Pascon agan Arluth

The anonymous poem Pascon agan Arluth is the oldest complete literary work in the Cornish language, dating from the 14th century.

[1][2] Pascon agan Arluth dates from the 14th century;[note 1] it pre-dates the Ordinalia, a cycle of three verse plays on Biblical themes, and is therefore the earliest complete literary work in Cornish to have survived.

The main source of the poem is the Gospels, but it also draws on later legendary material such as can be found in the Historia scholastica of Petrus Comestor and the Golden Legend of Jacobus de Voragine.

[7] Pascon agan Arluth was certainly known to the author of Passio Christi, one of the Middle Cornish mystery plays comprising the Ordinalia, as some of the poem's lines are incorporated in it.

[10] The Pascon was first edited by Davies Gilbert in 1826 under the title Mount Calvary; or the History of the Passion, Death, and Resurrection, of Our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ;[1] he included an English translation by John Keigwin dating back to 1682.