Prologue

Wednesday, September 6, 1917, Birkenhead, England

“Fleur de lis!”

In a strong, clear voice, Archdruid Dyfed called out the nom de plume of the poet who was about to be awarded the highest literary honour Wales could bestow.

The National Eisteddfod audience of thousands, including men and women standing three and four deep outside the temporary pavilion that had been set up in the middle of an English field, fell into a respectful but excited silence as they waited for the archdruid to announce for the second time the name of the winner of the festival’s most prestigious prize.

“If the poet who competed under the name Fleur de lis is here, he should stand!”

Surrounded by dignitaries, including the Welsh prime minister David Lloyd George, the archdruid adjusted the flowing white robes of his costume and touched the gold, torc-shaped breastplate that adorned his chest as he stepped closer to the edge of the stage, preparing to call out the winner’s name for the third and final time. The moment had come for the winner of the main prize at this annual celebration of Welsh literature and culture to stand and reveal himself to the assembly, and then allow himself to be escorted to the stage for the chairing ceremony.

After judging that he had waited long enough to allow the tension to rise and the anticipation to peak, the archdruid addressed the crowd in their native Welsh. “Pan genir yr utgyrn a wnaiff Fleurs de lis, a Fleurs de lis yn unig, sefyll, os gwelwch yn dda.” When the Gorsedd trumpeters play the fanfare, would Fleur de lis, and only Fleur de lis, please stand up.

The assembly held its collective breath as two trumpeters, with brightly coloured embroidered banners hanging from their silver instruments, played a musical flourish.

But no one stood.

Archdruid Dyfed consulted his notes, then rested one hand lightly on the armrest of the ornately carved bardic chair that had been commissioned for today’s ceremony. “The winner of this year’s chair is Hedd Wyn,” he announced, using the poet’s bardic name. “That is, Ellis Humphrey Evans, from the village of Trawsfynydd, North Wales.”

But where was the winner? Members of the audience exchanged puzzled, concerned looks. Why did he not come forward and present himself to accept the great honour about to be bestowed upon him?

And then the archdruid uttered the most unexpected, most dreadful reason. “The victor has fallen in battle and lies in a silent grave in a foreign field.” Hedd Wyn, on the cusp of literary greatness at the age of thirty, had been killed in action six weeks earlier, at the Battle of Pilckem Ridge, the opening attack of the Third Battle of Ypres, which would come to be better known as the Battle of Passchendaele. The chair was to be awarded posthumously. Although the archdruid was well aware of the fate that had befallen the winner, he had followed the traditional procedure of calling out the winner’s name three times.

A stunned silence fell over the Eisteddfod field, and the crowd did not at first react. And then, as the archdruid’s words began to take hold, a wave of murmured disbelief swept through the audience, the ripples of shock increasing to cries of anguished grief for their lost poet.

Three members of the platform party, dressed in white druidic costume similar to the archdruid’s, rose from their seats and stepped solemnly forward to join him.

“Yr ŵyl yn ei dagrau a’r Bardd yn ei fedd—the festival in tears and the poet in his grave,” said the archdruid. The druids unfolded a large square of black cloth, and, each holding a corner, they slowly and reverently draped it over the bardic chair, its soft folds shrouding the potent symbol of a generation of young Welsh men whose unfulfilled promise had been sacrificed to the Great War.