The Mabinogion ) are the earliest Welsh prose stories, and belong to the Matter of Britain. The stories were compiled in Middle Welsh in the 12th–13th centuries from earlier oral traditions. There are two main source manuscripts, created c. 1350–1410, as well as a few earlier fragments. The title covers a collection of eleven prose stories of widely different types, offering drama, philosophy, romance, tragedy, fantasy and humour, and created by various narrators over time. There is a classic hero quest, "Culhwch and Olwen"; a historic legend in "Lludd and Llefelys", complete with glimpses of a far off age; and other tales portray a very different King Arthur from the later popular versions. The highly sophisticated complexity of the Four Branches of the Mabinogi defies categorisation. The stories are so diverse that it has been argued that they are not even a true collection.
In Welsh culture, an eisteddfod is an institution and festival with several ranked competitions, including in poetry and music. The term eisteddfod, which is formed from the Welsh morphemes: eistedd, meaning 'sit', and fod, meaning 'be', means, according to Hywel Teifi Edwards, "sitting-together." Edwards further defines the earliest form of the eisteddfod as a competitive meeting between bards and minstrels, in which the winner was chosen by a noble or royal patron.
A gorsedd is a community or meeting of modern-day bards. The word is of Welsh origin, meaning "throne". It is spelled gorsedh in Cornish and goursez in Breton.
Edward Williams, better known by his bardic name Iolo Morganwg, was a Welsh antiquarian, poet and collector. He was seen as an expert collector of Medieval Welsh literature, but it emerged after his death that he had forged several manuscripts, notably some of the Third Series of Welsh Triads. Even so, he had a lasting impact on Welsh culture, notably in founding the secret society known as the Gorsedd, through which Iolo Morganwg successfully co-opted the 18th-century Eisteddfod revival. The philosophy he spread in his forgeries has had an enormous impact upon neo-Druidism. His bardic name is Welsh for "Iolo of Glamorgan".
Awen is a Welsh, Cornish and Breton word for "inspiration".
Gorsedd Stones are groups of standing stones constructed for the National Eisteddfod of Wales. They form an integral part of the druidic Gorsedd ceremonies of the Eisteddfod. The stones can be found as commemorative structures throughout Wales and are the hallmark of the National Eisteddfod having visited a community.
Christopher David Williams was a Welsh artist.
Gwendoline Elizabeth Davies, CH, was a Welsh philanthropist and patron of the arts who, together with her sister Margaret, is recognised as the most influential collector of Impressionist and 20th-century art in Wales. She and her sister were independently wealthy, their fortune inherited from the businesses created by their grandfather, the industrialist David Davies. Davies and her sister created one of the most important private collections of art in Britain and donated their total of 260 works to what is now the National Museum Wales in the mid-20th century.
Ysbyty Ystwyth is a small village and community in Ceredigion, Wales, 11 mi (18 km) southeast of Aberystwyth. Its church and the parish of the same name were the property of the Order of the Knights of the Hospital of St John of Jerusalem, hence the 'Ysbyty' in the title, which never was a hospice for travellers to Strata Florida. The community includes the hamlet of Pont-rhyd-y-groes. The area is situated in the Desert of Wales and is wild country. The peak of Llan Ddu Fawr is located in the area and the lakes Llyn Fyrddon Fawr and Fach.
David Griffith, known by the bardic name of Clwydfardd, was a Welsh poet and Archdruid of the National Eisteddfod of Wales.
Shani Rhys James MBE is a Welsh painter based in Llangadfan, Powys. She has been described as "arguably one of the most exciting and successful painters of her generation" and "one of Wales’ most significant living artists". She was elected to the Royal Cambrian Academy of Art in 1994. In the 2006 New Years Honours she was appointed Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) for "services to art".
Taliesin Williams was a Welsh poet and author, and son of the notable Iolo Morganwg.
Barddas is a book of material compiled and written by the Welsh writer Iolo Morganwg. Dressed as an authentic compilation of ancient Welsh bardic and druidic theology and lore, its contents are largely Iolo's invention. It was posthumously published by John Williams for the Welsh Manuscripts Society in two volumes, in 1862 and 1874.
The Coelbren y Beirdd is a script created in the late eighteenth century by the literary forger Edward Williams, best known as Iolo Morganwg.
Alice Gray Jones, OBE was a Welsh writer and editor, known by the pseudonym Ceridwen Peris. She was an active temperance campaigner, and a co-founder of the North Wales Women's Temperance Union.
Christine Kinsey is a Welsh painter, now based in Pembrokeshire. She was the Co-Founder and Artistic Director of Chapter Workshops and Centre of the Arts, Cardiff, now called the Chapter Arts Centre.
Gellionnen Chapel is a Unitarian place of worship near Pontardawe, South Wales, United Kingdom. The chapel was first built in 1692 by Protestant dissenters, becoming Unitarian in the late 18th century. It is a member of the General Assembly of Unitarian and Free Christian Churches, the umbrella body for British Unitarians. Gellionnen Chapel is the oldest Dissenting chapel in the Swansea Valley, is one of the oldest surviving chapels in the region and is a Grade II* listed building.
Geraint Huw Jenkins, FBA, FLSW is a historian of Wales and a retired academic. He was Professor of Welsh History at the Aberystwyth University from 1990 to 1993, when he became Director of the University of Wales Centre for Advanced Welsh and Celtic Studies. In 2009, he retired from academia and was appointed Professor Emeritus of Welsh History at the University of Wales.
Claudia Jane Herington Williams is a British artist known for her paintings, often large colourful portraits. Although born in England, Williams has spent the majority of her career painting in Wales.
"Y Llafurwr", known in English as "The Ploughman" or "The Labourer", is a poem in the form of a cywydd by the 14th-century Welsh poet Iolo Goch. Often compared with William Langland's Middle English Piers Plowman, it presents a sympathetic portrayal of the meek and godly ploughman; no other Welsh bardic poem takes an ordinary working man as its subject. It has been called the most notable of Iolo's poems, comparable with the finest works of Dafydd ap Gwilym, and its popularity in the Middle Ages can be judged from the fact that it survives in seventy-five manuscripts. It is included in The Oxford Book of Welsh Verse.
