of considerable beauty and full of
vigour in praise of Owain Gwynedd, king of North Wales, on account of
his victory of Tal y Moelvre, part of which has been translated by Gray
under the name of "The Triumphs of Owen." Kynddelw, who lived in the
second half of the 12th century, was a contemporary of Gwalchmai, and
wrote on a great number of subjects including religious ones; indeed
some of his eulogies have a kind of religious prelude. He had a command
of words and much skill in versification, but he is pleonastic and fond
of complicated metres and of ending his lines with the same syllable.

Among the other poets of the second half of the 12th century may be
mentioned Owain Kyveiliog and Howel ab Owain Gwynedd. The first named
was prince of Powys, and was distinguished also as a soldier. The
_Hirlas_, or drinking-horn, is a long poem where the prince represents
himself as carousing in his hall after a fight; bidding his cup-bearer
fill his great drinking-horn, he orders him to present it in turn to
each of the assembled warriors. As the horn passes from hand to hand he
eulogizes each in a verse beginning _Diwallaw di venestr_, "Fill,
cup-bearer." Having thus praised the deeds of two warriors, Tudyr and
Moreiddig, he turns round to challenge them, but suddenly recollecting
that they had fallen in the fray, and listening, as it were, to their
dying groans, he bursts into a broken lamentation for their loss. The
second was also a prince; he was the eldest of the many sons of Owain
Gwynedd, and ruled for two years after his father until he fell in a
battle between himself and his step-brother Dafydd. He was a young man
of conspicuous merit, and one of the most charming poets of Wales, his
poems being especially free from the conceits, trivial commonplaces, and
complicated metres of the professional bards, while full of a gay
humour, a love of nature and a delicate appreciation of women. The Welsh
poets went on circuit like their Irish brethren, staying in each place
according as hospitality was extended to them. When departing, a bard
was expected to leave a sample of his versification behind him. In this
way many manuscripts came to be written, as we find them in different
hands. Llywarch ab Llywelyn has left us one of those departing eulogies
addressed to Rhys Gryg, prince of South Wales, which affords a
favourable specimen of his style.

13th century poets.

The following are a few of the poets of the 13th centur