The Bards of Wales

The Bards of Wales (Hungarian: A walesi bárdok) is a ballad by Hungarian poet János Arany, written in 1857. Alongside the Toldi trilogy it is one of his most important works.

Arany was asked to write a poem of praise for the visit of Franz Joseph I of Austria, as were other Hungarian poets. Arany instead wrote a poem about the tale of the 500 Welsh bards sent to the stake by Edward I of England for failing to sing his praises at a banquet in Montgomery Castle in 1277, as a metaphor to criticise the tyrannic Habsburg rule over Hungary after the Hungarian Revolution of 1848. It was a method of encoded resistance to the repressive politics of Alexander von Bach in Hungary, and the planned visit of Franz Joseph.

The poem was written "for the desk drawer" and was first published 6 years later in 1863, disguised as a translation of an Old English ballad, so as to conceal the real meaning from the Austrian censor.

The poem is considered to be a manifesto of the passive resistance which led to the Austro-Hungarian Compromise of 1867. Arany wrote his own preface to the poem: "The historians doubt it, but it strongly stands in the legend that Edward I of England sent 500 Welsh bards to the stake after his victory over the Welsh (1277) to prevent them from arousing the country and destroying English rule by telling of the glorious past of their nation."

In the 6th grade of elementary school, every Hungarian student is required to learn The Bards of Wales as it has an important role in both Hungarian history and literature.

The best-known English translation was made by famous Canadian scholar Watson Kirkconnell in 1933.

In September 2007 an English copy of this poem, translated by Peter Zollman, was donated to the National Library of Wales in Aberystwyth.