03-04-2010, 01:07 AM
Quote:I found some interesting tidbits in the poem Llongborth, yeah I know most people use it as an Arthurian source but it really isn't. I found that one translation has it written that Gerran's men rode astride "long-legged chargers" (I believe we'll need Carvettia's expertise here) which were fed grain.
Yes, the poem does state that the horses were long-shanked (garhirion from gar "leg, shank, thigh" + hir "long" + -ion [plural suffix]) fed on grain (graun eu buyd "grain their food"; Old Welsh graun "grain" comes from Brittonic gra:nom, cognate with Latin gra:num; see Peter Schrijver, Studies in British Celtic Historical Phonology, Rodopi, 1995, p. 183; for a decent translation of the poem Gereint fil' Erbin see J. Coe & S. Young, Celtic Sources for the Arthurian Legend, Llanerch, 1995, 116ff.).
I don't know if I would read too much into this poem, however, as it probably represents knowledge of horses and horsemanship from a 9th-10th century perspective (the time of the poem's composition) and not the 6th.
- Chris Gwinn
Christopher Gwinn