SPDG 4

Summer is praised above all for its fruitfulness in this poem, and in contrast to 'Yr Haf' (poem 34) there is no mention at all of love. The season is personified as a paternal lord, and in answer to the poet's questioning summer says that it goes to Annwfn at the end of its three months in the world each year. Annwfn, the Otherworld which figures in the Four Branches of the Mabinogi, is envisaged here as being beneath the earth (cf the reference to the fox's lair in 60.42). The mythological background to the poem and some textual problems are discussed by Eurys I. Rowlands, 'Cyfeiriadau Dafydd ap Gwilym at Annwn', LlC 5 (1959), 125–35.

30.   St Peter was traditionally believed to be the gatekeeper of heaven. He is referred to again in the context of the passage of time in 'Yr Adfail', 151.38. The suggestion in the poet's question is therefore that summer goes to heaven, but the season itself gives a pagan interpretation in line 40 of its answer.