The herald challenged me to work on a persona. I looked to the things that interested me from the beginning. Off to Wales, where I discovered a gwyn ap math in the 11th century in gwynned. He was a minor prince and had sons. This was about the time of the Norman incursion into the north of wales, so, I thought wouldn't it be interesting then to be the illegitimate son of gwyn ap math, born in 1075 to a serving girl, Maredudd ferch Collwyn, who died giving birth as she walked on the seashore. The place of my mother's death was a small sandy beach and for lack of a name, my aunt, gwerystan, named me tywyn(sandy place by the sea). My aunt sought a wet nurse and I was suckled at the breast of a common woman named Angharard, whose own child had died. I grew to manhood in the home of gwrgan map Ifor and his wife, working, learning as their own son.
Since I was not a recognized son, I was not trained in the combat arts and was ill tolerated in my father's circle. I turned to the religious life and sought monkshood, but was denied. When the cry went abroad for those who would go to the Holy land to free Jerusalem from the tyranny of the infidel, my lot was established! I was a young man of 20 years and willing to go to fight for a Holy cause. gathering my few belongings, I prepared to set out. Having been given a spear by my foster father and a norman helm taken in a border raid, I departed to join the company of knights, squires and others led by Robert of Normandy, willing to do battle for the true God. I became fast friends with a squire named Joseph, and he began to teach me the basics of armed combat. I am sure that I looked quite the fool on that ship as we traveled and I was continually practicing the new skills that I had learned day by day. Landing near Constantinople in early 1097, we began our trek toward the Holy land, fighting across asia minor, through Nicea and dorylaeum. Nothing had prepared me for the carnage of close combat, the hot coppery smell of newly spilt blood, the cries of the dying, and the hordes of flies as the day wore on and the number of the dead increased. Twice wounded, I feared that I too would die, long ere the holy city came into view. As we fought, I gathered such weapons and armor as were needful from the field of combat, knowing that the gallants who had fallen would have it to be so. Onward and onward we fought coming to Jerusalem in 1099. Through siege and much loss of life in the breaching of the walls, the city was taken in July and a proper government established.
Traveling by foot and ship, I set my course for the mountains and
valleys of my youth, returning in 1104 with such means as necessary
to become a small land holder. Since my return, I have become a
solitary man, not much taken with the company of men. I long again to
be the child I once was rather than the warrior I have become, knowing
that as the years progress, ultimately I will be neither, only
an old man in whom lives the memory of what might have been.