The ‘Strath Caruin’ Awdl and the Welsh Annals

The following article re-examines the so-called ‘Strath Caruin’ awdl, a stanza preserved in the thirteenth-century Welsh manuscript, Llyfr Aneirin, ‘the Book of Aneirin’. Focus is on the relationship between the content of this awdl and other early Welsh material pertaining to Northern Britain, principally the Welsh Latin annals, Annales Cambriae, but also in vernacular texts. It is argued that the ‘Strath Caruin’ awdl is difficult to anchor within this wider tradition, and that its content, while corroborated by other extant sources, does not seem to be derived from them.