Verses to the Saints

A fifteenth-century poem by Hywel Dafi tells a story of how Saint Cynog, son of Brychan Brycheiniog, sacrificed himself in a battle against monsters afflicting the people of Ceredigion and Brecon. The miraculous weapon he wields is the gold torque which is known to have been venerated as a relic in his church at Merthyr Cynog during the medieval period. Part of the story is also known from an eighteenth-century folk tale, however the allusive style of the medieval verse ensures that many details of the original tale remain unclear.

Over sixty such Welsh poems to saints survive from the Middle Ages: the genre is unusual in a European context and clearly grows out of the deeply rooted tradition of praise poetry to secular lords.