Perhaps I Ought Not To Have Said The Five Cascades Of The Mynach, But The Mynach Cascade, For Now Its Five Cascades Had Become One, Extending From The Chasm Over Which Hung The Bridge Of Satan To The Bottom Of The Valley.

After a time I fell into a fit of musing.

I thought of the Plant de Bat; I thought of the spitties or hospitals connected with the great monastery of Ystrad Flur or Strata Florida; I thought of the remarkable bridge close by, built by a clever monk of that place to facilitate the coming of pilgrims with their votive offerings from the north to his convent; I thought of the convent built in the time of our Henry the Second by Ryce ab Gruffyd, prince of South Wales; and lastly, I thought of a wonderful man who was buried in its precincts, the greatest genius which Wales, and perhaps Britain, ever produced, on whose account, and not because of old it had been a magnificent building, and the most celebrated place of popish pilgrimage in Wales, I had long ago determined to visit it on my journey, a man of whose life and works the following is a brief account.

CHAPTER LXXXVI

Birth and Early Years of Ab Gwilym - Morfudd - Relic of Druidism - The Men of Glamorgan - Legend of Ab Gwilym - Ab Gwilym as a Writer - Wonderful Variety - Objects of Nature - Gruffydd Gryg.

DAFYDD AB GWILYM was born about the year 1320, at a place called Bro Gynnin in the county of Cardigan. Though born in wedlock he was not conceived legitimately. His mother being discovered by her parents to be pregnant, was turned out of doors by them, whereupon she went to her lover, who married her, though in so doing he acted contrary to the advice of his relations. After a little time, however, a general reconciliation took place. The parents of Ab Gwilym, though highly connected, do not appear to have possessed much property. The boy was educated by his mother's brother Llewelyn ab Gwilym Fychan, a chief of Cardiganshire; but his principal patron in after life was Ifor, a cousin of his father, surnamed Hael, or the bountiful, a chieftain of Glamorganshire. This person received him within his house, made him his steward and tutor to his daughter. With this young lady Ab Gwilym speedily fell in love, and the damsel returned his passion. 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.

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