesin, Who communicates to me his thoughts, Or a strain of Gododin, Before the dawn of the bright day."