Encyclopaedia

CYNFEIRDD, Y (The early poets)

A modern term used for the poets who sang in Welsh between the 6th and the 11th centuries; the late medieval term for their poetry was Yr Hengerdd (the old poem). Five of the earliest known Cynfeirdd, Talhaearn, Aneirin, Taliesin, Blwchfardd and Cian, are listed in Historia Brittonum and placed in the second half of the 6th century. Poetry is ascribed to only two of these, Aneirin and Taliesin, in manuscripts of a much later date. The work of the others has been lost along with that of Afan Ferddig, Arofan, Dygynnelw and Meigan. A large body of anonymous poetry has been preserved, however, such as the elegy to Cynddylan and the eulogy of Cadwallon ap Cadfan from the 7th century, the 9th-century ‘Edmyg Dinbych’ (‘Praise of Tenby’), the 10th-century ‘Armes Prydain’ (‘The Prophecy of Britain’) and many other narrative, religious and vaticinatory poems which cannot be dated with certainty.