In following the different ways in which the history of Wales has been treated, almost every important specimen of the prose literature of the second period has been already mentioned, With the exception of a remarkable piece of biography, the life of Gruffydd ab Cynan, the Welsh prince who revived Welsh poetry after the Norman Conquest. Cruffydd was Irish by birth, and by descent partly Scandinavian, having been born to his father during his elite in Ireland, where Cynan married the daughter of Anlaf or Olaf, the Dano-Irish king of Dublin. Gruilydd recovered the dominions of his ancestors in North \Vales, in 1079, and, after various -vicissitudes, in the course of which lie was held for tiveMe years in captivity by the Norman Earl of Chester, (lied lu possession of his princedom in 1137. In 1100 he held, at Caervrys, 3n North a famous Eisteddrod, or meeting of the bards, Which forms an epoch in the histbry of Welsh literature. It was attended by numerous Irish bards and musicians, whom Oruffydd had invited; and he Introduced, by the inthience of these the use of bag-pipes into Wales, where, however, after languishing for some centuries, they finally gave way before their constant competitor, the hational harp. The Influence of his Scandinavian mother, and the Scandinavian court he Lad seen at Thiblin, may be traced in the love of War amid the love of alliteration which became more eon spleuoua than ever in Welsh poetry after the Elsteddvotl of Gruffydd ab Cyhan.
From the time Of Gniffydd commences, ih the opinion of many Welsh critics, the "golden age " of their poetry, which lasts for about a hundred and fifty years, nearly to the extinction of the inde pendence of Wales by the conquest of Edward I. After the 6th century there had been a long interim] of all but silence to the 12th. The Myvyrian Archaiology ' contains the poems of fifty-nine bards, from the time of 3leilyr, who flourished between 1120 and 1160, to Tudor Dclalt, between 1340 and 1380; but It must be remarked that the dates of mahy of these are very unsettled, and that 111r. Stephens of Merthyr-Tydvii, in his work on the ' Literature of the Cymry,' especially devoted to this era, has rectified many oversights on this point committed by Gwen Pughe and others. The first hard on the list is Mcilyr, whose early reems are very inferior to his later ones, and whose tinctit, is undoubtedly that entitled The Death-Bed of the Bard.' Ilia Son, ab Mellyr (1150-90), who was a much superior poet to his father, is reported to have accompanied Richard (Atilt de Lion to the Crusades. Fourteen compositions by him are still extant, one of which, lu praise of Owen Gwynedd, on the occasion of the battle of Tai-y-Voel, in 1168 is the original of the Imitation by Gray :— d °wen's praise demands my tong." The as the Welsh term poetical genius, seems to have been hereditary in this family, fur Einion, the sou of Owalehmai (1170-1220), was also a bard, but rather to be Compared, to his grandfather than his father. Forty pieces by Cynddelw (1150.1200), a contemporary of
Gwalchmai, are printed in the Myvyrlan ArchaiologY,' of which the most interesting is his poem The Death-Bed of Cynildelw.' Some of his verses are addressed to the famous Madog, or !dodo°, prince of Powys, one of the SODS of Otvain Gwynedd, and maintained by many Welsh writers to have been a discoverer of America before Columbus. Some Verses of another bard, Llywarth ab Llewellyn are an invocation composed by him when subjected to the fiery ordeal to ascertain if lie possessed any knowledge of the fate of Madoc, whose absence seems, before It Was known that he had gone on a voyage, to have been attributed to inurdet. One of the bards of that period was Madoe's brother, Hywel (1140.] 169 or 1172), whose petals are chiefly love-odes, but who fell in a fierce struggle to obtain his father's throne. Another princely bard, and the most gifted of all the compe titors of Owaichnial, was Owain Cyveilioe (1150-97), whose poem of the Ilirlas,' or the Long Blue Horn,' has been much admired by foreign critics since its first introduction to their notice in Evans's Specimens of the Bards.' The thought on which it is founded is • very pleasing :—Owain supposes himself to he directing the horn to he 'offered In succession to his warrior-friends at a banquet, and as it passes, he describes the character of each ; but forgetting himself on one occasion, he names the name of a chief who had fallen in battle, and then a burst of grief as the remembrance comes across him preludes a warmer eulogy than usual. The names of Elidyr Sale, or Elidyr the Saxon (1160-1220), of I'hilip Brydydd (1200.50), and Prytlydd Brehm (1210.60), are three of the most conspicuous of the period they belong to. Their poems are chiefly eulogies on the princes and great men with whom they were connected.
The next generation of bards was that which witnessed the con quest of Wales by the English. According to a current story which has been made universally known by 'The Bard' of Gray, they must have perished by the sword of the invader; but the notion of the maasacre of the bards appears to rest on no adequate authoriti. There is no memorial or tradition of it in the country which is said to have been its scene, and no allusion to it in the productions of bards of the time immediately following. In the ' Myr3-rian Archaeology' there appears no greater falling off in the nqmlier of poetical pro ductions than might naturally be expected as the result of a foreign conquest, of however mild a character ; and the next century was destined to produce a bard who in national popularity surpassed all who preceded him.