The oldest Welsh Lullaby: Dinogad’s Smock (Pais Dinogad)

Performed by: Ffynnon, Lynne Denman History: Amongst the oldest surviving Welsh poetry is an account of battles in the Old North, a text known after the protagonists as Y Gododdin. In the same manuscripts are a couple of odd bits of verse which clearly do not belong, and one of these is a nursery rhyme in which a mother tells her son - the Dinogad of the title - about his father’s hunting prowess. The seventh century text, with a bit of orthographic licence, is something like: Peis dinogat e vreith vrei