heart, and no one any longer "had the desire of song." Content with
their old epics and their older myths, which owe perhaps to these years
a darker and more sombre tinge, they allowed their song to be hushed.
The great lords had hardly chosen their final abodes; the smaller lords
had all been killed in war and their places taken now by one, now by
another, so that the warrior prince himself had not the leisure, and
hardly the inspiration necessary, for song, and the bards found but
scanty patronage among such a diminished and poverty-stricken nobility.
The only order that seemed to prosper was that of the monks, and we owe
them our gratitude for preserving the ancient writings and the ancient
traditions; but they were simply copyists, though they had undoubtedly
some hand in giving the _Gododin_ its final form and in setting in its
convenient framework the names of the forefathers of their aristocratic
abbots.

In the year 1044 Gruffydd ab Llewelyn conquered Hywel ab Edwin and
became king of Wales. By means of his diplomacy and his arms he
succeeded in stemming the tide of Saxon invasion that was threatening to
overflow even the little remnant of land that was left to the Welsh, and
his strong rule gave the Welsh muse another opportunity. Gruffydd,
however, died in 1063, and was eventually succeeded in 1073 by Trahaern
in North Wales, and Rhys ab Owen in South Wales. The rule of these two
princes was destined to be the last period of literary inertness in the
long interval following the confinement of Wales to her inaccessible
highlands.

During these years a man was hiding in Ireland, called Gruffydd ab
Cynan, a scion of the old branch of Welsh kings. In Brittany, too, Rhys
ab Tewdwr, a claimant to the throne of South Wales, had sought the
protection of his Breton kinsmen. In 1073 Rhys ab Tewdwr obtained the
throne of Rhys ab Owen, and, after many years of hard fighting, Gruffydd
ab Cynan, with the help of Rhys ab Tewdwr, defeated Trahaern at the
battle of Myrydd Carn in 1081. On the accession of these two powerful
princes the whole country broke forth into songs of praise and
jubilation, and the long night was at an end.

It is important to remember that both Gruffydd and Rhys had a direct
personal influence on the literary revival of their times. Gruffydd ab
Cynan while in exile had seen how the Irish _Oenach_ was held, and had
seen prizes given for poetry and song. We have it on the authority of
Welsh writers th