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LLYM AWEL verse 7, Improvisations.

‘Ottid eiry ar gwarthaw reo;
Gosgupid guint blaen guit tev;
Kadir yscuid ar yscuit glev.’

Snow fall on top of ice;
Wind sweeps the top of thick trees;
Fine is the shield on the shoulder of the brave.

In the second line the trees are described as ‘tev’, thick. This is an unusual use of the adjective and because it is not idiomatic, seems a little clumsy. However, it is difficult to find a substitute that will bring all the meanings that ‘thick’ brings in this context. We could use ‘thicket’, but that is particularly associated with a tangle of smaller plants, rather than large, mature trees. ‘Thick’ means, or suggests here, heavy, large, mature, as well as closely spaced, packed together. With this one word the poet creates the picture of a grove of closely growing, large, heavily boughed trees.
The word ‘tev’ might have been selected because it has an echo of the word for ‘company’, ‘war band’ ‘teufi’ (tewfi). This meaning ties the image of the strong, dense group of sturdy trees to the following line describing the ‘brave’ with their shields. With this in mind an alternate word for ‘thick’ might be ‘serry’, ‘serried’. Now only usually seen in the military term ‘serried ranks’ meaning ‘tightly packed, locked together, crowded together’. But then, the imagery would now only suggest a military comparison, so I left ‘thick’ as it was.

Cold falls on cold.
Snow on ice.
What is slain lays low.
What covers is covered.
The weight of it,
The silence, the
Inescapability.
Accumulation of
Immobility, a
Clenched fate.
Wind roars through
A sweep of tangled
Tree tops,
A settled silence
Below.
An upper wind thickens
Without repeal.
Beautiful remorselessness
Trembles down on all,
Helpless to conceal.
This serry rings,
Holds close, side by
Side, each with their chant,
Their blood cry:
Strong oak next to
Strong oak, strained
Sinew and bone hard.
Whip fast the holly,
Smooth white its wood,
Curved and needle sharp
Its nails.
Upright is the ash,
Its shivered spear,
Black, resounding.
Stalwart the pine,
Far-sighted, bellowing
Like the sea.
All the trees swaying
Together, thick with
Hunger, a winter
War-band, a stern
Throng.
How bright the brave
With shields shouldered.
How bright the fallen
Freed in fire. An
Endless song, futile, fearless.
Numberless as flakes
Of snow, the cold fallen.
A road of burning ice,
This river, tree-bordered.
Tattered their flags,
Their leaves. Gathered up,
Swept away.
Snow on ice. When shall
This roaring cease?
This utter beauty,
This brittle glory.
Black root,
Grim rock.

—

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