The Coelbren y Beirdd (English: "Bards' lot") is an
script created in the late eighteenth century by the
literary forger Edward Williams, best known as
Iolo Morganwg.[1]
The script, an
alphabet compared to that of
Ancient Greek by Welsh writer
Jane Williams, consisted of forty letters- twenty base letters, and a further twenty devoted to
long vowels and
consonant mutations. It could be carved on four-sided pieces of wood and fitted into a frame called a "peithynen".[1][2] Morganwg presented wooden
druidic alphabets to friends and notables, and succeeded in persuading many of its authenticity.
A Welsh
Bardic and
Druidic essay, written by his son
Taliesin Williams and published as a
pamphlet in 1840, defended the authenticity of the alphabet and won the Abergavenny Eisteddfod in 1838.[3][4]
Taliesin Williams's book was written about other Coelbrennau'r Beirdd, which is the name of a Welsh language manuscript in the
Iolo Manuscripts and two manuscripts in
Barddas, one with the subtitle "yn dorredig a chyllell". Iolo Morganwg suggested they were originally the work of
bards from
Glamorgan who had their manuscripts copied into collections stored at
Plas y Fan,
Neath Abbey,
Margam Abbey and
Raglan Library, and compiled by
Meurig Dafydd and
Lewys Morgannwg, amongst others, in the 1700s. These were suggested to have again been transcribed by
Edward Dafydd,
John Bradford and
Llywelyn Siôn. Morganwg suggested that he had collected some of Siôn and Bradford's manuscripts, while the majority, including all of Lewys Morgannwg's sources, were lost. This claim to authenticity has been questioned by numerous scholars such as
Glyn Cothi Lewis.[5][6][7][8]
Table of letters in Celtic Researches (1804) by
Edward Davies (1756–1831):