26. _Hoarser murmurs_. That is, perhaps, with continually increasing
hoarseness, hoarser and hoarser; or it may mean with unwonted
hoarseness, like the comparative sometimes in Latin (Hales).
28. Hoel is called _high-born_, being the son of Owen Gwynedd, prince
of North Wales, by Finnog, an Irish damsel. He was one of his
father's generals in his wars against the English, Flemings, and
Normans, in South Wales; and was a famous bard, as his poems that are
extant testify.
_Soft Llewellyn's lay_. "The lay celebrating the mild Llewellyn,"
says Hales, though he afterwards remarks that, "looking at the
context, it would be better to take _Llewellyn_ here for a bard."
Many bards celebrated the warlike prowess and princely qualities of
Llewellyn. A poem by Einion the son of Guigan calls him "a
tender-hearted prince;" and another, by Llywarch Brydydd y Moch,
says: "Llewellyn, though in battle he killed with fury, though he
burned like an outrageous fire, yet was a mild prince when the
mead-horns were distributed." In an ode by Llygard Gwr he is also
called "Llewellyn the mild."
29. Cadwallo and Urien were bards of whose songs nothing has been
preserved. Taliessin (see 121 below) dedicated many poems to the
latter, and wrote an elegy on his death: he was slain by treachery in
the year 560.