North America. The survival of Welsh, in spite of the Acts of 1535 and 1542, whose stated aim was to “utterly extirp” the language and its culture, is a remarkable tribute to the tenacity of the Welsh to retain their language and culture.

By 1961 some 656,000 people spoke the language in Wales. Within a year Cymdeithas yr Iaith Gymraeg had started a campaign of civil disobedience to win government recognition and status for the language in Wales. A royal commission on the language was set up and recommended that Welsh should have equal validity with English. A Welsh Language Act in 1968 fell marginally short of this recommendation. However, Welsh is now by far the best-supported Celtic language in terms of English government recognition and support.

Welsh literature dates from the sixth century, although surviving manuscripts are from a later period. Certainly by the eighth century it was a flourishing literary language. Apart from fragmentary remains, the oldest manuscript book wholly in Welsh is the Black Book of Carmarthen, from the twelfth century. The Book of Aneirin, ca. 1250, contains work that can be positively claimed to date to the sixth century. The Book of Taliesin, ca. a.d. 1275, contains 58 poems but not more than a dozen or so can be dated (textually or linguistically) to the sixth century at the time when Taliesin is said to have flourished. The White Book of Rhydderch, ca. 1325, and The Red Book of Hergest, ca. 1400, make up the early literary records. Obviously, much has been destroyed. Of the Laws of Hywel Dda, for example, we have only the “Computus Fragment” (now in Cambridge University Library), while the complete laws are found in earliest record in a manuscript of a.d. 1200.

Wren

[W] A bird of augury among the Britons.

Wridstan

A ninth century monk at the monastery of Landévennec in Brittany. His Life of Winwaloe, the sixth century abbot, known as Guénolé in Brittany and as Gunwalloe in Cornwall, gives details about the struggle between the British Celts and Anglo-Saxons, confirming the line taken by Gildas and Nennius.