Gwerful means "woman-strong" or "strong woman" in Welsh. **Gwerful Mechain (c. 1460-c. 1502)** was the **only Welsh medieval female poet whose body of work survives in substantial quantity** — she wrote across genres including religious devotion, married love, and **strikingly explicit poems in defense of women's sexual pleasure and bodies** (most famously *Cywydd y Cedor*, "Poem to the Vagina"). **A bold voice centuries ahead of her time.**
Featured in modern anthologies of medieval Welsh women's writing.
Gwerful reduces to three — the number of Welsh medieval poet.