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Myfanwy Fychan was a Welsh noblewoman, born in the mid-14th century, who was involved in a famous romance with a bard.
Her story has inspired poem and song.
Only one poem by the poet Hywel ab Einion Llygliw has survived, but among the most famous work is an ode to Myfanwy Fychan "of Castell Dinas Brân":
Lliw eiry cynnar pen Aran,
Lloer bryd, lwys fryd o lys Frân. [1]
[the] colour of the early snow on the top of Aran,
with the countenance of the moon, from the court of Brân
Castell Dinas Brân was in ruins by the time the poem was written, but it seems that Myfanwy ferch Iorwerth Ddu was the girl that Hywel was writing about. Myfanwy married Goronwy Fychan ap Tudur, and she is the subject of many poems written by her husband as well as poets. The fact that Hywel ab Einion's poem is titled "Ode to Myfanwy Fychan of Castell Dinas Brân" suggests that title was written later than the poem itself, and that the poem was written before Myfanwy married. It is however also possible that the music belongs to the amour courtois tradition of singing to married women.
The alabaster tombstone of Goronwy Fychan, who died in 1382, along with a statue of him and his wife, can be found in the parish church of Penmynydd.
The text of the poem by Hywel ab Einion Llygliw was printed in TheMyvyrian Archaiology of Wales which brought it to national prominence. A translation by Thomas Pennant ensured that it was well-known to historians and antiquarians in Wales and beyond.
The poem was the inspiration for the popular poem Myfanwy Fychan by John Ceiriog Hughes. It was composed for the Llangollen Eisteddfod in 1858 and was published for the first time two years later in the book Oriau'r Hwyr (The Late Hours). It is a typical Victorian poem, which describes a very lyrical and lovelorn Hywel ab Einion and Myfanwy Fychan. In the poem, the qualities and features of the fair maiden are extolled in a deliberate response to the damning report on the Welsh morality contained within the contemporary Reports of the Commissioners of Inquiry into the State of Education in Wales, commonly in Wales the Treason of the Blue Books.
The words were put to music by Joseph Parry and published under the title Myfanwy , which went on to become one of the most popular Welsh songs ever.
John Ceiriog Hughes was a Welsh poet and collector of Welsh folk tunes, sometimes termed a Robert Burns of Wales. He was born at Penybryn Farm, overlooking the village of Llanarmon Dyffryn Ceiriog in the Ceiriog Valley of north-east Wales, then in Denbighshire, now part of Wrexham County Borough. One of eight children, he was a favourite of his mother, Phoebe, a midwife and herbal-medicine expert.
Gwerful Mechain, is the only female medieval Welsh poet from whom a substantial body of work is known to have survived. She is known for her erotic poetry, in which she praised the vulva among other things.
Castell Dinas Brân is a medieval castle, built by the Princes of Powys Fadog, which occupies a prominent hilltop site above the town of Llangollen in Denbighshire, Wales. The presently visible stone castle was probably built in the 1260s by Gruffydd Maelor II, a prince of Powys Fadog, on the site of several earlier structures, including an Iron Age hillfort.
Sir John Wynn, 1st Baronet, was a Welsh baronet, Member of Parliament and antiquary.
Ednyfed Fychan, full name Ednyfed Fychan ap Cynwrig, was a Welsh warrior who became Seneschal to the Kingdom of Gwynedd in Northern Wales, serving Llywelyn the Great and his son Dafydd ap Llywelyn. Ednyfed claimed descent from Marchudd ap Cynan, Lord of Rhos, 'protector' of Rhodri Mawr, King of Gwynedd. He was the patrilineal ancestor of Owen Tudor and thereby of the Tudor dynasty.
Powys Fadog was the northern portion of the former princely realm of Powys.
Myfanwy is a popular Welsh song, composed by Joseph Parry and first published in 1875.
Gruffudd Llwyd was a Welsh language poet.
Einion Offeiriad was a Welsh language poet and grammarian.
Dafydd Ddu o Hiraddug, also known as Dafydd Ddu Athro o Hiraddug, was a Welsh language poet, grammarian, and Roman Catholic priest in the diocese of Llanelwy. He was once believed to be the son of a certain Hywel ap Madog of Tremeirchion, but this has now been disproven.
Gruffudd or Gruffydd is a Welsh name, originating in Old Welsh as a given name and today used as both a given and a surname. It is the origin of the Anglicised name Griffith[s], and was historically sometimes treated as interchangeable with the etymologically unrelated Germanic name Galfrid. The Welsh form evolved from the Common Brittonic Grippiud or Gripuid. The meaning of the name is “strong lord.”
Anwyl of Tywyn are a Welsh family who claim a patrilinear descent from Owain Gwynedd, King of Gwynedd from 1137 to 1170 and a scion of the royal House of Aberffraw. The family motto is: Eryr eryrod Eryri, which translates as "The Eagle of the Eagles of Snowdonia. The family lives in Gwynedd and speak Welsh.
Goronwy ap Tudur Hen, also known as Goronwy ap Tudur or Goronwy Fychan, was a Welsh aristocrat and Lord of Penmynydd. He was a member of the Tudor family of Penmynydd, Anglesey, North Wales, and a direct ancestor of Owen Tudor and thereby the Royal House of Tudor. He was a soldier for the English crown, who fought in the First War of Scottish Independence, including in the English invasion which led to the Battle of Bannockburn. He remained loyal to King Edward II of England until the king's death, and was both a yeoman and forester of Snowdon. After his death in 1331, his body was interred in Llanfaes Friary, near Bangor, Gwynedd.
Alis ferch Gruffudd ab Ieuan ap Llywelyn Fychan or Alis Wen was a 16th-century poet who wrote in Welsh. She wrote several englynion on matters of her personal and family life, and a cywydd aimed at reconciling two men.
Ieuan ap Gruffudd Leiaf was a Welsh uchelwr and bard, the son of poet Gruffudd Leiaf. His poetry, spanning the period c.1420 to c. 1470, has been fully edited. The earliest dateable poem that can be confidently assigned to him are a cywydd in praise of Gwilym ap Gruffudd ap Gwilym ap Gruffudd ap Heilin and his newly built home, Y Penrhyn, Llandygái. The context of this poem seems to be the tradition of the'cyff clêr', with Ieuan, a 'prifardd', answering the taunts of lesser bards. Rhys Goch Eryri was present at the celebration and composed a perhaps more well-known praise poem to Y Penrhyn and its owner. Shortly after this, Ieuan composed a cywydd satiring the River Llugwy, into which the poet fell on his way to Y Penrhyn one Christmas. A cywydd to Saint Anna, mother of the Virgin Mary and two other daughters also named Mary, attributed to Ieuan in the only manuscript in which it survives, could also be from the same period or earlier.
Gruffudd ap Maredudd ap Dafydd was a Welsh bard working in Anglesey in the service of the Tudors of Penmynydd. One of the last of the older school of poets known as the Gogynfeirdd, he resisted the innovations in Welsh verse-form which took place in his lifetime. About 2400 lines of his work have survived in the Red Book of Hergest. His best-known poem is "Gwenhwyfar", an elegy to a young lady. He was described by the literary historian D. Myrddin Lloyd as "the finest of all the late Gogynfeirdd poets" and by Saunders Lewis as "one of the greats".
Rhiannon Ifans, FLSW is a Welsh academic specialising in English, Medieval and Welsh literature. She was an Anthony Dyson Fellow at the Centre for Advanced Welsh and Celtic Studies, in University of Wales Trinity St. David. She twice won a Tir na-n-Og prize for her work and won the literary medal competition at the Welsh Eisteddfod, for her 2019 debut novel, Ingrid, which was chosen for the Welsh Literature Exchange Bookshelf. In 2020, Ifans was elected as a Fellow of the Learned Society of Wales.
The Oxford Book of Welsh Verse (1962), edited by Thomas Parry, is an anthology of Welsh-language poetry stretching from Aneirin in the 6th century to Bobi Jones in the 20th. No translations of the poems are provided, but the introduction and notes are in English. It was the first anthology to give the reader a thorough idea of Welsh poetry in its entirety through 1400 years, containing as it does 370 poems, of which 59 cannot be securely attributed while the rest are the work of 146 named poets. It went through eight editions in its first 21 years, and was supplemented in 1977 by the publication of Gwyn Jones's Oxford Book of Welsh Verse in English.
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