Introduction

Abstract

Incarceration is designed to reduce the prisoner to silence (Babington, 1968). Some (e.g. Glynn, 1921; Rives, 1922) may assume that this is a recent insight — ‘At the first drum-roll, the prisoners must rise and dress in silence’ — according to Foucault (1977), Faucher’s (1838) rules governing the behaviour of those incarcerated in ‘the House of young prisoners in Paris’ represent a wholly modern form of imprisonment, a feature of which is the disciplinary function of silence. However, those believers are sorely mistaken as the Welsh of the Early Historical Period were quite familiar with the disciplinary capacity of prison. Branwen, the eponymous heroine of the Second Branch of the Mabinogi, Branwen ferch Lŷr (Branwen, Daughter of Lŷr), was imprisoned by the Irish for several years in order that she might not be able to communicate their cruel treatment of her to her powerful family in Wales (Davies, S., 2007). While she was eventually rescued, the tale does not end happily for Branwen. Her tragic end, along with the almost total devastation of both Ireland and Wales and the near extinction of the Irish and the Welsh peoples as a result of her death-pocked wedding to Matholwch, king of Ireland, caused Lady Charlotte Guest (1838–45 and 1877) to place Branwen centre-stage in her nineteenth century translation of this ancient Welsh language text. Guest invented the title by which the tale is now familiarly known — Branwen ferch Lŷr (Davies, S., 2006: 239).

No, no, no, no! Come, let’s away to prison; We two alone will sing like birds i’ the cage (King Lear. Act V. Scene III. 8–9).

Protest is centrally about moral voice (Jasper, 1997: 379).