The Welsh people are of an affectionate disposition, and thoroughly enjoy the pleasures of love, but they keep their love more secret, perhaps, than the English; and Welsh bards at all times have been celebrated for singing in praise of female beauty. Davydd Ap Gwilym, the chief poet of Wales, sang at least one hundred love songs to his beloved Morfudd.
This celebrated bard flourished in the fourteenth century, and he belonged to a good family, for his father, Gwilym Gam, was a direct descendant from Llywarch Ap Bran, chief of one of the fifteen royal tribes of North Wales; and his mother was a descendant of the Princes of South Wales. According to the traditions of Cardiganshire people, Davydd was born at Bro-Gynin, near Gogerddan, in the Parish of Llanbadarn-Fawr, and only a few miles from the spot where the town of Aberystwyth is situated at present.
An ancient bard informs us that Taliesin of old had foretold the honour to be conferred on Bro-Gynin, in being the birthplace of a poet whose muse should be as the sweetness of wine:--
"Am Dafydd, gelfydd goelin--praff awdwr, Prophwydodd Taliesin, Y genid ym mro Gynin, Brydydd a'i gywydd fel gwin."
The poet, Davydd Ap Gwilym, is represented as a fair young man who loved many, or that many were the young maidens who fell in love with him, and there is one most amusing tradition of his love adventures. It is said that on one occasion he went to visit about twenty young ladies about the same time, and that he appointed a meeting with each of them under an oak-tree--all of them at the same hour. Meanwhile, the young bard had secretly climbed up the tree and concealed himself among the branches, so that he might see the event of this meeting. Every one of the young girls was there punctually at the appointed time, and equally astonished to perceive any female there besides herself. They looked at one another in surprise, and at last one of them asked another, "What brought you here?" "to keep an appointment with Dafydd ap Gwilym" was the reply. "That's how I came also" said the other "and I" added a third girl, and all of them had the same tale. They then discovered the trick which Dafydd had played with them, and all of them agreed together to punish him, and even to kill him, if they could get hold of him. Dafydd, who was peeping from his hiding-place amongst the branches of the tree, replied as follows in rhyme:--