Welsh Myth and Legend and Magic

Darlith Cymdeithas Hynafiaethwyr Cymru yn yr Eisteddfod (gan Ann Parry Owen) 16.30 Mercher 6ed Awst, 2025 yn Wrecsam – ymunwch â ni am ddarlith ddifyr ar y rhestrau geiriau rhyfeddol a luniodd y copïwr llawysgrifau John Jones, Gellilifdy, Sir y Fflint.

There is a considerable amount of nonconformist literature which lionizes eighteenth-century reformers, portraying them as godly champions doing battle with the forces of darkness in Wales ✍️Jerry Hunter wp.me/p8Mk4U-13Hb

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The Welsh festival of Gŵyl Awst involves the participation in some interesting activities ...

Songs In The Key Of... Serge Gainsbourg - Songwriting Magazine Having recently written a book on the controversial Frenchman, journalist Jeremy Allen is perfectly placed to select 12 essential songs...

www.songwritingmagazine.co.uk/music/serge-...

Surely Serge Gainsbourg did it a few times in the 60s, eg Bonnie & Clyde, Pauvre Lola, and probably other people too?

Dyfeisiwyd y Peithynen, llyfr pren, gan Iolo Morganwg (1747-1826). Honnai fod dull hynafol o ysgrifennu wedi goroesi lle y câi llinellau cerdd eu cerfio ar ffyn a'u cadw mewn ffrâm pren. Defnyddid gwyddor arbennig, 'coelbren y beirdd', i ddynodi'r llythrennau. Mae hwn yn Amgueddfa Caerfyrddin.

So I don't see any notable similarity between coelbren and Roman cursive beyond coelbren's similarity to a stylised version of the modern alphabet.

RC T is like our T but coelbren has two diagonal lines off the vertrtical. R doesn’t resemble coelbren R, B doesn’t resemble coelbren B and so on. Plus coelbren has many more letters.

The coelbren L is a lambda, not the RC L. The coelbren M is a W whereas RC M is our M. Coelbren N is a mirror of RC N and our N. Coelbren A is modern A without HS. Coelbren G is C with an extra line indicating lenition, but it close to stylised modern G without a HS.

If an RC letter reembles modern Roman alphabets as much as it does coelbren that’s no indication of a special similarity.

Many RC letters do not resemble coelbren. The RC S is recognisably a skinny S whereas the coelbren S is just a vertical line with a diagonal coming off it.

Iolo knew the Roman alphabet and he knew it well. He wrote and copied hundreds of notebooks and manuscripts and carved letters on hundreds of graves and monuments.

First of all, coelbren doesn’t have any horizontal strokes, so letters with Hss don’t resemble coelbren. It doesn’t have any curves either, so we can discount RC letters with curves (but allow for sloppiness.)

Thanks. I’d say that this is a kind of whataboutery, ‘What about roman cursive?’ in that you don’t make any specific arguments as to why the coelbren characters are more similar to this than other alphabets.

Looking at the images I get from googling "roman cursive inscription britain" I don't see the resemblance. Coelbren is distinctive in not having any horizontal strokes or curves and there seem to be plenty of them in British Roman cursive.

m->v not m->m

Can you post images of the Roman cursive you're referring to? That article only gives me a coelbren image and ads of shoes.

I didn't know that about William Owen Pughe. My reformed coelbren would involve always using a single vertical stroke to indicate aspirate mutations and I'd have to do something to get p->b->v and m->m to work just by adding half diagonals bottom-left to top-right.

The total absence of horizontal strokes could be used to refute the claims that random ancient inscriptions are coelbren. If it has a horizontal stroke it's not coelbren.

My favourite part is the relationship between mutatable consonants. It's not perfect, but t th nh, c g ch ngh, p ph mh, l ll, rh r etc are pretty cleverly worked out. Maybe we need a revised coelbren that is even more systematic and consistent.

We haven't even had a draw since he took over!

Greer made it into a divination system. Nigel Pennick has also written about it for a neo-pagan audience.

T resembles Tiwaz but it's what you'd get if you try to write T without horizontal strokes. The Y is upsilon. C is what you'd expect using two diagonals. Letters which would be the outcome of mutations are usually the unmutated letter plus an additional stroke.

Coelbren superficially resembles runes but I don't really see any direct influence. Iolo doesn't use any horizontal strokes (perhaps they would split wood easily if cut with the grain.) So the letter for A is A without a horizontal stroke.

That'd be great, but there's space for some decent reasoned argument aimed at the general reader. "Numerous scholars, such as Glyn Cothi Lewis, concluded that the script was a hoax." is Ioloesque in itself.

James Stephens included forged material in Literature of the Kymry.

And iirc he later criticised it. I recall that Walter Davies ‘Gwallter Mechain’ urged iolo to be cautious about publishing the alphabet as he wasn't convinced it was authentic. There were a couple of other people questioning it early on.

All sorts of random inscriptions with vertical and diagonal lines are claimed as CyB. I was really surprised that GJ Williams didn't address it at all. No wonder some people feel academics are just maligning Iolo.

The Wiki article doesn't offer reasonable arguments for its inauthenticity. It concludes with the nonsensical statement "Numerous scholars, such as Glyn Cothi Lewis, concluded that the script was a hoax." Lewis Glyn Cothi was a 15thc bard! (The 19thc edition of his work includes a discussion of CyB)

I would say the basic reasons for believing IM created CyB are
No evidence at all for it existing before Iolo's lifetime
Iolo is ultimately the only source for it
None of his peers previously knew about it
Iolo's legendary history of its development is unbelievable
It's well adapted to modern Welsh

iirc Marion Loeffler cites a load of very difficult to get hold of sources but she's looking more at the reception of CyB. (I was looking at her book last night whole having a beer so my memory isn't clearer than that!)