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Traditional WELSH POETRY relies on cynghanedd (meaning harmony), the interweaving of alliteration or full or slant rhymes. There are 24 separate forms divided into three types – the awdl (12), cywydd (4), and englyn (8). The long tradition of poetry gives scope for much study, but we’ll look at just one example in each style.
In the ode or awdl style, the rhupunt is written in stanzas of three, four or five lines of four syllables each. The poem is metrical, with opening lines rhyming in each stanza, and the last lines of all the stanzas rhyming together. The four line stanza pattern, then, would rhyme: a a a b c c c b d d d b for any number of stanzas.