GDG 46

This poem consists of an extended comparison between a hare and a girl's love, devoting precisely 36 lines to each. The hare is described in detail in the first half, emphasizing its inconstant nature (cf. 'Anwadalrwydd', poem 76, where the hare together with the squirrel and the roebuck is a symbol of inconstancy), and its habit of staying close to its lair, darting back there after feeding. On the hare's habits and folk beliefs about it see George Ewart Evans and David Thomson, The Leaping Hare (London, 1972). Although the hare's lair is described as mynyddig (literally 'mountainous'), it is unlikely that this is the mountain hare, since that breed, whilst common in Scotland, has never been native to Wales. This must be the common brown hare [description], mynyddig simply meaning that it made its lair on hillsides. A number of epithets are used of the hare in the poem, including several which have been common names for the creature (glastorch, clustir, cwta, and cath) but the name ysgyfarnog itself is avoided entirely (although it is used in the first line of poem 76). This may reflect superstitions about uttering the proper name of the hare, see The Leaping Hare 201. In the second half of the poem the comparison is drawn between the hare and the girl's love. The poet is like a hunter sseeking to drive the girl's love out of its lair in her mind and catch it for himself, but the inconstant love is difficult to catch and keeps turning back to its lair.

The girl in question is not named in the poem. It is quite possible that this is Morfudd, as whoever added the couplet naming her in the Ll 6 version (36+) seems to have assumed, but there is no definite proof of that. The reference to 'gwlad Wgon Gleddyfrudd' in 67–8, that is Ceredigion, suggests that Dafydd did have a specific girl in mind, but it does not help to decide between Morfudd and Dyddgu, since both lived in Ceredigion. However, the reference to 'winllawr deheuwawr' in line 46 is perhaps more relevant to Dyddgu since her father was a nobleman descended from the royal line of Deheubarth.

There is a Middle English poem which describes the hare in very similar terms to the first part of this poem, but without applying the portait as an image of love. The poem occurs in a manuscript of the late thirteenth century, Bodleian MS. Digby 86, probably from Shropshire, it has been published by A. S. C. Ross, 'The Middle English Poem on the Names of a Hare', in Proceedings of the Leeds Philosophical and Literary Society, Literary and Historical Section, III (1935), 347–77, and his text is reproduced in The Leaping Hare, 202–5.

9. gwrwraig   The hare was commonly believed to be bisexual, alternating between male and female, as seen in the Cyfnerth version of the Law of Hywel Dda: 'Yscyyarna6c ny wnaethp6yt guerth kyfreith arnei canys y neill mis y byd g6ry6 ar llall yn ueny6.' (Wade-Evans, Welsh Medieval Law, 77–78). See further The Leaping Hare 24–5.

67–8. Gwgon Gleddyfrudd   A traditional hero of Ceredigion, perhaps King Gwgawn ap Meurig who died in 871 according to Annales Cambriae, see G 675–6, TYP 389–90. Cf. the reference to 'ferch Wgon farchoges' in GDG 34.30.