Iolo Morganwg

Edward Williams, who went by the bardic name Iolo Morganwg, was a Welsh antiquarian, poet, and manuscript collector active in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. During his lifetime, he was regarded as an authority on medieval Welsh literature, but after his death it came to light that he had fabricated a number of manuscripts, including parts of the Third Series of Welsh Triads. Despite this, his influence on Welsh culture was lasting: he founded the secret society called the Gorsedd, and through it he effectively took over the revival of the Eisteddfod in the 18th century. The ideas he promoted in his forgeries also left a deep mark on neo-Druidism. His bardic name means "Iolo of Glamorgan" in Welsh.

Born in Pen-onn, near Llancarfan in the Vale of Glamorgan, he grew up in the village of Flemingston. He worked as a stonemason like his father. In Glamorgan, he began collecting manuscripts and learned to write Welsh poetry under the guidance of Lewis Hopkin, Rhys Morgan, and especially Siôn Bradford. In 1773 he moved to London, where the antiquary Owen Jones introduced him to the city's Welsh literary circles, and he joined the Gwyneddigion Society; later he was also active in the Cymreigyddion Society. He returned to Wales in 1777, married, and tried farming, but failed. During this period he produced his first forgeries. His son, Taliesin, later collected his manuscripts into 26 volumes, a selection of which was published in 1848 as the *Iolo Manuscripts*.

From early on, Williams aimed to preserve Welsh literary and cultural traditions. He created a large number of manuscripts to support his claim that ancient Druidic traditions had survived the Roman conquest, Christianisation, the persecution of bards under Edward I, and other hardships. His forgeries outline an elaborate mystical philosophy that he presented as a direct continuation of ancient Druidic practice. His heavy use of laudanum may have contributed to this work. He first gained public attention in 1789 with *Barddoniaeth Dafydd ab Gwilym*, a collection of poems by the 14th-century poet Dafydd ap Gwilym that included many previously unknown poems he claimed to have discovered—these are now considered his first forgeries.

Encouraged by this success, he returned to London in 1791 and founded the Gorsedd, a community of Welsh bards, with a ceremony on Primrose Hill in June 1792 that he organised according to what he said were ancient Druidic rites. In 1794 he published some of his own poetry, later collected in *Poems, Lyric and Pastoral*, which was essentially his only genuine work and proved popular. He collaborated with Owen Jones and William Owen Pughe on *The Myvyrian Archaiology of Wales*, a three-volume collection of medieval Welsh literature published between 1801 and 1807, which partly relied on manuscripts from his collection—some of them forgeries. These forgeries included a false Brut chronicle and a book attributed to Saint Cadoc. The second volume, containing the Welsh Triads, included an additional forged "third series" and alterations to the authentic ones.

After his death, his son compiled some of his papers into *The Iolo Manuscripts*. Later scholars and translators used his work, including Lady Charlotte Guest when she translated the *Mabinogion*, though she did not rely on his editions except for *Hanes Taliesin*. Further forgeries were published posthumously in a text called *Barddas*, issued in two volumes in 1862 and 1874, which was presented as a translation of works by Llywelyn Siôn detailing the history of the Welsh bardic system. Although it contains no authentic Druidic lore, it is the fullest account of the mystical cosmology Williams invented. Other works include the "Druid's Prayer," still used by the Gorsedd and neo-Druid groups; a treatise on Welsh metrics titled *Cyfrinach Beirdd Ynys Prydain*, published posthumously in 1828; and a hymn series, *Salmau yr Eglwys yn yr Anialwch*, published in 1812.

Williams's philosophy blended Christian and Arthurian elements with a romanticism similar to that of William Blake and the Scottish poet and forger James MacPherson, along with the revived antiquarian enthusiasm for all things "Celtic" and whatever genuine bardic traditions survived among Welsh-language poets. He aimed to assert the Welshness of South Wales, especially his home region of Glamorgan, against the prevailing view that North Wales was the purest repository of Welsh traditions. His metaphysical system, laid out in his forgeries, proposed concentric "rings of existence" moving outward from Annwn through Abred and Ceugant to Gwynfyd. Outside his shop in Cowbridge, a sign stated that his sugar came from plantations that employed no slaves, yet he contested a will to claim a legacy from one of his three brothers, all of whom owned Jamaican plantations that used slave labour. By 1799 he had become a Unitarian, and he was a leading figure when a Unitarian Association was formed in South Wales in 1802, drafting its *Rheolau a Threfniadau* (Rules and Procedures), published in 1803. He also created his own runic system based on an ancient druid alphabet.