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thumb|An on a gravestone in [[Christ Church, Bala:

</div>

Dear Price, pure in his diligent service<br/>

Wide in his knowledge;<br/>

A man acerbic, fearless and fluent,<br/>

And thorough in doctrine.</div>]]

(; plural ) is a traditional Welsh short poem form. It uses quantitative metres, involving the counting of syllables, and rigid patterns of rhyme and half rhyme. Many lines contain a repeating pattern of consonants and accent known as .

Early history

The is found in the work of the earliest attested Welsh poets (the ), where the main types are the three-line and . It is the only set stanzaic metre found in the early Welsh poetic corpus, and explanations for its origins have tended to focus on stanzaic Latin poetry and hymns; however, it is as likely to be a development within the Brittonic poetic tradition. Whereas the metrical rules of later are clear (and are based on counting syllables), the precise metre of the early is debated and could have involved stress-counting. The earliest are found as marginalia written in a tenth-century hand in the Juvencus Manuscript. Many early form poems which seem to represent moments of characters' emotional reflection in stories now lost: , , . Others survey heroic tradition, for example the or Geraint son of Erbin, and others again are lyric, religious meditations and laments such as the famous and .

Types of

There are a number of types of . Details of their structures are as follows; not all of these, however, are included in the Traditional Welsh poetic metres.

Also known as "the short-ended ". It consists of a stanza of three lines. The first line has ten syllables (in two groups of five), the second has five to six; and the third has seven. The seventh, eighth or ninth syllable of the first line introduces the rhyme and this is repeated on the last syllable of the other two lines. The fourth syllable of the second line may echo the final syllable of the first through either rhyme or consonance.

The "straight one-rhymed ", identical to except that it adds a fourth, rhyming, seven-syllable line at the end. Thus it consists of four lines of ten, six, seven and seven syllables. The seventh, eighth or ninth syllable of the first line introduces the rhyme and this is repeated on the last syllable of the other three lines. The part of the first line after the rhyme alliterates with the first part of the second line.

This is an by Alan Llwyd:

The "soldier's ". This consists of three seven-syllable lines. All three lines rhyme.