Wild Wales: The People, Language, & Scenery
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Wild Wales: The People, Language, & Scenery
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“Myn’d i’r wyl ar redeg,
I’r byd a beryi chwaneg,
I Beradwys, y ber wiw deg,
Yn Enw Duw yn union deg.”
“Do you understand those verses?” said the man on the settle, a dark swarthy fellow with an oblique kind of vision, and dressed in a pepper-and-salt coat.
“I will translate them,” said I; and forthwith put them into English – first into prose and then into rhyme, the rhymed version running thus: —
“‘Now to my rest I hurry away,
To the world which lasts for ever and aye,
To Paradise, the beautiful place,
Trusting alone in the Lord of Grace.’”
“Well,” said he of the pepper-and-salt, “if that isn’t capital I don’t know what is.”
A scene in a public-house, yes! but in a Welsh public-house. Only think of a Suffolk toper repeating the death-bed verses of a poet; surely there is a considerable difference between the Celt and the Saxon.
CHAPTER XXII
Llangollen Fair – Buyers and Sellers – The Jockey – The Greek Cap.
On the twenty-first was held Llangollen Fair. The day was dull with occasional showers. I went to see the fair about noon. It was held in and near a little square in the south-east quarter of the town, of which square the police-station is the principal feature on the side of the west, and an inn, bearing the sign of the Grapes, on the east. The fair was a little bustling fair, attended by plenty of people from the country, and from the English border, and by some who appeared to come from a greater distance than the border. A dense row of carts extended from the police-station, half across the space. These carts were filled with pigs, and had stout cord nettings drawn over them, to prevent the animals escaping. By the sides of these carts the principal business of the fair appeared to be going on – there stood the owners male and female, higgling with Llangollen men and women, who came to buy. The pigs were all small, and the price given seemed to vary from eighteen to twenty-five shillings. Those who bought pigs generally carried them away in their arms; and then there was no little diversion; dire was the screaming of the porkers, yet the purchaser invariably appeared to know how to manage his bargain, keeping the left arm round the body of the swine and with the right hand fast griping the ear – some few were led away by strings. There were some Welsh cattle, small of course, and the purchasers of these seemed to be Englishmen, tall burly fellows in general, far exceeding the Welsh in height and size.
Much business in the cattle-line did not seem, however, to be going on. Now and then a big fellow made an offer, and held out his hand for a little Pictish grazier to give it a slap – a cattle bargain being concluded by a slap of the hand – but the Welshman generally turned away, with a half-resentful exclamation. There were a few horses and ponies in a street leading into the fair from the south.
I saw none sold, however. A tall athletic figure was striding amongst them, evidently a jockey and a stranger, looking at them and occasionally asking a slight question of one or another of their proprietors, but he did not buy. He might in age be about eight-and-twenty, and about six feet and three-quarters of an inch in height; in build he was perfection itself – a better-built man I never saw. He wore a cap and a brown jockey coat, trowsers, leggings and highlows, and sported a single spur. He had whiskers – all jockeys should have whiskers – but he had what I did not like, and what no genuine jockey should have, a moustache, which looks coxcombical and Frenchified – but most things have terribly changed since I was young. Three or four hardy-looking fellows, policemen, were gliding about in their blue coats and leather hats, holding their thin walking-sticks behind them; conspicuous amongst whom was the leader, a tall lathy North Briton with a keen eye and hard features. Now if I add there was much gabbling of Welsh round about, and here and there some slight sawing of English – that in the street leading from the north there were some stalls of gingerbread and a table at which a queer-looking being with a red Greek-looking cap on his head, sold rhubarb, herbs, and phials containing the Lord knows what, and who spoke a low vulgar English dialect, – I repeat, if I add this, I think I have said all that is necessary about Llangollen Fair.
CHAPTER XXIII
An Expedition – Pont y Pandy – The Sabbath – Glendower’s Mount – Burial-place of Old – Corwen – The Deep Glen – The Grandmother – The Roadside Chapel.
I was now about to leave Llangollen, for a short time, and to set out on an expedition to Bangor, Snowdon, and one or two places in Anglesea. I had determined to make the journey on foot, in order that I might have perfect liberty of action, and enjoy the best opportunities of seeing the country. My wife and daughter were to meet me at Bangor, to which place they would repair by the railroad, and from which, after seeing some of the mountain districts, they would return to Llangollen by the way they came, where I proposed to rejoin them, returning, however, by a different way from the one I went, that I might traverse new districts. About eleven o’clock of a brilliant Sunday morning I left Llangollen, after reading the morning-service of the Church to my family. I set out on a Sunday because I was anxious to observe the general demeanour of the people, in the interior of the country, on the Sabbath.
I directed my course towards the west, to the head of the valley. My wife and daughter after walking with me about a mile bade me farewell, and returned. Quickening my pace I soon left Llangollen valley behind me and entered another vale, along which the road which I was following, and which led to Corwen and other places, might be seen extending for miles. Lumpy hills were close upon my left, the Dee running noisily between steep banks, fringed with trees, was on my right; beyond it rose hills which form part of the wall of the vale of Clwyd; their tops bare, but their sides pleasantly coloured with yellow corn-fields and woods of dark verdure. About an hour’s walking, from the time when I entered the valley, brought me to a bridge over a gorge, down which water ran to the Dee. I stopped and looked over the side of the bridge nearest to the hill. A huge rock about forty feet long, by twenty broad, occupied the entire bed of the gorge, just above the bridge, with the exception of a little gullet to the right, down which between the rock and a high bank, on which stood a cottage, a run of water purled and brawled. The rock looked exactly like a huge whale lying on its side, with its back turned towards the runnel. Above it was a glen with trees. After I had been gazing a little time a man making his appearance at the door of the cottage just beyond the bridge, I passed on, and drawing nigh to him, after a slight salutation, asked him in English the name of the bridge.
“The name of the bridge, sir,” said the man, in very good English, “is Pont y Pandy.”
“Does not that mean the bridge of the fulling mill?”
“I believe it does, sir,” said the man.
“Is there a fulling mill near?”
“No, sir, there was one some time ago, but it is now a sawing mill.”
Here a woman, coming out, looked at me steadfastly.
“Is that gentlewoman your wife?”
“She is no gentlewoman, sir, but she is my wife.”
“Of what religion are you?”
“We are Calvinistic Methodists, sir.”
“Have you been to chapel?”
“We are just returned, sir.”
Here the woman said something to her husband, which I did not hear, but the purport of which I guessed from the following question which he immediately put.
“Have you been to chapel, sir?”
“I do not go to chapel; I belong to the Church.”
“Have you been to church, sir?”
“I have not – I said my prayers at home, and then walked out.”
“It is not right to walk out on the Sabbath day, except to go to church or chapel.”
“Who told you so?”
“The law of God, which says you shall keep holy the Sabbath day.”
“I am not keeping it unholy.”
“You are walking about, and in Wales when we see a person walking idly about, on the Sabbath day, we are in the habit of saying Sabbath breaker; where are you going?”
“The Son of Man walked through the fields on the Sabbath day, why should I not walk along the roads?”
“He who called Himself the Son of Man was God, and could do what He pleased, but you are not God.”
“But He came in the shape of a man to set an example. Had there been anything wrong in walking about on the Sabbath day, He would not have done it.”
Here the wife exclaimed, “How worldly-wise these English are!”
“You do not like the English,” said I.
“We do not dislike them,” said the woman; “at present they do us no harm, whatever they did of old.”
“But you still consider them,” said I, “the seed of Y Sarfes cadwynog, the coiling serpent.”
“I should be loth to call any people the seed of the serpent,” said the woman.
“But one of your great bards did,” said I.
“He must have belonged to the Church, and not to the chapel then,” said the woman. “No person who went to chapel would have used such bad words.”
I’r byd a beryi chwaneg,
I Beradwys, y ber wiw deg,
Yn Enw Duw yn union deg.”
“Do you understand those verses?” said the man on the settle, a dark swarthy fellow with an oblique kind of vision, and dressed in a pepper-and-salt coat.
“I will translate them,” said I; and forthwith put them into English – first into prose and then into rhyme, the rhymed version running thus: —
“‘Now to my rest I hurry away,
To the world which lasts for ever and aye,
To Paradise, the beautiful place,
Trusting alone in the Lord of Grace.’”
“Well,” said he of the pepper-and-salt, “if that isn’t capital I don’t know what is.”
A scene in a public-house, yes! but in a Welsh public-house. Only think of a Suffolk toper repeating the death-bed verses of a poet; surely there is a considerable difference between the Celt and the Saxon.
CHAPTER XXII
Llangollen Fair – Buyers and Sellers – The Jockey – The Greek Cap.
On the twenty-first was held Llangollen Fair. The day was dull with occasional showers. I went to see the fair about noon. It was held in and near a little square in the south-east quarter of the town, of which square the police-station is the principal feature on the side of the west, and an inn, bearing the sign of the Grapes, on the east. The fair was a little bustling fair, attended by plenty of people from the country, and from the English border, and by some who appeared to come from a greater distance than the border. A dense row of carts extended from the police-station, half across the space. These carts were filled with pigs, and had stout cord nettings drawn over them, to prevent the animals escaping. By the sides of these carts the principal business of the fair appeared to be going on – there stood the owners male and female, higgling with Llangollen men and women, who came to buy. The pigs were all small, and the price given seemed to vary from eighteen to twenty-five shillings. Those who bought pigs generally carried them away in their arms; and then there was no little diversion; dire was the screaming of the porkers, yet the purchaser invariably appeared to know how to manage his bargain, keeping the left arm round the body of the swine and with the right hand fast griping the ear – some few were led away by strings. There were some Welsh cattle, small of course, and the purchasers of these seemed to be Englishmen, tall burly fellows in general, far exceeding the Welsh in height and size.
Much business in the cattle-line did not seem, however, to be going on. Now and then a big fellow made an offer, and held out his hand for a little Pictish grazier to give it a slap – a cattle bargain being concluded by a slap of the hand – but the Welshman generally turned away, with a half-resentful exclamation. There were a few horses and ponies in a street leading into the fair from the south.
I saw none sold, however. A tall athletic figure was striding amongst them, evidently a jockey and a stranger, looking at them and occasionally asking a slight question of one or another of their proprietors, but he did not buy. He might in age be about eight-and-twenty, and about six feet and three-quarters of an inch in height; in build he was perfection itself – a better-built man I never saw. He wore a cap and a brown jockey coat, trowsers, leggings and highlows, and sported a single spur. He had whiskers – all jockeys should have whiskers – but he had what I did not like, and what no genuine jockey should have, a moustache, which looks coxcombical and Frenchified – but most things have terribly changed since I was young. Three or four hardy-looking fellows, policemen, were gliding about in their blue coats and leather hats, holding their thin walking-sticks behind them; conspicuous amongst whom was the leader, a tall lathy North Briton with a keen eye and hard features. Now if I add there was much gabbling of Welsh round about, and here and there some slight sawing of English – that in the street leading from the north there were some stalls of gingerbread and a table at which a queer-looking being with a red Greek-looking cap on his head, sold rhubarb, herbs, and phials containing the Lord knows what, and who spoke a low vulgar English dialect, – I repeat, if I add this, I think I have said all that is necessary about Llangollen Fair.
CHAPTER XXIII
An Expedition – Pont y Pandy – The Sabbath – Glendower’s Mount – Burial-place of Old – Corwen – The Deep Glen – The Grandmother – The Roadside Chapel.
I was now about to leave Llangollen, for a short time, and to set out on an expedition to Bangor, Snowdon, and one or two places in Anglesea. I had determined to make the journey on foot, in order that I might have perfect liberty of action, and enjoy the best opportunities of seeing the country. My wife and daughter were to meet me at Bangor, to which place they would repair by the railroad, and from which, after seeing some of the mountain districts, they would return to Llangollen by the way they came, where I proposed to rejoin them, returning, however, by a different way from the one I went, that I might traverse new districts. About eleven o’clock of a brilliant Sunday morning I left Llangollen, after reading the morning-service of the Church to my family. I set out on a Sunday because I was anxious to observe the general demeanour of the people, in the interior of the country, on the Sabbath.
I directed my course towards the west, to the head of the valley. My wife and daughter after walking with me about a mile bade me farewell, and returned. Quickening my pace I soon left Llangollen valley behind me and entered another vale, along which the road which I was following, and which led to Corwen and other places, might be seen extending for miles. Lumpy hills were close upon my left, the Dee running noisily between steep banks, fringed with trees, was on my right; beyond it rose hills which form part of the wall of the vale of Clwyd; their tops bare, but their sides pleasantly coloured with yellow corn-fields and woods of dark verdure. About an hour’s walking, from the time when I entered the valley, brought me to a bridge over a gorge, down which water ran to the Dee. I stopped and looked over the side of the bridge nearest to the hill. A huge rock about forty feet long, by twenty broad, occupied the entire bed of the gorge, just above the bridge, with the exception of a little gullet to the right, down which between the rock and a high bank, on which stood a cottage, a run of water purled and brawled. The rock looked exactly like a huge whale lying on its side, with its back turned towards the runnel. Above it was a glen with trees. After I had been gazing a little time a man making his appearance at the door of the cottage just beyond the bridge, I passed on, and drawing nigh to him, after a slight salutation, asked him in English the name of the bridge.
“The name of the bridge, sir,” said the man, in very good English, “is Pont y Pandy.”
“Does not that mean the bridge of the fulling mill?”
“I believe it does, sir,” said the man.
“Is there a fulling mill near?”
“No, sir, there was one some time ago, but it is now a sawing mill.”
Here a woman, coming out, looked at me steadfastly.
“Is that gentlewoman your wife?”
“She is no gentlewoman, sir, but she is my wife.”
“Of what religion are you?”
“We are Calvinistic Methodists, sir.”
“Have you been to chapel?”
“We are just returned, sir.”
Here the woman said something to her husband, which I did not hear, but the purport of which I guessed from the following question which he immediately put.
“Have you been to chapel, sir?”
“I do not go to chapel; I belong to the Church.”
“Have you been to church, sir?”
“I have not – I said my prayers at home, and then walked out.”
“It is not right to walk out on the Sabbath day, except to go to church or chapel.”
“Who told you so?”
“The law of God, which says you shall keep holy the Sabbath day.”
“I am not keeping it unholy.”
“You are walking about, and in Wales when we see a person walking idly about, on the Sabbath day, we are in the habit of saying Sabbath breaker; where are you going?”
“The Son of Man walked through the fields on the Sabbath day, why should I not walk along the roads?”
“He who called Himself the Son of Man was God, and could do what He pleased, but you are not God.”
“But He came in the shape of a man to set an example. Had there been anything wrong in walking about on the Sabbath day, He would not have done it.”
Here the wife exclaimed, “How worldly-wise these English are!”
“You do not like the English,” said I.
“We do not dislike them,” said the woman; “at present they do us no harm, whatever they did of old.”
“But you still consider them,” said I, “the seed of Y Sarfes cadwynog, the coiling serpent.”
“I should be loth to call any people the seed of the serpent,” said the woman.
“But one of your great bards did,” said I.
“He must have belonged to the Church, and not to the chapel then,” said the woman. “No person who went to chapel would have used such bad words.”