ADDA FRAS
(
1240?
-
1320?
),
poet and writer of prophecies
.
According to
John
Davies
and
Thomas
Stephens
, he flourished about
1240
. He is referred to in
Peniarth MS. 94 (26)
and
Llanstephan MS. 119 (82)
, as living about
1038
, and contemporary with
Goronwy Ddu o Fôn
. But in
G. P.
Jones
,
Anglesey Court Rolls
,
1346
, 37, 39, mention is made of ‘the son of
Adda Fras
’ and ‘the suit of
Goronwy Ddu
,
attorney
for the community of the township of
Porthgir
.’ In
Dafydd ap Gwilym a'i gyfoeswyr
156 he is associated by
Gruffudd Gryg
(
c.
1340
-
1412
)
with
Casnodyn
(
c.
1290
-
1340
)
. The years
1240
-
1320
, therefore, would not be far wrong as the period of his life. He was buried in
Maenan Abbey
, near
Conway
, an abbey founded in
1186
(
Gwaith Tudur Aled
, i, 83). According to
Llanstephan MS. 133 (617)
, his bardic teacher was
Wmbar
.
Later poets in the elegies which they wrote to each other often refer to him not only as a
writer of prophecies
, but as a
past master in the poet's craft
(see
Peniarth MS. 94 (144)
and
Gwaith Tudur Aled
, ii, 743), and especially
Tudur Aled
's elegy (ibid., i, 283) to
Dafydd ab Edmwnd
. Comparatively little of his work has survived. It is impossible to state with certainty, at present, how much of it is authentic, as some of it is attributed to other writers.
Bibliography:
- Peniarth Manuscript in the National Library of
Wales;
- Llanstephan MSS. at the National
Library of Wales, Aberystwyth;
- Gwilym Peredur Jones, Anglesey Court Rolls
in Transactions of the Anglesey Antiquarian
Society and Field Club
;
- Ifor Williams and Thomas Roberts, (ed.), Cywyddau Dafydd ap Gwilym a’i
Gyfoeswyr
, 1914;
- T. Gwynn Jones (ed.), Gwaith Tudur Aled
, 1926.
Author:
Raymond Wallis Evans, M.A., (1910-2001), Swansea / Bangor
