Peryf ap Cedifor

Peryf ap Cedifor (fl. c. 1170) was a Welsh court poet. Little his known about him; he is predominantly known for having been a foster-brother of Hywel ab Owain Gwynedd. Only three of his poems survive, though scholarship has disagreed on the number of poems at hand.

Context of his Poetry

Little is known about Peryf, except for what emerges in the three elegies attributed to him. The elegies are in honour of his brothers and his foster-brother, Hywel ab Owain Gwynedd, and must have been composed soon after their deaths, in 1170 or 1171. At the time of his death, Hywel had succeeded his father Owain as King of Gwynedd. His death and the death of Peryf's brothers occurred in relation to a coup staged by Cristin ferch Goronwy, second wife of Owain Gwynedd, and her sons Dafydd and Rhodri, to usurp Hywel's position. After returning from gathering an army in Ireland, Hywel was caught by surprise at Pentraeth, and he and a number of his foster-brothers (Peryf's biological brothers) were killed by Dafydd's forces.

Peryf and six of his brother fought at Pentraeth: they are explicitly named in his poetry as Caradog, Brochfael, Iddon, Aearddur, Rhirid and Addaf. The reference to there having been seven of them fighting appears in one of the surviving elegies attributed to Peryf, where only three of them are said to have survived:

There was also an eighth brother named Ithael who had died at an earlier date, fighing for Owain Gwynedd at Rhuddlan: his elegy was sung by Cynddelw Brydydd Mawr, who at the time was in Owain Gwynedd's service as court poet.

Metre, composition and attribution

Peryf's surviving corpus of poetry is only in englyn metre, varying between Englyn Unodl Union, Englyn Proest, and Englyn Cyrch. The poems survived are edited with the following titles: Marwnad Meibion Cedifor, Elegy of the sons of Cedifor. Marwnad Caradog fab Cedifor, Elegy of Caradog son of Cedifor. Marwnad Hywel ab Owain, Elegy of Hywel ab Owain Gwynedd.

Only the elegy of Hywel ab Owain Gwynedd presents a title in the manuscript, and thus a certain attribution; the remaining two poems have been attributed to Peryf on the basis of their similarity in style. Ifor Williams considered the elegy to the sons of Cedifor and the elegy to Caradog ap Cedifor to be the same poem.

However, Morfydd E. Owen has argued for a division between the two, on the basis of their metre and of their manuscript context.

The oldest manuscript witnesses to these poems are the late-fourteenth-century Hendregadredd Manuscript, containing the elegies to the sons of Cedifor and to Caradog ap Cedifor, and the early-seventeenth-century Liber B, copied by John Davies of Mallwyd and containing the elegy to Hywel ab Owain Gwynedd.