2nd Englyn 1st draft

You left this life of your accord

Fell upon your sharpened sword

All pleas ignored, lost, bereft

Epitaph a bloodied word.

The example above started out as and  an englyn unodle crwca and quickly became a combination of forms. Perhaps this is inevitable when writing a poetry form intended for another language.

There are many forms of englynions, with variations to syllable count and rhyme pattern and, just as I think I may have a handle on it, I realize I've mixed forms and confused myself further. The englyn (plural englynion) is a short poem, based on strict rules of syllable and rhyme count, and it is among the oldest indigenous verse forms in the Welsh tongue, dating back at least as far as the 9th century. 

I wondered why englynion were not popular with contemporary poets who have no problem adopting haiku and other short forms of poetry and I think the  problem facing the would-be englynist, as I have found, is that it isn't a single fixed form. The earliest englynion, for instance, are written in three-line stanzas, each line of seven syllables, with a single end rhyme, but there is another three-line version, the englyn penfyr, that has a more elaborate rhyme scheme. In this form, the first line is 10 syllables long, and the second and third are seven syllables each. The final word of the first line must be polysyllabic and must rhyme with the first word of the second line. The second and third lines have end rhyme.

These are just three variations, of which there are many, so it is my feeling one should become familiar with them all to have any chance of creating correctly.