Volume 54, Issue 1

This article is based on a lecture I was originally invited to deliver at Aberystwyth in the University of Wales in honour of the late Sir Thomas Parry-Williams (one of my earliest University teachers) and to do so on a topic which, I feel sure, would have met with his approval. He had himself studied with several of the most renowned and gifted scholars of the early part of this century, Edward Anwyl at Aberystwyth, John Rhys at Oxford, Rudolf Thurneysen at Freiburg im Breisgau, and Joseph Loth and Joseph Vendryes at the Sorbonne in Paris. He was one of the great scholarly and cultural heroes of my boyhood days and of my youth, a truly renowned scholar, literary figure and critic. His teaching days in the Department of Welsh at the University College of Wales at Aberystwyth spanned five decades, from 1914 to 1952 (he held the Chair of Welsh there with great distinction from 1920 to 1952). I treasure the memory of having been a member of a large post-war first year undergraduate class in his Department as long ago as 1947.

In November of 1935, a uniquely puzzling inscription in Etruscoid characters was discovered among the remains of an Iron Age necropolis west of the church at Castaneda in Canton Grisons (Graubünden, Grigione). The inscription is engraved along the spout of a bronze oinochoe (Schnabelkanne) , and apart from a solitary chi inscribed on another find from this necropolis, is the only evidence of alphabetism to have been unearthed from the site. Castaneda is a hamlet strategically perched some 780 meters above sea level along the northern slope of the Calanca Valley (Val Calanca) as it opens onto the Misox Valley (Val Mesolcina), an age-old trade and communication artery that leads northward to the Lesser Saint Bernard Pass. The necropolis is, therefore, situated about 11 kilometers (seven miles) northeast of Bellinzona, which lies just across the cantonal border to Ticino (Tessin); see Map 1 and Nagy (2000a, 2000b) for a site history.

On the strength of forms such as the ones cited below, scholars posit, doubtless correctly, a verbal theme * H 2/3 nek' - (with zero-grade * H 2/3 ṇk' -) meaning ‘to obtain, get, reach’ for Indo-European: Ved. 3 sg. subj. náś-a-ti , 3 sg. desiderative pres. íyak-ṣa-ti ‘desires to obtain, reach’, Classical Arm. 1 sg. aor. has-i ‘arrived, reached’, and Goth. 3 sg. pret.-pres. ga-nah ‘is sufficient’.

The purpose of this note is to reconsider the contents and significance of an awdl of the Gododdin which I discussed in an earlier article. It will be opportune first of all to recapitulate the form and meaning of the awdl , taking account of the recent edition of the Gododdin by John T. Koch.

I began this study – as most studies are begun – with questions. What is the probable date of the composition of the bardic grammar? What were the circumstances of its composition? Was it originally intended as a manual of written instruction for bards whose instruction had been traditionally oral? How probable is it that a tract based on a Latin text would have been useful to Welsh bards? Why was it repeatedly copied by hand from the fifteenth to the nineteenth centuries, long after the disintegration of the bardic orders? Might historical events or the threat to Welsh culture ensuant on such events explain – or help to explain – why it enjoyed the attentive support of the higher clergy, uchelwyr , and emergent gentry across divergent social origins and political and religious divides?

Introduction Celtic Studies are concerned with the languages, literature, culture, mythology, religion, art, history, and archaeology of historical and contemporary Celtic countries and traces of Celtic influences elsewhere. The historical Celtic countries include ancient Gaul, Galatia, Celtiberia, Italy, Britain and Ireland, whereas the modern Celtic territories are limited to Ireland, Scotland, Wales, Isle of Man, Cornwall and Brittany. It has to be stressed that Celtic Studies are not identical with Irish (or Scottish, Welsh, or Breton) Studies, though they are, for obvious reasons, closely connected.

Der Nachlaß Julius Pokorny befindet sich in der Kantons- und Universitätsbibliothek Freiburg im Uechtland, Schweiz. Er wurde noch im Jahre von Pokornys Tod, 1970, durch den Nachlaßverwalter Meinrad Scheller dorthin verkauft. Scheller hatte bis 1968 in Freiburg gelehrt. Der Erwerb des Nachlasses wurde im Rahmen der geplanten Errichtung eines Lehrstuhls für Keltologie durchgeführt, an der Pokorny Ende der 1960er Jahre mitgewirkt hatte. Als der Pokorny-Schüler Heinrich Wagner für das Projekt nicht gewonnen werden konnte, schlief es ein.