Battle of Catraeth

Battle

In his Canu Aneirin Ifor Williams interpreted mynydawc mwynvawr in the text of Y Gododdin to refer to a person, Mynyddog Mwynfawr in modern Welsh. Mynyddog, in Williams' reading, was the king of the Gododdin, with his chief seat at Din Eidyn (modern Edinburgh). Around the year 600 Mynyddog gathered about 300 selected warriors from across the Brythonic world. He feasted them at Din Eidyn for a year, preparing for battle, then launched an attack on Catraeth, which Williams agrees with Thomas Stephens in identifying as Catterick in North Yorkshire, which was in Anglo-Saxon hands. They were opposed by a larger army from the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of Deira and Bernicia.

In early historical times, this part of northern England and southern Scotland was the territory of the Votadini, the ancestors of the later Gododdin. By 600 the Angles had formed the important kingdoms of Deira and Bernicia, which were possibly originally ruled by Britons. As such the Battle of Catraeth may have been an attempt to push back Anglo-Saxon expansion. At some time after the battle, the Angles absorbed the Gododdin kingdom and incorporated its territory into the kingdom of Northumbria.

This interpretation has been accepted by most modern scholars. Kenneth H. Jackson accepts the interpretation but suggests that a force of 300 men would be much too small to undertake the task demanded of them. He considers that the 300 mounted warriors would have been accompanied by a larger number of foot soldiers, not considered worthy of mention in the poem. A. O. H. Jarman also follows Williams' interpretation.