Huw Cae Llwyd (c.1431 - c.1504) was a Welsh language poet from Llandderfel in the Dee valley of Merioneth as he witnessed in his Cywydd y Wennol (Poem to the Swallow).
Llandderfel is a village and community in Gwynedd, Wales, near Bala, formerly served by the Llandderfel railway station. The community also includes the settlements of Rhiwlas, Llanfor, Cefnddwysarn and Frongoch. The Community population taken at the 2011 census was 1,095.
Early in his life he travelled to south east Wales, where he sang the bardic praises of the Uchelwyr or leading families, the Gams, Havards, Vaughans and Herberts, enjoying their wealthy patronage in houses such as Llinwent, Pontwilym, Berthir, Tretower, Mitchel Troy. Many of his Yorkist patrons succumbed to the domestic strife of the times, not least after the Battle of Banbury (1469). Later Huw praised Sir Rhys ap Thomas, Henry VII's agent on his victorious march to Bosworth.
Vaughan and Vaughn are surnames, originally Welsh, though also used as a form of the Irish surname McMahon. Vaughan derives from the Welsh word bychan, meaning "small", and so corresponds to the English name Little and the Breton cognate Bihan. The word mutates to fychanFychan literally means "small", but also "junior" or "younger".
Tretower is a hamlet in the community of Llanfihangel Cwmdu with Bwlch and Cathedine in the southern part of the county of Powys in Wales. It lies on the A479 road within the Brecon Beacons National Park at the foot of the Black Mountains just off the Usk Valley. Tretower is frequented by tourists visiting the impressive Tretower Court and the nearby ruins of Tretower Castle, both of which are now managed by Cadw. Cadw own the Court whilst ownership of the Castle lies with the owner of Tyllys Farm in the centre of the village.
Mitchel Troy is a village and community in Monmouthshire, south east Wales, in the United Kingdom. It is located 3 miles south west of the county town of Monmouth, just off the A40 road leading towards Raglan.
Unlike his contemporaries in north - east Wales Huw Cae Llwyd rarely appealed to monastic patrons. An exception is Cywydd XXI, asking for a mount from the abbess of the Cistercian convent at Llanll^yr (Ceredigion) for Sir William Herbert of Raglan.
Heavenly patrons however abound: the Saints of Breconshire (Cywydd XLV), those of Rome (XXIX) where he journeyed with his son (in 1475), Jesus and the Saints (XLV). Cywydd XLIV invokes Christ's Passion.
Huw describes Brecon, its surroundings and the Rood Screen and Cross in the Priory Church (today Brecon Cathedral).
Brecon Cathedral, in the town of Brecon, Powys, is the cathedral of the Diocese of Swansea and Brecon in the Church in Wales and seat of the Bishop of Swansea and Brecon. Previously the church of Brecon Priory and then the Parish Church of St John the Evangelist, it became Brecon Cathedral following the disestablishment of the Church in Wales in 1920 and the creation of the diocese in 1923.
Another poem describes a bardic contest at Tretower.
Llanuwchllyn is a village and community in Gwynedd, Wales, near the southern end of Bala Lake. Its population according to the United Kingdom Census 2001 was 834, of whom about 81% were Welsh-speaking. The figures for the 2011 census were: population 617; Welsh speakers 82%.
Llawdden was Welsh language poet and a priest.
Siôn Ceri was a Welsh language poet. His bardic teacher was Tudur Aled and among his surviving work are poems to his patrons from north Powys.
Sources
Leslie Harries, Gwaith Huw Cae Llwyd ac Eraill, University of Wales Press, Cardiff, 1953
Y Bywgraffiadur hyd 1940, Cymmrodorion 1953, p. 377
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