Name: Phylip Brydydd

Author: David Myrddin Lloyd

His extant works are an awdl and intercessionary englynion addressed to Rhys Gryg, a chain of englynion and an elegiac awdl to Rhys Ieuanc ap Gruffudd (son of the ‘lord’ Rhys) (died 1222), and two other interesting poems in which he claims priority over poets of lower degree. One of these last-mentioned was sung in the court of Rhys Ieuanc in Llanbadarn-fawr. Gwilym Ddu associates Phylip with Ceredigion, and ranks him among the exponents of the tradition of the highest grade of court poets (The Myvyrian Archaiology of Wales , 277b, 8-9). Phylip Brydydd refers to himself as Rhys Gryg’s chaired poet, and as one who was his comrade ‘a hundred times,’ even when his enemies arose against him ‘in every hill’ — probably an allusion to the vicissitudes which overtook that prince in 1213. This poet’s compositions reveal his pride in the noble tradition of the leading court poets of Wales, which he claims can be traced back to the muse of Taliesin and the court of Maelgwn Gwynedd. They also reveal, however, that the guardians of this tradition were driven in the courts of South Wales, even as early as his day, to strive against the ‘poetasters,’ the ‘unskilled dabblers’ and ‘vain bards’ — a reference to the lower strata of poets of whom more was to be heard in a later generation.