strenuously laying claim to this honour, while on the other it appears to be satisfactorily proved that the poet first saw the light (about the year 1340), at a place called Bro Gynin, in the parish of Llanbadarn Vawr, in the county of Cardigan. It is recorded in an old poem which has been handed down to us that Taliesin, the most celebrated of the ancient Welsh bards, foretold the honour that awaited this spot, in being the birth-place of a minstrel whose song would be ‘as the sweetness of wine[1].’
Davyth ap Gwilym was of noble origin. On the paternal side he was allied to some of the most illustrious families of North Wales; his father, Gwilym Gam, being a descendant of Llywarch ab Bran, head of one of ‘the fifteen tribes’ who composed the aristocracy[2] of that division of Wales,
- ↑ ‘Brydydd a’ i gywydd fal gwin.’
- ↑ “These llwythau or tribes were the nobility of North Wales. They commenced extremely early, and at different times were lords of distinct districts, and called to that honour by several princes. The latest were about the time of Davydd ap Owen Gwynedd, who began his reign in 1169. We are left ignorant of the form by which they were called to this rank. All we know is, that each of them enjoyed some office in the court of our princes, which seems to have been hereditary, and probably attendant on the honour.”—Pennant’s Tour in North Wales.
was a native of Anglesea is, that there was a house called Bro Gynin in that island; but it is plain that Bro Gynin, in South Wales, must be the place of his birth, for, in many passages of his works, he calls himself a native of Bro Gadell, or the ‘Country of Cadell.’ Now this term is a poetical appellation for South Wales; Rodri, king of Wales, having, in 877, divided the principality amongst his sons, when South Wales fell to the share of his son Cadell.
