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.
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.
Welsh-language literature has been produced continuously since the emergence of Welsh from Brythonic as a distinct language in around the 5th century AD. The earliest Welsh literature was poetry, which was extremely intricate in form from its earliest known examples, a tradition sustained today. Poetry was followed by the first British prose literature in the 11th century. Welsh-language literature has repeatedly played a major part in the self-assertion of Wales and its people. It continues to be held in the highest regard, as evidenced by the size and enthusiasm of the audiences attending the annual National Eisteddfod of Wales, probably the largest amateur arts festival in Europe, which crowns the literary prize winners in a dignified ceremony.
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 hamlets Logau-Las and 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.
The Myvyrian Archaiology of Wales is a printed collection of medieval Welsh literature, published in three volumes by the Gwyneddigion Society between 1801 and 1807. Until John Gwenogvryn Evans produced diplomatic editions of the important medieval Welsh manuscripts, the Myvyrian Archaiology provided the source text for many translators of medieval Welsh material. It was founded, and funded, by Owen Jones, who engaged William Owen Pughe as editor, and Edward Williams, better known as Iolo Morganwg, to search Wales for manuscripts.
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.
The Coelbren y Beirdd is a script created in the late eighteenth century by the Welsh antiquarian and literary forger Edward Williams, best known as Iolo Morganwg.
Art in Cardiff refers to the culture of visual arts in Cardiff, capital city of Wales. The visual arts in Cardiff have a much more recent history than many British cities, due to it being a very small town until rapid growth took place in the mid nineteenth century. Cardiff School of Art originated in 1865 and the first major public art exhibition took place in 1870. The town became a city in 1905, after which time it gained further importance, for example with the creation of a new National Museum. Into the 21st century it has a thriving art scene.
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 artist, author and curator, now based in Pembrokeshire. She was the Co-Founder and Artistic Director of Chapter Workshops and Centre for the Arts, Cardiff, now called Chapter Arts Centre.
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 was a British artist known for her paintings, often large colourful portraits. Although born in England, Williams 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.
