I mentioned the film biography about the Welsh poet ‘Hedd Wyn’ Ellis Humphrey Evans sometime ago and noticed recently that someone had posted a link to the full movie (which is now on Youtube) on the Patagonia Facebook site (link):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C8JdhAUJFt0
Obviously on Youtube it’s not the quality of the DVD I mentioned which can still be purchased (see below).
It’s in Welsh of course with English subtitles but it’s a very powerful film and conveys the strength of his poetry which won him posthumously the Bardic Prize at the 1917 Eisteddfod and also his complex emotional life and relationships.
Most striking are the closing sequences on the battlefields of WW1 France where he was killed and the last scene where the Bardic Chair draped in a black cloth he won is conveyed home to his families cottage at Trawsfynydd, North Wales, where it still is today.
Although Evans was a Christian Pacifist he enlisted to take the place of his younger brother who had been conscripted. He was killed at Passchendaele on the 31st of July 1917 just six weeks before his poem was judged the winning entry at the National Eisteddfod. Hedd Wyn in buried in Artillery Wood Cemetery in Belgium.
Related link:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hedd_Wyn
Sain Records in Wales stock the DVD film of Hedd Wyn’s life which was critically acclaimed at the time of his release and nominated for an Academy Award (link):
http://www.sainwales.com/store/dvd/sain-dvd-10
Bernard Moffatt
pp Celtic League
01/02/18
