Message from my English vicar poet friend who has an interest in pilgrimage and Penrhys.
Margaret - a very obscure request, and please ignore if stupid. I am trying to track down the Welsh text of two medieval poems about Our Lady of Penrhys by Gwilym Tew. Any ideas?
The original manuscripts are in the National Library of Wales but I’m afraid a quick search hasn’t turned up any online version of the text (I’m at work, so can’t do an exhaustive search right now!)
Well several papers on Penrhys do mention Gwilym Tew, but frustratingly they don’t quote more than a line or two of his poems.
Gwilym is likely to be included in Barry Lewis’s ‘Medieval Welsh Poems to Saints and Shrines’ (2015) but of course there is no absolute guarantee without seeing the book.
The text which seems to have examined Gwilym’s poems most thoroughly is A. E. Jones, ‘Gwilym Tew: astudiaeth destunol a chymharol o’i lawysgrif, Peniarth 51, ynghyd a gyndriniaeth a’i farddoniaeth’ (University of Wales Ph D thesis, 1981). Again, as @siaronjames has said, this is most likely to be at NLW - where I’m sure the staff would help point out any other sources.
In the meantime, another paper that might interest your friend, easily downloadable from the net, is the 30-page ‘Sacred space and the natural world: the holy well and shrine of the Virgin Mary at Penrhys’, by Madeleine Gray. It includes a few verses from Gwilym but also extracts from other medieval poets such as Lewys Morgannwg and Rhisiart ap Rhys.
Jane Cartwright’s volume ‘Feminine Sanctity and Spirituality in Medieval Wales’, which I have before me, has 3-4 pages on Penrhys and mentions Gwilym, but again quotes from two other poets. (Jane was my tutor for the Welsh Female Saints module I did for my recent MA Celtic Studies at Lampeter.)
Hope some of this is helpful.
Pob lwc!
Thank you both. I’m pretty sure Madelaine and Andy know each other already and seem to remember sending her my walking route to St Davids a few years ago, me being, sometimes, a modern pilgrim.
Andy, as far as I know, doesn’t speak Welsh, but wants to translate the originals into modernish English, possibly as poetry. Madelaine is sending a copy of the originals she has in a doctoral thesis, (her own, I don’t know?). I, somewhat foolishly, have asked him to send me a copy so I can see what I can do with them. I may well find myself resorting to friends and aquaintances here for further help!
So that seems to have solved the problem - at least, the original one! 
I can always turn something simple into something complicated!
Siaron, you are always so helpful and kind. Thank you for being you. Your generosity does not go unnoticed and is greatly appreciated and definitely deserves recognition. Others too. You are all wonderful people. 
