is known as the period of Y Cynfeirdd ("The Early Poets") or Yr Hengerdd ("The Old Poetry"). It roughly dates from the birth of the Welsh language until the arrival of the Normans in Wales towards the end of the 11th century. The oldest Welsh literature does not belong to the territory we know as Wales today, but rather to northern England and southern Scotland (collectively Yr Hen Ogledd), and so could be classified as being composed in Cumbric, a Brythonic dialect closely related to Old Welsh. Though it is dated to the 6th, 7th, and 8th centuries it has survived only in 13th- and 14th-century manuscript copies. Some of these early poets' names are known from the 9th-century Historia Brittonum, traditionally ascribed to the historian Nennius. The Historia lists the famous poets from the time of King Ida, AD 547–559: "At that time, Talhaiarn Tataguen was famed for poetry, and Neirin, and Taliesin, and Bluchbard, and Cian, who is called Guenith Guaut, were all famous at the same time in British (that is, Brythonic or Welsh) poetry." Of the poets named here it is believed that works that can be identified as Aneirin's and Taliesin's have survived. Taliesin The poetry of Taliesin has been preserved in a 14th-century manuscript known as Llyfr Taliesin (Book of Taliesin). This manuscript contains a large body of later mystical poetry attributed to the poet, but scholars have recognised twelve poems that belong to the 6th century. They are all poems of praise: one for Cynan Garwyn, king of Powys about 580; two for Gwallawg, king of Elmet, a kingdom based around the modern Leeds; and nine other poems associated with Urien Rheged, a ruler of the kingdom of Rheged, located around the Solway Firth, and his son, Owain. Taliesin's verses in praise of Urien and Owain became models for later poets, who turned to him for inspiration as they praised their own patrons in terms that he had used for his. Aneirin Aneirin, a near-contemporary of Taliesin, wrote a series of poems to create one long poem called Y Gododdin. It records the Battle of Catraeth, fought between the Britons of the kingdom of Gododdin (centred on Eidyn, the modern Edinburgh) and the Saxon kingdoms of Deira and Bernicia in the north east of England. This battle was fought at Catterick in about the year 598. It has survived in Llyfr Aneirin (The