# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Llywarch Hen

​LLYWARCH HEN, or the Aged (496?–646?), British chieftain and bard, was, according to comparatively late genealogies, the son of Elidr Lydanwyn, a prince of the northern Britons, by Gwawr, daughter of Brychan (Iolo MSS. p. 128; Rees, Welsh Saints, p. 14). He is said to have been born in 496. The territory over which he ruled was called Argoed, and is supposed to have formed a part of the present county of Cumberland. Llywarch, unlike the other early British poets, is not mentioned until several centuries after his death. The name Bluchbard, mentioned by Nennius, has been erroneously supposed to refer to him. The ancient form of the name is Loumarc (cf. Harleian MS. 3859, printed in Y Cymmrodor, ix. 171). The earliest authentic reference to him is found in a manuscript of the twelfth century, the 'Black Book of Carmarthen,' of which an autotype facsimile has been published by Gwenogvryn Evans, Oxford, 1888. This contains two poems generally attributed to Llywarch, one being a monody on his old age and the loss of his children, of whom the names of twenty-four sons and of three daughters are preserved (loc. cit. fol. 54), the other, an elegy on the death of his cousin Geraint ab Erbin (ib. fol. 36), who was killed at the battle of Llongborth (Portsmouth ?) in 530. The 'Red Book of Hergest,' which belongs to the latter half of the fourteenth century, contains seven more poems attributed to him, and in the oldest of the three series of triads, which are also included in the 'Red Book,' he is mentioned twice, first as being one of the three unambitious princes of Britain (Rhys and Evans, Welsh Texts, i. 304, line 20), and secondly as one of the three 'licensed members' (or free guests) of King Arthur's court (ib. p. 306, line 4). Reference is also made to a Llywarch in a poem by Einion ab Gwgan (fl. 1200-1260), printed in the 'Myvyrian Archaiology,' p. 226, and in 'Chwedleu y Doethion,' in Iolo MSS. p. 253.
According to these sources, which have history and romance very much interwoven, it is gathered that he spent some time at Arthur's court, and took part in the battle of Portsmouth (?) about 530, but subsequently returned to his own province, and there, along with Urien Rheged and Owen, the son of Urien (who became one of the chief characters of mediæval romance), fought for many years against Theodoric, king of Northumberland. While blockading the English in the isle of Lindisfarne in 592, Urien was assassinated, or, according to some interpreters of an elegy written by Llywarch with reference thereto, he was accidentally killed by the poet himself (Rhys, Arthurian Legends, p. 255). Soon after this, owing to the advance of the invaders, Llywarch, having lost most of his sons in the war, fled from the north, and sought shelter in the court of his brother-in-law Cynddylan, prince of Powys, at Pengwern, near Shrewsbury. But the same evil fate followed him thither, for Cynddylan himself and the remainder of Llywarch's sons were killed in the destruction of Trên or Wroxeter, the Uriconium of the Romans. According to tradition, Llywarch afterwards resided at Dolguog, near Machynlleth, and subsequently at Llanfor, near Bala, where it is said he died about 646, at the great age of 150 years, and was buried in Llanfor Church.
The poems which are ascribed to Llywarch are twelve in number, six being of an historical character, and the remainder on moral subjects. These were published with a literal English translation and notes by Dr. W. Owen Pughe in 1792, under the title 'The Heroic Elegies and other pieces of Llywarch Hen,' London, 8vo. They were also included in the first volume of the 'Myvyrian Archaiology of Wales,' published in 1801, London, 8vo, and, accompanied by another English translation contributed by the Rev. D. Silvan Evans, formed part of 'Four Ancient Books of Wales,' by W. F. Skene, Edinburgh, 1868, 8vo. In recent years much ​doubt has been cast on the genuineness of the poetry ascribed to Llywarch, on the ground that there is no evidence that he ever was a poet, beyond the fact that the above mentioned poems are put into his mouth by Welsh tradition, poems in which he figures as a spokesman. Their phraseology and vocabulary appear less archaic than those of the 'Gododin' of Aneurin, but Llywarch's favourite metres bear the semblance of antiquity: one of these is a kind of triplet known as 'triban milwr,' each line of which has seven syllables; the other is a quatrain or an early form of the 'englyn,' in which the fourth line contains an assonance with the last syllable of the third line. The presence of rhyme in them tells, however, against their antiquity. Though these metres are common after the ninth century, they are generally associated with Llywarch's name, with the result that, according to one modern critic (e.g. Egerton Phillimore, in Y Cymmrodor, xi. 135-6), 'it has become the fashion to ascribe to Llywarch Hen all old or oldish Welsh poetry, similar in metre, apparent age, and style to the poetry which really has some claim to be connected with his name' (cf. Owen Edwards in Welsh Pictures, p. 132). Among those who have supported the authenticity of these poems are Sharon Turner in his 'Vindication of the Genuineness of the Ancient British Poems of Aneurin, Taliesin, Llywarch Hen, and Myrddin,' 8vo, 1803, and Thomas Stephens in his 'Literature of the Kymry.' The controversy has, however, raged most fiercely round the elegy on Cynddylan's death, which is probably the finest and best-known specimen of the whole collection. Dr. Edwin Guest has translated it in his 'Origines Celticæ' (1883); its authenticity was attacked by Thomas Wright, who regarded it as a forgery of the time of Owen Glyndwr (Arch. Cambr. 3rd ser. ix. 249); he was answered by Thomas Stephens in the same journal. A further controversy between Wright and others appeared in the 'Powysland Club Collections,' vols. i-iii., and Wright's views were reproduced in his 'Uriconium,' pp. 70-3, and Appendix i., Shrewsbury, 1872, 8vo.
Though treating of war and of warriors, the poems, especially that on Cynddylan, are chiefly characterised by their pathetic lamentation, rather than by their epic or heroic character.
[Authorities quoted above; Llywarch's Works, edited by Dr. Owen Pughe; Skene's Four Ancient Books; Stephens's Literature of the Kymry.]
D. Ll. T.