Edward Williams was born at Pen Onn, near Llancarfan in Glamorgan, Wales, and raised in the village of Flemingston (or Flimston; Trefflemin in Welsh). He followed his father as a stonemason. In Glamorgan he took an interest … See more

Iolo's philosophy represented a fusion of Christian and Arthurian influences, a romanticism comparable to that of William Blake and the Scottish poet and forger James MacPherson, the revived antiquarian enthusiasm for all things "Celtic", and such … See more

Towards the end of the 19th century, the grammarian Sir John Morris-Jones was involved in exposing Iolo as a forger, which led to the bard being labelled a charlatan. Morris … See more

• Geraint the Blue Bard
• List of 18th-century British working-class writers See more

From an early date Williams was concerned with preserving and maintaining the literary and cultural traditions of Wales. He produced a large number of manuscripts as evidence for his claims that ancient Druidic tradition had survived the See more

Iolo Morganwg developed his own runic system based on an ancient druid alphabet system, in Welsh Coelbren y Beirdd ("the Bardic Alphabet"). It was said to be the alphabetic … See more

Such was the extent of his forgery that, even into the 21st century, some of his tampered versions of medieval Welsh texts are better known than the original versions.
A Welsh-language school in Cowbridge, Ysgol Iolo … See more