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Giant Lord Rhys and hound Teifi packed the Cardigan streets
The Eisteddfod counted more than 8,000 people in town. High Street to the quay filled for a five-metre puppet of Rhys ap Gruffudd, built in Cardigan by Small World Theatre, and his hound Teifi, on wheels, from Skeleton Crew in Cilgerran. That is the version you could see from the bridge.
Christmas 1176 is the date Cardigan keeps: the first recorded eisteddfod, called by the Lord Rhys at the castle. The 2026 National sat a few miles off, at Llantood, as Eisteddfod y Garreg Las, 1–8 August. The June parade was the homecoming before the Maes opened.
He had been “woken” at St Davids Cathedral on 19 June and walked west Wales for a week under Marc Rees: Cenarth, Newcastle Emlyn, Talgarreg, Llangrannog, Goodwick, Maenclochog, then Cardigan. The chair came on George, one of the Gentle Giants shires. The crown came up the Teifi by boat with Dai Crabs. Wolves from Spraoi in Waterford, first time in Wale, walked him in.
The week that led here
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19 Jun · St Davids
Reawakening at the cathedral. This year’s chair and crown unveiled at Oriel y Parc.
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20–26 Jun
Site pieces in towns tied to chair-winning poets: Cenarth and Newcastle Emlyn, Talgarreg, Llangrannog, Goodwick, Maenclochog. Ceri Wyn Jones, Mari Mathias, Eddie Ladd among the names on the road.
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27 Jun · Cardigan
Procession High Street to quay, 12:00–22:30 at the castle. Poets and musicians arriving as they did in the story of 1176, by boat and by horse.
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1–8 Aug · Llantood
Eisteddfod y Garreg Las. Ceredigion ran a free shuttle, Bws yr Arglwydd Rhys, Finch Square on the hour, Maes on the half-hour, 7am to midnight.
After the crowd went home
Cardigan can still claim the first eisteddfod. The Maes was in Pembrokeshire; the origin story is on this bank of the Teifi. That is why a shire horse on Castle Street mattered more than another speech.
Olwen Davies, mayor and chair of the local organising committee, and Rees ran the day with town volunteers. Photographs and the official gallery sit on the Eisteddfod site. The puppet is not a standing exhibit in the castle now, the next thing filling those grounds is makers, not princes.