GDG 118; HGDG t. 77–8; DGSP 22.
In this poem the seagull is sent as a love-messenger (llatai) to an anonymous girl in a castle by the sea. There is not enough evidence in the poem to decide which of the numerous coastal castles of Wales this was; D. J. Bowen (1977, 193) suggests Aberystwyth, and Anthony Conran ('The Redhead on the Castle Wall: Dafydd ap Gwilym's "Yr Wylan" ', THSC 1992, 19– 44) argues for Cricieth (mainly on the basis of the cultured Welsh court depicted there by Iolo Goch, GIG II). It has also been suggested that the girl in question was Morfudd, but note that this girl has copper-coloured hair (line 25), whilst Morfudd's hair was blonde (see 'Gwallt Morfudd' poem 114).
14. Eigr See 9.47n.
23–4. No love poems attributed to Myrddin or Taliesin have survived, but some may have been known in the 14th century, and those which refer to Gwenddydd, Myrddin's sister, may have been taken to be love poems. Iolo Goch refers to Taliesin's love poetry, see GIG XXXV.1–4 (the reference to a seagull in that passage is perhaps more than just coincidence).
25. siprys a borrowing from Middle English ciprus, fine linen [from Cyprus], see GPC 3291 and cf. GIRh 1.9, 'Digiprys gold seiprys Sieb'. But Anthony Conran argued in The Penguin Book of Welsh Verse, 297, and in THSC 1992, 27–32, that this refers to the island of Cyprus. Cyprus was associated in particular with the goddess Venus, and it was also famous for its copper mines. On the connections between Cyprus, Venus and copper in the field of alchemy see further D. J. Bowen's notes in LlC 7 (1962–3), 247 and LlC 8 (1964–5), 232. It is possible, therefore, that siprys dyn refers specifically to Venus.