Dorothy Ann Bray summarised the cycle thus: The entire cycle of the Heledd poems ... is a statement of mourning from which a background story has been deduced: Cynddylan, prince of Powys, and his brothers along with his heroic band are slain in battle, defending their country against the English in the mid-seventh century.
Heledd, his sister, is one of the few survivors, who witnessed the battle and the destruction of Cynddylan's hall at Pengwern.
She has lost not only all her brothers, but also her sisters and her home, and the poems suggest that she blames herself for the destruction of Cynddylan's court because of some ill-spoken words.
[2] As edited by Jenny Rowland, the contents of Canu Heledd are as follows:[3] The poems are attested principally in the Red Book of Hergest, which was written between about 1382 and 1410.
[5] The first copy, NLW 4973a, derives from a lost manuscript closer to the White Book than the Red.
The second copy, NLW 4973b, is more complex and may represent a conflation of multiple medieval sources, but seems to have at least some independent value as a witness to the lost archetype of the poems.
[6] Despite surviving first in manuscripts written between about 1382 and 1410 and in largely Middle Welsh orthography, Canu Heledd are thought mostly to have been composed in Old Welsh and transmitted orally and/or in manuscript, due to their archaic style and occasionally archaic spelling: Jenny Rowland dates the cycle to c.
[11] Heledd has been supposed by some commentators to have 'taken over the mantle of the old Celtic goddess of sovereignty', but there is no substantial evidence for this.
[12][13] As edited and translated by Jenny Rowland, stanzas 57–65 of Canu Heledd, entitled 'Ffreuer', run:[14]
Nyt angheu ffreuer am gwna heint o dechreu nos hyt deweint.
Blessed is Ffreuer — how sad it is tonight after the death of Elfan and the hero of Cyndrwyn, Cynddylan.
It is not the death of Ffreuer which moved me tonight and cayses me to have yellow cheeks and (shed) tears of blood over the bedside.
Ffreuer Wen, brothers nurtured you — they did not spring from among the wicked — warriors who did not nurse fear.