Meilyr Brydydd ap Mabon (

fl. ''Floruit'' ( ; usually abbreviated fl. or occasionally flor.; from Latin for 'flourished') denotes a date or period during which a person was known to have been alive or active. In English, the unabbreviated word may also be used as a noun indic ...

1100–1137) is the earliest of the Welsh

Poets of the Princes Medieval Welsh literature is the literature written in the Welsh language during the Middle Ages. This includes material starting from the 5th century AD, when Welsh was in the process of becoming distinct from Common Brittonic, and continuing t ...

or ''Y Gogynfeirdd'' (The Less Early Poets) whose work has survived. Meilyr was the court poet of

Gruffudd ap Cynan Gruffudd ap Cynan (–1137) was List of rulers of Gwynedd, King of Gwynedd from 1081 until his death in 1137. In the course of a long and eventful life, he became a key figure in Welsh resistance to House of Normandy, Norman rule. As a descen ...

(ca. 1055–1137), king of

Gwynedd Gwynedd () is a county in the north-west of Wales. It borders Anglesey across the Menai Strait to the north, Conwy, Denbighshire, and Powys to the east, Ceredigion over the Dyfi estuary to the south, and the Irish Sea to the west. The ci ...

. He composed a notable '' awdl farwnad'' (

elegy An elegy is a poem of serious reflection, and in English literature usually a lament for the dead. However, according to ''The Oxford Handbook of the Elegy'', "for all of its pervasiveness ... the 'elegy' remains remarkably ill defined: sometime ...

) on the death of his patron and a '' marwysgafn'' on his own approaching end, noted for its intensity and depth of feelin

He had a son named

Gwalchmai ap Meilyr Gwalchmai ap Meilyr (fl. 1130 – 1180) was a Welsh-language court poet, connected with Trewalchmai in Anglesey. He was one of the earliest of the '' Gogynfeirdd'' ("less early poets") or ''Beirdd y Tywysogion'' ("Poets of the Princes"). He compo ...

Bibliography

*J. E. Caerwyn Williams & Peredur I. Lynch (ed.), ''Gwaith Meilyr Brydydd a'i Ddisgynyddion'', Cyfres Beirdd y Tywysogion I (Cardiff, 1994). 12th-century Welsh poets Meilyr Brydydd {{Wales-writer-stub