ELIDIR SAIS
,
a poet
of the
end of the 12th cent. and the first half of the 13th.
He
composed elegies
upon
Rhodri ab Owain Gwynedd
(d.
1195
)
, and
Ednyfed Fychan
(d.
1246
)
. He was not
English
, for we learn from
Gwilym Ddu
(
Myv. Arch.
, 277b) that he sprang
‘from the wise men of
Anglesey
in the bosom of the sea.’
Gwilym Ddu
ranks his work with that of other leading
poets
as a ‘correct canon’ or a model of poetry. Most of his poems are religious, and are to be found in
Dr.
Henry
Lewis
's
Hen Gerddi Crefyddol
(together with a note on their authenticity in the introduction, xi).
Elidir
does not appear to have approved of
Llywelyn the Great
's aggressive policy. He mourns the death of
Rhodri
very bitterly, and laments that there is no one left to ‘curb aggressors.’
Dafydd ab Owain Gwynedd
was forced by the rise of his nephew,
Llywelyn
, to retreat to
England
, and this is considered by
Elidir
to be a tyranny second only to the capture of the
Holy Sepulchre
by
Saladin
(
Myv. Arch.
, 243a). It is no wonder that he had to plead for
Llywelyn
's favour, and in the latter's death in
1240
he sees only a further proof that the oppression of the weak does not pay. It is clear that he was out of sympathy with the main trend of history in the
Wales
of his day: local boundaries were not to be violated (
‘Think what you are doing when
you violate a border’
). He gave of his best to his religious poetry.
‘I shall be a poet to God while I remain a man.’
He speaks of ‘learned books’ that are not to be doubted, and some of his ideas suggest that he was not without knowledge of the religious writings of his day. In his elegy upon
Ednyfed Fychan
, the tradition mentioned by
Sir
J. E.
Lloyd
(
Hist. W.
, 684) that that statesman had had a military career is borne out. A son of the
‘
lord
’
Rhys ap Gruffydd
(
1132
-
1197
)
was called
Hywel Sais
(he d.
1204
) because he had been forced to live for years in
England
; and it is not inconceivable that the attitude of
Elidir Sais
towards
Llywelyn the Great
had compelled him to do the same. In
Rec. Caern., 48
,
Meilyr
,
Dafydd
, and
Elidir
are given as the names of three sons of
Gwalchmai
.
Gwilym Ddu
's words from the wise men of
Anglesey
’ are very understandable if this
Elidir
is our
poet
.
Bibliography:
-
The Myvyrian Archaiology of Wales
, , and
, 3
vols., 1801–7; another edn. in 1 vol., 1870. Some contributors
have used the original edition, citing it by volume and page,
others the reprint, citing it by page and column
, 240b-5b;
-
The Poetry in the Red Book of Hergest
,
1911
, 1143-6;
-
Hen Gerddi Crefyddol
, Cardiff,
1931
(ed.
Henry Lewis
).
Author:
David Myrddin Lloyd, M.A., (1909-81), Aberystwyth / Scotland
