GDG 43

This poem is about an oath which Morfudd swore that she loved Dafydd. A corresponding oath which Dafydd swore is mentioned in one short paragraph, but the rest of the poem is devoted entirely to Morfudd's oath, and it is interesting to note that the paragraph about Dafydd's oath is missing in the Book of Wiliam Mathew version. Considerable emphasis is placed on the solemnity and sanctity of the oath. It is not clear whether Morfudd was a married woman at the time, but perhaps her llaw fodrwyfaich ('ring-laden hand') suggests that she was, and if so the purpose of this poem may have been to proclaim that the bond between Morfudd a Dafydd was stronger than that between her and her husband, a bond based on a legal contract. It was generally believed in the Middle Ages that a solemn oath between two people was sufficient to form a marriage, see R. R. Davies's comments about 'the practice of regarding trothplighting, hand fasting and the making of a contract as in themselves establishing the state of matrimony', in Dafydd Jenkins and Morfydd E. Owen (eds), The Welsh Law of Women (Cardiff, 1980), 105. And the use of the epithet 'Llwyd' in the final line may be significant, since the poet was also 'Dafydd Llwyd'. But then again Dafydd uses her full name in the final line of two other poems, 113.32 and 114.36.

5. Luned   the maidservant of the Lady of the Fountain in the Arthurian Romance Owein.

43. Indeg   daughter of Garwy Hir and a paragon of beauty.