ravagant, monotonous, often prosaic, but fused into
poetry by the intense fire of patriotism which glowed within them. Every
fight, every hero had its verse. The names of older singers, of Taliesin,
Aneurin, and Llywarch Hen, were revived in bold forgeries to animate the
national resistance and to prophesy victory. It was in North Wales that the
spirit of patriotism received its strongest inspiration from this burst of
song. Again and again Henry the Second was driven to retreat from the
impregnable fastnesses where the "Lords of Snowdon," the princes of the
house of Gruffydd ap Conan, claimed supremacy over the whole of Wales. Once
in the pass of Consilt a cry arose that the king was slain, Henry of Essex
flung down the royal standard, and the king's desperate efforts could
hardly save his army from utter rout. The bitter satire of the Welsh
singers bade him knight his horse, since its speed had alone saved him from
capture. In a later campaign the invaders were met by storms of rain, and
forced to abandon their baggage in a headlong flight to Chester. The
greatest of the Welsh odes, that known to English readers in Gray's
translation as "The Triumph of Owen," is Gwalchmai's song of victory over
the repulse of an English fleet from Abermenai.

[Sidenote: Llewelyn ap Jorwerth]

The long reign of Llewelyn the son of Jorwerth seemed destined to realize
the hopes of his countrymen. The homage which he succeeded in extorting
from the whole of the Welsh chieftains during a reign which lasted from
1194 to 1246 placed him openly at the head of his race, and gave a new
character to its struggle with the English king. In consolidating his
authority within his own domains, and in the assertion of his lordship over
the princes of the south, Llewelyn ap Jorwerth aimed steadily at securing
the means of striking off the yoke of the Saxon. It was in vain that John
strove to buy his friendship by the hand of his natural daughter Johanna.
Fresh raids on the Marches forced the king to enter Wales in 1211; but
though his army reached Snowdon it fell back like its predecessors, starved
and broken before an enemy it could never reach. A second attack in the
same year had better success. The chieftains of South Wales were drawn from
their new allegiance to join the English forces, and Llewelyn, prisoned in
his fastnesses, was at last driven to submit. But the ink of the treaty was
hardly dry before Wales was again on fire; a common fear of