Margaret Davies (writer)

Davies was born in Coetgae-du, near Trawsfynydd in north-west Wales. She was tutored in poetry by her mother, Ann Dafydd (d. 1726). Davies was one several north-western Welsh women poets, including Margaret Rowlands and Alis ach Wiliam, who travelled to meet with each other and trade poems. Like the pioneering poet Angharad James, born in the previous generation, those in this informal group were relatively privileged economically, with money and leisure time to make poetry writing and travel feasible. Davies died in 1778 or 1785. ==Poetry==

Five manuscripts wholly in Davies's handwriting and three others to which she contributed are known to survive. They contain collections of poems organized by form, including awdlau, cywyddau, and cerddi. Half a dozen women poets are represented, with some poems surviving only in Davies's copies. For example, the compilations are the only known source for one of the englynion written by a medieval Welsh woman poet, Gwerful Mechain. Likewise, much surviving information on Angharad James, including the one known copy of James's elegy on her son's death, comes from Davies. Davies was particularly interested in preserving older Welsh poetic forms, such as cynghanedd and englynion. She wrote in these forms, though no poems of hers were published in her lifetime. According to the literary scholar Ceridwen Lloyd-Morgan, "The importance of [Davies's] contribution... cannot be over-emphasised: without her efforts in collecting and writing down poems by other women, both of her day and earlier, a significant number of poems, and even the names of the women who composed them, would be completely unknown to us today." ==References==