SEISYLL BRYFFWRCH (fl. 1155-1175), poet.
The earliest known event in his career is the bardic contest against Cynddelw for the office of chief court poet to Madog ap Maredudd, prince of Powys (d. 1160) (q.v.). The englynion of this contest are to be found in the Hendreg. MS. (71b-72a) and in the Myv. Arch. (154a) Seisyll declares in one of these englynion that he is of the stock of Culfardd, who is probably to be identified with the ‘Culfardd hardd hen’ mentioned by Iolo Goch (I.G.E., xvii, 36). Seisyll sang elegiac odes on the death of Owain Gwynedd (q.v.), and of Iorwerth Drwyndwn (q.v.), a son of that prince, and father of Llywelyn the Great. This second elegy is a main source of our scanty knowledge of Iorwerth (see Lloyd, Hist. W., 549-50). This poet also sang the praises of the ‘lord’ Rhys in a poem where he refers to the strife against the five Norman lords in 1159, and to other events in Rhys's career as late as the fighting in Cyfeiliog in 1167 and in Brecknock in 1168.
Author:
David Myrddin Lloyd, M.A., (1909-81), Aberystwyth / Scotland
