Dilys Cadwaladr


Dilys Cadwaladr was a Welsh-language poet and fiction writer. Her work also gained readers in English translation.

First female crowned bard

Dilys Cadwaladr is notable for being the first woman to win the Crown at the National Eisteddfod of Wales. This she achieved in 1953 at Rhyl.
Her story "The Foolish Maid" appears in English translation in the collection My Heart on My Sleeve, which remained in print in 2020. Earlier, her story "The Divorce" had appeared in English in 1928 in the periodical "The Welsh Outlook".

Personal life

Cadwaladr had a close relationship with the elderly poet Dewi Emrys, by whom she had a daughter in 1930. Dilys Cadwaladr lived on Bardsey Island for several years in the 1940s, as a farmer and as the schoolteacher to the island's children.