IEUAN ap HYWEL SWRDWAL
(
fl.
1430-1480
),
poet
,
son of the
poet
Hywel Swrdwal
(q.v.)
. Both were associated with the
Cydewain
district of
Powys
and with
Newtown
. They are reputed to have lived for a time at
Machynlleth
. Among the poems attributed to
Ieuan
is an
awdl
to the
Virgin Mary
written in
English
but using the strict metres and orthography of
Welsh
. Its title is ‘
Owdyl i Fair a wnaeth kymbro yn Rhudychen
’ etc. and its first line — ‘O meichti ladi our leding tw haf.’ Elegies to him were written by
Hywel ap Dafydd ap Ieuan ap Rhys
,
Llywelyn Goch y Dant
and
Gruffydd ap Dafydd Fychan
(qq.v.). There is a tradition that he, like his father,
wrote a history of Wales
from the time of
Cadwaladr
to that of
Henry
VI
, but the work is not extant.
Bibliography:
-
Oxford Dictionary of National
Biography
;
-
R. Williams
,
Montgomeryshire Worthies
, second ed.,
1894
;
-
National Library of Wales Manuscript
9261.
-
[Detailed discussion of the awdl in
The Transactions of the Honourable Society
of Cymmrodorion
,
1955
, 70-124, by
E. J. Dobson
.]
Author:
Elwyn Evans, M.A., Aberystwyth
