SILS ap SION, a Glamorgan bard who flourished towards the end of the 16th century

Name: Sils ap Sion

Author: Griffith John Williams

To judge by one reference in his cywydd on husbandry, it may be thought that he lived (as Iolo Morganwg maintained) not far from the confines of Radyr and Llandaff. One book of pedigrees refers to a Sils ap Siôn who lived in the commote of Miskin — it is possible that this may have been the bard. A small collection of his work and that of some of his contemporaries, is preserved (probably in his own hand) in Llanover MS. B 6. Most of this work consists of cywyddau to William Evans, died 1589/90, treasurer and chancellor of Llandaff, one of the chief patrons of the bards in Glamorgan in those days. The bard’s work is not of a very high standard. The collection includes one extempore englyn which Sils ap Siôn composed when a group of bards met before William Evans and Thomas Lewis of Llandaff ’ i gany ar wawd am y vaistrolaeth ’ (’to sing in verse for the mastery’). That, undoubtedly, was the kind of meeting which was called an eisteddfod in the 18th century.