Wild Wales: Its People, Language and Scenery
by George Borrow · English · Gutenberg #648 · 1,297,447 chars · public domain (US)
The Project Gutenberg eBook of Wild Wales: Its People, Language and Scenery
This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and
most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions
whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms
of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online
at www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States,
you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located
before using this eBook.
Title: Wild Wales: Its People, Language and Scenery
Author: George Borrow
Release date: September 1, 1996 [eBook #648]
Most recently updated: August 16, 2021
Language: English
Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/648
Credits: David Price and Jane Gamie
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WILD WALES: ITS PEOPLE, LANGUAGE AND SCENERY ***
WILD WALES
ITS PEOPLE, LANGUAGE
AND SCENERY
BY GEORGE BORROW
“Their Lord they shall praise,
Their language they shall keep,
Their land they shall lose,
Except Wild Wales.”
TALIESIN: _Destiny of the Britons_
* * * * *
LONDON
JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE STREET
1907
FIRST EDITION 1862
SECOND EDITION 1865
THIRD EDITION 1888
FOURTH EDITION 1896
FIFTH (DEFINITIVE) EDITION 6/- _March_, 1901
_Reprinted_ Thin Paper _July_, 1905
_Reprinted_ 6/- _Sept._, 1907
_Reprinted_ 2/6 net. _Sept._, 1907
NOTE
This edition of _Wild Wales_ has been carefully collated with the first
edition, in order to ensure that the spelling of proper names shall be
precisely as Borrow left it, and the running headings on the right-hand
pages as nearly as possible those which Borrow himself wrote.
_January_ 1901.
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
_All the Plates in this volumes are from drawings by_ Mr. A. S. HARTRICK
{0}
Above Capel Curig on the road to Bangor _Frontispiece_
(_Photogravure_)
Llangollen and Dinas Bran _to face page_ 32
The Wilds of Snowdown 200
In Anglessey. Redwharf Bay (Treath Coch), and 212
the Country of Gronwy Owen
The Wondrous Valley of Gelert 312
Cascade on the Moor between Festiniog and Balla 328
Balla Lake in the Fifties, showing the Aran 346
Mountain and Cader Idris. (_Drawn from an old
print_)
Chirk (Castell y Waen) 366
Twilight after a Storm. Dinas Mawddwy 494
Eastern Street, Machynlleth, showing part of 512
Owen Glendower’s Parliament House
The Devil’s Bridge 558
The Remains of Strata Florida Abbey from the 596
Churchyard
“Pump Saint” 632
Map of Wales showing Borrow’s Route _to face page_ 1
INTRODUCTORY
Wales is a country interesting in many respects, and deserving of more
attention than it has hitherto met with. Though not very extensive, it
is one of the most picturesque countries in the world, a country in which
Nature displays herself in her wildest, boldest, and occasionally
loveliest forms. The inhabitants, who speak an ancient and peculiar
language, do not call this region Wales, nor themselves Welsh. They call
themselves Cymry or Cumry, and their country Cymru, or the land of the
Cumry. Wales or Wallia, however, is the true, proper, and without doubt
original name, as it relates not to any particular race, which at present
inhabits it, or may have sojourned in it at any long bygone period, but
to the country itself. Wales signifies a land of mountains, of vales, of
dingles, chasms, and springs. It is connected with the Cumbric bal, a
protuberance, a springing forth; with the Celtic beul or beal, a mouth;
with the old English welle, a fountain; with the original name of Italy,
still called by the Germans Welschland; with Balkan and Vulcan, both of
which signify a casting out, an eruption; with Welint or Wayland, the
name of the Anglo-Saxon god of the forge; with the Chaldee val, a forest,
and the German wald; with the English bluff, and the Sanscrit
palava—startling assertions, no doubt, at least to some; which are,
however, quite true, and which at some future time will be universally
acknowledged so to be.
But it is not for its scenery alone that Wales is deserving of being
visited; scenery soon palls unless it is associated with remarkable
events, and the names of remarkable men. Perhaps there is no country in
the whole world which has been the scene of events more stirring and
remarkable than those recorded in the history of Wales. What other
country has been the scene of a struggle so deadly, so embittered, and
protracted as that between the Cumro and the Saxon?—A struggle which did
not terminate at Caernarvon, when Edward Longshanks foisted his young son
upon the Welsh chieftains as Prince of Wales; but was kept up till the
battle of Bosworth Field, when a prince of Cumric blood won the crown of
fair Britain, verifying the olden word which had cheered the hearts of
the Ancient Britons for at least a thousand years, even in times of the
darkest distress and gloom:—
“But after long pain
Repose we shall obtain,
When sway barbaric has purg’d us clean;
And Britons shall regain
Their crown and their domain,
And the foreign oppressor be no more seen.”
Of remarkable men Wales has assuredly produced its full share. First, to
speak of men of action:—there was Madoc, the son of Owain Gwynedd, who
discovered America, centuries before Columbus was born; then there was
“the irregular and wild Glendower,” who turned rebel at the age of sixty,
was crowned King of Wales at Machynlleth, and for fourteen years
contrived to hold his own against the whole power of England; then there
was Ryce Ap Thomas, the best soldier of his time, whose hands placed the
British crown on the brow of Henry the Seventh, and whom bluff Henry the
Eighth delighted to call Father Preece; then there was—who?—why Harry
Morgan, who led those tremendous fellows the Buccaneers across the
Isthmus of Darien to the sack and burning of Panamá.
What, a buccaneer in the list? Ay! and why not? Morgan was a scourge,
it is true, but he was a scourge of God on the cruel Spaniards of the New
World, the merciless task-masters and butchers of the Indian race: on
which account God favoured and prospered him, permitting him to attain
the noble age of ninety, and to die peacefully and tranquilly at Jamaica,
whilst smoking his pipe in his shady arbour, with his smiling plantation
of sugar-canes full in view. How unlike the fate of Harry Morgan to that
of Lolonois, a being as daring and enterprising as the Welshman, but a
monster without ruth or discrimination, terrible to friend and foe, who
perished by the hands, not of the Spaniards, but of the Indians, who tore
him limb from limb, burning his members, yet quivering, in the fire—which
very Indians Morgan contrived to make his own firm friends, and whose
difficult language he spoke with the same facility as English, Spanish,
and his own South Welsh.
For men of genius Wales during a long period was particularly
celebrated.—Who has not heard of the Welsh Bards? though it is true that,
beyond the borders of Wales, only a very few are acquainted with their
songs, owing to the language, by no means an easy one, in which they were
composed. Honour to them all! everlasting glory to the three
greatest—Taliesin, Ab Gwilym and Gronwy Owen: the first a professed
Christian, but in reality a Druid, whose poems fling great light on the
doctrines of the primitive priesthood of Europe, which correspond
remarkably with the philosophy of the Hindus, before the time of Brahma:
the second the grand poet of Nature, the contemporary of Chaucer, but
worth half a dozen of the accomplished word-master, the ingenious
versifier of Norman and Italian tales: the third a learned and
irreproachable minister of the Church of England, and one of the greatest
poets of the last century, who after several narrow escapes from
starvation both in England and Wales, died master of a paltry school at
New Brunswick, in North America, sometime about the year 1780.
But Wales has something besides its wonderful scenery, its eventful
history, and its illustrious men of yore to interest the visitor. Wales
has a population, and a remarkable one. There are countries, besides
Wales, abounding with noble scenery, rich in eventful histories, and
which are not sparingly dotted with the birthplaces of heroes and poets,
in which at the present day there is either no population at all, or one
of a character which is anything but attractive. Of a country in the
first predicament, the Scottish Highlands afford an example: What a
country is that Highland region! What scenery! and what associations!
If Wales has its Snowdon and Cader Idris, the Highlands have their Hill
of the Water Dogs, and that of the Swarthy Swine: If Wales has a history,
so have the Highlands—not indeed so remarkable as that of Wales, but
eventful enough: If Wales has had its heroes, its Glendower and Father
Pryce, the Highlands have had their Evan Cameron and Ranald of Moydart;
If Wales has had its romantic characters, its Griffith Ap Nicholas and
Harry Morgan, the Highlands have had Rob Roy and that strange fellow
Donald Macleod, the man of the broadsword, the leader of the Freacadan
Dhu, who at Fontenoy caused, the Lord only knows, how many Frenchmen’s
heads to fly off their shoulders, who lived to the age of one hundred and
seven, and at seventy-one performed gallant service on the Heights of
Abraham: wrapped in whose plaid the dying Wolfe was carried from the hill
of victory.—If Wales has been a land of song, have not the Highlands
also?—If Wales can boast of Ab Gwilym and Gronwy, the Highlands can boast
of Ossian and MacIntyre. In many respects the two regions are equals or
nearly so;—In one respect, however, a matter of the present day, and a
very important matter too, they are anything but equals: Wales has a
population—but where is that of the Highlands?—Plenty of noble scene;
Plenty of delightful associations, historical, poetical, and
romantic—but, but, where is the population?
The population of Wales has not departed across the Atlantic, like that
of the Highlands; it remains at home, and a remarkable population it
is—very different from the present inhabitants of several beautiful lands
of olden fame, who have strangely degenerated from their forefathers.
Wales has not only a population, but a highly interesting one—hardy and
frugal, yet kind and hospitable—a bit crazed, it is true, on the subject
of religion, but still retaining plenty of old Celtic peculiarities, and
still speaking Diolch i Duw!—the language of Glendower and the Bards.
The present is a book about Wales and Welsh matters. He who does me the
honour of perusing it will be conducted to many a spot not only
remarkable for picturesqueness, but for having been the scene of some
extraordinary event, or the birth-place or residence of a hero or a man
of genius; he will likewise be not unfrequently introduced to the genuine
Welsh, and made acquainted with what they have to say about Cumro and
Saxon, buying and selling, fattening hogs and poultry, Methodism and
baptism, and the poor, persecuted Church of England.
An account of the language of Wales will be found in the last chapter.
It has many features and words in common with the Sanscrit, and many
which seem peculiar to itself, or rather to the family of languages,
generally called the Celtic, to which it belongs. Though not an original
tongue, for indeed no original tongue, or anything approximating to one,
at present exists, it is certainly of immense antiquity, indeed almost
entitled in that respect to dispute the palm with the grand tongue of
India, on which in some respects it flings nearly as much elucidation as
it itself receives in others. Amongst the words quoted in the chapter
alluded to I wish particularly to direct the reader’s attention to gwr, a
man, and gwres, heat; to which may be added gwreichionen, a spark. Does
not the striking similarity between these words warrant the supposition
that the ancient Cumry entertained the idea that man and fire were one
and the same, even like the ancient Hindus, who believed that man sprang
from fire, and whose word vira, {1} which signifies a strong man, a hero,
signifies also fire?
There are of course faults and inaccuracies in the work; but I have
reason to believe that they are neither numerous nor important: I may
have occasionally given a wrong name to a hill or a brook; or may have
overstated or understated, by a furlong, the distance between one hamlet
and another; or even committed the blunder of saying that Mr Jones Ap
Jenkins lived in this or that homestead, whereas in reality Mr Jenkins Ap
Jones honoured it with his residence: I may be chargeable with such
inaccuracies; in which case I beg to express due sorrow for them, and at
the same time a hope that I have afforded information about matters
relating to Wales which more than atones for them. It would be as well
if those who exhibit eagerness to expose the faults of a book would
occasionally have the candour to say a word or two about its merits; such
a wish, however, is not likely to be gratified, unless indeed they wisely
take a hint from the following lines, translated from a cywydd of the
last of the great poets of Wales:
“All can perceive a fault, where there is one—
A dirty scamp will find one, where there’s none.” {2}
[Picture: Map of Wales showing Borrow’s route]
CHAPTER I
Proposed Excursion—Knowledge of Welsh—Singular Groom—Harmonious
Distich—Welsh Pronunciation—Dafydd Ab Gwilym.
In the summer of the year 1854 myself, wife, and daughter determined upon
going into Wales, to pass a few months there. We are country people of a
corner of East Anglia, and, at the time of which I am speaking, had been
residing so long on our own little estate, that we had become tired of
the objects around us, and conceived that we should be all the better for
changing the scene for a short period. We were undetermined for some
time with respect to where we should go. I proposed Wales from the
first, but my wife and daughter, who have always had rather a hankering
after what is fashionable, said they thought it would be more advisable
to go to Harrowgate, or Leamington. On my observing that those were
terrible places for expense, they replied that, though the price of corn
had of late been shamefully low, we had a spare hundred pounds or two in
our pockets, and could afford to pay for a little insight into
fashionable life. I told them that there was nothing I so much hated as
fashionable life, but that, as I was anything but a selfish person, I
would endeavour to stifle my abhorrence of it for a time, and attend them
either to Leamington or Harrowgate. By this speech I obtained my wish,
even as I knew I should, for my wife and daughter instantly observed,
that, after all, they thought we had better go into Wales, which, though
not so fashionable as either Leamington or Harrowgate, was a very nice
picturesque country, where, they had no doubt, they should get on very
well, more especially as I was acquainted with the Welsh language.
It was my knowledge of Welsh, such as it was, that made me desirous that
we should go to Wales, where there was a chance that I might turn it to
some little account. In my boyhood I had been something of a
philologist; had picked up some Latin and Greek at school; some Irish in
Ireland, where I had been with my father, who was in the army; and
subsequently whilst an articled clerk to the first solicitor in East
Anglia—indeed I may say the prince of all English solicitors—for he was a
gentleman, had learnt some Welsh, partly from books and partly from a
Welsh groom, whose acquaintance I made. A queer groom he was, and well
deserving of having his portrait drawn. He might be about forty-seven
years of age, and about five feet eight inches in height; his body was
spare and wiry; his chest rather broad, and his arms remarkably long; his
legs were of the kind generally known as spindle-shanks, but vigorous
withal, for they carried his body with great agility; neck he had none,
at least that I ever observed; and his head was anything but high, not
measuring, I should think, more than four inches from the bottom of the
chin to the top of the forehead; his cheek-bones were high, his eyes grey
and deeply sunken in his face, with an expression in them, partly sullen,
and partly irascible; his complexion was indescribable; the little hair
which he had, which was almost entirely on the sides and the back part of
his head, was of an iron-grey hue. He wore a leather hat on ordinary
days, low at the crown, and with the side eaves turned up. A dirty
pepper and salt coat, a waistcoat which had once been red, but which had
lost its pristine colour, and looked brown; dirty yellow leather
breeches, grey worsted stockings, and high-lows. Surely I was right when
I said he was a very different groom to those of the present day, whether
Welsh or English? What say you, Sir Watkin? What say you, my Lord of
Exeter? He looked after the horses, and occasionally assisted in the
house of a person who lived at the end of an alley, in which the office
of the gentleman to whom I was articled was situated, and having to pass
by the door of the office half-a-dozen times in the day, he did not fail
to attract the notice of the clerks, who, sometimes individually,
sometimes by twos, sometimes by threes, or even more, not unfrequently
stood at the door, bareheaded—mis-spending the time which was not legally
their own. Sundry observations, none of them very flattering, did the
clerks and, amongst them, myself, make upon the groom, as he passed and
repassed, some of them direct, others somewhat oblique. To these he made
no reply save by looks, which had in them something dangerous and
menacing, and clenching without raising his fists, which looked
singularly hard and horny. At length a whisper ran about the alley that
the groom was a Welshman; this whisper much increased the malice of my
brother clerks against him, who were now whenever he passed the door, and
they happened to be there by twos or threes, in the habit of saying
something, as if by accident, against Wales and Welshmen, and,
individually or together, were in the habit of shouting out “Taffy,” when
he was at some distance from them, and his back was turned, or regaling
his ears with the harmonious and well-known distich of “Taffy was a
Welshman, Taffy was a thief: Taffy came to my house and stole a piece of
beef.” It had, however, a very different effect upon me. I was trying
to learn Welsh, and the idea occurring to me that the groom might be able
to assist me in my pursuit, I instantly lost all desire to torment him,
and determined to do my best to scrape acquaintance with him, and
persuade him to give me what assistance he could in Welsh. I succeeded;
how I will not trouble the reader with describing: he and I became great
friends, and he taught me what Welsh he could. In return for his
instructions I persuaded my brother clerks to leave off holloing after
him, and to do nothing further to hurt his feelings, which had been very
deeply wounded, so much so, that after the first two or three lessons he
told me in confidence that on the morning of the very day I first began
to conciliate him he had come to the resolution of doing one of two
things, namely, either to hang himself from the balk of the hayloft, or
to give his master warning, both of which things he told me he should
have been very unwilling to do, more particularly as he had a wife and
family. He gave me lessons on Sunday afternoons, at my father’s house,
where he made his appearance very respectably dressed, in a beaver hat,
blue surtout, whitish waistcoat, black trowsers and Wellingtons, all with
a somewhat ancient look—the Wellingtons I remember were slightly pieced
at the sides—but all upon the whole very respectable. I wished at first
to persuade him to give me lessons in the office, but could not succeed:
“No, no, lad;” said he, “catch me going in there: I would just as soon
venture into a nest of porcupines.” To translate from books I had
already, to a certain degree, taught myself, and at his first visit I
discovered, and he himself acknowledged, that at book Welsh I was
stronger than himself, but I learnt Welsh pronunciation from him, and to
discourse a little in the Welsh tongue. “Had you much difficulty in
acquiring the sound of the ll?” I think I hear the reader inquire. None
whatever: the double l of the Welsh is by no means the terrible guttural
which English people generally suppose it to be, being in reality a
pretty liquid, exactly resembling in sound the Spanish ll, the sound of
which I had mastered before commencing Welsh, and which is equivalent to
the English lh; so being able to pronounce llano I had of course no
difficulty in pronouncing Lluyd, which by-the-bye was the name of the
groom.
I remember that I found the pronunciation of the Welsh far less difficult
than I had found the grammar, the most remarkable feature of which is the
mutation, under certain circumstances, of particular consonants, when
forming the initials of words. This feature I had observed in the Irish,
which I had then only learnt by ear.
But to return to the groom. He was really a remarkable character, and
taught me two or three things besides Welsh pronunciation; and to
discourse a little in Cumraeg. He had been a soldier in his youth, and
had served under Moore and Wellington in the Peninsular campaigns, and
from him I learnt the details of many a bloody field and bloodier storm,
of the sufferings of poor British soldiers, and the tyranny of haughty
British officers; more especially of the two commanders just mentioned,
the first of whom he swore was shot by his own soldiers, and the second
more frequently shot at by British than French. But it is not deemed a
matter of good taste to write about such low people as grooms, I shall
therefore dismiss him with no observation further than that after he had
visited me on Sunday afternoons for about a year he departed for his own
country with his wife, who was an Englishwoman, and his children, in
consequence of having been left a small freehold there by a distant
relation, and that I neither saw nor heard of him again.
But though I had lost my oral instructor I had still my silent ones,
namely, the Welsh books, and of these I made such use that before the
expiration of my clerkship I was able to read not only Welsh prose, but,
what was infinitely more difficult, Welsh poetry in any of the
four-and-twenty measures, and was well versed in the compositions of
various of the old Welsh bards, especially those of Dafydd ab Gwilym,
whom, since the time when I first became acquainted with his works, I
have always considered as the greatest poetical genius that has appeared
in Europe since the revival of literature.
After this exordium I think I may proceed to narrate the journey of
myself and family into Wales. As perhaps, however, it will be thought
that, though I have said quite enough about myself and a certain groom, I
have not said quite enough about my wife and daughter, I will add a
little more about them. Of my wife I will merely say that she is a
perfect paragon of wives—can make puddings and sweets and treacle posset,
and is the best woman of business in Eastern Anglia—of my
step-daughter—for such she is, though I generally call her daughter, and
with good reason, seeing that she has always shown herself a daughter to
me—that she has all kinds of good qualities, and several accomplishments,
knowing something of conchology, more of botany, drawing capitally in the
Dutch style, and playing remarkably well on the guitar—not the trumpery
German thing so-called—but the real Spanish guitar.
CHAPTER II
The Starting—Peterborough Cathedral—Anglo-Saxon Names—Kæmpe
Viser—Steam—Norman Barons—Chester Ale—Sion Tudor—Pretty Welsh Tongue.
So our little family, consisting of myself, my wife Mary, and my daughter
Henrietta, for daughter I shall persist in calling her, started for Wales
in the afternoon of the 27th July, 1854. We flew through part of Norfolk
and Cambridgeshire in a train which we left at Ely, and getting into
another, which did not fly quite so fast as the one we had quieted,
reached the Peterborough station at about six o’clock of a delightful
evening. We proceeded no farther on our journey that day, in order that
we might have an opportunity of seeing the cathedral.
Sallying arm in arm from the Station Hotel, where we had determined to
take up our quarters for the night, we crossed a bridge over the deep
quiet Nen, on the southern bank of which stands the station, and soon
arrived at the cathedral—unfortunately we were too late to procure
admission into the interior, and had to content ourselves with walking
round it and surveying its outside.
It is named after, and occupies the site, or part of the site of an
immense monastery, founded by the Mercian King Peda, in the year 665, and
destroyed by fire in the year 1116, which monastery, though originally
termed Medeshamsted, or the homestead on the meads, was subsequently
termed Peterborough, from the circumstance of its having been reared by
the old Saxon monarch for the love of God and the honour of Saint Peter,
as the Saxon Chronicle says, a book which I went through carefully in my
younger days, when I studied Saxon, for, as I have already told the
reader, I was in those days a bit of a philologist. Like the first, the
second edifice was originally a monastery, and continued so till the time
of the Reformation; both were abodes of learning; for if the Saxon
Chronicle was commenced in the monkish cells of the first, it was
completed in those of the second. What is at present called Peterborough
Cathedral is a noble venerable pile, equal upon the whole in external
appearance to the cathedrals of Toledo, Burgos and Leon, all of which I
have seen. Nothing in architecture can be conceived more beautiful than
the principal entrance, which fronts the west, and which, at the time we
saw it, was gilded with the rays of the setting sun.
After having strolled about the edifice surveying it until we were weary,
we returned to our inn, and after taking an excellent supper retired to
rest.
At ten o’clock next morning we left the capital of the meads. With
dragon speed, and dragon noise, fire, smoke, and fury, the train dashed
along its road through beautiful meadows, garnished here and there with
pollard sallows; over pretty streams, whose waters stole along
imperceptibly; by venerable old churches, which I vowed I would take the
first opportunity of visiting: stopping now and then to recruit its
energies at places, whose old Anglo-Saxon names stared me in the eyes
from station boards, as specimens of which, let me only dot down Willy
Thorpe, Ringsted, and Yrthling Boro. Quite forgetting everything Welsh,
I was enthusiastically Saxon the whole way from Medeshamsted to
Blissworth, so thoroughly Saxon was the country, with its rich meads, its
old churches and its names. After leaving Blissworth, a thoroughly Saxon
place by-the-bye, as its name shows, signifying the stronghold or
possession of Bligh or Blee, I became less Saxon; the country was rather
less Saxon, and I caught occasionally the word “by” on a board, the
Danish for a town; which “by” waked in me a considerable portion of
Danish enthusiasm, of which I have plenty, and with reason, having
translated the glorious Kæmpe Viser over the desk of my ancient master,
the gentleman solicitor of East Anglia. At length we drew near the great
workshop of England, called by some, Brummagem or Bromwicham, by others
Birmingham, and I fell into a philological reverie, wondering which was
the right name. Before, however, we came to the station, I decided that
both names were right enough, but that Bromwicham was the original name;
signifying the home on the broomie moor, which name it lost in polite
parlance for Birmingham, or the home of the son of Biarmer, when a
certain man of Danish blood, called Biarming, or the son of Biarmer, got
possession of it, whether by force, fraud, or marriage—the latter,
by-the-bye, is by far the best way of getting possession of an
estate—this deponent neither knoweth nor careth. At Birmingham station I
became a modern Englishman, enthusiastically proud of modern England’s
science and energy; that station alone is enough to make one proud of
being a modern Englishman. Oh, what an idea does that station, with its
thousand trains dashing off in all directions, or arriving from all
quarters, give of modern English science and energy. My modern English
pride accompanied me all the way to Tipton; for all along the route there
were wonderful evidences of English skill and enterprise; in chimneys
high as cathedral spires, vomiting forth smoke, furnaces emitting flame
and lava, and in the sound of gigantic hammers, wielded by steam, the
Englishman’s slave. After passing Tipton, at which place one leaves the
great working district behind; I became for a considerable time a
yawning, listless Englishman, without pride, enthusiasm, or feeling of
any kind, from which state I was suddenly roused by the sight of ruined
edifices on the tops of hills. They were remains of castles built by
Norman Barons. Here, perhaps, the reader will expect from me a burst of
Norman enthusiasm: if so he will be mistaken; I have no Norman
enthusiasm, and hate and abominate the name of Norman, for I have always
associated that name with the deflowering of helpless Englishwomen, the
plundering of English homesteads, and the tearing out of poor
Englishmen’s eyes. The sight of those edifices, now in ruins, but which
were once the strongholds of plunder, violence, and lust, made me almost
ashamed of being an Englishman, for they brought to my mind the
indignities to which poor English blood has been subjected. I sat silent
and melancholy, till looking from the window I caught sight of a long
line of hills, which I guessed to be the Welsh hills, as indeed they
proved, which sight causing me to remember that I was bound for Wales,
the land of the bard, made me cast all gloomy thoughts aside and glow
with all the Welsh enthusiasm with which I glowed when I first started in
the direction of Wales.
On arriving at Chester, at which place we intended to spend two or three
days, we put up at an old-fashioned inn in Northgate Street, to which we
had been recommended; my wife and daughter ordered tea and its
accompaniments, and I ordered ale, and that which always should accompany
it, cheese. “The ale I shall find bad,” said I; Chester ale had a
villainous character in the time of old Sion Tudor, who made a first-rate
englyn upon it, and it has scarcely improved since; “but I shall have a
treat in the cheese, Cheshire cheese has always been reckoned excellent,
and now that I am in the capital of the cheese country, of course I shall
have some of the very prime.” Well, the tea, loaf and butter made their
appearance, and with them my cheese and ale. To my horror the cheese had
much the appearance of soap of the commonest kind, which indeed I found
it much resembled in taste, on putting a small portion into my mouth.
“Ah,” said I, after I had opened the window and ejected the
half-masticated morsel into the street, “those who wish to regale on good
Cheshire cheese must not come to Chester, no more than those who wish to
drink first-rate coffee must go to Mocha. I’ll now see whether the ale
is drinkable;” so I took a little of the ale into my mouth, and instantly
going to the window, spirted it out after the cheese. “Of a surety,”
said I, “Chester ale must be of much the same quality as it was in the
time of Sion Tudor, who spoke of it to the following effect:—
“Chester ale, Chester ale! I could ne’er get it down,
’Tis made of ground-ivy, of dirt, and of bran,
’Tis as thick as a river below a huge town!
’Tis not lap for a dog, far less drink for a man.’
Well! if I have been deceived in the cheese, I have at any rate not been
deceived in the ale, which I expected to find execrable. Patience! I
shall not fall into a passion, more especially as there are things I can
fall back upon. Wife! I will trouble you for a cup of tea. Henrietta!
have the kindness to cut me a slice of bread and butter.”
Upon the whole we found ourselves very comfortable in the old-fashioned
inn, which was kept by a nice old-fashioned gentlewoman, with the
assistance of three servants, namely, a “boots” and two strapping
chambermaids, one of which was a Welsh girl, with whom I soon scraped
acquaintance, not, I assure the reader, for the sake of the pretty Welsh
eyes which she carried in her head, but for the sake of the pretty Welsh
tongue which she carried in her mouth, from which I confess occasionally
proceeded sounds which, however pretty, I was quite unable to understand.
CHAPTER III
Chester—The Rows—Lewis Glyn Cothi—Tragedy of Mold—Native of
Antigua—Slavery and the Americans—The Tents—Saturday Night.
On the morning after our arrival we went out together, and walked up and
down several streets; my wife and daughter, however, soon leaving me to
go into a shop, I strolled about by myself. Chester is an ancient town
with walls and gates, a prison called a castle, built on the site of an
ancient keep, an unpretending-looking red sandstone cathedral, two or
three handsome churches, several good streets, and certain curious places
called rows. The Chester row is a broad arched stone gallery running
parallel with the street within the façades of the houses; it is partly
open on the side of the street, and just one story above it. Within the
rows, of which there are three or four, are shops, every shop being on
that side which is farthest from the street. All the best shops in
Chester are to be found in the rows. These rows, to which you ascend by
stairs up narrow passages, were originally built for the security of the
wares of the principal merchants against the Welsh. Should the
mountaineers break into the town, as they frequently did, they might
rifle some of the common shops, where their booty would be slight, but
those which contained the more costly articles would be beyond their
reach; for at the first alarm the doors of the passages, up which the
stairs led, would be closed, and all access to the upper streets cut off,
from the open arches of which missiles of all kinds, kept ready for such
occasions, could be discharged upon the intruders, who would be soon glad
to beat a retreat. These rows and the walls are certainly the most
remarkable memorials of old times which Chester has to boast of.
Upon the walls it is possible to make the whole compass of the city,
there being a good but narrow walk upon them. The northern wall abuts
upon a frightful ravine, at the bottom of which is a canal. From the
western one there is a noble view of the Welsh hills.
As I stood gazing upon the hills from the wall a ragged man came up and
asked for charity.
“Can you tell me the name of that tall hill?” said I, pointing in the
direction of the south-west. “That hill, sir,” said the beggar, “is
called Moel Vamagh; I ought to know something about it as I was born at
its foot.” “Moel,” said I, “a bald hill; Vamagh, maternal or motherly.
Moel Vamagh, the Mother Moel.” “Just so, sir,” said the beggar; “I see
you are a Welshman, like myself, though I suppose you come from the
South—Moel Vamagh is the Mother Moel, and is called so because it is the
highest of all the Moels.” “Did you ever hear of a place called Mold?”
said I. “Oh, yes, your honour,” said the beggar; “many a time; and
many’s the time I have been there.” “In which direction does it lie?”
said I. “Towards Moel Vamagh, your honour,” said the beggar, “which is a
few miles beyond it; you can’t see it from here, but look towards Moel
Vamagh and you will see over it.” “Thank you,” said I, and gave
something to the beggar, who departed, after first taking off his hat.
Long and fixedly did I gaze in the direction of Mold. The reason which
induced me to do so was the knowledge of an appalling tragedy transacted
there in the old time, in which there is every reason to suppose a
certain Welsh bard, called Lewis Glyn Cothi, had a share.
This man, who was a native of South Wales, flourished during the wars of
the Roses. Besides being a poetical he was something of a military
genius, and had a command of foot in the army of the Lancastrian Jasper
Earl of Pembroke, the son of Owen Tudor, and half-brother of Henry the
Sixth. After the battle of Mortimer’s Cross, in which the Earl’s forces
were defeated, the warrior bard found his way to Chester, where he
married the widow of a citizen and opened a shop, without asking the
permission of the mayor, who with the officers of justice came and seized
all his goods, which, according to his own account, filled nine sacks,
and then drove him out of the town. The bard in a great fury indited an
awdl, in which he invites Reinallt ap Grufydd ap Bleddyn, a kind of
predatory chieftain, who resided a little way off in Flintshire, to come
and set the town on fire, and slaughter the inhabitants, in revenge for
the wrongs he had suffered, and then proceeds to vent all kinds of
imprecations against the mayor and people of Chester, wishing, amongst
other things, that they might soon hear that the Dee had become too
shallow to bear their ships—that a certain cutaneous disorder might
attack the wrists of great and small, old and young, laity and
clergy—that grass might grow in their streets—that Ilar and Cyveilach,
Welsh saints, might slay them—that dogs might snarl at them—and that the
king of heaven, with the saints Brynach and Non, might afflict them with
blindness—which piece, however ineffectual in inducing God and the saints
to visit the Chester people with the curses with which the furious bard
wished them to be afflicted, seems to have produced somewhat of its
intended effect on the chieftain, who shortly afterwards, on learning
that the mayor and many of the Chester people were present at the fair of
Mold, near which place he resided, set upon them at the head of his
forces, and after a desperate combat, in which many lives were lost, took
the mayor prisoner, and drove those of his people who survived into a
tower, which he set on fire and burnt, with all the unhappy wretches
which it contained, completing the horrors of the day by hanging the
unfortunate mayor.
Conversant as I was with all this strange history, is it wonderful that I
looked with great interest from the wall of Chester in the direction of
Mold?
Once did I make the compass of the city upon the walls, and was beginning
to do the same a second time, when I stumbled against a black, who, with
his arms leaning upon the wall, was spitting over it, in the direction of
the river. I apologised, and contrived to enter into conversation with
him. He was tolerably well dressed, had a hairy cap on his head, was
about forty years of age, and brutishly ugly, his features scarcely
resembling those of a human being. He told me he was a native of
Antigua, a blacksmith by trade, and had been a slave. I asked him if he
could speak any language besides English, and received for answer that
besides English, he could speak Spanish and French. Forthwith I spoke to
him in Spanish, but he did not understand me. I then asked him to speak
to me in Spanish, but he could not. “Surely you can tell me the word for
water in Spanish,” said I; he, however, was not able. “How is it,” said
I, “that, pretending to be acquainted with Spanish, you do not even know
the word for water?” He said he could not tell, but supposed that he had
forgotten the Spanish language, adding however, that he could speak
French perfectly. I spoke to him in French—he did not understand me: I
told him to speak to me in French, but he did not. I then asked him the
word for bread in French, but he could not tell me. I made no
observations on his ignorance, but inquired how he liked being a slave?
He said not at all; that it was very bad to be a slave, as a slave was
forced to work. I asked him if he did not work now that he was free? He
said very seldom; that he did not like work, and that it did not agree
with him. I asked how he came into England, and he said that wishing to
see England, he had come over with a gentleman as his servant, but that
as soon as he got there, he had left his master, as he did not like work.
I asked him how he contrived to live in England without working? He said
that any black might live in England without working; that all he had to
do was to attend religious meetings, and speak against slavery and the
Americans. I asked him if he had done so. He said he had, and that the
religious people were very kind to him, and gave him money, and that a
religious lady was going to marry him. I asked him if he knew anything
about the Americans? He said he did, and that they were very bad people,
who kept slaves and flogged them. “And quite right too,” said I, “if
they are lazy rascals like yourself, who want to eat without working.
What a pretty set of knaves or fools must they be, who encourage a fellow
like you to speak against negro slavery, of the necessity for which you
yourself are a living instance, and against a people of whom you know as
much as of French or Spanish.” Then leaving the black, who made no other
answer to what I said, than by spitting with considerable force in the
direction of the river, I continued making my second compass of the city
upon the wall.
Having walked round the city for the second time, I returned to the inn.
In the evening I went out again, passed over the bridge, and then turned
to the right in the direction of the hills. Near the river, on my right,
on a kind of green, I observed two or three tents resembling those of
gypsies. Some ragged children were playing near them, who, however, had
nothing of the appearance of the children of the Egyptian race, their
locks being not dark, but either of a flaxen or red hue, and their
features not delicate and regular, but coarse and uncouth, and their
complexions not olive, but rather inclining to be fair. I did not go up
to them, but continued my course till I arrived near a large factory. I
then turned and retraced my steps into the town. It was Saturday night,
and the streets were crowded with people, many of whom must have been
Welsh, as I heard the Cambrian language spoken on every side.
CHAPTER IV
Sunday Morning—Tares and Wheat—Teetotalism—Hearsay—Irish Family—What
Profession?—Sabbath Evening—Priest or Minister—Give us God.
On the Sunday morning, as we sat at breakfast, we heard the noise of
singing in the street; running to the window, we saw a number of people,
bareheaded, from whose mouths the singing or psalmody proceeded. These,
on inquiry, we were informed, were Methodists, going about to raise
recruits for a grand camp-meeting, which was to be held a little way out
of the town. We finished our breakfast, and at eleven attended divine
service at the Cathedral. The interior of this holy edifice was smooth
and neat, strangely contrasting with its exterior, which was rough and
weather-beaten. We had decent places found us by a civil verger, who
probably took us for what we were—decent country people. We heard much
fine chanting by the choir, and an admirable sermon, preached by a
venerable prebend, on “Tares and Wheat.” The congregation was numerous
and attentive. After service we returned to our inn, and at two o’clock
dined. During dinner our conversation ran almost entirely on the sermon,
which we all agreed was one of the best sermons we had ever heard, and
most singularly adapted to country people like ourselves, being on “Wheat
and Tares.” When dinner was over my wife and daughter repaired to the
neighbouring church, and I went in quest of the camp-meeting, having a
mighty desire to know what kind of a thing Methodism at Chester was.
I found about two thousand people gathered together in a field near the
railroad station; a waggon stood under some green elms at one end of the
field, in which were ten or a dozen men with the look of Methodist
preachers; one of these was holding forth to the multitude when I
arrived, but he presently sat down, I having, as I suppose, only come in
time to hear the fag-end of his sermon. Another succeeded him, who,
after speaking for about half an hour, was succeeded by another. All the
discourses were vulgar and fanatical, and in some instances
unintelligible, at least to my ears. There was plenty of vociferation,
but not one single burst of eloquence. Some of the assembly appeared to
take considerable interest in what was said, and every now and then
showed they did by devout hums and groans; but the generality evidently
took little or none, staring about listlessly, or talking to one another.
Sometimes, when anything particularly low escaped from the mouth of the
speaker, I heard exclamations of “how low! well, I think I could preach
better than that,” and the like. At length a man of about fifty,
pock-broken and somewhat bald, began to speak: unlike the others who
screamed, shouted, and seemed in earnest, he spoke in a dry, waggish
style, which had all the coarseness and nothing of the cleverness of that
of old Rowland Hill, whom I once heard. After a great many jokes, some
of them very poor, and others exceedingly thread-bare, on the folly of
those who sell themselves to the Devil for a little temporary enjoyment,
he introduced the subject of drunkenness, or rather drinking fermented
liquors, which he seemed to consider the same thing; and many a sorry
joke on the folly of drinking them did he crack, which some half-dozen
amidst the concourse applauded. At length he said:—
“After all, brethren, such drinking is no joking matter, for it is the
root of all evil. Now, brethren, if you would all get to heaven, and
cheat the enemy of your souls, never go into a public-house to drink, and
never fetch any drink from a public-house. Let nothing pass your lips,
in the shape of drink, stronger than water or tea. Brethren, if you
would cheat the Devil, take the pledge and become teetotalers. I am a
teetotaller myself, thank God—though once I was a regular lushington.”
Here ensued a burst of laughter in which I joined, though not at the
wretched joke, but at the absurdity of the argument; for, according to
that argument, I thought my old friends the Spaniards and Portuguese must
be the most moral people in the world, being almost all water-drinkers.
As the speaker was proceeding with his nonsense, I heard some one say
behind me—“a pretty fellow that, to speak against drinking and
public-houses: he pretends to be reformed, but he is still as fond of the
lush as ever. It was only the other day I saw him reeling out of a
gin-shop.”
Now that speech I did not like, for I saw at once that it could not be
true, so I turned quickly round and said—“Old chap, I can scarcely credit
that!”
The man, whom I addressed, a rough-and-ready-looking fellow of the lower
class, seemed half disposed to return me a savage answer; but an
Englishman of the lower class, though you call his word in question, is
never savage with you, provided you call him old chap, and he considers
you by your dress to be his superior in station. Now I, who had called
the word of this man in question, had called him old chap, and was
considerably better dressed than himself; so, after a little hesitation,
he became quite gentle, and something more, for he said in a
half-apologetic tone—“Well, sir, I did not exactly see him myself, but a
particular friend of mine heer’d a man say, that he heer’d another man
say, that he was told that a man heer’d that that fellow—”
“Come, come!” said I, “a man must not be convicted on evidence like that;
no man has more contempt for the doctrine which that man endeavours to
inculcate than myself, for I consider it to have been got up partly for
fanatical, partly for political purposes; but I will never believe that
he was lately seen coming out of a gin-shop; he is too wise, or rather
too cunning, for that.”
I stayed listening to these people till evening was at hand. I then left
them, and without returning to the inn strolled over the bridge to the
green, where the tents stood. I went up to them: two women sat at the
entrance of one; a man stood by them, and the children, whom I had before
seen, were gambolling near at hand. One of the women was about forty,
the other some twenty years younger; both were ugly. The younger was a
rude, stupid-looking creature, with red cheeks and redder hair, but there
was a dash of intelligence and likewise of wildness in the countenance of
the elder female, whose complexion and hair were rather dark. The man
was about the same age as the elder woman; he had rather a sharp look,
and was dressed in hat, white frock-coat, corduroy breeches, long
stockings and shoes. I gave them the seal of the evening.
“Good evening to your haner,” said the man—“Good evening to you, sir,”
said the woman; whilst the younger mumbled something, probably to the
same effect, but which I did not catch.
“Fine weather,” said I.
“Very, sir,” said the elder female. “Won’t you please to sit down?” and
reaching back into the tent, she pulled out a stool which she placed near
me.
I sat down on the stool. “You are not from these parts?” said I,
addressing myself to the man.
“We are not, your haner,” said the man; “we are from Ireland.”
“And this lady,” said I, motioning with my head to the elder female, “is,
I suppose, your wife.”
“She is, your haner, and the children which your haner sees are my
children.”
“And who is this young lady?” said I, motioning to the uncouth-looking
girl.
“The young lady, as your haner is pleased to call her, is a daughter of a
sister of mine who is now dead, along with her husband. We have her with
us, your haner, because if we did not she would be alone in the world.”
“And what trade or profession do you follow?” said I.
“We do a bit in the tinkering line, your haner.”
“Do you find tinkering a very profitable profession?” said I.
“Not very, your haner; but we contrive to get a crust and a drink by it.”
“That’s more than I ever could,” said I.
“Has your haner then ever followed tinkering?” said the man.
“Yes,” said I, “but I soon left off.”
“And became a minister,” said the elder female, “Well, your honour is not
the first indifferent tinker that’s turned out a shining minister.”
“Why do you think me a minister?”
“Because your honour has the very look and voice of one. Oh, it was kind
in your honour to come to us here in the Sabbath evening, in order that
you might bring us God.”
“What do you mean by bringing you God?” said I.
“Talking to us about good things, sir, and instructing us out of the Holy
Book.”
“I am no minister,” said I.
“Then you are a priest; I am sure you are either a minister or a priest;
and now that I look on you, sir, I think you look more like a priest than
a minister. Yes, I see you are a priest. Oh, your Reverence, give us
God! Pull out the crucifix from your bosom, and let us kiss the face of
God!”
“Of what religion are you?” said I.
“Catholics, your Reverence, Catholics are we all.”
“I am no priest.”
“Then you are a minister; I am sure you are either a priest or a
minister. Oh sir, pull out the Holy Book, and instruct us from it this
blessed Sabbath evening. Give us God, sir, give us God!”
“And would you, who are Catholics, listen to the voice of a minister?”
“That would we, sir; at least I would. If you are a minister, and a good
minister, I would as soon listen to your words as those of Father Toban
himself.”
“And who is Father Toban?”
“A powerful priest in these parts, sir, who has more than once eased me
of my sins, and given me God upon the cross. Oh, a powerful and
comfortable priest is Father Toban.”
“And what would he say if he were to know that you asked for God from a
minister?”
“I do not know, and do not much care; if I get God, I do not care whether
I get Him from a minister or a priest; both have Him, no doubt, only give
Him in different ways. Oh sir, do give us God; we need Him sir, for we
are sinful people; we call ourselves tinkers, but many is the sinful
thing—”
“Bi-do-hosd;” said the man: Irish words tantamount to “Be silent!”
“I will not be hushed,” said the woman, speaking English. “The man is a
good man, and he will do us no harm. We are tinkers, sir; but we do many
things besides tinkering, many sinful things, especially in Wales,
whither we are soon going again. Oh, I want to be eased of some of my
sins before I go into Wales again, and so do you, Tourlough, for you know
how you are sometimes haunted by devils at night in those dreary Welsh
hills. Oh sir, give us comfort in some shape or other, either as priest
or minister; give us God! Give us God!”
“I am neither priest nor minister,” said, I, “and can only say: Lord have
mercy upon you!” Then getting up I flung the children some money and
departed.
“We do not want your money, sir,” screamed the woman after me; “we have
plenty of money. Give us God! Give us God!”
“Yes, your haner,” said the man, “give us God! we do not want money;” and
the uncouth girl said something, which sounded much like Give us God! but
I hastened across the meadow, which was now quite dusky, and was
presently in the inn with my wife and daughter.
CHAPTER V
Welsh Book Stall—Wit and Poetry—Welsh of Chester—Beautiful Morning—Noble
Fellow—The Coiling Serpent—Wrexham Church—Welsh or English?—Codiad yr
Ehedydd.
On the afternoon of Monday I sent my family off by the train to
Llangollen, which place we had determined to make our head-quarters
during our stay in Wales. I intended to follow them next day, not in
train, but on foot, as by walking I should be better able to see the
country, between Chester and Llangollen, than by making the journey by
the flying vehicle. As I returned to the inn from the train I took
refuge from a shower in one of the rows or covered streets, to which, as
I have already said, one ascends by flights of steps; stopping at a
book-stall I took up a book which chanced to be a Welsh one. The
proprietor, a short red-faced man, observing me reading the book, asked
me if I could understand it. I told him that I could.
“If so,” said he, “let me hear you translate the two lines on the
title-page.”
“Are you a Welshman?” said I.
“I am!” he replied.
“Good!” said I, and I translated into English the two lines which were a
couplet by Edmund Price, an old archdeacon of Merion, celebrated in his
day for wit and poetry.
The man then asked me from what part of Wales I came, and when I told him
that I was an Englishman was evidently offended, either because he did
not believe me, or, as I more incline to think, did not approve of an
Englishman’s understanding Welsh.
The book was the life of the Rev. Richards, and was published at
Caerlleon, or the city of the legion, the appropriate ancient British
name for the place now called Chester, a legion having been kept
stationed there during the occupation of Britain by the Romans.
I returned to the inn and dined, and then yearning for society, descended
into the kitchen and had some conversation with the Welsh maid. She told
me that there were a great many Welsh in Chester from all parts of Wales,
but chiefly from Denbighshire and Flintshire, which latter was her own
country. That a great many children were born in Chester of Welsh
parents, and brought up in the fear of God and love of the Welsh tongue.
That there were some who had never been in Wales, who spoke as good Welsh
as herself, or better. That the Welsh of Chester were of various
religious persuasions; that some were Baptists, some Independents, but
that the greater part were Calvinistic-Methodists; that she herself was a
Calvinistic-Methodist; that the different persuasions had their different
chapels, in which God was prayed to in Welsh; that there were very few
Welsh in Chester who belonged to the Church of England, and that the
Welsh in general do not like Church of England worship, as I should soon
find if I went into Wales.
Late in the evening I directed my steps across the bridge to the green,
where I had discoursed with the Irish itinerants. I wished to have some
more conversation with them respecting their way of life, and, likewise,
as they had so strongly desired it, to give them a little Christian
comfort, for my conscience reproached me for my abrupt departure on the
preceding evening. On arriving at the green, however, I found them gone,
and no traces of them but the mark of their fire and a little dirty
straw. I returned, disappointed and vexed, to my inn.
Early the next morning I departed from Chester for Llangollen, distant
about twenty miles; I passed over the noble bridge and proceeded along a
broad and excellent road, leading in a direction almost due south through
pleasant meadows. I felt very happy—and no wonder; the morning was
beautiful, the birds sang merrily, and a sweet smell proceeded from the
new-cut hay in the fields, and I was bound for Wales. I passed over the
river Allan and through two villages called, as I was told, Pulford and
Marford, and ascended a hill; from the top of this hill the view is very
fine. To the east are the high lands of Cheshire, to the west the bold
hills of Wales, and below, on all sides a fair variety of wood and water,
green meads and arable fields.
“You may well look around, Measter,” said a waggoner, who, coming from
the direction in which I was bound, stopped to breathe his team on the
top of the hill; “you may well look around—there isn’t such a place to
see the country from, far and near, as where we stand. Many come to this
place to look about them.”
I looked at the man, and thought I had never seen a more powerful-looking
fellow; he was about six feet two inches high, immensely broad in the
shoulders, and could hardly have weighed less than sixteen stone. I gave
him the seal of the morning, and asked whether he was Welsh or English.
“English, Measter, English; born t’other side of Beeston, pure Cheshire,
Measter.”
“I suppose,” said I, “there are few Welshmen such big fellows as
yourself.”
“No, Measter,” said the fellow, with a grin, “there are few Welshmen so
big as I, or yourself either; they are small men mostly, Measter, them
Welshers, very small men—and yet the fellows can use their hands. I am a
bit of a fighter, Measter, at least I was before my wife made me join the
Methodist connection, and I once fit with a Welshman at Wrexham, he came
from the hills, and was a real Welshman, and shorter than myself by a
whole head and shoulder, but he stood up against me, and gave me more
than play for my money, till I gripped him, flung him down and myself
upon him, and then of course t’was all over with him.”
“You are a noble fellow,” said I, “and a credit to Cheshire. Will you
have sixpence to drink?”
“Thank you, Measter, I shall stop at Pulford, and shall be glad to drink
your health in a jug of ale.”
I gave him sixpence, and descended the hill on one side, while he, with
his team, descended it on the other.
“A genuine Saxon,” said I; “I daresay just like many of those who, under
Hengist, subdued the plains of Lloegr and Britain. Taliesin called the
Saxon race the Coiling Serpent. He had better have called it the Big
Bull. He was a noble poet, however: what wonderful lines, upon the
whole, are those in his prophecy, in which he speaks of the Saxons and
Britons, and of the result of their struggle—
“A serpent which coils,
And with fury boils,
From Germany coming with arm’d wings spread,
Shall subdue and shall enthrall
The broad Britain all,
From the Lochlin ocean to Severn’s bed.
“And British men
Shall be captives then
To strangers from Saxonia’s strand;
They shall praise their God, and hold
Their language as of old,
But except wild Wales they shall lose their land.”
I arrived at Wrexham, and having taken a very hearty breakfast at the
principal inn, for I felt rather hungry after a morning’s walk of ten
miles, I walked about the town. The town is reckoned a Welsh town, but
its appearance is not Welsh—its inhabitants have neither the look nor
language of Welshmen, and its name shows that it was founded by some
Saxon adventurer, Wrexham being a Saxon compound, signifying the home or
habitation of Rex or Rag, and identical, or nearly so, with the Wroxham
of East Anglia. It is a stirring bustling place, of much traffic, and of
several thousand inhabitants. Its most remarkable object is its church,
which stands at the south-western side. To this church, after wandering
for some time about the streets, I repaired. The tower is quadrangular,
and is at least one hundred feet high; it has on its summit four little
turrets, one at each corner, between each of which are three spirelets,
the middlemost of the three the highest. The nave of the church is to
the east; it is of two stories, both crenulated at the top. I wished to
see the interior of the church, but found the gate locked. Observing a
group of idlers close at hand with their backs against a wall, I went up
to them, and, addressing myself to one, inquired whether I could see the
church. “Oh yes, sir,” said the man; “the clerk who has the key lives
close at hand; one of us shall go and fetch him—by-the-bye, I may as well
go myself.” He moved slowly away. He was a large bulky man of about the
middle age, and his companions were about the same age and size as
himself. I asked them if they were Welsh. “Yes, sir,” said one, “I
suppose we are, for they call us Welsh.” I asked if any of them could
speak Welsh. “No, sir,” said the man, “all the Welsh that any of us
know, or indeed wish to know, is ‘Cwrw da.’” Here there was a general
laugh. Cwrw da signifies good ale. I at first thought that the words
might be intended as a hint for a treat, but was soon convinced of the
contrary. There was no greedy expectation in his eyes, nor, indeed, in
those of his companions, though they all looked as if they were fond of
good ale. I inquired whether much Welsh was spoken in the town, and was
told very little. When the man returned with the clerk I thanked him.
He told me I was welcome, and then went and leaned with his back against
the wall. He and his mates were probably a set of boon companions
enjoying the air after a night’s bout at drinking. I was subsequently
told that all the people of Wrexham are fond of good ale. The clerk
unlocked the church door, and conducted me in. The interior was modern,
but in no respects remarkable. The clerk informed me that there was a
Welsh service every Sunday afternoon in the church, but that few people
attended, and those few were almost entirely from the country. He said
that neither he nor the clergyman were natives of Wrexham. He showed me
the Welsh Church Bible, and at my request read a few verses from the
sacred volume. He seemed a highly intelligent man. I gave him
something, which appeared to be more than he expected, and departed,
after inquiring of him the road to Llangollen.
I crossed a bridge, for there is a bridge and a stream too at Wrexham.
The road at first bore due west, but speedily took a southerly direction.
I moved rapidly over an undulating country; a region of hills, or rather
of mountains lay on my right hand. At the entrance of a small village a
poor, sickly-looking woman asked me for charity.
“Are you Welsh or English?” said I.
“Welsh,” she replied; “but I speak both languages, as do all the people
here.”
I gave her a halfpenny; she wished me luck, and I proceeded. I passed
some huge black buildings which a man told me were collieries, and
several carts laden with coal, and soon came to Rhiwabon—a large village
about half way between Wrexham and Llangollen. I observed in this place
nothing remarkable, but an ancient church. My way from hence lay nearly
west. I ascended a hill, from the top of which I looked down into a
smoky valley. I descended, passing by a great many collieries, in which
I observed grimy men working amidst smoke and flame. At the bottom of
the hill near a bridge I turned round. A ridge to the east particularly
struck my attention; it was covered with dusky edifices, from which
proceeded thundering sounds, and puffs of smoke. A woman passed me going
towards Rhiwabon; I pointed to the ridge and asked its name; I spoke
English. The woman shook her head and replied “Dim Saesneg.”
“This is as it should be,” said I to myself; “I now feel I am in Wales.”
I repeated the question in Welsh.
“Cefn Bach,” she replied—which signifies the little ridge.
“Diolch iti,” I replied, and proceeded on my way.
I was now in a wild valley—enormous hills were on my right. The road was
good, and above it, in the side of a steep bank, was a causeway intended
for foot passengers. It was overhung with hazel bushes. I walked along
it to its termination which was at Llangollen. I found my wife and
daughter at the principal inn. They had already taken a house. We dined
together at the inn; during the dinner we had music, for a Welsh harper
stationed in the passage played upon his instrument “Codiad yr ehedydd.”
“Of a surety,” said I, “I am in Wales!”
CHAPTER VI
Llangollen—Wyn Ab Nudd—The Dee—Dinas Bran.
The northern side of the vale of Llangollen is formed by certain enormous
rocks called the Eglwysig rocks, which extend from east to west, a
distance of about two miles. The southern side is formed by the Berwyn
hills. The valley is intersected by the River Dee, the origin of which
is a deep lake near Bala, about twenty miles to the west. Between the
Dee and the Eglwysig rises a lofty hill, on the top of which are the
ruins of Dinas Bran, which bear no slight resemblance to a crown. The
upper part of the hill is bare with the exception of what is covered by
the ruins; on the lower part there are inclosures and trees, with, here
and there, a grove or farm-house. On the other side of the valley, to
the east of Llangollen, is a hill called Pen y Coed, beautifully covered
with trees of various kinds; it stands between the river and the Berwyn,
even as the hill of Dinas Bran stands between the river and the Eglwysig
rocks—it does not, however, confront Dinas Bran, which stands more to the
west.
Llangollen is a small town or large village of white houses with slate
roofs, it contains about two thousand inhabitants, and is situated
principally on the southern side of the Dee. At its western end it has
an ancient bridge and a modest unpretending church nearly in its centre,
in the chancel of which rest the mortal remains of an old bard called
Gryffydd Hiraethog. From some of the houses on the southern side there
is a noble view—Dinas Bran and its mighty hill forming the principal
objects. The view from the northern part of the town, which is indeed
little more than a suburb, is not quite so grand, but is nevertheless
highly interesting. The eastern entrance of the vale of Llangollen is
much wider than the western, which is overhung by bulky hills. There are
many pleasant villas on both sides of the river, some of which stand a
considerable way up the hill; of the villas the most noted is Plas Newydd
at the foot of the Berwyn, built by two Irish ladies of high rank, who
resided in it for nearly half a century, and were celebrated throughout
Europe by the name of the Ladies of Llangollen.
The view of the hill of Dinas Bran, from the southern side of Llangollen,
would be much more complete were it not for a bulky excrescence, towards
its base, which prevents the gazer from obtaining a complete view. The
name of Llangollen signifies the church of Collen, and the vale and
village take their name from the church, which was originally dedicated
to Saint Collen, though some, especially the neighbouring peasantry,
suppose that Llangollen is a compound of Llan, a church, and Collen, a
hazel-wood, and that the church was called the church of the hazel-wood
from the number of hazels in the neighbourhood. Collen, according to a
legendary life, which exists of him in Welsh, was a Briton by birth, and
of illustrious ancestry. He served for some time abroad as a soldier
against Julian the Apostate, and slew a Pagan champion who challenged the
best man amongst the Christians. Returning to his own country he devoted
himself to religion, and became Abbot of Glastonbury, but subsequently
retired to a cave on the side of a mountain, where he lived a life of
great austerity. Once as he was lying in his cell he heard two men out
abroad discoursing about Wyn Ab Nudd, and saying that he was king of the
Tylwyth or Teg Fairies, and lord of Unknown, whereupon Collen thrusting
his head out of his cave told them to hold their tongues, for that Wyn Ab
Nudd and his host were merely devils. At dead of night he heard a
knocking at the door, and on his asking who was there, a voice said: “I
am a messenger from Wyn Ab Nudd, king of Unknown, and I am come to summon
thee to appear before my master to-morrow, at mid-day, on the top of the
hill.”
Collen did not go—the next night there was the same knocking and the same
message. Still Collen did not go. The third night the messenger came
again and repeated his summons, adding that if he did not go it would be
the worse for him. The next day Collen made some holy water, put it into
a pitcher and repaired to the top of the hill, where he saw a wonderfully
fine castle, attendants in magnificent liveries, youths and damsels
dancing with nimble feet, and a man of honourable presence before the
gate, who told him that the king was expecting him to dinner. Collen
followed the man into the castle, and beheld the king on a throne of
gold, and a table magnificently spread before him. The king welcomed
Collen, and begged him to taste of the dainties on the table, adding that
he hoped that in future he would reside with him. “I will not eat of the
leaves of the forest,” said Collen.
“Did you ever see men better dressed?” said the king, “than my attendants
here in red and blue?”
“Their dress is good enough,” said Collen, “considering what kind of
dress it is.”
“What kind of dress is it?” said the king.
Collen replied: “The red on the one side denotes burning, and the blue on
the other side denotes freezing.” Then drawing forth his sprinkler, he
flung the holy water in the faces of the king and his people, whereupon
the whole vision disappeared, so that there was neither castle nor
attendants, nor youth nor damsel, nor musician with his music, nor
banquet, nor anything to be seen save the green bushes.
The valley of the Dee, of which the Llangollen district forms part, is
called in the British tongue Glyndyfrdwy—that is, the valley of the Dwy
or Dee. The celebrated Welsh chieftain, generally known as Owen
Glendower, was surnamed after this valley, the whole of which belonged to
him, and in which he had two or three places of strength, though his
general abode was a castle in Sycharth, a valley to the south-east of the
Berwyn, and distant about twelve miles from Llangollen.
Connected with the Dee there is a wonderful Druidical legend to the
following effect. The Dee springs from two fountains, high up in
Merionethshire, called Dwy Fawr and Dwy Fach, or the great and little
Dwy, whose waters pass through those of the lake of Bala without mingling
with them, and come out at its northern extremity. These fountains had
their names from two individuals, Dwy Fawr and Dwy Fach, who escaped from
the Deluge, when all the rest of the human race were drowned, and the
passing of the waters of the two fountains through the lake, without
being confounded with its flood, is emblematic of the salvation of the
two individuals from the Deluge, of which the lake is a type.
Dinas Bran, which crowns the top of the mighty hill on the northern side
of the valley, is a ruined stronghold of unknown antiquity. The name is
generally supposed to signify Crow Castle, bran being the British word
for crow, and flocks of crows being frequently seen hovering over it. It
may, however, mean the castle of Bran or Brennus, or the castle above the
Bran, a brook which flows at its foot.
Dinas Bran was a place quite impregnable in the old time, and served as a
retreat to Gruffydd, son of Madawg from the rage of his countrymen, who
were incensed against him because, having married Emma, the daughter of
James Lord Audley, he had, at the instigation of his wife and
father-in-law, sided with Edward the First against his own native
sovereign. But though it could shield him from his foes, it could not
preserve him from remorse and the stings of conscience, of which he
speedily died.
At present the place consists only of a few ruined walls, and probably
consisted of little more two or three hundred years ago: Roger Cyffyn a
Welsh bard, who flourished at the beginning of the seventeenth century,
wrote an englyn upon it, of which the following is a translation:—
“Gone, gone are thy gates, Dinas Bran on the height!
Thy warders are blood-crows and ravens, I trow;
Now no one will wend from the field of the fight
To the fortress on high, save the raven and crow.”
CHAPTER VII
Poor Black Cat—Dissenters—Persecution—What Impudence!
The house or cottage, for it was called a cottage though it consisted of
two stories, in which my wife had procured lodgings for us, was situated
in the Northern suburb. Its front was towards a large perllan or
orchard, which sloped down gently to the banks of the Dee; its back was
towards the road leading from Wrexham, behind which was a high bank, on
the top of which was a canal called in Welsh the Camlas, whose
commencement was up the valley about two miles west. A little way up the
road, towards Wrexham, was the vicarage and a little way down was a
flannel factory, beyond which was a small inn, with pleasure grounds,
kept by an individual who had once been a gentleman’s servant. The
mistress of the house was a highly respectable widow, who, with a servant
maid was to wait upon us. It was as agreeable a place in all respects as
people like ourselves could desire.
As I and my family sat at tea in our parlour, an hour or two after we had
taken possession of our lodgings, the door of the room and that of the
entrance to the house being open, on account of the fineness of the
weather, a poor black cat entered hastily, sat down on the carpet by the
table, looked up towards us, and mewed piteously. I never had seen so
wretched a looking creature. It was dreadfully attenuated, being little
more than skin and bone, and was sorely afflicted with an eruptive
malady. And here I may as well relate the history of this cat previous
to our arrival which I subsequently learned by bits and snatches. It had
belonged to a previous vicar of Llangollen, and had been left behind at
his departure. His successor brought with him dogs and cats, who,
conceiving that the late vicar’s cat had no business at the vicarage,
drove it forth to seek another home, which, however, it could not find.
Almost all the people of the suburb were dissenters, as indeed were the
generality of the people of Llangollen, and knowing the cat to be a
church cat, not only would not harbour it, but did all they could to make
it miserable; whilst the few who were not dissenters, would not receive
it into their houses, either because they had cats of their own, or dogs,
or did not want a cat, so that the cat had no home and was dreadfully
persecuted by nine-tenths of the suburb. Oh, there never was a cat so
persecuted as that poor Church of England animal, and solely on account
of the opinions which it was supposed to have imbibed in the house of its
late master, for I never could learn that the dissenters of the suburb,
nor indeed of Llangollen in general, were in the habit of persecuting
other cats; the cat was a Church of England cat, and that was enough:
stone it, hang it, drown it! were the cries of almost everybody. If the
workmen of the flannel factory, all of whom were Calvinistic-Methodists,
chanced to get a glimpse of it in the road from the windows of the
building, they would sally forth in a body, and with sticks, stones, or
for want of other weapons, with clots of horse dung, of which there was
always plenty on the road, would chase it up the high bank or perhaps
over the Camlas; the inhabitants of a small street between our house and
the factory leading from the road to the river, all of whom were
dissenters, if they saw it moving about the perllan, into which their
back windows looked, would shriek and hoot at it, and fling anything of
no value, which came easily to hand, at the head or body of the
ecclesiastical cat. The good woman of the house, who though a very
excellent person, was a bitter dissenter, whenever she saw it upon her
ground or heard it was there, would make after it, frequently attended by
her maid Margaret, and her young son, a boy about nine years of age, both
of whom hated the cat, and were always ready to attack it, either alone
or in company, and no wonder, the maid being not only a dissenter, but a
class teacher, and the boy not only a dissenter, but intended for the
dissenting ministry. Where it got its food, and food it sometimes must
have got, for even a cat, an animal known to have nine lives, cannot live
without food, was only known to itself, as was the place where it lay,
for even a cat must lie down sometimes; though a labouring man who
occasionally dug in the garden told me he believed that in the springtime
it ate freshets, and the woman of the house once said that she believed
it sometimes slept in the hedge, which hedge, by-the-bye, divided our
perllan from the vicarage grounds, which were very extensive. Well might
the cat after having led this kind of life for better than two years look
mere skin and bone when it made its appearance in our apartment, and have
an eruptive malady, and also a bronchitic cough, for I remember it had
both. How it came to make its appearance there is a mystery, for it had
never entered the house before, even when there were lodgers; that it
should not visit the woman, who was its declared enemy, was natural
enough, but why if it did not visit her other lodgers, did it visit us?
Did instinct keep it aloof from them? Did instinct draw it towards us?
We gave it some bread-and-butter, and a little tea with milk and sugar.
It ate and drank and soon began to purr. The good woman of the house was
horrified when on coming in to remove the things she saw the church cat
on her carpet. “What impudence!” she exclaimed, and made towards it, but
on our telling her that we did not expect that it should be disturbed,
she let it alone. A very remarkable circumstance was, that though the
cat had hitherto been in the habit of flying, not only from her face, but
the very echo of her voice, it now looked her in the face with perfect
composure, as much as to say, “I don’t fear you, for I know that I am now
safe and with my own people.” It stayed with us two hours and then went
away. The next morning it returned. To be short, though it went away
every night, it became our own cat, and one of our family. I gave it
something which cured it of its eruption, and through good treatment it
soon lost its other ailments and began to look sleek and bonny.
CHAPTER VIII
The Mowers—Deep Welsh—Extensive View—Old Celtic Hatred—Fish
Preserving—Smollet’s Morgan.
Next morning I set out to ascend Dinas Bran, a number of children, almost
entirely girls, followed me. I asked them why they came after me. “In
the hope that you will give us something,” said one in very good English.
I told them that I should give them nothing, but they still followed me.
A little way up the hill I saw some men cutting hay. I made an
observation to one of them respecting the fineness of the weather; he
answered civilly, and rested on his scythe, whilst the others pursued
their work. I asked him whether he was a farming man; he told me that he
was not; that he generally worked at the flannel manufactory, but that
for some days past he had not been employed there, work being slack, and
had on that account joined the mowers in order to earn a few shillings.
I asked him how it was he knew how to handle a scythe, not being bred up
a farming man; he smiled, and said that, somehow or other, he had learnt
to do so.
“You speak very good English,” said I, “have you much Welsh?”
“Plenty,” said he; “I am a real Welshman.”
“Can you read Welsh?” said I.
“Oh, yes!” he replied.
“What books have you read?” said I.
“I have read the Bible, sir, and one or two other books.”
“Did you ever read the Bardd Cwsg?” said I.
He looked at me with some surprise. “No,” said he, after a moment or
two, “I have never read it. I have seen it, but it was far too deep
Welsh for me.”
“I have read it,” said I.
“Are you a Welshman?” said he.
“No,” said I; “I am an Englishman.”
“And how is it,” said he, “that you can read Welsh without being a
Welshman?”
“I learned to do so,” said I, “even as you learned to mow, without being
bred up to farming work.”
“Ah!” said he, “but it is easier to learn to mow than to read the Bardd
Cwsg.”
“I don’t think that,” said I; “I have taken up a scythe a hundred times
but I cannot mow.”
“Will your honour take mine now, and try again?” said he.
“No,” said I, “for if I take your scythe in hand I must give you a
shilling, you know, by mowers’ law.”
He gave a broad grin, and I proceeded up the hill. When he rejoined his
companions he said something to them in Welsh, at which they all laughed.
I reached the top of the hill, the children still attending me.
The view over the vale is very beautiful; but on no side, except in the
direction of the west, is it very extensive; Dinas Bran being on all
other sides overtopped by other hills: in that direction, indeed, the
view is extensive enough, reaching on a fine day even to the Wyddfa or
peak of Snowdon, a distance of sixty miles, at least as some say, who
perhaps ought to add to very good eyes, which mine are not. The day that
I made my first ascent of Dinas Bran was very clear, but I do not think I
saw the Wyddfa then from the top of Dinas Bran. It is true I might see
it without knowing it, being utterly unacquainted with it, except by
name; but I repeat I do not think I saw it, and I am quite sure that I
did not see it from the top of Dinas Bran on a subsequent ascent, on a
day equally clear, when if I had seen the Wyddfa I must have recognised
it, having been at its top. As I stood gazing around, the children
danced about upon the grass, and sang a song. The song was English. I
descended the hill; they followed me to its foot, and then left me. The
children of the lower class of Llangollen are great pests to visitors.
The best way to get rid of them is to give them nothing: I followed that
plan, and was not long troubled with them.
Arrived at the foot of the hill, I walked along the bank of the canal to
the west. Presently I came to a barge lying by the bank; the boatman was
in it. I entered into conversation with him. He told me that the canal
and its branches extended over a great part of England. That the boats
carried slates—that he had frequently gone as far as Paddington by the
canal—that he was generally three weeks on the journey—that the boatmen
and their families lived in the little cabins aft—that the boatmen were
all Welsh—that they could read English, but little or no Welsh—that
English was a much more easy language to read than Welsh—that they passed
by many towns, among others Northampton, and that he liked no place so
much as Llangollen. I proceeded till I came to a place where some people
were putting huge slates into a canal boat. It was near a bridge which
crossed the Dee, which was on the left. I stopped and entered into
conversation with one, who appeared to be the principal man. He told me
amongst other things that he was a blacksmith from the neighbourhood of
Rhiwabon, and that the flags were intended for the flooring of his
premises. In the boat was an old bareheaded, bare-armed fellow, who
presently joined in the conversation in very broken English. He told me
that his name was Joseph Hughes, and that he was a real Welshman and was
proud of being so; he expressed a great dislike for the English, who he
said were in the habit of making fun of him and ridiculing his language;
he said that all the fools that he had known were Englishmen. I told him
that all Englishmen were not fools; “but the greater part are,” said he.
“Look how they work,” said I. “Yes,” said he, “some of them are good at
breaking stones for the road, but not more than one in a hundred.”
“There seems to be something of the old Celtic hatred to the Saxon in
this old fellow,” said I to myself, as I walked away.
I proceeded till I came to the head of the canal, where the navigation
first commences. It is close to a weir over which the Dee falls. Here
there is a little floodgate, through which water rushes from an oblong
pond or reservoir, fed by water from a corner of the upper part of the
weir. On the left, or south-west side, is a mound of earth fenced with
stones which is the commencement of the bank of the canal. The pond or
reservoir above the floodgate is separated from the weir by a stone wall
on the left, or south-west side. This pond has two floodgates, the one
already mentioned, which opens into the canal, and another, on the other
side of the stone mound, opening to the lower part of the weir.
Whenever, as a man told me who was standing near, it is necessary to lay
the bed of the canal dry, in the immediate neighbourhood for the purpose
of making repairs, the floodgate to the canal is closed, and the one to
the lower part of the weir is opened, and then the water from the pond
flows into the Dee, whilst a sluice, near the first lock, lets out the
water of the canal into the river. The head of the canal is situated in
a very beautiful spot. To the left or south is a lofty hill covered with
wood. To the right is a beautiful slope or lawn on the top of which is a
pretty villa, to which you can get by a little wooden bridge over the
floodgate of the canal, and indeed forming part of it. Few things are so
beautiful in their origin as this canal, which, be it known, with its
locks and its aqueducts, the grandest of which last is the stupendous
erection near Stockport, which by-the-bye filled my mind when a boy with
wonder, constitutes the grand work of England, and yields to nothing in
the world of the kind, with the exception of the great canal of China.
Retracing my steps some way I got upon the river’s bank and then again
proceeded in the direction of the west. I soon came to a cottage nearly
opposite a bridge, which led over the river, not the bridge which I have
already mentioned, but one much smaller, and considerably higher up the
valley. The cottage had several dusky outbuildings attached to it, and a
paling before it. Leaning over the paling in his shirt-sleeves was a
dark-faced, short, thickset man, who saluted me in English. I returned
his salutation, stopped, and was soon in conversation with him. I
praised the beauty of the river and its banks: he said that both were
beautiful and delightful in summer, but not at all in winter, for then
the trees and bushes on the banks were stripped of their leaves, and the
river was a frightful torrent. He asked me if I had been to see the
place called the Robber’s Leap, as strangers generally went to see it. I
inquired where it was.
“Yonder,” said he, pointing to some distance down the river.
“Why is it called the Robber’s Leap?” said I.
“It is called the Robber’s Leap, or Llam y Lleidyr,” said he, “because a
thief pursued by justice once leaped across the river there and escaped.
It was an awful leap, and he well deserved to escape after taking it.” I
told him that I should go and look at it on some future opportunity, and
then asked if there were many fish in the river. He said there were
plenty of salmon and trout, and that owing to the river being tolerably
high, a good many had been caught during the last few days. I asked him
who enjoyed the right of fishing in the river. He said that in these
parts the fishing belonged to two or three proprietors, who either
preserved the fishing for themselves, as they best could by means of
keepers, or let it out to other people; and that many individuals came
not only from England, but from France and Germany and even Russia for
the purpose of fishing, and that the keepers of the proprietors from whom
they purchased permission to fish, went with them, to show them the best
places, and to teach them how to fish. He added that there was a report
that the river would shortly be rhydd or free and open to any one. I
said that it would be a bad thing to fling the river open, as in that
event the fish would be killed at all times and seasons, and eventually
all destroyed. He replied that he questioned whether more fish would be
taken then than now, and that I must not imagine that the fish were much
protected by what was called preserving; that the people to whom the
lands in the neighbourhood belonged, and those who paid for fishing did
not catch a hundredth part of the fish which were caught in the river:
that the proprietors went with their keepers, and perhaps caught two or
three stone of fish, or that strangers went with the keepers, whom they
paid for teaching them how to fish, and perhaps caught half-a-dozen fish,
and that shortly after the keepers would return and catch on their own
account sixty stone of fish from the very spot where the proprietors or
strangers had great difficulty in catching two or three stone or the
half-dozen fish, or the poachers would go and catch a yet greater
quantity. He added that gentry did not understand how to catch fish, and
that to attempt to preserve was nonsense. I told him that if the river
was flung open everybody would fish; he said that I was much mistaken,
that hundreds who were now poachers, would then keep at home, mind their
proper trades, and never use line or spear; that folks always longed to
do what they were forbidden, and that Shimei would never have crossed the
brook provided he had not been told he should be hanged if he did. That
he himself had permission to fish in the river whenever he pleased, but
never availed himself of it, though in his young time, when he had no
leave, he had been an arrant poacher.
The manners and way of speaking of this old personage put me very much in
mind of those of Morgan, described by Smollett in his immortal novel of
“Roderick Random.” I had more discourse with him: I asked him in what
line of business he was, he told me that he sold coals. From his
complexion, and the hue of his shirt, I had already concluded that he was
in some grimy trade. I then inquired of what religion he was, and
received for answer that he was a Baptist. I thought that both himself
and part of his apparel would look all the better for a good immersion.
We talked of the war then raging—he said it was between the false prophet
and the Dragon. I asked him who the Dragon was—he said the Turk. I told
him that the Pope was far worse than either the Turk or the Russian, that
his religion was the vilest idolatry, and that he would let no one alone.
That it was the Pope who drove his fellow religionists the Anabaptists
out of the Netherlands. He asked me how long ago that was. Between two
and three hundred years I replied. He asked me the meaning of the word
Anabaptist; I told him; whereupon he expressed great admiration for my
understanding, and said that he hoped he should see me again.
I inquired of him to what place the bridge led; he told me that if I
passed over it, and ascended a high bank beyond, I should find myself on
the road from Llangollen to Corwen and that if I wanted to go to
Llangollen I must turn to the left. I thanked him, and passing over the
bridge, and ascending the bank, found myself upon a broad road. I turned
to the left, and walking briskly in about half an hour reached our
cottage in the northern suburb, where I found my family and dinner
awaiting me.
CHAPTER IX
The Dinner—English Foibles—Pengwern—The
Yew-Tree—Carn-Lleidyr—Applications of a Term.
For dinner we had salmon and leg of mutton; the salmon from the Dee, the
leg from the neighbouring Berwyn. The salmon was good enough, but I had
eaten better; and here it will not be amiss to say, that the best salmon
in the world is caught in the Suir, a river that flows past the beautiful
town of Clonmel in Ireland. As for the leg of mutton it was truly
wonderful; nothing so good had I ever tasted in the shape of a leg of
mutton. The leg of mutton of Wales beats the leg of mutton of any other
country, and I had never tasted a Welsh leg of mutton before. Certainly
I shall never forget that first Welsh leg of mutton which I tasted, rich
but delicate, replete with juices derived from the aromatic herbs of the
noble Berwyn, cooked to a turn, and weighing just four pounds.
“O its savoury smell was great,
Such as well might tempt, I trow,
One that’s dead to lift his brow.”
Let any one who wishes to eat leg of mutton in perfection go to Wales,
but mind you to eat leg of mutton only. Welsh leg of mutton is
superlative; but with the exception of the leg, the mutton of Wales is
decidedly inferior to that of many other parts of Britain.
Here, perhaps, as I have told the reader what we ate for dinner, it will
be as well to tell him what we drank at dinner. Let him know then, that
with our salmon we drank water, and with our mutton ale, even ale of
Llangollen; but not the best ale of Llangollen; it was very fair; but I
subsequently drank far better Llangollen ale than that which I drank at
our first dinner in our cottage at Llangollen.
In the evening I went across the bridge and strolled along in a
south-east direction. Just as I had cleared the suburb a man joined me
from a cottage, on the top of a high bank, whom I recognised as the mower
with whom I had held discourse in the morning. He saluted me and asked
me if I were taking a walk, I told him I was, whereupon he said that if I
were not too proud to wish to be seen walking with a poor man like
himself, he should wish to join me. I told him I should be glad of his
company, and that I was not ashamed to be seen walking with any person,
however poor, who conducted himself with propriety. He replied that I
must be very different from my countrymen in general, who were ashamed to
be seen walking with any people, who were not, at least, as well-dressed
as themselves. I said that my country-folk in general had a great many
admirable qualities, but at the same time a great many foibles, foremost
amongst which last was a crazy admiration for what they called gentility,
which made them sycophantic to their superiors in station, and extremely
insolent to those whom they considered below them. He said that I had
spoken his very thoughts, and then asked me whether I wished to be taken
the most agreeable walk near Llangollen.
On my replying by all means, he led me along the road to the south-east.
A pleasant road it proved: on our right at some distance was the mighty
Berwyn; close on our left the hill called Pen y Coed. I asked him what
was beyond the Berwyn?
“A very wild country, indeed,” he replied, “consisting of wood, rock, and
river; in fact, an anialwch.”
He then asked if I knew the meaning of anialwch.
“A wilderness,” I replied, “you will find the word in the Welsh Bible.”
“Very true, sir,” said he, “it was there I met it, but I did not know the
meaning of it, till it was explained to me by one of our teachers.”
On my inquiring of what religion he was, he told me he was a
Calvinistic-Methodist.
We passed an ancient building which stood on our right. I turned round
to look at it. Its back was to the road: at its eastern end was a fine
arched window like the oriel window of a church.
“That building,” said my companion, “is called Pengwern Hall. It was
once a convent of nuns; a little time ago a farm-house, but is now used
as a barn, and a place of stowage. Till lately it belonged to the Mostyn
family, but they disposed of it, with the farm on which it stood,
together with several other farms, to certain people from Liverpool, who
now live yonder,” pointing to a house a little way farther on. I still
looked at the edifice.
“You seem to admire the old building,” said my companion.
“I was not admiring it,” said I; “I was thinking of the difference
between its present and former state. Formerly it was a place devoted to
gorgeous idolatry and obscene lust; now it is a quiet old barn in which
hay and straw are placed, and broken tumbrels stowed away: surely the
hand of God is visible here?”
“It is so, sir,” said the man in a respectful tone, “and so it is in
another place in this neighbourhood. About three miles from here, in the
north-west part of the valley, is an old edifice. It is now a
farm-house, but was once a splendid abbey, and was called—”
“The abbey of the vale of the cross,” said I, “I have read a deal about
it. Iolo Goch, the bard of your celebrated hero, Owen Glendower, was
buried somewhere in its precincts.”
We went on: my companion took me over a stile behind the house which he
had pointed out, and along a path through hazel coppices. After a little
time I inquired whether there were any Papists in Llangollen.
“No,” said he, “there is not one of that family at Llangollen, but I
believe there are some in Flintshire, at a place called Holywell, where
there is a pool or fountain, the waters of which it is said they
worship.”
“And so they do,” said I, “true to the old Indian superstition, of which
their religion is nothing but a modification. The Indians and sepoys
worship stocks and stones, and the river Ganges, and our Papists worship
stocks and stones, holy wells and fountains.”
He put some questions to me about the origin of nuns and friars. I told
him they originated in India, and made him laugh heartily by showing him
the original identity of nuns and nautch-girls, begging priests and
begging Brahmins. We passed by a small house with an enormous yew-tree
before it; I asked him who lived there.
“No one,” he replied, “it is to let. It was originally a cottage, but
the proprietors have furbished it up a little, and call it Yew-tree
Villa.”
“I suppose they would let it cheap,” said I.
“By no means,” he replied, “they ask eighty pounds a year for it.”
“What could have induced them to set such a rent upon it?” I demanded.
“The yew-tree, sir, which is said to be the largest in Wales. They hope
that some of the grand gentry will take the house for the romance of the
yew-tree, but somehow or other nobody has taken it, though it has been to
let for three seasons.”
We soon came to a road leading east and west.
“This way,” said he, pointing in the direction of the west, “leads back
to Llangollen, the other to Offa’s Dyke and England.”
We turned to the west. He inquired if I had ever heard before of Offa’s
Dyke.
“Oh yes,” said I, “it was built by an old Saxon king called Offa, against
the incursions of the Welsh.”
“There was a time,” said my companion, “when it was customary for the
English to cut off the ears of every Welshman who was found to the east
of the dyke, and for the Welsh to hang every Englishman whom they found
to the west of it. Let us be thankful that we are now more humane to
each other. We are now on the north side of Pen y Coed. Do you know the
meaning of Pen y Coed, sir?”
“Pen y Coed,” said I, “means the head of the wood. I suppose that in the
old time the mountain looked over some extensive forest, even as the
nunnery of Pengwern looked originally over an alder-swamp, for Pengwern
means the head of the alder-swamp.”
“So it does, sir, I shouldn’t wonder if you could tell me the real
meaning of a word, about which I have thought a good deal, and about
which I was puzzling my head last night as I lay in bed.”
“What may it be?” said I.
“Carn-lleidyr,” he replied: “now, sir, do you know the meaning of that
word?”
“I think I do,” said I.
“What may it be, sir?”
“First let me hear what you conceive its meaning to be,” said I.
“Why, sir, I should say that Carn-lleidyr is an out-and-out thief—one
worse than a thief of the common sort. Now, if I steal a matrass I am a
lleidyr, that is a thief of the common sort; but if I carry it to a
person, and he buys it, knowing it to be stolen, I conceive he is a far
worse thief than I; in fact, a carn-lleidyr.”
“The word is a double word,” said I, “compounded of carn and lleidyr.
The original meaning of carn is a heap of stones, and carn-lleidyr means
properly a thief without house or home, and with no place on which to
rest his head, save the carn or heap of stones on the bleak top of the
mountain. For a long time the word was only applied to a thief of that
description, who, being without house and home, was more desperate than
other thieves, and as savage and brutish as the wolves and foxes with
whom he occasionally shared his pillow, the carn. In course of time,
however, the original meaning was lost or disregarded, and the term
carn-lleidyr was applied to any particularly dishonest person. At
present there can be no impropriety in calling a person who receives a
matrass, knowing it to be stolen, a carn-lleidyr, seeing that he is worse
than the thief who stole it, or in calling a knavish attorney a
carn-lleidyr, seeing that he does far more harm than a common
pick-pocket; or in calling the Pope so, seeing that he gets huge sums of
money out of people by pretending to be able to admit their souls to
heaven, or to hurl them to the other place, knowing all the time that he
has no such power; perhaps, indeed, at the present day the term
carn-lleidyr is more applicable to the Pope than to any one else, for he
is certainly the arch thief of the world. So much for Carn-lleidyr. But
I must here tell you that the term carn may be applied to any who is
particularly bad or disagreeable in any respect, and now I remember, has
been applied for centuries both in prose and poetry. One Lewis Glyn
Cothi, a poet, who lived more than three hundred years ago, uses the word
carn in the sense of arrant or exceedingly bad, for in his abusive ode to
the town of Chester, he says that the women of London itself were never
more carn strumpets than those of Chester, by which he means that there
were never more arrant harlots in the world than those of the cheese
capital. And the last of your great poets, Gronwy Owen, who flourished
about the middle of the last century, complains in a letter to a friend,
whilst living in a village of Lancashire, that he was amongst Carn
Saeson. He found all English disagreeable enough, but those of
Lancashire particularly so—savage, brutish louts, out-and-out John Bulls,
and therefore he called them Carn Saeson.”
“Thank you, sir,” said my companion; “I now thoroughly understand the
meaning of carn. Whenever I go to Chester, and a dressed-up madam
jostles against me, I shall call her carn-butein. The Pope of Rome I
shall in future term carn-lleidyr y byd, or the arch thief of the world.
And whenever I see a stupid, brutal Englishman swaggering about
Llangollen, and looking down upon us poor Welsh, I shall say to myself
Get home, you carn Sais! Well, sir, we are now near Llangollen; I must
turn to the left. You go straight forward. I never had such an
agreeable walk in my life. May I ask your name?”
I told him my name, and asked him for his.
“Edward Jones,” he replied.
CHAPTER X
The Berwyn—Mountain Cottage—The Barber’s Pole.
On the following morning I strolled up the Berwyn on the south-west of
the town, by a broad winding path, which was at first very steep, but by
degrees became less so. When I had accomplished about three parts of the
ascent I came to a place where the road, or path, divided into two. I
took the one to the left, which seemingly led to the top of the mountain,
and presently came to a cottage from which a dog rushed barking towards
me; an old woman, however, coming to the door called him back. I said a
few words to her in Welsh, whereupon in broken English she asked me to
enter the cottage and take a glass of milk. I went in and sat down on a
chair which a sickly-looking young woman handed to me. I asked her in
English who she was, but she made no answer, whereupon the old woman told
me that she was her daughter and had no English. I then asked her in
Welsh what was the matter with her, she replied that she had the cryd or
ague. The old woman now brought me a glass of milk, and said in the
Welsh language that she hoped I should like it. What further
conversation we had was in the Cambrian tongue. I asked the name of the
dog, who was now fondling upon me, and was told that his name was
Pharaoh. I inquired if they had any books, and was shown two, one a
common Bible printed by the Bible Society, and the other a volume in
which the book of prayer of the Church of England was bound up with the
Bible, both printed at Oxford, about the middle of the last century. I
found that both mother and daughter were Calvinistic-Methodists. After a
little further discourse I got up and gave the old woman twopence for the
milk; she accepted it, but with great reluctance. I inquired whether by
following the road I could get to the Pen y bryn or the top of the hill.
They shook their heads, and the young woman said that I could not, as the
road presently took a turn and went down. I asked her how I could get to
the top of the hill. “Which part of the top?” said she. “I’r goruchaf,”
I replied. “That must be where the barber’s pole stands,” said she.
“Why does the barber’s pole stand there?” said I. “A barber was hanged
there a long time ago,” said she, “and the pole was placed to show the
spot.” “Why was he hanged?” said I. “For murdering his wife,” said she.
I asked her some questions about the murder, but the only information she
could give me was, that it was a very bad murder and occurred a long time
ago. I had observed the pole from our garden, at Llangollen, but had
concluded that it was a common flagstaff. I inquired the way to it. It
was not visible from the cottage, but they gave me directions how to
reach it. I bade them farewell, and in about a quarter of an hour
reached the pole on the top of the hill. I imagined that I should have a
glorious view of the vale of Llangollen from the spot where it stood; the
view, however, did not answer my expectations. I returned to Llangollen
by nearly the same way by which I had come.
The remainder of the day I spent entirely with my family, whom at their
particular request I took in the evening to see Plas Newydd, once the
villa of the two ladies of Llangollen. It lies on the farther side of
the bridge, at a little distance from the back part of the church. There
is a thoroughfare through the grounds, which are not extensive. Plas
Newydd or the New Place is a small gloomy mansion, with a curious dairy
on the right-hand side, as you go up to it, and a remarkable stone pump.
An old man whom we met in the grounds, and with whom I entered into
conversation, said that he remembered the building of the house, and that
the place where it now stands was called before its erection Pen y maes,
or the head of the field.
CHAPTER XI
Welsh Farm-House—A Poet’s Grandson—Hospitality—Mountain Village—Madoc—The
Native Valley—Corpse Candles—The Midnight Call.
My curiosity having been rather excited with respect to the country
beyond the Berwyn, by what my friend, the intelligent flannel-worker, had
told me about it, I determined to go and see it. Accordingly on Friday
morning I set out. Having passed by Pengwern Hall I turned up a lane in
the direction of the south, with a brook on the right running amongst
hazels, I presently arrived at a small farm-house standing on the left
with a little yard before it. Seeing a woman at the door I asked her in
English if the road in which I was would take me across the mountain—she
said it would, and forthwith cried to a man working in a field who left
his work and came towards us. “That is my husband,” said she; “he has
more English than I.”
The man came up and addressed me in very good English: he had a brisk,
intelligent look, and was about sixty. I repeated the question, which I
had put to his wife, and he also said that by following the road I could
get across the mountain. We soon got into conversation. He told me that
the little farm in which he lived belonged to the person who had bought
Pengwern Hall. He said that he was a good kind of gentleman, but did not
like the Welsh. I asked him, if the gentleman in question did not like
the Welsh, why he came to live among them. He smiled, and I then said
that I liked the Welsh very much, and was particularly fond of their
language. He asked me whether I could read Welsh, and on my telling him
I could, he said that if I would walk in he would show me a Welsh book.
I went with him and his wife into a neat kind of kitchen, flagged with
stone, where were several young people, their children. I spoke some
Welsh to them which appeared to give them great satisfaction. The man
went to a shelf and taking down a book put it into my hand. It was a
Welsh book, and the title of it in English was “Evening Work of the
Welsh.” It contained the lives of illustrious Welshmen, commencing with
that of Cadwalader. I read a page of it aloud, while the family stood
round and wondered to hear a Saxon read their language. I entered into
discourse with the man about Welsh poetry and repeated the famous
prophecy of Taliesin about the Coiling Serpent. I asked him if the Welsh
had any poets at the present day. “Plenty,” said he, “and good
ones—Wales can never be without a poet.” Then after a pause he said,
that he was the grandson of a great poet.
“Do you bear his name?” said I.
“I do,” he replied.
“What may it be?”
“Hughes,” he answered.
“Two of the name of Hughes have been poets,” said I—“one was Huw Hughes,
generally termed the Bardd Coch, or red bard; he was an Anglesea man, and
the friend of Lewis Morris and Gronwy Owen—the other was Jonathan Hughes,
where he lived I know not.”
“He lived here, in this very house,” said the man. “Jonathan Hughes was
my grandfather!” and as he spoke his eyes flashed fire.
“Dear me!” said I; “I read some of his pieces thirty-two years ago when I
was a lad in England. I think I can repeat some of the lines.” I then
repeated a quartet which I chanced to remember.
“Ah!” said the man, “I see you know his poetry. Come into the next room
and I will show you his chair.” He led me into a sleeping-room on the
right hand, where in a corner he showed me an antique three-cornered
arm-chair. “That chair,” said he, “my grandsire won at Llangollen, at an
Eisteddfod of Bards. Various bards recited their poetry, but my
grandfather won the prize. Ah, he was a good poet. He also won a prize
of fifteen guineas at a meeting of bards in London.”
We returned to the kitchen, where I found the good woman of the house
waiting with a plate of bread-and-butter in one hand, and a glass of
buttermilk in the other—she pressed me to partake of both—I drank some of
the buttermilk, which was excellent, and after a little more discourse
shook the kind people by the hand and thanked them for their hospitality.
As I was about to depart the man said that I should find the lane farther
up very wet, and that I had better mount through a field at the back of
the house. He took me to a gate, which he opened, and then pointed out
the way which I must pursue. As I went away he said that both he and his
family should be always happy to see me at Ty yn y Pistyll, which words,
interpreted, are the house by the spout of water.
I went up the field with the lane on my right, down which ran a runnel of
water, from which doubtless the house derived its name. I soon came to
an unenclosed part of the mountain covered with gorse and whin, and still
proceeding upward reached a road, which I subsequently learned was the
main road from Llangollen over the hill. I was not long in gaining the
top which was nearly level. Here I stood for some time looking about me,
having the vale of Llangollen to the north of me, and a deep valley
abounding with woods and rocks to the south.
Following the road to the south, which gradually descended, I soon came
to a place where a road diverged from the straight one to the left. As
the left-hand road appeared to lead down a romantic valley I followed it.
The scenery was beautiful—steep hills on each side. On the right was a
deep ravine, down which ran a brook; the hill beyond it was covered
towards the top with a wood, apparently of oak, between which and the
ravine were small green fields. Both sides of the ravine were fringed
with trees, chiefly ash. I descended the road which was zigzag and
steep, and at last arrived at the bottom of the valley, where there was a
small hamlet. On the further side of the valley to the east was a steep
hill on which were a few houses—at the foot of the hill was a brook
crossed by an antique bridge of a single arch. I directed my course to
the bridge, and after looking over the parapet for a minute or two upon
the water below, which was shallow and noisy, ascended a road which led
up the hill: a few scattered houses were on each side. I soon reached
the top of the hill, where were some more houses, those which I had seen
from the valley below. I was in a Welsh mountain village, which put me
much in mind of the villages which I had strolled through of old in
Castile and La Mancha; there were the same silence and desolation here as
yonder away—the houses were built of the same material, namely stone. I
should perhaps have fancied myself for a moment in a Castilian or
Manchegan mountain pueblicito, but for the abundance of trees which met
my eye on every side.
In walking up this mountain village I saw no one, and heard no sound but
the echo of my steps amongst the houses. As I returned, however, I saw a
man standing at a door—he was a short figure, about fifty. He had an old
hat on his head, a stick in his hand, and was dressed in a duffel
greatcoat.
“Good-day, friend,” said I; “what be the name of this place?”
“Pont Fadog, sir, is its name, for want of a better.”
“That’s a fine name,” said I; “it signifies in English the bridge of
Madoc.”
“Just so, sir; I see you know Welsh.”
“And I see you know English,” said I.
“Very little, sir; I can read English much better than I can speak it.”
“So can I Welsh,” said I. “I suppose the village is named after the
bridge.”
“No doubt it is, sir.”
“And why was the bridge called the bridge of Madoc?” said I.
“Because one Madoc built it, sir.”
“Was he the son of Owain Gwynedd?” said I.
“Ah, I see you know all about Wales, sir. Yes, sir; he built it, or I
daresay he built it, Madawg ap Owain Gwynedd. I have read much about
him—he was a great sailor, sir, and was the first to discover Tir y
Gorllewin or America. Not many years ago his tomb was discovered there
with an inscription in old Welsh—saying who he was, and how he loved the
sea. I have seen the lines which were found on the tomb.”
“So have I,” said I; “or at least those which were said to be found on a
tomb: they run thus in English:—
“‘Here, after sailing far I Madoc lie,
Of Owain Gwynedd lawful progeny:
The verdant land had little charms for me;
From earliest youth I loved the dark-blue sea.’”
“Ah, sir,” said the man, “I see you know all about the son of Owain
Gwynedd. Well, sir, those lines, or something like them, were found upon
the tomb of Madoc in America.”
“That I doubt,” said I.
“Do you doubt, sir, that Madoc discovered America?”
“Not in the least,” said I; “but I doubt very much that his tomb was ever
discovered with the inscription which you allude to upon it.”
“But it was, sir, I do assure you, and the descendants of Madoc and his
people are still to be found in a part of America speaking the pure iaith
Cymraeg better Welsh than we of Wales do.”
“That I doubt,” said I. “However, the idea is a pretty one; therefore
cherish it. This is a beautiful country.”
“A very beautiful country, sir; there is none more beautiful in all
Wales.”
“What is the name of the river, which runs beneath the bridge?”
“The Ceiriog, sir.”
“The Ceiriog,” said I; “the Ceiriog!”
“Did you ever hear the name before, sir?”
“I have heard of the Eos Ceiriog,” said I; “the Nightingale of Ceiriog.”
“That was Huw Morris, sir; he was called the Nightingale of Ceiriog.”
“Did he live hereabout?”
“Oh no, sir; he lived far away up towards the head of the valley, at a
place called Pont y Meibion.”
“Are you acquainted with his works?” said I.
“Oh yes, sir, at least with some of them. I have read the Marwnad on
Barbara Middleton; and likewise the piece on Oliver and his men. Ah, it
is a funny piece that—he did not like Oliver nor his men.”
“Of what profession are you?” said I; “are you a schoolmaster or
apothecary?”
“Neither, sir, neither; I am merely a poor shoemaker.”
“You know a great deal for a shoemaker,” said I.
“Ah, sir; there are many shoemakers in Wales who know much more than I.”
“But not in England,” said I. “Well, farewell.”
“Farewell, sir. When you have any boots to mend or shoes, sir—I shall be
happy to serve you.”
“I do not live in these parts,” said I.
“No, sir; but you are coming to live here.”
“How do you know that?” said I.
“I know it very well, sir; you left these parts very young, and went far
away—to the East Indies, sir, where you made a large fortune in the
medical line, sir; you are now coming back to your own valley, where you
will buy a property, and settle down, and try to recover your language,
sir, and your health, sir; for you are not the person you pretend to be,
sir: I know you very well, and shall be happy to work for you.”
“Well,” said I, “if I ever settle down here, I shall be happy to employ
you. Farewell.”
I went back the way I had come, till I reached the little hamlet. Seeing
a small public-house, I entered it. A good-looking woman, who met me in
the passage, ushered me into a neat sanded kitchen, handed me a chair and
inquired my commands; I sat down, and told her to bring me some ale; she
brought it, and then seated herself by a bench close by the door.
“Rather a quiet place this,” said I, “I have seen but two faces since I
came over the hill, and yours is one.”
“Rather too quiet, sir,” said the good woman, “one would wish to have
more visitors.”
“I suppose,” said I, “people from Llangollen occasionally come to visit
you.”
“Sometimes, sir, for curiosity’s sake; but very rarely—the way is very
steep.”
“Do the Tylwyth Teg ever pay you visits?”
“The Tylwyth Teg, sir?”
“Yes; the fairies. Do they never come to have a dance on the green sward
in this neighbourhood?”
“Very rarely, sir; indeed, I do not know how long it is since they have
been seen.”
“You have never seen them?”
“I have not, sir; but I believe there are people living who have.”
“Are corpse candles ever seen on the bank of that river?”
“I have never heard of more than one being seen, sir, and that was at a
place where a tinker was drowned a few nights after—there came down a
flood; and the tinker in trying to cross by the usual ford was drowned.”
“And did the candle prognosticate, I mean foreshow his death?”
“It did, sir. When a person is to die his candle is seen a few nights
before the time of his death.”
“Have you ever seen a corpse candle?”
“I have, sir; and as you seem to be a respectable gentleman, I will tell
you all about it. When I was a girl I lived with my parents a little way
from here. I had a cousin, a very good young man, who lived with his
parents in the neighbourhood of our house. He was an exemplary young
man, sir, and having a considerable gift of prayer, was intended for the
ministry; but he fell sick, and shortly became very ill indeed. One
evening when he was lying in this state, as I was returning home from
milking, I saw a candle proceeding from my cousin’s house. I stood still
and looked at it. It moved slowly forward for a little way, and then
mounted high in the air above the wood, which stood not far in front of
the house, and disappeared. Just three nights after that my cousin
died.”
“And you think that what you saw was his corpse candle?”
“I do, sir! what else should it be?”
“Are deaths prognosticated by any other means than corpse candles?”
“They are, sir; by the knockers, and by a supernatural voice heard at
night.”
“Have you ever heard the knockers, or the supernatural voice?”
“I have not, sir; but my father and mother, who are now dead, heard once
a supernatural voice, and knocking. My mother had a sister who was
married like herself, and expected to be confined. Day after day,
however, passed away, without her confinement taking place. My mother
expected every moment to be summoned to her assistance, and was so
anxious about her that she could not rest at night. One night, as she
lay in bed, by the side of her husband, between sleeping and waking, she
heard of a sudden a horse coming stump, stump, up to the door. Then
there was a pause—she expected every moment to hear some one cry out, and
tell her to come to her sister, but she heard no farther sound, neither
voice nor stump of horse. She thought she had been deceived, so, without
awakening her husband, she tried to go to sleep, but sleep she could not.
The next night, at about the same time, she again heard a horse’s feet
come stump, stump, up to the door. She now waked her husband and told
him to listen. He did so, and both heard the stumping. Presently, the
stumping ceased, and then there was a loud “Hey!” as if somebody wished
to wake them. “Hey!” said my father, and they both lay for a minute
expecting to hear something more, but they heard nothing. My father then
sprang out of bed, and looked out of the window; it was bright moonlight,
but he saw nothing. The next night, as they lay in bed both asleep, they
were suddenly aroused by a loud and terrible knocking. Out sprang my
father from the bed, flung open the window, and looked out, but there was
no one at the door. The next morning, however, a messenger arrived with
the intelligence that my aunt had had a dreadful confinement with twins
in the night, and that both she and the babes were dead.”
“Thank you,” said I; and paying for my ale, I returned to Llangollen.
CHAPTER XII
A Calvinistic-Methodist—Turn for Saxon—Our Congregation—Pont y
Cyssyltau—Catherine Lingo.
I had inquired of the good woman of the house, in which we lived, whether
she could not procure a person to accompany me occasionally in my walks,
who was well acquainted with the strange nooks and corners of the
country, and who could speak no language but Welsh; as I wished to
increase my knowledge of colloquial Welsh by having a companion who would
be obliged, in all he had to say to me, to address me in Welsh, and to
whom I should perforce have to reply in that tongue. The good lady had
told me that there was a tenant of hers who lived in one of the cottages,
which looked into the perllan, who, she believed, would be glad to go
with me, and was just the kind of man I was in quest of. The day after I
had met with the adventures, which I have related in the preceding
chapter, she informed me that the person in question was awaiting my
orders in the kitchen. I told her to let me see him. He presently made
his appearance. He was about forty-five years of age, of middle stature,
and had a good-natured open countenance. His dress was poor, but clean.
“Well,” said I to him in Welsh, “are you the Cumro who can speak no
Saxon?”
“In truth, sir, I am.”
“Are you sure that you know no Saxon?”
“Sir! I may know a few words, but I cannot converse in Saxon, nor
understand a conversation in that tongue.”
“Can you read Cumraeg?”
“In truth, sir, I can.”
“What have you read in it?”
“I have read, sir, the Ysgrythyr-lan, till I have it nearly at the ends
of my fingers.”
“Have you read anything else besides the holy Scripture?”
“I read the newspaper, sir, when kind friends lend it to me.”
“In Cumraeg?”
“Yes, sir, in Cumraeg. I can read Saxon a little but not sufficient to
understand a Saxon newspaper.”
“What newspaper do you read?”
“I read, sir, Yr Amserau.”
“Is that a good newspaper?”
“Very good, sir, it is written by good men.”
“Who are they?”
“They are our ministers, sir.”
“Of what religion are you?”
“A Calvinistic Methodist, sir.”
“Why are you of the Methodist religion?”
“Because it is the true religion, sir.”
“You should not be bigoted. If I had more Cumraeg than I have, I would
prove to you that the only true religion is that of the Lloegrian
Church.”
“In truth, sir, you could not do that; had you all the Cumraeg in Cumru
you could not do that.”
“What are you by trade?”
“I am a gwehydd, sir.”
“What do you earn by weaving?”
“About five shillings a week, sir.”
“Have you a wife?
“I have, sir.”
“Does she earn anything?”
“Very seldom, sir; she is a good wife, but is generally sick.”
“Have you children?”
“I have three, sir.”
“Do they earn anything?”
“My eldest son, sir, sometimes earns a few pence, the others are very
small.”
“Will you sometimes walk with me, if I pay you?”
“I shall be always glad to walk with you, sir, whether you pay me or
not.”
“Do you think it lawful to walk with one of the Lloegrian Church?”
“Perhaps, sir, I ought to ask the gentleman of the Lloegrian Church
whether he thinks it lawful to walk with the poor Methodist weaver.”
“Well, I think we may venture to walk with one another. What is your
name?”
“John Jones, sir.”
“Jones! Jones! I was walking with a man of that name the other night.”
“The man with whom you walked the other night is my brother, sir, and
what he said to me about you made me wish to walk with you also.”
“But he spoke very good English.”
“My brother had a turn for Saxon, sir; I had not. Some people have a
turn for the Saxon, others have not. I have no Saxon, sir, my wife has
digon iawn—my two youngest children speak good Saxon, sir, my eldest son
not a word.”
“Well; shall we set out?”
“If you please, sir.”
“To what place shall we go?”
“Shall we go to the Pont y Cyssylltau, sir?”
“What is that?”
“A mighty bridge, sir, which carries the Camlas over a valley on its
back.”
“Good! let us go and see the bridge of the junction, for that I think is
the meaning in Saxon of Pont y Cyssylltau.”
We set out; my guide conducted me along the bank of the Camlas in the
direction of Rhiwabon, that is towards the east. On the way we
discoursed on various subjects, and understood each other tolerably well.
I asked if he had been anything besides a weaver. He told me that when a
boy he kept sheep on the mountain. “Why did you not go on keeping
sheep?” said “I would rather keep sheep than weave.”
“My parents wanted me at home, sir,” said he; “and I was not sorry to go
home; I earned little, and lived badly.”
“A shepherd,” said I, “can earn more than five shillings a week.”
“I was never a regular shepherd, sir,” said he. “But, sir, I would
rather be a weaver with five shillings a week in Llangollen, than a
shepherd with fifteen on the mountain. The life of a shepherd, sir, is
perhaps not exactly what you and some other gentlefolks think. The
shepherd bears much cold and wet, sir, and he is very lonely; no society
save his sheep and dog. Then, sir, he has no privileges. I mean gospel
privileges. He does not look forward to Dydd Sul, as a day of llawenydd,
of joy and triumph, as the weaver does; that is if he is religiously
disposed. The shepherd has no chapel, sir, like the weaver. Oh, sir, I
say again that I would rather be a weaver in Llangollen with five
shillings a week, than a shepherd on the hill with fifteen.”
“Do you mean to say,” said I, “that you live with your family on five
shillings a week?”
“No, sir. I frequently do little commissions by which I earn something.
Then, sir, I have friends, very good friends. A good lady of our
congregation sent me this morning half-a-pound of butter. The people of
our congregation are very kind to each other, sir.”
“That is more,” thought I to myself, “than the people of my congregation
are; they are always cutting each other’s throats.” I next asked if he
had been much about Wales.
“Not much, sir. However, I have been to Pen Caer Gybi, which you call
Holy Head, and to Beth Gelert, sir.”
“What took you to those places?”
“I was sent to those places on business, sir; as I told you before, sir,
I sometimes execute commissions. At Beth Gelert I stayed some time. It
was there I married, sir; my wife comes from a place called Dol Gellyn
near Beth Gelert.”
“What was her name?”
“Her name was Jones, sir.”
“What, before she married?”
“Yes, sir, before she married. You need not be surprised, sir; there are
plenty of the name of Jones in Wales. The name of my brother’s wife,
before she married, was also Jones.”
“Your brother is a clever man,” said I.
“Yes, sir, for a Cumro he is clebber enough.”
“For a Cumro?”
“Yes, sir, he is not a Saxon, you know.”
“Are Saxons then so very clever?”
“Oh yes, sir; who so clebber? The clebberest people in Llangollen are
Saxons; that is, at carnal things—for at spiritual things I do not think
them at all clebber. Look at Mr A., sir.”
“Who is he?”
“Do you not know him, sir? I thought everybody knew Mr A. He is a
Saxon, sir, and keeps the inn on the road a little way below where you
live. He is the clebberest man in Llangollen, sir. He can do
everything. He is a great cook, and can wash clothes better than any
woman. Oh, sir, for carnal things, who so clebber as your countrymen!”
After walking about four miles by the side of the canal we left it, and
bearing to the right presently came to the aqueduct, which strode over a
deep and narrow valley, at the bottom of which ran the Dee. “This is the
Pont y Cysswllt, sir,” said my guide; “it’s the finest bridge in the
world, and no wonder, if what the common people say be true, namely that
every stone cost a golden sovereign.”
We went along it; the height was awful. My guide, though he had been a
mountain shepherd, confessed that he was somewhat afraid. “It gives me
the pendro, sir,” said he, “to look down.” I too felt somewhat dizzy, as
I looked over the parapet into the glen. The canal which this mighty
bridge carries across the gulf is about nine feet wide, and occupies
about two-thirds of the width of the bridge and the entire western side.
The footway is towards the east. From about the middle of the bridge
there is a fine view of the forges on the Cefn Bach and also of a huge
hill near it called the Cefn Mawr. We reached the termination, and
presently crossing the canal by a little wooden bridge we came to a
village. My guide then said, “If you please, sir, we will return by the
old bridge, which leads across the Dee in the bottom of the vale.” He
then led me by a romantic road to a bridge on the west of the aqueduct,
and far below. It seemed very ancient. “This is the old bridge, sir,”
said my guide; “it was built a hundred years before the Pont y Cysswllt
was dreamt of.” We now walked to the west, in the direction of
Llangollen, along the bank of the river. Presently we arrived where the
river, after making a bend, formed a pool. It was shaded by lofty trees,
and to all appearance was exceedingly deep. I stopped to look at it, for
I was struck with its gloomy horror. “That pool, sir,” said John Jones,
“is called Llyn y Meddwyn, the drunkard’s pool. It is called so, sir,
because a drunken man once fell into it, and was drowned. There is no
deeper pool in the Dee, sir, save one, a little below Llangollen, which
is called the pool of Catherine Lingo. A girl of that name fell into it,
whilst gathering sticks on the high bank above it. She was drowned, and
the pool was named after her. I never look at either without shuddering,
thinking how certainly I should be drowned if I fell in, for I cannot
swim, sir.”
“You should have learnt to swim when you were young,” said I, “and to
dive too. I know one who has brought up stones from the bottom, I
daresay, of deeper pools than either, but he was a Saxon, and at carnal
things, you know, none so clebber as the Saxons.”
I found my guide a first-rate walker and a good botanist, knowing the
names of all the plants and trees in Welsh. By the time we returned to
Llangollen I had formed a very high opinion of him, in which I was
subsequently confirmed by what I saw of him during the period of our
acquaintance, which was of some duration. He was very honest,
disinterested, and exceedingly good-humoured. It is true, he had his
little skits occasionally at the Church, and showed some marks of
hostility to the church cat, more especially when he saw it mounted on my
shoulders; for the creature soon began to take liberties, and in less
than a week after my arrival at the cottage, generally mounted on my
back, when it saw me reading or writing, for the sake of the warmth. But
setting aside those same skits at the Church, and that dislike of the
church cat, venial trifles after all, and easily to be accounted for, on
the score of his religious education, I found nothing to blame, and much
to admire, in John Jones, the Calvinistic Methodist of Llangollen.
CHAPTER XIII
Divine Service—Llangollen Bells—Iolo Goch—The Abbey—Twm o’r Nant—Holy
Well—Thomas Edwards
Sunday arrived—a Sunday of unclouded sunshine. We attended Divine
service at church in the morning. The congregation was very numerous,
but to all appearance consisted almost entirely of English visitors, like
ourselves. There were two officiating clergymen, father and son. They
both sat in a kind of oblong pulpit on the southern side of the church,
at a little distance below the altar. The service was in English, and
the elder gentleman preached; there was good singing and chanting.
After dinner I sat in an arbour in the perllan, thinking of many things,
amongst others, spiritual. Whilst thus engaged, the sound of the church
bells calling people to afternoon service came upon my ears. I listened,
and thought I had never heard bells with so sweet a sound. I had heard
them in the morning, but without paying much attention to them, but as I
now sat in the umbrageous arbour, I was particularly struck with them.
Oh how sweetly their voice mingled with the low rush of the river, at the
bottom of the perllan. I subsequently found that the bells of Llangollen
were celebrated for their sweetness. Their merit indeed has even been
admitted by an enemy; for a poet of the Calvinistic Methodist persuasion,
one who calls himself Einion Du, in a very beautiful ode, commencing
with—
“Tangnefedd i Llangollen,”
says that in no part of the world do bells call people so sweetly to
church as those of Llangollen town.
In the evening, at about half-past six, I attended service again, but
without my family. This time the congregation was not numerous, and was
composed principally of poor people. The service and sermon were now in
Welsh, the sermon was preached by the younger gentleman, and was on the
building of the second temple, and, as far as I understood it, appeared
to me to be exceedingly good.
On the Monday evening, myself and family took a walk to the abbey. My
wife and daughter, who are fond of architecture and ruins, were very
anxious to see the old place. I too was anxious enough to see it, less
from love of ruins and ancient architecture, than from knowing that a
certain illustrious bard was buried in its precincts, of whom perhaps a
short account will not be unacceptable to the reader.
This man, whose poetical appellation was Iolo Goch, but whose real name
was Llwyd, was of a distinguished family, and Lord of Llechryd. He was
born and generally resided at a place called Coed y Pantwn, in the upper
part of the Vale of Clwyd. He was a warm friend and partisan of Owen
Glendower, with whom he lived, at Sycharth, for some years before the
great Welsh insurrection, and whom he survived, dying at an extreme old
age beneath his own roof-tree at Coed y Pantwn. He composed pieces of
great excellence on various subjects; but the most remarkable of his
compositions are decidedly certain ones connected with Owen Glendower.
Amongst these is one in which he describes the Welsh chieftain’s mansion
at Sycharth, and his hospitable way of living at that his favourite
residence; and another in which he hails the advent of the comet, which
made its appearance in the month of March, fourteen hundred and two, as
of good augury to his darling hero.
It was from knowing that this distinguished man lay buried in the
precincts of the old edifice, that I felt so anxious to see it. After
walking about two miles we perceived it on our right hand.
The abbey of the vale of the cross stands in a green meadow, in a corner
near the north-west end of the valley of Llangollen. The vale or glen,
in which the abbey stands, takes its name from a certain ancient pillar
or cross, called the pillar of Eliseg, and which is believed to have been
raised over the body of an ancient British chieftain of that name, who
perished in battle against the Saxons, about the middle of the tenth
century. In the Papist times the abbey was a place of great
pseudo-sanctity, wealth and consequence. The territory belonging to it
was very extensive, comprising, amongst other districts, the vale of
Llangollen and the mountain region to the north of it, called the
Eglwysig Rocks, which region derived its name Eglwysig, or
ecclesiastical, from the circumstance of its pertaining to the abbey of
the vale of the cross.
We first reached that part of the building which had once been the
church, having previously to pass through a farmyard, in which was
abundance of dirt and mire.
The church fronts the west and contains the remains of a noble window,
beneath which is a gate, which we found locked. Passing on we came to
that part where the monks had lived, but which now served as a farmhouse;
an open doorway exhibited to us an ancient gloomy hall, where was some
curious old-fashioned furniture, particularly an ancient rack, in which
stood a goodly range of pewter trenchers. A respectable dame kindly
welcomed us and invited us to sit down. We entered into conversation
with her, and asked her name, which she said was Evans. I spoke some
Welsh to her, which pleased her. She said that Welsh people at the
present day were so full of fine airs that they were above speaking the
old language—but that such was not the case formerly, and that she had
known a Mrs Price, who was housekeeper to the Countess of Mornington, who
lived in London upwards of forty years, and at the end of that time
prided herself upon speaking as good Welsh as she did when a girl. I
spoke to her about the abbey, and asked if she had ever heard of Iolo
Goch. She inquired who he was. I told her he was a great bard, and was
buried in the abbey. She said she had never heard of him, but that she
could show me the portrait of a great poet, and going away, presently
returned with a print in a frame.
“There,” said she, “is the portrait of Twm o’r Nant, generally called the
Welsh Shakespeare.”
I looked at it. The Welsh Shakespeare was represented sitting at a table
with a pen in his hand; a cottage-latticed window was behind him, on his
left hand; a shelf with plates, and trenchers behind him, on his right.
His features were rude, but full of wild, strange expression; below the
picture was the following couplet:—
“Llun Gwr yw llawn gwir Awen;
Y Byd a lanwodd o’i Ben.”
“Did you ever hear of Twm o’r Nant?” said the old dame.
“I never heard of him by word of mouth,” said I; “but I know all about
him—I have read his life in Welsh, written by himself, and a curious life
it is. His name was Thomas Edwards, but he generally called himself Twm
o’r Nant, or Tom of the Dingle, because he was born in a dingle, at a
place called Pen Porchell, in the vale of Clwyd—which, by the bye, was on
the estate which once belonged to Iolo Goch, the poet I was speaking to
you about just now. Tom was a carter by trade, but once kept a toll-bar
in South Wales, which, however, he was obliged to leave at the end of two
years, owing to the annoyance which he experienced from ghosts and
goblins, and unearthly things, particularly phantom hearses, which used
to pass through his gate at midnight without paying, when the gate was
shut.”
“Ah,” said the dame, “you know more about Tom o’r Nant than I do; and was
he not a great poet?”
“I daresay he was,” said I, “for the pieces which he wrote, and which he
called Interludes, had a great run, and he got a great deal of money by
them, but I should say the lines beneath the portrait are more applicable
to the real Shakespeare than to him.”
“What do the lines mean?” said the old lady; “they are Welsh, I know, but
they are far beyond my understanding.”
“They may be thus translated,” said I:
“God in his head the Muse instill’d,
And from his head the world he fill’d.”
“Thank you, sir,” said the old lady. “I never found any one before who
could translate them.” She then said she would show me some English
lines written on the daughter of a friend of hers who was lately dead,
and put some printed lines in a frame into my hand. They were an Elegy
to Mary, and were very beautiful, I read them aloud, and when I had
finished she thanked me and said she had no doubt that if I pleased I
could put them into Welsh—she then sighed and wiped her eyes.
On our enquiring whether we could see the interior of the abbey she said
we could, and that if we rang a bell at the gate a woman would come to
us, who was in the habit of showing the place. We then got up and bade
her farewell—but she begged that we would stay and taste the dwr santaidd
of the holy well.
“What holy well is that?” said I.
“A well,” said she, “by the road’s side, which in the time of the popes
was said to perform wonderful cures.”
“Let us taste it by all means,” said I; whereupon she went out, and
presently returned with a tray on which were a jug and tumbler, the jug
filled with the water of the holy well; we drank some of the dwr
santaidd, which tasted like any other water, and then after shaking her
by the hand, we went to the gate, and rang at the bell.
Presently a woman made her appearance at the gate—she was genteelly
drest, about the middle age, rather tall, and bearing in her countenance
the traces of beauty. When we told her the object of our coming she
admitted us, and after locking the gate conducted us into the church. It
was roofless, and had nothing remarkable about it, save the western
window, which we had seen from without. Our attendant pointed out to us
some tombs, and told us the names of certain great people whose dust they
contained. “Can you tell us where Iolo Goch lies interred?” said I.
“No,” said she; “indeed I never heard of such a person.”
“He was the bard of Owen Glendower,” said I, “and assisted his cause
wonderfully by the fiery odes, in which he incited the Welsh to rise
against the English.”
“Indeed!” said she; “well, I am sorry to say that I never heard of him.”
“Are you Welsh?” said I.
“I am,” she replied.
“Did you ever hear of Thomas Edwards?”
“Oh, yes,” said she; “I have frequently heard of him.”
“How odd,” said I, “that the name of a great poet should be unknown in
the very place where he is buried, whilst that of one certainly not his
superior, should be well known in that same place, though he is not
buried there.”
“Perhaps,” said she, “the reason is that the poet, whom you mentioned,
wrote in the old measures and language which few people now understand,
whilst Thomas Edwards wrote in common verse and in the language of the
present day.”
“I daresay it is so,” said I.
From the church she led us to other parts of the ruin—at first she had
spoken to us rather cross and loftily, but she now became kind and
communicative. She said that she resided near the ruins, which she was
permitted to show, that she lived alone, and wished to be alone; there
was something singular about her, and I believe that she had a history of
her own. After showing us the ruins she conducted us to a cottage in
which she lived; it stood behind the ruins by a fish-pond, in a beautiful
and romantic place enough; she said that in the winter she went away, but
to what place she did not say. She asked us whether we came walking, and
on our telling her that we did, she said that she would point out to us a
near way home. She then pointed to a path up a hill, telling us we must
follow it. After making her a present we bade her farewell, and passing
through a meadow crossed a brook by a rustic bridge, formed of the stem
of a tree, and ascending the hill by the path which she had pointed out,
we went through a cornfield or two on its top, and at last found
ourselves on the Llangollen road, after a most beautiful walk.
CHAPTER XIV
Expedition to Ruthyn—The Column—Slate Quarries—The Gwyddelod—Nocturnal
Adventure.
Nothing worthy of commemoration took place during the two following days,
save that myself and family took an evening walk on the Wednesday up the
side of the Berwyn, for the purpose of botanizing, in which we were
attended by John Jones. There, amongst other plants, we found a curious
moss which our good friend said was called in Welsh, Corn Carw, or deer’s
horn, and which he said the deer were very fond of. On the Thursday he
and I started on an expedition on foot to Ruthyn, distant about fourteen
miles, proposing to return in the evening.
The town and castle of Ruthyn possessed great interest for me from being
connected with the affairs of Owen Glendower. It was at Ruthyn that the
first and not the least remarkable scene of the Welsh insurrection took
place by Owen making his appearance at the fair held there in fourteen
hundred, plundering the English who had come with their goods, slaying
many of them, sacking the town and concluding his day’s work by firing
it; and it was at the castle of Ruthyn that Lord Grey dwelt, a minion of
Henry the Fourth and Glendower’s deadliest enemy, and who was the
principal cause of the chieftain’s entering into rebellion, having, in
the hope of obtaining his estates in the vale of Clwyd, poisoned the mind
of Harry against him, who proclaimed him a traitor, before he had
committed any act of treason, and confiscated his estates, bestowing that
part of them upon his favourite, which the latter was desirous of
obtaining.
We started on our expedition at about seven o’clock of a brilliant
morning. We passed by the abbey and presently came to a small fountain
with a little stone edifice, with a sharp top above it. “That is the
holy well,” said my guide: “Llawer iawn o barch yn yr amser yr Pabyddion
yr oedd i’r fynnon hwn—much respect in the times of the Papists there was
to this fountain.”
“I heard of it,” said I, “and tasted of its water the other evening at
the abbey;” shortly after we saw a tall stone standing in a field on our
right hand at about a hundred yards’ distance from the road. “That is
the pillar of Eliseg, sir,” said my guide. “Let us go and see it,” said
I. We soon reached the stone. It is a fine upright column about seven
feet high, and stands on a quadrate base. “Sir,” said my guide, “a dead
king lies buried beneath this stone. He was a mighty man of valour and
founded the abbey. He was called Eliseg.” “Perhaps Ellis,” said I, “and
if his name was Ellis the stone was very properly called Colofn Eliseg,
in Saxon the Ellisian column.” The view from the column is very
beautiful, below on the south-east is the venerable abbey, slumbering in
its green meadow. Beyond it runs a stream, descending from the top of a
glen, at the bottom of which the old pile is situated; beyond the stream
is a lofty hill. The glen on the north is bounded by a noble mountain,
covered with wood. Struck with its beauty I inquired its name. “Moel
Eglwysig, sir,” said my guide. “The Moel of the Church,” said I. “That
is hardly a good name for it, for the hill is not bald (moel).” “True,
sir,” said John Jones. “At present its name is good for nothing, but
estalom (of old) before the hill was planted with trees its name was good
enough. Our fathers were not fools when they named their hills.” “I
daresay not,” said I, “nor in many other things which they did, for which
we laugh at them, because we do not know the reasons they had for doing
them.” We regained the road; the road tended to the north up a steep
ascent. I asked John Jones the name of a beautiful village, which lay
far away on our right, over the glen, and near its top. “Pentref y dwr,
sir” (the village of the water). It is called the village of the water,
because the river below comes down through part of it. I next asked the
name of the hill up which we were going, and he told me Allt Bwlch; that
is, the high place of the hollow road.
This bwlch, or hollow way, was a regular pass, which put me wonderfully
in mind of the passes of Spain. It took us a long time to get to the
top. After resting a minute on the summit we began to descend. My guide
pointed out to me some slate-works, at some distance on our left. “There
is a great deal of work going on there, sir,” said he: “all the slates
that you see descending the canal at Llangollen came from there.” The
next moment we heard a blast, and then a thundering sound: “Llais craig
yn syrthiaw; the voice of the rock in falling, sir,” said John Jones;
“blasting is dangerous and awful work.” We reached the bottom of the
descent, and proceeded for two or three miles up and down a rough and
narrow road; I then turned round and looked at the hills which we had
passed over. They looked bulky and huge.
We continued our way, and presently saw marks of a fire in some grass by
the side of the road. “Have the Gipsiaid been there?” said I to my
guide.
“Hardly, sir; I should rather think that the Gwyddelaid (Irish) have been
camping there lately.”
“The Gwyddeliad?”
“Yes, sir, the vagabond Gwyddeliad, who at present infest these parts
much, and do much more harm than the Gipsiaid ever did.”
“What do you mean by the Gipsiaid?”
“Dark, handsome people, sir, who occasionally used to come about in vans
and carts, the men buying and selling horses, and sometimes tinkering,
whilst the women told fortunes.”
“And they have ceased to come about?”
“Nearly so, sir; I believe they have been frightened away by the
Gwyddelod.”
“What kind of people are these Gwyddelod?
“Savage, brutish people, sir; in general without shoes and stockings,
with coarse features and heads of hair like mops.”
“How do they live?”
“The men tinker a little, sir, but more frequently plunder. The women
tell fortunes, and steal whenever they can.”
“They live something like the Gipsiaid.”
“Something, sir; but the hen Gipsiaid were gentlefolks in comparison.”
“You think the Gipsiaid have been frightened away by the Gwyddelians?”
“I do, sir; the Gwyddelod made their appearance in these parts about
twenty years ago, and since then the Gipsiaid have been rarely seen.”
“Are these Gwyddelod poor?”
“By no means, sir; they make large sums by plundering and other means,
with which, ’tis said, they retire at last to their own country or
America, where they buy land and settle down.”
“What language do they speak?”
“English, sir; they pride themselves on speaking good English, that is to
the Welsh. Amongst themselves they discourse in their own Paddy
Gwyddel.”
“Have they no Welsh?”
“Only a few words, sir; I never heard one of them speaking Welsh, save a
young girl—she fell sick by the roadside as she was wandering by
herself—some people at a farmhouse took her in, and tended her till she
was well. During her sickness she took a fancy to their quiet way of
life, and when she was recovered she begged to stay with them and serve
them. They consented; she became a very good servant, and hearing
nothing but Welsh spoken, soon picked up the tongue.”
“Do you know what became of her?”
“I do, sir; her own people found her out, and wished to take her away
with them, but she refused to let them, for by that time she was
perfectly reclaimed, had been to chapel, renounced her heathen crefydd,
and formed an acquaintance with a young Methodist who had a great gift of
prayer, whom she afterwards married—she and her husband live at present
not far from Mineira.”
“I almost wonder that her own people did not kill her.”
“They threatened to do so, sir, and would doubtless have put their threat
into execution, had they not been prevented by the Man on High.”
And here my guide pointed with his finger reverently upward.
“Is it a long time since you have seen any of these Gwyddeliaid?”
“About two months, sir, and then a terrible fright they caused me.”
“How was that?”
“I will tell you, sir; I had been across the Berwyn to carry home a piece
of weaving work to a person who employs me. It was night as I returned,
and when I was about halfway down the hill, at a place which is called
Allt Paddy, because the Gwyddelod are in the habit of taking up their
quarters there, I came upon a gang of them, who had come there and camped
and lighted their fire, whilst I was on the other side of the hill.
There were nearly twenty of them, men and women, and amongst the rest was
a man standing naked in a tub of water with two women stroking him down
with clouts. He was a large fierce-looking fellow and his body, on which
the flame of the fire glittered, was nearly covered with red hair. I
never saw such a sight. As I passed they glared at me and talked
violently in their Paddy Gwyddel, but did not offer to molest me. I
hastened down the hill, and right glad I was when I found myself safe and
sound at my house in Llangollen, with my money in my pocket, for I had
several shillings there, which the man across the hill had paid me for
the work which I had done.”
CHAPTER XV
The Turf Tavern—Don’t Understand—The Best Welsh—The Maids of Merion—Old
and New—Ruthyn—The Ash Yggdrasill.
We now emerged from the rough and narrow way which we had followed for
some miles, upon one much wider, and more commodious, which my guide told
me was the coach road from Wrexham to Ruthyn, and going on a little
farther we came to an avenue of trees which shaded the road. It was
chiefly composed of ash, sycamore and birch, and looked delightfully cool
and shady. I asked my guide if it belonged to any gentleman’s house. He
told me that it did not, but to a public-house, called Tafarn Tywarch,
which stood near the end, a little way off the road. “Why is it called
Tafarn Tywarch?” said I, struck by the name which signifies “the tavern
of turf.”
“It was called so, sir,” said John, “because it was originally merely a
turf hovel, though at present it consists of good brick and mortar.”
“Can we breakfast there,” said I, “for I feel both hungry and thirsty?”
“Oh yes, sir,” said John, “I have heard there is good cheese and cwrw
there.”
We turned off to the “tafarn,” which was a decent public-house of rather
an antiquated appearance. We entered a sanded kitchen, and sat down by a
large oaken table. “Please to bring us some bread, cheese and ale,” said
I in Welsh to an elderly woman, who was moving about.
“Sar?” said she.
“Bring us some bread, cheese and ale,” I repeated in Welsh.
“I do not understand you, sar,” said she in English.
“Are you Welsh?” said I in English.
“Yes, I am Welsh!”
“And can you speak Welsh?”
“Oh yes, and the best.”
“Then why did you not bring what I asked for?”
“Because I did not understand you.”
“Tell her,” said I to John Jones, “to bring us some bread, cheese and
ale.”
“Come, aunt,” said John, “bring us bread and cheese and a quart of the
best ale.”
The woman looked as if she was going to reply in the tongue in which he
addressed her, then faltered, and at last said in English that she did
not understand.
“Now,” said I, “you are fairly caught: this man is a Welshman, and
moreover understands no language but Welsh.”
“Then how can he understand you?” said she.
“Because I speak Welsh,” said I.
“Then you are a Welshman?” said she.
“No I am not,” said I, “I am English.”
“So I thought,” said she, “and on that account I could not understand
you.”
“You mean that you would not,” said I. “Now do you choose to bring what
you are bidden?”
“Come, aunt,” said John, “don’t be silly and cenfigenus, but bring the
breakfast.”
The woman stood still for a moment or two, and then biting her lips went
away.
“What made the woman behave in this manner?” said I to my companion.
“Oh, she was cenfigenus, sir,” he replied; “she did not like that an
English gentleman should understand Welsh; she was envious; you will find
a dozen or two like her in Wales; but let us hope not more.”
Presently the woman returned with the bread, cheese and ale, which she
placed on the table.
“Oh,” said I, “you have brought what was bidden, though it was never
mentioned to you in English, which shows that your pretending not to
understand was all a sham. What made you behave so?”
“Why I thought,” said the woman, “that no Englishman could speak Welsh,
that his tongue was too short.”
“Your having thought so,” said I, “should not have made you tell a
falsehood, saying that you did not understand, when you knew that you
understood very well. See what a disgraceful figure you cut.”
“I cut no disgraced figure,” said the woman: “after all, what right have
the English to come here speaking Welsh, which belongs to the Welsh
alone, who in fact are the only people that understand it.”
“Are you sure that you understand Welsh?” said I.
“I should think so,” said the woman, “for I come from the Vale of Clwyd,
where they speak the best Welsh in the world, the Welsh of the Bible.”
“What do they call a salmon in the Vale of Clwyd?” said I.
“What do they call a salmon?” said the woman. “Yes,” said I, “when they
speak Welsh.”
“They call it—they call it—why a salmon.”
“Pretty Welsh!” said I. “I thought you did not understand Welsh.”
“Well, what do you call it?” said the woman.
“Eawg,” said I, “that is the word for a salmon in general—but there are
words also to show the sex—when you speak of a male salmon you should say
cemyw, when of a female hwyfell.”
“I never heard the words before,” said the woman, “nor do I believe them
to be Welsh.”
“You say so,” said I, “because you do not understand Welsh.”
“I not understand Welsh!” said she. “I’ll soon show you that I do.
Come, you have asked me the word for salmon in Welsh, I will now ask you
the word for salmon-trout. Now tell me that, and I will say you know
something of the matter.”
“A tinker of my country can tell you that,” said I. “The word for
salmon-trout is gleisiad.”
The countenance of the woman fell.
“I see you know something about the matter,” said she; “there are very
few hereabouts, though so near to the Vale of Clwyd, who know the word
for salmon-trout in Welsh, I shouldn’t have known the word myself, but
for the song which says:
Glân yw’r gleisiad yn y llyn.”
“And who wrote that song?” said I.
“I don’t know,” said the woman.
“But I do,” said I; “one Lewis Morris wrote it.’
“Oh,” said she, “I have heard all about Huw Morris.”
“I was not talking of Huw Morris,” said I, “but Lewis Morris, who lived
long after Huw Morris. He was a native of Anglesea, but resided for some
time in Merionethshire, and whilst there composed a song about the
Morwynion bro Meirionydd or the lasses of County Merion of a great many
stanzas, in one of which the gleisiad is mentioned. Here it is in
English:
“‘Full fair the gleisiad in the flood,
Which sparkles ’neath the summer’s sun,
And fair the thrush in green abode
Spreading his wings in sportive fun,
But fairer look if truth be spoke,
The maids of County Merion.’”
The woman was about to reply, but I interrupted her.
“There,” said I, “pray leave us to our breakfast, and the next time you
feel inclined to talk nonsense about no Englishman’s understanding Welsh,
or knowing anything of Welsh matters, remember that it was an Englishman
who told you the Welsh word for salmon, and likewise the name of the
Welshman who wrote the song in which the gleisiad is mentioned.”
The ale was very good and so were the bread and cheese. The ale indeed
was so good that I ordered a second jug. Observing a large antique
portrait over the mantel-piece I got up to examine it. It was that of a
gentleman in a long wig, and underneath it was painted in red letters
“Sir Watkin Wynn: 1742.” It was doubtless the portrait of the Sir Watkin
who, in 1745 was committed to the tower under suspicion of being
suspected of holding Jacobite opinions, and favouring the Pretender. The
portrait was a very poor daub, but I looked at it long and attentively as
a memorial of Wales at a critical and long past time.
When we had dispatched the second jug of ale, and I had paid the
reckoning, we departed and soon came to where stood a turnpike house at a
junction of two roads, to each of which was a gate.
“Now, sir,” said John Jones, “the way straight forward is the ffordd
newydd, and the one on our right hand is the hen ffordd. Which shall we
follow, the new or the old?”
“There is a proverb in the Gerniweg,” said I, “which was the language of
my forefathers, saying, ‘ne’er leave the old way for the new,’ we will
therefore go by the hen ffordd.”
“Very good, sir,” said my guide, “that is the path I always go, for it is
the shortest.” So we turned to the right and followed the old road.
Perhaps, however, it would have been well had we gone by the new, for the
hen ffordd was a very dull and uninteresting road, whereas the ffordd
newydd, as I long subsequently found, is one of the grandest passes in
Wales. After we had walked a short distance my guide said, “Now, sir, if
you will turn a little way to the left hand I will show you a house,
built in the old style, such a house, sir, as I daresay the original turf
tavern was.” Then leading me a little way from the road he showed me,
under a hollow bank, a small cottage covered with flags.
“That is a house, sir, built yn yr hen dull in the old fashion, of earth,
flags and wattles and in one night. It was the custom of old when a
house was to be built, for the people to assemble, and to build it in one
night of common materials, close at hand. The custom is not quite dead.
I was at the building of this myself, and a merry building it was. The
cwrw da passed quickly about among the builders, I assure you.” We
returned to the road, and when we had ascended a hill, my companion told
me that if I looked to the left I should see the Vale of Clwyd.
I looked and perceived an extensive valley pleasantly dotted with trees
and farm-houses, and bounded on the west by a range of hills.
“It is a fine valley, sir,” said my guide, “four miles wide and twenty
long, and contains the richest land in all Wales. Cheese made in that
valley, sir, fetches a penny a pound more than cheese made in any other
valley.”
“And who owns it?” said I.
“Various are the people who own it, sir, but Sir Watkin owns the greater
part.”
We went on, passed by a village called Craig Vychan, where we saw a
number of women washing at a fountain, and by a gentle descent soon
reached the Vale of Clwyd.
After walking about a mile we left the road and proceeded by a footpath
across some meadows. The meadows were green and delightful and were
intersected by a beautiful stream. Trees in abundance were growing
about, some of which were oaks. We passed by a little white chapel with
a small graveyard before it, which my guide told me belonged to the
Baptists, and shortly afterwards reached Ruthyn.
We went to an inn called the Crossed Foxes, where we refreshed ourselves
with ale. We then sallied forth to look about, after I had ordered a
duck to be got ready for dinner, at three o’clock. Ruthyn stands on a
hill above the Clwyd, which in the summer is a mere brook, but in the
winter a considerable stream, being then fed with the watery tribute of a
hundred hills. About three miles to the north is a range of lofty
mountains, dividing the shire of Denbigh from that of Flint, amongst
which, almost parallel with the town, and lifting its head high above the
rest, is the mighty Moel Vamagh, the mother heap, which I had seen from
Chester. Ruthyn is a dull town, but it possessed plenty of interest to
me, for as I strolled with my guide about the streets I remembered that I
was treading the ground which the wild bands of Glendower had trod, and
where the great struggle commenced, which for fourteen years convulsed
Wales, and for some time shook England to its centre. After I had
satisfied myself with wandering about the town we proceeded to the
castle.
The original castle suffered terribly in the civil wars; it was held for
wretched Charles, and was nearly demolished by the cannon of Cromwell,
which were planted on a hill about half a mile distant. The present
castle is partly modern and partly ancient. It belongs to a family of
the name of W--- who reside in the modern part, and who have the
character of being kind, hospitable and intellectual people. We only
visited the ancient part, over which we were shown by a woman, who
hearing us speaking Welsh, spoke Welsh herself during the whole time she
was showing us about. She showed us dark passages, a gloomy apartment in
which Welsh kings and great people had been occasionally confined, that
strange memorial of the good old times, a drowning pit, and a large
prison room, in the middle of which stood a singular-looking column,
scrawled with odd characters, which had of yore been used for a
whipping-post, another memorial of the good old baronial times, so dear
to romance readers and minds of sensibility. Amongst other things which
our conductor showed us was an immense onen or ash; it stood in one of
the courts and measured, as she said, pedwar y haner o ladd yn ei gwmpas,
or four yards and a half in girth. As I gazed on the mighty tree I
thought of the Ash Yggdrasill mentioned in the Voluspa, or prophecy of
Vola, that venerable poem which contains so much relating to the
mythology of the ancient Norse.
We returned to the inn and dined. The duck was capital, and I asked John
Jones if he had ever tasted a better. “Never, sir,” said he, “for to
tell you the truth, I never tasted a duck before.” “Rather singular,”
said I. “What, that I should not have tasted duck? Oh, sir, the
singularity is, that I should now be tasting duck. Duck in Wales, sir,
is not fare for poor weavers. This is the first duck I ever tasted, and
though I never taste another, as I probably never shall, I may consider
myself a fortunate weaver, for I can now say I have tasted duck once in
my life. Few weavers in Wales are ever able to say as much.”
CHAPTER XVI
Baptist Tomb-Stone—The Toll-Bar—Rebecca—The Guitar.
The sun was fast declining as we left Ruthyn. We retraced our steps
across the fields. When we came to the Baptist Chapel I got over the
wall of the little yard to look at the grave-stones. There were only
three. The inscriptions upon them were all in Welsh. The following
stanza was on the stone of Jane, the daughter of Elizabeth Williams, who
died on the second of May, 1843:
“Er myn’d i’r oerllyd annedd
Dros dymher hir i orwedd,
Cwyd i’r lan o’r gwely bridd
Ac hyfryd fydd ei hagwedd.”
which is
“Though thou art gone to dwelling cold
To lie in mould for many a year,
Thou shalt, at length, from earthy bed,
Uplift thy head to blissful sphere.”
As we went along I stopped to gaze at a singular-looking hill forming
part of the mountain range on the east. I asked John Jones what its name
was, but he did not know. As we were standing talking about it, a lady
came up from the direction in which our course lay. John Jones, touching
his hat to her, said:
“Madam, this gwr boneddig wishes to know the name of that moel, perhaps
you can tell him.”
“Its name is Moel Agrik,” said the lady, addressing me in English.
“Does that mean Agricola’s hill?” said I.
“It does,” said she, “and there is a tradition that the Roman General
Agricola, when he invaded these parts, pitched his camp on that moel.
The hill is spoken of by Pennant.”
“Thank you, madam,” said I; “perhaps you can tell me the name of the
delightful grounds in which we stand, supposing they have a name?”
“They are called Oaklands,” said the lady.
“A very proper name,” said I, “for there is plenty of oaks growing about.
But why are they called by a Saxon name, for Oaklands is Saxon?”
“Because,” said the lady, “when the grounds were first planted with trees
they belonged to an English family.”
“Thank you,” said I, and, taking off my hat, I departed with my guide. I
asked him her name, but he could not tell me. Before she was out of
sight, however, we met a labourer of whom John Jones enquired her name.
“Her name is W---s,” said the man, “and a good lady she is.”
“Is she Welsh?” said I.
“Pure Welsh, master,” said the man. “Purer Welsh flesh and blood need
not be.”
Nothing farther worth relating occurred till we reached the toll-bar at
the head of the hen ffordd, by which time the sun was almost gone down.
We found the master of the gate, his wife and son seated on a bench
before the door. The woman had a large book on her lap, in which she was
reading by the last light of the departing orb. I gave the group the
sele of the evening in English, which they all returned, the woman
looking up from her book.
“Is that volume the Bible?” said I.
“It is, sir,” said the woman.
“May I look at it?” said I.
“Certainly,” said the woman, and placed the book in my hand. It was a
magnificent Welsh Bible, but without the title-page.
“That book must be a great comfort to you,” said I to her.
“Very great,” said she. “I know not what we should do without it in the
long winter evenings.”
“Of what faith are you?” said I.
“We are Methodists,” she replied.
“Then you are of the same faith as my friend here,” said I.
“Yes, yes,” said she, “we are aware of that. We all know honest John
Jones.”
After we had left the gate I asked John Jones whether he had ever heard
of Rebecca of the toll-gates.
“Oh, yes,” said he; “I have heard of that chieftainess.”
“And who was she?” said I.
“I cannot say, sir; I never saw her, nor any one who had seen her. Some
say that there were a hundred Rebeccas, and all of them men dressed in
women’s clothes, who went about at night, at the head of bands to break
the gates. Ah, sir, something of the kind was almost necessary at that
time. I am a friend of peace, sir, no head-breaker, house-breaker, nor
gate-breaker, but I can hardly blame what was done at that time, under
the name of Rebecca. You have no idea how the poor Welsh were oppressed
by those gates, aye, and the rich too. The little people and farmers
could not carry their produce to market owing to the exactions at the
gates, which devoured all the profit and sometimes more. So that the
markets were not half supplied, and people with money could frequently
not get what they wanted. Complaints were made to government, which not
being attended to, Rebecca and her byddinion made their appearance at
night, and broke the gates to pieces with sledge-hammers, and everybody
said it was gallant work, everybody save the keepers of the gates and the
proprietors. Not only the poor but the rich, said so. Aye, and I have
heard that many a fine young gentleman had a hand in the work, and went
about at night at the head of a band dressed as Rebecca. Well, sir,
those breakings were acts of violence, I don’t deny, but they did good,
for the system is altered; such impositions are no longer practised at
gates as were before the time of Rebecca.”
“Were any people ever taken up and punished for those nocturnal
breakings?” said I.
“No, sir; and I have heard say that nobody’s being taken up was a proof
that the rich approved of the work and had a hand in it.”
Night had come on by the time we reached the foot of the huge hills we
had crossed in the morning. We toiled up the ascent, and after crossing
the level ground on the top, plunged down the bwlch between walking and
running, occasionally stumbling, for we were nearly in complete darkness,
and the bwlch was steep and stony. We more than once passed people who
gave us the n’s da, the hissing night salutation of the Welsh. At length
I saw the Abbey looming amidst the darkness, and John Jones said that, we
were just above the fountain. We descended, and putting my head down I
drank greedily of the dwr santaidd, my guide following my example. We
then proceeded on our way, and in about half-an-hour reached Llangollen.
I took John Jones home with me. We had a cheerful cup of tea. Henrietta
played on the guitar, and sang a Spanish song, to the great delight of
John Jones, who at about ten o’clock departed contented and happy to his
own dwelling.
CHAPTER XVII
John Jones and his Bundle—A Good Lady—The Irishman’s Dingle—Ab Gwilym and
the Mist—The Kitchen—The Two Individuals—The Horse-Dealer—I can manage
him—The Mist Again.
The following day was gloomy. In the evening John Jones made his
appearance with a bundle under his arm, and an umbrella in his hand.
“Sir,” said he, “I am going across the mountain with it piece of weaving
work, for the man on the other side, who employs me. Perhaps you would
like to go with me, as you are fond of walking.”
“I suppose,” said I, “you wish to have my company for fear of meeting
Gwyddelians on the hill.”
John smiled.
“Well, sir,” said he, “if I do meet them I would sooner be with company
than without. But I dare venture by myself, trusting in the Man on High,
and perhaps I do wrong to ask you to go, as you must be tired with your
walk of yesterday.”
“Hardly more than yourself,” said I. “Come; I shall be glad to go. What
I said about the Gwyddelians was only in jest.”
As we were about to depart John said:
“It does not rain at present, sir, but I think it will. You had better
take an umbrella.”
I did so, and away we went. We passed over the bridge, and turning to
the right went by the back of the town through a field. As we passed by
the Plas Newydd John Jones said:
“No one lives there now, sir; all dark and dreary; very different from
the state of things when the ladies lived there—all gay then and
cheerful. I remember the ladies, sir, particularly the last, who lived
by herself after her companion died. She was a good lady, and very kind
to the poor; when they came to her gate they were never sent away without
something to cheer them. She was a grand lady too—kept grand company,
and used to be drawn about in a coach by four horses. But she too is
gone, and the house is cold and empty; no fire in it, sir; no furniture.
There was an auction after her death; and a grand auction it was and
lasted four days. Oh, what a throng of people there was, some of whom
came from a great distance to buy the curious things, of which there were
plenty.”
We passed over a bridge, which crosses a torrent, which descends from the
mountain on the south side of Llangollen, which bridge John Jones told me
was called the bridge of the Melin Bac, or mill of the nook, from a mill
of that name close by. Continuing our way we came to a glen, down which
the torrent comes which passes under the bridge. There was little water
in the bed of the torrent, and we crossed easily enough by
stepping-stones. I looked up the glen; a wild place enough, its sides
overgrown with trees. Dreary and dismal it looked in the gloom of the
closing evening. John Jones said that there was no regular path up it,
and that one could only get along by jumping from stone to stone, at the
hazard of breaking one’s legs. Having passed over the bed of the
torrent, we came to a path, which led up the mountain. The path was very
steep and stony; the glen with its trees and darkness on our right. We
proceeded some way. At length John Jones pointed to a hollow lane on our
right, seemingly leading into the glen.
“That place, sir,” said he, “is called Pant y Gwyddel—the Irishman’s
dingle, and sometimes Pant Paddy, from the Irish being fond of taking up
their quarters there. It was just here, at the entrance of the pant,
that the tribe were encamped, when I passed two months ago at night, in
returning from the other side of the hill with ten shillings in my
pocket, which I had been paid for a piece of my work, which I had carried
over the mountain to the very place where I am now carrying this. I
shall never forget the fright I was in, both on account of my life, and
my ten shillings. I ran down what remained of the hill as fast as I
could, not minding the stones. Should I meet a tribe now on my return I
shall not run; you will be with me, and I shall not fear for my life nor
for my money, which will be now more than ten shillings, provided the man
over the hills pays me, as I have no doubt he will.”
As we ascended higher we gradually diverged from the glen, though we did
not lose sight of it till we reached the top of the mountain. The top
was nearly level. On our right were a few fields enclosed with stone
walls. On our left was an open space where whin, furze and heath were
growing. We passed over the summit, and began to descend by a tolerably
good, though steep road. But for the darkness of evening and a drizzling
mist, which, for some time past, had been coming on, we should have
enjoyed a glorious prospect down into the valley, or perhaps I should say
that I should have enjoyed a glorious prospect, for John Jones, like a
true mountaineer, cared not a brass farthing for prospects. Even as it
was, noble glimpses of wood and rock were occasionally to be obtained.
The mist soon wetted us to the skin notwithstanding that we put up our
umbrellas. It was a regular Welsh mist, a niwl, like that in which the
great poet Ab Gwilym lost his way, whilst trying to keep an assignation
with his beloved Morfydd, and which he abuses in the following manner:—
“O ho! thou villain mist, O ho!
What plea hast thou to plague me so?
I scarcely know a scurril name,
But dearly thou deserv’st the same;
Thou exhalation from the deep
Unknown, where ugly spirits keep!
Thou smoke from hellish stews uphurl’d
To mock and mortify the world!
Thou spider-web of giant race,
Spun out and spread through airy space!
Avaunt, thou filthy, clammy thing,
Of sorry rain the source and spring!
Moist blanket dripping misery down,
Loathed alike by land and town!
Thou watery monster, wan to see,
Intruding ’twixt the sun and me,
To rob me of my blessed right,
To turn my day to dismal night.
Parent of thieves and patron best,
They brave pursuit within thy breast!
Mostly from thee its merciless snow
Grim January doth glean, I trow.
Pass off with speed, thou prowler pale,
Holding along o’er hill and dale,
Spilling a noxious spittle round,
Spoiling the fairies’ sporting ground!
Move off to hell, mysterious haze;
Wherein deceitful meteors blaze;
Thou wild of vapour, vast, o’ergrown,
Huge as the ocean of unknown.”
As we descended, the path became more steep; it was particularly so at a
part where it was overshadowed with trees on both sides. Here, finding
walking very uncomfortable, my knees suffering much, I determined to run.
So shouting to John Jones, “Nis gallav gerdded rhaid rhedeg,” I set off
running down the pass. My companion followed close behind, and luckily
meeting no mischance, we presently found ourselves on level ground,
amongst a collection of small houses. On our turning a corner a church
appeared on our left hand on the slope of the hill. In the churchyard,
and close to the road, grew a large yew-tree which flung its boughs far
on every side. John Jones stopping by the tree said, that if I looked
over the wall of the yard I should see the tomb of a Lord Dungannon, who
had been a great benefactor to the village. I looked, and through the
lower branches of the yew, which hung over part of the churchyard, I saw
what appeared to be a mausoleum. Jones told me that in the church also
there was the tomb of a great person of the name of Tyrwhitt.
We passed on by various houses till we came nearly to the bottom of the
valley. Jones then pointing to a large house, at a little distance on
the right, told me that it was a good gwesty, and advised me to go and
refresh myself in it, whilst he went and carried home his work to the man
who employed him, who he said lived in a farm-house a few hundred yards
off. I asked him where we were.
“At Llyn Ceiriog,” he replied.
I then asked if we were near Pont Fadog; and received for answer that
Pont Fadog was a good way down the valley, to the north-east, and that we
could not see it owing to a hill which intervened.
Jones went his way and I proceeded to the gwestfa, the door of which
stood invitingly open. I entered a large kitchen, at one end of which a
good fire was burning in a grate, in front of which was a long table, and
a high settle on either side. Everything looked very comfortable. There
was nobody in the kitchen: on my calling, however, a girl came, whom I
bade in Welsh to bring me a pint of the best ale. The girl stared, but
went away apparently to fetch it—presently came the landlady, a
good-looking middle-aged woman. I saluted her in Welsh and then asked
her if she could speak English. She replied “Tipyn bach,” which
interpreted, is, a little bit. I soon, however, found that she could
speak it very passably, for two men coming in from the rear of the house
she conversed with them in English. These two individuals seated
themselves on chairs near the door, and called for beer. The girl
brought in the ale, and I sat down by the fire, poured myself out a
glass, and made myself comfortable. Presently a gig drove up to the
door, and in came a couple of dogs, one a tall black grey-hound, the
other a large female setter, the coat of the latter dripping with rain,
and shortly after two men from the gig entered; one who appeared to be
the principal was a stout bluff-looking person between fifty and sixty,
dressed in a grey stuff coat and with a slouched hat on his head. This
man bustled much about, and in a broad Yorkshire dialect ordered a fire
to be lighted in another room, and a chamber to be prepared for him and
his companion; the landlady, who appeared to know him, and to treat him
with a kind of deference, asked if she should prepare two beds; whereupon
he answered “No! As we came together and shall start together, so shall
we sleep together; it will not be for the first time.”
His companion was a small mean-looking man, dressed in a black coat, and
behaved to him with no little respect. Not only the landlady, but the
two men, of whom I have previously spoken, appeared to know him and to
treat him with deference. He and his companion presently went out to see
after the horse. After a little time they returned, and the stout man
called lustily for two fourpennyworths of brandy and water—“Take it into
the other room!” said he, and went into a side room with his companion,
but almost immediately came out saying that the room smoked and was cold,
and that he preferred sitting in the kitchen. He then took his seat near
me, and when the brandy was brought drank to my health. I said thank
you, but nothing farther. He then began talking to the men and his
companion upon indifferent subjects. After a little time John Jones came
in, called for a glass of ale, and at my invitation seated himself
between me and the stout personage. The latter addressed him roughly in
English, but receiving no answer said, “Ah, you no understand. You have
no English and I no Welsh.”
“You have not mastered Welsh yet Mr ---” said one of the men to him.
“No!” said he: “I have been doing business with the Welsh forty years,
but can’t speak a word of their language. I sometimes guess at a word,
spoken in the course of business, but am never sure.”
Presently John Jones began talking to me, saying that he had been to the
river, that the water was very low, and that there was little but stones
in the bed of the stream.
I told him if its name was Ceiriog no wonder there were plenty of stones
in it, Ceiriog being derived from Cerrig, a rock. The men stared to hear
me speak Welsh.
“Is the gentleman a Welshman?” said one of the men, near the door, to his
companion; “he seems to speak Welsh very well.”
“How should I know?” said the other, who appeared to be a low working
man.
“Who are those people?” said I to John Jones.
“The smaller man is a workman at a flannel manufactory,” said Jones.
“The other I do not exactly know.”
“And who is the man on the other side of you?” said I.
“I believe he is an English dealer in gigs and horses,” replied Jones,
“and that he is come here either to buy or sell.”
The man, however, soon put me out of all doubt with respect to his
profession.
“I was at Chirk,” said he; “and Mr So-and-so asked me to have a look at
his new gig and horse, and have a ride. I consented. They were both
brought out—everything new; gig new, harness new, and horse new. Mr
So-and-so asked me what I thought of his turn-out. I gave a look and
said, ‘I like the car very well, harness very well, but I don’t like the
horse at all; a regular bolter, rearer and kicker, or I’m no judge;
moreover, he’s pigeon-toed.’ However, we all got on the car—four of us,
and I was of course complimented with the ribbons. Well, we hadn’t gone
fifty yards before the horse, to make my words partly good, began to kick
like a new ’un. However, I managed him, and he went on for a couple of
miles till we got to the top of the hill, just above the descent with the
precipice on the right hand. Here he began to rear like a very devil.
“‘Oh dear me!’ says Mr So-and-so; ‘let me get out!’
“‘Keep where you are,’ says I, ‘I can manage him.’
“However, Mr So-and-so would not be ruled, and got out; coming down, not
on his legs, but his hands and knees. And then the two others said—
“‘Let us get out!’
“‘Keep where you are,’ said I, ‘I can manage him.’
“But they must needs get out, or rather tumble out, for they both came
down on the road, hard on their backs.
“‘Get out yourself,’ said they all, ‘and let the devil go, or you are a
done man.’
“‘Getting out may do for you young hands,’ says I, ‘but it won’t do for
I; neither my back nor bones will stand the hard road.’
“Mr So-and-so ran to the horse’s head.
“‘Are you mad?’ says I, ‘if you try to hold him he’ll be over the
pree-si-pice in a twinkling, and then where am I? Give him head; I can
manage him.’
“So Mr So-and-so got out of the way, and down flew the horse right down
the descent, as fast as he could gallop. I tell you what, I didn’t half
like it! A pree-si-pice on my right, the rock on my left, and a devil
before me, going, like a cannon-ball, right down the hill. However, I
contrived, as I said I would, to manage him; kept the car from the rock
and from the edge of the gulf too. Well, just when we had come to the
bottom of the hill out comes the people running from the inn, almost
covering the road.
“‘Now get out of the way,’ I shouts, ‘if you don’t wish to see your
brains knocked out, and what would be worse, mine too.’
“So they gets out of the way, and on I spun, I and my devil. But by this
time I had nearly taken the devil out of him. Well, he hadn’t gone fifty
yards on the level ground, when, what do you think he did? why, went
regularly over, tumbled down regularly on the road, even as I knew he
would some time or other, because why? he was pigeon-toed. Well, I gets
out of the gig, and no sooner did Mr So-and-so come up than I says—
“‘I likes your car very well, and I likes your harness, but—me if I likes
your horse, and it will be some time before you persuade me to drive him
again.’”
I am a great lover of horses, and an admirer of good driving, and should
have wished to have some conversation with this worthy person about
horses and their management. I should also have wished to ask him some
questions about Wales and the Welsh, as he must have picked up a great
deal of curious information about both in his forty years’ traffic,
notwithstanding he did not know a word of Welsh, but John Jones prevented
my further tarrying by saying, that it would be as well to get over the
mountain before it was entirely dark. So I got up, paid for my ale,
vainly endeavoured to pay for that of my companion, who insisted upon
paying for what he had ordered, made a general bow and departed from the
house, leaving the horse-dealer and the rest staring at each other and
wondering who we were, or at least who I was. We were about to ascend
the hill when John Jones asked me whether I should not like to see the
bridge and the river. I told him I should. The bridge and the river
presented nothing remarkable. The former was of a single arch; and the
latter anything but abundant in its flow.
We now began to retrace our steps over the mountain. At first the mist
appeared to be nearly cleared away. As we proceeded, however, large
sheets began to roll up the mountain sides, and by the time we reached
the summit were completely shrouded in vapour. The night, however, was
not very dark, and we found our way tolerably well, though once in
descending I had nearly tumbled into the nant or dingle, now on our left
hand. The bushes and trees, seen indistinctly through the mist, had
something the look of goblins, and brought to my mind the elves, which Ab
Gwilym of old saw, or thought he saw, in a somewhat similar situation:—
“In every hollow dingle stood
Of wry-mouth’d elves a wrathful brood.”
Drenched to the skin, but uninjured in body and limb, we at length
reached Llangollen.
CHAPTER XVIII
Venerable Old Gentleman—Surnames in Wales—Russia and Britain—Church of
England—Yriarte—The Eagle and his Young—Poets of the Gael—The
Oxonian—Master Salisburie.
My wife had told me that she had had some conversation upon the Welsh
language and literature with a venerable old man, who kept a shop in the
town, that she had informed him that I was very fond of both, and that he
had expressed a great desire to see me. One afternoon I said: “Let us go
and pay a visit to your old friend of the shop. I think from two or
three things which you have told me about him, that he must be worth
knowing.” We set out. She conducted me across the bridge a little way;
then presently turning to the left into the principal street, she entered
the door of a shop on the left-hand side, over the top of which was
written: “Jones; Provision Dealer and General Merchant.” The shop was
small, with two little counters, one on each side. Behind one was a
young woman, and behind the other a venerable-looking old man.
“I have brought my husband to visit you,” said my wife, addressing
herself to him.
“I am most happy to see him,” said the old gentleman, making me a polite
bow.
He then begged that we would do him the honour to walk into his parlour,
and led us into a little back room, the window of which looked out upon
the Dee a few yards below the bridge. On the left side of the room was a
large case, well stored with books. He offered us chairs, and we all sat
down. I was much struck with the old man. He was rather tall, and
somewhat inclined to corpulency. His hair was grey; his forehead high;
his nose aquiline; his eyes full of intelligence; whilst his manners were
those of a perfect gentleman.
I entered into conversation by saying that I supposed his name was Jones,
as I had observed that name over the door.
“Jones is the name I bear at your service, sir,” he replied.
I said that it was a very common name in Wales, as I knew several people
who bore it, and observed that most of the surnames in Wales appeared to
be modifications of Christian names; for example Jones, Roberts, Edwards,
Humphreys, and likewise Pugh, Powel, and Probert, which were nothing more
than the son of Hugh, the son of Howel, and the son of Robert. He said I
was right, that there were very few real surnames in Wales; that the
three great families, however, had real surnames; for that Wynn, Morgan
and Bulkley were all real surnames. I asked him whether the Bulkleys of
Anglesea were not originally an English family. He said they were, and
that they settled down in Anglesea in the time of Elizabeth.
After some minutes my wife got up and left us. The old gentleman and I
had then some discourse in Welsh; we soon, however, resumed speaking
English. We got on the subject of Welsh bards, and after a good deal of
discourse the old gentleman said:
“You seem to know something about Welsh poetry; can you tell me who wrote
the following line?
“‘There will be great doings in Britain, and
I shall have no concern in them.’”
“I will not be positive,” said I, “but I think from its tone and tenor
that it was composed by Merddyn, whom my countrymen call Merlin.”
“I believe you are right,” said the old gentleman, “I see you know
something of Welsh poetry. I met the line, a long time ago, in a Welsh
grammar. It then made a great impression upon me, and of late it has
always been ringing in my ears. I love Britain. Britain has just
engaged in a war with a mighty country, and I am apprehensive of the
consequences. I am old, upwards of four-score, and shall probably not
live to see the evil, if evil happens, as I fear it will—‘There will be
strange doings in Britain, but they will not concern me.’ I cannot get
the line out of my head.”
I told him that the line probably related to the progress of the Saxons
in Britain, but that I did not wonder that it made an impression upon him
at the present moment. I said, however, that we ran no risk from Russia;
that the only power at all dangerous to Britain was France, which though
at present leagued with her against Russia, would eventually go to war
with and strive to subdue her, and then of course Britain could expect no
help from Russia, her old friend and ally, who, if Britain had not
outraged her, would have assisted her, in any quarrel or danger, with
four or five hundred thousand men. I said that I hoped neither he nor I
should see a French invasion, but I had no doubt one would eventually
take place, and that then Britain must fight stoutly, as she had no one
to expect help from but herself; that I wished she might be able to hold
her own, but—
“Strange things will happen in Britain, though they will concern me
nothing,” said the old gentleman with a sigh.
On my expressing a desire to know something of his history, he told me
that he was the son of a small farmer, who resided at some distance from
Llangollen; that he lost his father at an early age, and was obliged to
work hard, even when a child, in order to assist his mother who had some
difficulty, after the death of his father, in keeping things together;
that though he was obliged to work hard he had been fond of study, and
used to pore over Welsh and English books by the glimmering light of the
turf fire at night, for that his mother could not afford to allow him
anything in the shape of a candle to read by; that at his mother’s death
he left rural labour, and coming to Llangollen, commenced business in the
little shop in which he was at present; that he had been married, and had
children, but that his wife and family were dead; that the young woman
whom I had seen in the shop, and who took care of his house, was a
relation of his wife; that though he had always been attentive to
business, he had never abandoned study; that he had mastered his own
language, of which he was passionately fond, and had acquired a good
knowledge of English and of some other languages. That his fondness for
literature had shortly after his arrival at Llangollen attracted the
notice of some of the people, who encouraged him in his studies, and
assisted him by giving him books; that the two celebrated ladies of
Llangollen had particularly noticed him; that he held the situation of
church clerk for upwards of forty years, and that it was chiefly owing to
the recommendation of the “great ladies” that he had obtained it. He
then added with a sigh, that about ten years ago he was obliged to give
it up, owing to something the matter with his eyesight, which prevented
him from reading, and, that his being obliged to give it up was a source
of bitter grief to him, as he had always considered it a high honour to
be permitted to assist in the service of the Church of England, in the
principles of which he had been bred, and in whose doctrines he firmly
believed.
Here shaking him by the hand, I said that I too had been bred up in the
principles of the Church of England; that I too firmly believed in its
doctrines, and would maintain with my blood, if necessary, that there was
not such another church in the world.
“So would I,” said the old gentleman; “where is there a church in whose
liturgy there is so much Scripture as in that of the Church of England?”
“Pity,” said I, “that so many traitors have lately sprung up in its
ministry.”
“If it be so,” said the old church clerk, “they have not yet shown
themselves in the pulpit at Llangollen. All the clergymen who have held
the living in my time have been excellent. The present incumbent is a
model of a Church-of-England clergyman. Oh, how I regret that the state
of my eyes prevents me from officiating as clerk beneath him.”
I told him that I should never from the appearance of his eyes have
imagined that they were not excellent ones.
“I can see to walk about with them, and to distinguish objects,” said the
old gentleman; “but see to read with them I cannot. Even with the help
of the most powerful glasses I cannot distinguish a letter. I believe I
strained my eyes at a very early age, when striving to read at night by
the glimmer of the turf fire in my poor mother’s chimney corner. Oh what
an affliction is this state of my eyes! I can’t turn my boo
Showing first 200,000 characters. Full text: gutenberg.org/ebooks/648