May 2, 1907] 



NA TURE 



THE ASTRONOMICAL AND ARCHAEOLOGICAL 



VALUE OF THE WELSH GORSEDD. 

 A S a common term Gorsedd is used for " throne "; 

 ^^^ as a specific term it means (i) the stone circle' 

 and (2) the bardic assembly at the circle. The 

 proper Welsh for " throne " is gorsedd-vaingc, 

 "gorsedd — seat or bench"; so the Welsh idea of a 

 throne is the place of honour in a stone circle. That 

 was once literally the case. Though the chief bard 



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plans which 

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The writer, Edward Williams (lolo Morgannwg), 

 who died in 1826, did not quite understand the plans, 

 but to his honesty as a copyist we are indebted for 

 a very valuable document. 



In what I venture to call the perfect plan, the place 

 of honour is given to the Mav vear, the solstitial 

 stones taking a second place. This is the case still 

 in Wales. The chief dates still in our rural life are 

 May Day and All Hallows. The gap in the direc- 



, , , - , , •-; ^ - '■"" °f "^he sunrise stones suggests a comparison with 



has always been the master of the Gorsedd cere- | other circles which show a gap in that direction 



monies, the assemblies were held by the authority of It is evident that our bards give us plans wh 



ttie chiettam, lord, or kmg, and the business and thev seem not to understand 



festal features of the assembly were 



personally controlled by the lord of the 



land. 



Perhaps the most satisfactory trans- 

 lation is "High Court." From the 

 twelfth century to the present the Gor- (^ 



sedd has been the High Court of the 

 Bards. We never hear of any other <C 



business transacted e.xcept matters that 

 affected the bardic fraternity. But 

 even such a circumscribed Gorsedd was 

 never legal without the lord's authority. 

 There are many lines along which it 

 would be easy to .show the genuine 

 antiquity of the Gorsedd traditions, and 

 had I nothing more than this to say, I 

 could with confidence invite archso- 



logists to study them. When, how- A/-...^ 



ever. Sir Norman Lockyer's " Stone- \\ ^ 



henge " came to my hand, some very o, 



obvious facts about the Grorsedd C> "^ 



appeared at once to the point, and it 

 has been my delight for the last si.x 

 months to gather such facts together 

 and apply to them the useful instruc- 

 tions given in the work mentioned. 

 The present Gorsedd circle consists of 

 twelve stones, 30° apart, with a larger 

 stone in the centre. Outside, on the ""'he pia 

 east, three stones are placed to in- 

 dicate the solstices and equinoxes to an 

 observer at the centre stone. A reader 

 of " Stonehenge " would at once sec 

 that such an arrangement does not look 

 very ancient. The silence of the bards 

 about the February-May-August- 

 November year suggested that some- 

 thing had been omitted in the instruc- 

 tions. All the old plans of a Gorsedd 

 I have seen give 30° or so between the 

 sunrise stones, and invariably the plans 

 are contradicted by the verlial instruc- 

 tions accompanying them, in which a 

 solstitial arrangement is insisted upon. 

 Mr. T. H. Thomas, of Cardiff, to 

 whom all Welshmen are grateful for 

 what he has done towards setting the 

 Gorsedd aright, kindly sent me a 

 (racing of a Gorsedd plan preserved 

 among the lolo MSS. at Llanover, " ^^"'>'" "°' 



Mon. 



It was the perfect plan that I had been searching 

 for. It was accompanied by another, less perfect. 

 .•\s usual, the verbal explanations contradict the 

 plans. In the perfect plan, which gives both the 

 solstitial and the May vears, the directions 30° or so 

 north and south of east are stated to be the solstices, 

 while no verbal explanation is given of the solstice 

 stones. In the other plan the distance between the 

 east stone and the winter solstice stone is stated to 

 be "30 degrees south." Delightful blunders both! 

 NO. 1957, VOL 76J 



■^"4 



^^ 



Plan of a Gors 



Jone. 



' I Alba—, 

 Jos. 5, 6, 



■idently prepared for thi 

 Merthyr Tydvil, Sculpsit.' The numb 

 A portion of the page is lorn, and we 

 Alba (also underneath) Alb — , 3 Alban 

 d 7 are notexplained. What Alban No, 



the draughts 



ed No. I to the north 



above tracing I ; 

 fact that for a stone thei 

 to mark the Alban Eilir and Elfed (th. 

 (summer solstice stones), but that name i 

 fronts the May stones, though on the marg: 

 stoius. but across the head of that alignmer 

 the autumnal equinox, while on the margin 

 names for the whole group of sunrise stones. 

 Arthan," the name of the winter solstice. B 

 gwyni. 



equii 



rs given in the plan are not properly 



have the fragmentary explanations : — 



-, 4 y mai{n)-Cadlas neu CylchC-.' 



I represents is difficult to make out. 



s, by way of directing attention to the 



h sign. No. I was probably intended 



les). No. 2 fronts the Alban Hevin 



;s the head of the May stones. No. 3 



Alba— . " No. 4 fronts the November 



n "Alban Elfed," the bardic name for 



explained by words which seem to be 



,es. The easternmost stone is described as " Alban 



Between the May and November alignments we 



neu'r Cylch Cyngrair," "the Holy Stones or the 



t, of the circle ; the other name is *' y Cyntedd," 



or gap formed on the east of the circle by the "sun 



, in which names and measurements are also misplaced, 



arks, which are perfectly correct : — 



termed IVhiic Stones or Stones of Testimony — the circle 



.Stones of Testimony," the n 

 "the Court." the name of the spai 

 stones." Accompanying another pi; 

 we have the following explanatory re 



" The stones forming the circle a 

 itself is sometimes called the white 1 



"The middle stone, or altar, is termed Maen Gorsedd^ i.e. Presidiat stone. 



"The stones pointing at the Equinoxes and Solstices are called ^V^-wcj (7/ Mf 5"««. The 

 Bards stand unshod and uncovered within the circle, the Presiding Bard, who must be of the 

 PHntitive Otdej; stands by t\\s prcsidiai stone. All the other Bards attend around, standing 

 near the 7vhite stones or periphery of the circle." 



'I his is the bard's English, in which language he used to hold his own in the presence of the 

 great Pitt, Dr. Johnson, and the notabilities of his time. My references to the sources of 

 these Gorsedd plans are " Llanover lolo MSS., vol. x., p. 267, and vol. xix., p 160." 

 t " white," is the meaning of s'^vyn as applied to the Gorsedd circle. — J. G. 



vented them. So far as I know, there is no mega- 

 lithic monument in Britain exactly like a proper 

 Welsh Gorsedd, that is, it is no copy of any exist- 

 ing monument. On the other hand, the similarity 

 between it and existing circles is most striking. 

 There is a circle of nineteen stones, with one stone 

 much laiger inside, at Boscawen-un, and nine- 

 teen is rather a common figure in such circles 

 in Cornwall. A circle of twelve stones roughly 

 divided the year into months, and one rf twenty-four 



