Elderly Welsh harpists

“The historians doubt it, but it strongly stands in the legend that Edward I of England sent 500 Welsh bards to the stake after his victory over the Welsh (1277) to prevent them from arousing the country and destroying English rule by telling of the glorious past of their nation.” -

Janos Anary, the Hungarian poet who wrote The Bards of Wales (A walesi wárdok).

In this famous poem, composed in 1857, Edward Longshanks has a gigantic hissy fit and orders all the bards in Wales to be burnt at the stake. The poem was really meant as an analogy for Hapsburg control of Hungary and the repressive policies of Alexander von Bach, but the legend of flash-fried Welsh bards still finds the occasional echo today.

If any bard of Edward’s day was lined up for the stake, that man was surely Llygad Gwr. Llygad had been the court poet of Gruffudd ap Madog, whom the king must have regarded as a traitor; Gruffudd spent decades in English service before arranging the slaughter of Edward’s soldiers at Cymerau and defecting to Prince Llywelyn. Llygad also composed praise songs for Llywelyn, reckoned the most ‘nationalist’ poetry in Wales before the days of Owain Glyn Dwr.

Even so, it seems the wicked tyrant had bigger fish to fry than an elderly Welsh harpist. Surviving tax rolls (attached) show that Llygad Gwyr - “Legeth gour”, in the clumsy spelling of an English clerk - was alive and well in the vill of Carrog in the parish of Corwen in 1291. This makes sense, since Corwen lay inside the territory of Edeirnion, once held by Llygad’s old master Gruffudd ap Madog.

The record shows that Llygad, who must have been a very old man by 1291, paid 2 shillings 8.5 pence in tax: a good example of the excruciating attention to detail of the new royal administration in Wales. As such he was the second highest taxpayer in the vill after Madog ab Gruffydd Mal. This man could possibly be identified as Madog Grupl, Glyn Dwr’s great-grandfather.

Thus it seems that King Ted preferred to charge the bards of Wales VAT rather than chase them with a packet of firelighters. Within three generations Welsh poets such as Iolo Goch were composing praise poems to Edward’s descendents. For money, of course; what goes round comes round.