Gruffudd Hiraethog (died 1564) was a 16th century

Welsh language Welsh ( or ) is a Celtic language family, Celtic language of the Brittonic languages, Brittonic subgroup that is native to the Welsh people. Welsh is spoken natively in Wales, by some in England, and in Y Wladfa (the Welsh colony in Chubut P ...

poet, born in

Llangollen Llangollen () is a town and community, situated on the River Dee, in Denbighshire, Wales. Its riverside location forms the edge of the Berwyn range, and the Dee Valley section of the Clwydian Range and Dee Valley Area of Outstanding Natural Beau ...

, north-east

Wales Wales ( cy, Cymru ) is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It is bordered by England to the Wales–England border, east, the Irish Sea to the north and west, the Celtic Sea to the south west and the ...

. Gruffudd was one of the foremost poets of the sixteenth century to use the

cywydd The cywydd (; plural ) is one of the most important metrical forms in traditional Welsh poetry (cerdd dafod). There are a variety of forms of the cywydd, but the word on its own is generally used to refer to the ("long-lined couplet") as it is b ...

metre. He was a prolific author and gifted scholar. Though he was member of the medieval guild of poets and a notable upholder of that tradition, he was also closely associated with

William Salesbury William Salesbury also Salusbury (c. 1520 – c. 1584) was the leading Welsh scholar of the Renaissance and the principal translator of the 1567 Welsh New Testament. Early life Salesbury was born some time before 1520 (possibly as early as 1 ...

, Wales' leading

Renaissance The Renaissance ( , ) , from , with the same meanings. is a period in European history marking the transition from the Middle Ages to modernity and covering the 15th and 16th centuries, characterized by an effort to revive and surpass ideas ...

scholar. He is buried in the vault of the Church of St Collen in Llangollen. One of the first Welsh books to be published was Gruffudd's collection of

proverb A proverb (from la, proverbium) is a simple and insightful, traditional saying that expresses a perceived truth based on common sense or experience. Proverbs are often metaphorical and use formulaic speech, formulaic language. A proverbial phra ...

s in 1547, ''Oll synnwyr pen Kembero ygyd'' ("The sense of a Welshman's mind collected together").D.J. Bowen (ed.), ''Gwaith Gruffudd Hiraethog'' (Cardiff, 1990). The standard edition of Gruffudd's verse.

References

1564 deaths Welsh-language poets 16th-century Welsh writers 16th-century male writers People from Llangollen Year of birth unknown {{Wales-writer-stub