WELSH POETS

Ellis EVANS, born, near Trawsfynydd, North Wales. Educated Trawsfynydd Elementary School. After leaving school, Evans helped his father on the family farm. He won the first of his six bardic chairs at Bala in 1907 & was given his bardic name “Hedd Wyn” at a concert held on the banks of Llyn y Morymion in Merionethshire in August 1910. He just failed to win the Chair at the National Eisteddfod at Aberystwyth in 1916. In October 1916, Evans began work on “Yr Arwr” (“The Hero”), his awdl (a long eisteddfodic poem using several of the traditional 24 strict metres) for the Eisteddfod to be held at Birkenhead in 1917. Before he was able to complete his awdl, he was called up in January, 1917. He enlisted in the Royal Welch Fusiliers and was sent to Litherland camp near Liverpool for training. In the Spring of 1917, Evans was granted seven weeks leave to return home and work as a ploughman on his father’s farm. During these weeks he composed more lines of “The Hero”, which he completed in the middle of July after arriving in the village of Flechin on the frontier between France and Belgium, with the 15th Welch Fusiliers, part of the 28 (Welsh) Division. The 15th Battalion left Flechin on July 15th and marched to Dublin Camp and Canal Camp on the Comines-Ypres canal five days later. The 15th Battalion crossed the canal into German territory on July 31st, moved into the village of Pilckem, and on to a spot later named “Battery Copse”, where it was fiercely attacked by the Germans. Every officer of the Battalion was killed or wounded and command of the battalion fell to Regimental Sergeant-Major Jones, who received orders to hold on to a ridge of land, later named Iron Cross Ridge, about a mile from the village of Langemarck. During this fighting Pvt Evans was wounded in the chest by a piece of trench mortar shell. He died a few hours later. A few weeks following his death, the National Eisteddfod was be held in Birkenhead. The Chair was placed in the centre of the stage with the eisteddfodic sword resting across its arms. When the Archdruid, Dyfed called out three times for the winning poet to stand up, there was no response. Dyfed announced that the chief bard had fallen on the field of battle in France on the last day of July. He explained who he was, “Hedd Wyn”, a shepherd from Trawsfynydd. And then, as there was no one to be chaired, the sword was removed, and the Chair draped in a black cloth.

And there, the weeping willow trees
Bear the old harps that sang amain,
The lads’ wild anguish fills the breeze,
Their blood is mingled with the rain.