Ifor, However,
Not Approving Of The Connection, Sent His Daughter To Anglesey, And
Eventually Caused Her To Take The Veil In A Nunnery Of That Island.
Dafydd pursued her, but not being able to obtain an interview, he
returned to his patron, who gave him a kind reception.
Under
Ifor's roof he cultivated poetry with great assiduity and wonderful
success. Whilst very young, being taunted with the circumstances
of his birth by a brother bard called Rhys Meigan, he retorted in
an ode so venomously bitter that his adversary, after hearing it,
fell down and expired. Shortly after this event he was made head
bard of Glamorgan by universal acclamation.
After a stay of some time with Ifor, he returned to his native
county and lived at Bro Gynnin. Here he fell in love with a young
lady of birth called Dyddgu, who did not favour his addresses. He
did not break his heart, however, on her account, but speedily
bestowed it on the fair Morfudd, whom he first saw at Rhosyr in
Anglesey, to which place both had gone on a religious account. The
lady after some demur consented to become his wife. Her parents
refusing to sanction the union, their hands were joined beneath the
greenwood tree by one Madawg Benfras, a bard, and a great friend of
Ab Gwilym. The joining of people's hands by bards, which was
probably a relic of Druidism, had long been practised in Wales, and
marriages of this kind were generally considered valid, and seldom
set aside. The ecclesiastical law, however, did not recognise
these poetical marriages, and the parents of Morfudd by appealing
to the law soon severed the union. After confining the lady for a
short time, they bestowed her hand in legal fashion upon a
chieftain of the neighbourhood, very rich but rather old, and with
a hump on his back, on account which he was nicknamed bow-back, or
little hump-back. Morfudd, however, who passed her time in rather
a dull manner with this person, which would not have been the case
had she done her duty by endeavouring to make the poor man
comfortable, and by visiting the sick and needy around her, was
soon induced by the bard to elope with him. The lovers fled to
Glamorgan, where Ifor Hael, not much to his own credit, received
them with open arms, probably forgetting how he had immured his OWN
daughter in a convent, rather than bestow her on Ab Gwilym. Having
a hunting-lodge in a forest on the banks of the lovely Taf, he
allotted it to the fugitives as a residence. Ecclesiastical law,
however, as strong in Wild Wales as in other parts of Europe, soon
followed them into Glamorgan, and, very properly, separated them.
The lady was restored to her husband, and Ab Gwilym fined to a very
high amount. Not being able to pay the fine, he was cast into
prison; but then the men of Glamorgan arose to a man, swearing that
their head bard should not remain in prison. "Then pay his fine!"
said the ecclesiastical law, or rather the ecclesiastical lawyer.
"So we will!" said the men of Glamorgan, and so they did. Every
man put his hand into his pocket; the amount was soon raised, the
fine paid, and the bard set free.
Ab Gwilym did not forget this kindness of the men of Glamorgan,
and, to requite it, wrote an address to the sun, in which he
requests that luminary to visit Glamorgan, to bless it, and to keep
it from harm. The piece concludes with some noble lines somewhat
to this effect
"If every strand oppression strong
Should arm against the son of song,
The weary wight would find, I ween,
A welcome in Glamorgan green."
Some time after his release he meditated a second elopement with
Morfudd, and even induced her to consent to go off with him. A
friend, to whom he disclosed what he was thinking of doing, asking
him whether he would venture a second time to take such a step, "I
will," said the bard, "in the name of God and the men of
Glamorgan." No second elopement, however, took place, the bard
probably thinking, as has been well observed, that neither God nor
the men of Glamorgan would help him a second time out of such an
affair. He did not attain to any advanced age, but died when about
sixty, some twenty years before the rising of Glendower. Some time
before his death his mind fortunately took a decidedly religious
turn.
He is said to have been eminently handsome in his youth, tall,
slender, with yellow hair falling in ringlets down his shoulders.
He is likewise said to have been a great libertine. The following
story is told of him:-
"In a certain neighbourhood he had a great many mistresses, some
married and others not. Once upon a time, in the month of June he
made a secret appointment with each of his lady-loves, the place
and hour of meeting being the same for all; each was to meet him at
the same hour beneath a mighty oak which stood in the midst of a
forest glade. Some time before the appointed hour he went, and
climbing up the oak, hid himself amidst the dense foliage of its
boughs. When the hour arrived he observed all the nymphs tripping
to the place of appointment; all came, to the number of twenty-four
- not one stayed away. For some time they remained beneath the oak
staring at each other. At length an explanation ensued, and it
appeared that they had all come to meet Ab Gwilym.
"'Oh, the treacherous monster!' cried they with one accord; 'only
let him show himself and we will tear him to pieces.'
"'Will you?' said Ab Gwilym from the oak; 'here I am; let her who
has been most wanton with me make the first attack upon me!'
"The females remained for some time speechless; all of a sudden,
however, their anger kindled, not against the bard, but against
each other.
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