JONES
,
THOMAS
(
Taliesin o Eifion
;
1820
-
1876
),
poet
.
Born
13 Sept. 1820
at
Llanystumdwy, Caerns.
; son of a member of the band on
H.M.S. Victory
who was awarded the
Trafalgar medal
. In
1826
the parents, who gave their son a good education, settled at
Llangollen
.
Taliesin
followed the trade of
plumber
and
decorator
;
many inn-signs were painted by him
. He mastered
cynghanedd
in his early youth, and his strict-metre poems have proved to be the best-known of his works. He became a
leading eisteddfodic figure
. His ‘
Brwydr Crogen
’ is a very early example of a
Welsh
metrical play. He sent in an
awdl
to the
Wrexham national eisteddfod
,
1876
, but d.
1 June
, and the chair awarded for his poem was ceremonially draped in black on the eisteddfod stage — that is why he is best remembered as ‘
Bardd y Gadair Ddu
’ (
The Bard of the Black Chair
).
Sources:
-
J. Jones (‘Myrddin Fardd’)
,
Enwogion Sir Gaernarfon
(1922)
, 214-7.
Author:
Reverend William Evans, (1883-1968), Bridgend
