Hedd Wyn was a Welsh-language poet who was killed on the first day of the Battle of Passchendaele during World War I. He was posthumously awarded the bard's chair at the 1917 National Eisteddfod. Evans, who had been awarded several chairs for his poetry, was inspired to take the Bardic name Hedd Wyn from the way sunlight penetrated the mist in the Meirionnydd valleys.