Happy St. Dwynwen Day (Welsh Valentine’s Day)
January 25th is Saint Dwynwen’s Day … the Welsh St Valentine. Typically, however, she ends up a nun. Brychan, a legendary 5th-century king of Brycheiniog had 24 daughters, of whom Dwynwen was reputedly the prettiest. She fell in love with a local prince called Maelon Dafodrill. Unfortunately her father, mindful of political advantage, had already arranged a marriage for her. Dwynwen was distraught. She hid in the forest and asked God to help her forget Maelon. She fell asleep and was visited by an angel in her dreams. The angel brought an elixir with the power to expunge her memories of her former lover and turn him into a block of ice. God granted Dwynwen three wishes. Firstly she asked that Maelon be thawed. Secondly she wished that God would vouchsafe the dreams and aspirations of true lovers for all Read more…
Betrayal in the Belfry of Bangor
“And there was effected the betrayal of Llywelyn in the belfry of Bangor by his own men.”—Brut y Tywysogyon, Peniarth manuscript 20. (Chronicle of the Princes) This comment is sandwiched between the description of the defeat of the English at the Menai Strait on November 6th, and the death of Llywelyn on December 11th. It is only found in the manuscript kept at the National Library of Wales, not the incomplete version at Oxford, which ends with the firing of Aberystwyth Castle on Palm Sunday (April, 1282). Here is the full record for the year 1282: “In this year Gruffydd ap Maredudd and Rhys Fychan ap Rhys ap Maelgwn took the castle and town of Aberystwyth. And Rhys gained possession of the cantref of Penweddig and Gruffydd the commot of Mefenydd. On Palm Sunday took place the breach between Llywelyn ap Gruffydd and Edward Read more…
Dafydd ap Gruffydd, Prince of Wales
Dafydd ap Gruffydd was the younger brother of Llywelyn ap Gruffydd, the Prince of Wales who ruled portions of Wales, to a greater or lesser degree, since the death of his uncle (also named Dafydd) in 1246. The younger Dafydd was born in 1238, at least a decade after Llywelyn. This Dafydd spent the majority of his life in England, to which his family was forced to come when his father was imprisoned at the Tower of London by King Henry. At the time, Llywelyn had refused to leave Wales with the rest of his family, and thus was on the spot, so to speak, when his uncle Dafydd died. The family itself, however, was not imprisoned, and Dafydd grew up as a close companion to Prince Edward himself, a fact which could explain much of his later behavior. At that Read more…
Gruffydd ap Cynan, King of Gwynedd
One of the greatest kings of Gwynedd was Owain Gwynedd, but his father Gruffydd ap Cynan can equally lay stake to such a claim. His rule was certainly eventful. Gruffydd ruled in Wales on and off since he was a young man, in between his flights to Ireland when the English—or other Welsh barons—ousted him from Gwynedd. Gruffydd’s grandfather had been the King of Gwynedd once upon a time, and Gruffydd had claimed the throne as its lawful heir. But staking his claim hadn’t been easy. That first time, Gruffydd landed on Anglesey with an Irish and Danish, not Welsh, force. After he defeated Trahaearn, the man who’d usurped his throne, Gruffydd led his army eastwards to reclaim territories the Normans had taken over during the unrest. Despite the prior assistance given to him by the Norman, Robert of Rhuddlan, Read more…
Welsh Lesson Two
Taken from Basic Welsh: A Grammar and Workbook by Gareth King Welsh Lesson Two: Nouns and noun plurals Nouns are sorted by whether the word denotes man or woman Tad – father mam – mother When the two vowels in a word are a/e: feminine When the two vowels in a word are o/y: masculine Masculine endings: Feminine endings: -ad -iad -aeth -as -der -did -dod -en -es -dra -fa -eb -edd -had -I -iant -ni -rwydd -wch -wr -ydd -yn Plural endings: -au -iau -on -ion -i -od -ed -edd -oedd -ydd -ys (English loanwords) Exceptions: Words that change internal vowels: Corff/cyrff pabell/pebyll Words that change internal vowels and endings: Braich/breichiau Total exceptions: Dail – leaves/foliage deilen – leaf Moch – pigs mochyn – pig Exercise 1: Plural or Singular Read more…
Welsh Lesson One
Taken from Basic Welsh: A Grammar and Workbook by Gareth King Welsh Lesson One: Identification Sentences hwn this hwnna that y rhain these y rheina those e/o he hi she hwn this person (m) hon this person (f) hwnna that person (m) honna that person (f) hwnnw that person who honno that person who is out of sight (m) is out of sight (f) Read more…
King Edward’s complicated relationship with the Welsh
Sparked by a post yesterday, in which a historian commented that King Edward had a Welsh guard and didn’t ‘hate’ all Welsh as some people seemed to think, I feel compelled to comment. First off, Edward was an English king who had the interests of the English crown and the English people first and foremost. He conquered all these countries from that position, with the idea that English law/church/language/culture (and that means Norman, really) was far superior to the barbaric north and west. That doesn’t mean he hated all Welshmen. A lot of what he did initially, in fact, was because he loved Dafydd, Llywelyn’s brother, in particular, and felt horribly betrayed by him when he started the rebellion in 1282. And really, fine that he had a guard of Welshmen, but really, what were their choices? Nobody can prove Read more…
The Battle of Cymerau
The fortunes of the Welsh ebbed and flowed in the 13th century, but between 1255 (the Battle of Bryn Derwin when Llywelyn defeated his brothers, Dafydd and Owain) and 1277, they were on the rise. One of the first important battles was that of Cymerau. In September of 1256, Stephen Bauzan, Prince Edward’s officer in south-west Wales, brought a substantial force of men to Ystrad Tywi, located in the northern portion of Deheubarth at the base of the Cambrian Mountains. Thus, on the eve of Llywelyn ap Gruffydd’s advance into Perfeddwlad, a force was arraigned against Maredudd ap Rhys Gryg, the Welsh lord of those lands. Llywelyn and Maredudd, eyeing each other with mutual concern about their own power and authority, struck an alliance, and perhaps this is the true impetus for Llywelyn’s foray east of the Conwy River. After Read more…
Owain Gwynedd’s birthday
When was Owain Gwynedd born? Here’s the truth: no idea. Okay, that’s not entirely true. Like Llywelyn ap Gruffydd, nobody seems to have recorded the date Owain Gwynedd was born, or even the year. This is fine as far as it goes, because we can make some general estimates. The problem arises when the birthdays for his many, many children haven’t been recorded either. Nor his siblings. Nor the dates of his marriages. My go-to-guide, John Davies History of Wales doesn’t discuss birthdays or ages, probably because he knows it’s fraught with difficulties, but many web sources try. For example, here’s one huge root of the problem, the Wikipedia entry, citing a book by John Edward Lloyd A history of Wales from the earliest times to the Edwardian conquest (Longmans, Green & Co.) written in 1911. This has Owain born c. 1100, Read more…
The Triumph of Medieval Propaganda
Geoffrey of Monmouth wrote his History of the Kings of Britain back in the 12th century as a triumph of medieval propaganda. It was at the behest of Robert of Gloucester, his patron, that he claims to have transcribed/copied/invented his history, placing King Arthur at the center of a national–and by that I mean English–origin myth. The idea was to justify the conquest of Britain by the Normans as a mirror to what King Arthur had done in the 5th century, including crossing the English Channel from Normandy to Britain. Children’s author Phillip Womack (author of The Other Book and The Liberators) said in the Times Online: “As inhabitants of these islands, we don’t have many myths that bring us together, but King Arthur is one. I think that we will always seek him as a saviour, whatever situation we’re Read more…
King Stephen
King Stephen’s reign was full of turmoil because of the conflict between him and King Henry’s daughter, Maud (Matilda). Both claimed the throne of England and tore the country apart trying to get it. Maud was supported by her half-brother, Robert of Gloucester, who couldn’t claim the throne because he was a bastard. Otherwise, he was the richest and most powerful man in England behind Stephen. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle has a very lengthy entry on the time of King Stephen, and (in fact) ends with his death in 1154. The Chronicle describes the brutality of events and reads, in part: “When King Stephen came to England, he held his council at Oxford; where he seized the Bishop Roger of Sarum, and Alexander, Bishop of Lincoln, and the chancellor Roger, his nephew; and threw all into prison till they gave up their castles. When the Read more…
Murder and Mayhem in the Early Middle Ages
It is common knowledge among anyone who’s spent time wandering the history of Wales that murder and mayhem among the ruling families for power was common. David Walker (Medieval Wales, 1990) writes: “Early entries in the Welsh Annales are brief in the extreme, but there are hints of ugly deeds. In 814, Griffri ap Cyngen was slain by the treachery of his brother; in 904, Merfyn ap Rhodri of Gwynedd was killed by his own men; in 969 Ieuaf ab Idwal of Gwynedd was seized by his brother Iago and imprisoned; in 974, Meurig ab Idwal was blinded” (p. 6). He further points to the book Courtier’s Trifles by Walter Map, who satirized the reign of Gruffydd ap Llywelyn (1039-63 AD), who ruled all of Wales from 1055 until his death. He writes: “I name Hywel, whom you caused to be Read more…
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