The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #173194   Message #4200049
Posted By: Robert B. Waltz
29-Mar-24 - 09:55 PM
Thread Name: Naming in threes
Subject: RE: Naming in threes
Sian wrote, There is a whole category of song/verse in Wales called "tribannau" - triplets - which are wise, or funny, or both. e.g.

And a very old tradition this is, since the "Welsh Triads" date from the early Middle Ages or earlier. (One collection of them, for instance, is in the White Book of Rhydderch, the main source of the Mabinogion. The best publication is probably Rachel Bromwich, Trioedd Ynys Prydein: The Triads of the Islands of Britain, fourth edition, University of Wales Press, 2014. This gives both medieval Welsh texts and English translations. The first one, for instance, is a triad listing the three thrones of Arthur. Many others are lists of people who meet some criterion or other, but some are more like what Sian describes.