Wild Wales: The People, Language, & Scenery

“To Llan Rhyadr,” said I, “from which I came this morning.”

“Which way did you come?” said the man.

“By Llan Gedwin,” I replied, “and over the hill. Is there another way?”

“There is,” said the man; “by Llan Silin.”

“Llan Silin!” said I; “is not that the place where Huw Morris is buried?”

“It is,” said the man.

“I will return by Llan Silin,” said I, “and in passing through pay a visit to the tomb of the great poet. Is Llan Silin far off?”

“About half-a-mile,” said the man. “Go over the bridge, turn to the right, and you will be there presently.”

I shook the honest couple by the hand, and bade them farewell. The man put on his hat, and went with me a few yards from the door, and then proceeded towards the factory. I passed over the bridge, under which was a streamlet, which a little below the bridge received the brook which once turned Owen Glendower’s corn-mill. I soon reached Llan Silin, a village or townlet, having some high hills at a short distance to the westward, which form part of the Berwyn.

I entered the kitchen of an old-fashioned public-house, and sitting down by a table, told the landlord, a red-nosed, elderly man, who came bowing up to me, to bring me a pint of ale. The landlord bowed and departed. A bluff-looking old fellow, somewhat under the middle size, sat just opposite to me at the table. He was dressed in a white frieze coat, and had a small hat on his head, set rather consequentially on one side. Before him on the table stood a jug of ale, between which and him lay a large crabstick. Three or four other people stood or sat in different parts of the room. Presently the landlord returned with the ale.

“I suppose you come on sessions business, sir?” said he, as he placed it down before me.

“Are the sessions being held here to-day?” said I.

“They are,” said the landlord, “and there is plenty of business; two bad cases of poaching. Sir Watkin’s keepers are up at court, and hope to convict.”

“I am not come on sessions business,” said I; “I am merely strolling a little about to see the country.”

“He is come from South Wales,” said the old fellow in the frieze coat to the landlord, “in order to see what kind of country the north is. Well, at any rate, he has seen a better country than his own.”

“How do you know that I come from South Wales?” said I.

“By your English,” said the old fellow; “anybody may know you are South Welsh by your English; it is so cursedly bad! But let’s hear you speak a little Welsh; then I shall be certain as to who you are.”

I did as he bade me, saying a few words in Welsh.

“There’s Welsh,” said the old fellow, “who but a South Welshman would talk Welsh in that manner? It’s nearly as bad as your English.”

I asked him if he had ever been in South Wales.

“Yes,” said he; “and a bad country I found it; just like the people.”

“If you take me for a South Welshman,” said I, “you ought to speak civilly both of the South Welsh and their country.”

“I am merely paying tit for tat,” said the old fellow. “When I was in South Wales your people laughed at my folks and country, so when I meet one of them here I serve him out as I was served out there.”

I made no reply to him, but addressing myself to the landlord, inquired whether Huw Morris was not buried in Llan Silin churchyard. He replied in the affirmative.

“I should like to see his tomb,” said I.

“Well, sir,” said the landlord, “I shall be happy to show it to you whenever you please.”

Here again the old fellow put in his word.

“You never had a prydydd like Huw Morris in South Wales,” said he; “nor Twm o’r Nant either.”

“South Wales has produced good poets,” said I.

“No, it hasn’t,” said the old fellow; “it never produced one. If it had you wouldn’t have needed to come here to see the grave of a poet; you would have found one at home.”

As he said these words he got up, took his stick, and seemed about to depart. Just then in burst a rabble rout of gamekeepers and river-watchers, who had come from the petty sessions, and were in high glee, the two poachers whom the landlord had mentioned having been convicted and heavily fined. Two or three of them were particularly boisterous, running against some of the guests who were sitting or standing in the kitchen, and pushing the landlord about, crying at the same time that they would stand by Sir Watkin to the last, and would never see him plundered. One of them, a fellow of about thirty, in a hairy cap, black coat, dirty yellow breeches, and dirty-white top-boots, who was the most obstreperous of them all, at last came up to the old chap who disliked South Welshmen and tried to knock off his hat, swearing that he would stand by Sir Watkin; he, however, met a Tartar. The enemy of the South Welsh, like all crusty people, had lots of mettle, and with the stick which he held in his hand forthwith aimed a blow at the fellow’s poll, which, had he not jumped back, would probably have broken it.

“I will not be insulted by you, you vagabond,” said the old chap, “nor by Sir Watkin either; go and tell him so.”

The fellow looked sheepish, and turning away, proceeded to take liberties with other people less dangerous to meddle with than old crabstick. He, however, soon desisted, and sat down, evidently disconcerted.

“Were you ever worse treated in South Wales by the people there than you have been here by your own countrymen?” said I to the old fellow.

“My countrymen?” said he; “this scamp is no countryman of mine; nor is one of the whole kit. They are all from Wrexham, a mixture of broken housekeepers, and fellows too stupid to learn a trade; a set of scamps fit for nothing in the world but to swear bodily against honest men. They say they will stand up for Sir Watkin, and so they will, but only in a box in the Court to give false evidence. They won’t fight for him on the banks of the river. Countrymen of mine, indeed! they are no countrymen of mine; they are from Wrexham, where the people speak neither English nor Welsh, not even South Welsh as you do.”

Then giving a kind of flourish with his stick, he departed.

CHAPTER LXVIII

Llan Silin Church – Tomb of Huw Morris – Barbara and Richard – Welsh Country Clergyman – The Swearing Lad – Anglo-Saxon Devils.

Having discussed my ale, I asked the landlord if he would show me the grave of Huw Morris. “With pleasure, sir,” said he; “pray follow me.” He led me to the churchyard, in which several enormous yew trees were standing, probably of an antiquity which reached as far back as the days of Henry the Eighth, when the yew bow was still the favourite weapon of the men of Britain. The church fronts the south, the portico being in that direction. The body of the sacred edifice is ancient, but the steeple, which bears a gilded cock on its top, is modern. The innkeeper led me directly up to the southern wall, then pointing to a broad discoloured slab, which lay on the ground just outside the wall, about midway between the portico and the oriel end, he said:

“Underneath this stone lies Huw Morris, sir.” Forthwith taking off my hat, I went down on my knees and kissed the cold slab covering the cold remains of the mighty Huw, and then, still on my knees, proceeded to examine it attentively. It is covered over with letters three parts defaced. All I could make out of the inscription was the date of the poet’s death, 1709. “A great genius, a very great genius, sir,” said the innkeeper, after I had got on my feet and put on my hat.

“He was indeed,” said I; “are you acquainted with his poetry?”

“O yes,” said the innkeeper, and then repeated the four lines composed by the poet shortly before his death, which I had heard the intoxicated stonemason repeat in the public-house of the Pandy, the day I went to visit the poet’s residence with John Jones.

“Do you know any more of Huw’s poetry?” said I.

“No,” said the innkeeper. “Those lines, however, I have known ever since I was a child, and repeated them, more particularly of late, since age has come upon me, and I have felt that I cannot last long.”

It was very odd how few of the verses of great poets are in people’s mouths. Not more than a dozen of Shakespear’s lines are in people’s mouths; of those of Pope not more than half that number. Of Addison’s poetry, two or three lines may be in people’s mouths, though I have never heard one quoted, the only line which I ever heard quoted as Addison’s not being his, but Garth’s:

“’Tis best repenting in a coach and six.”

Whilst of the verses of Huw Morris I never knew any one but myself, who am not a Welshman, who could repeat a line beyond the four which I have twice had occasion to mention, and which seem to be generally known in North, if not in South Wales.

From the flagstone I proceeded to the portico, and gazed upon it intensely. It presented nothing very remarkable, but it had the greatest interest for me, for I remembered how many times Huw Morris had walked out of that porch at the head of the congregation, the clergyman yielding his own place to the inspired bard. I would fain have entered the church, but the landlord had not the key, and told me that he imagined there would be some difficulty in procuring it. I was therefore obliged to content myself with peeping through a window into the interior, which had a solemn and venerable aspect.

“Within there,” said I to myself, “Huw Morris, the greatest songster of the seventeenth century, knelt every Sunday during the latter thirty years of his life, after walking from Pont y Meibion across the bleak and savage Berwyn. Within there was married Barbara Wynn, the Rose of Maelai, to Richard Middleton, the handsome cavalier of Maelor, and within there she lies buried, even as the songster who lamented her untimely death in immortal verse lies buried out here in the graveyard. What interesting associations has this church for me, both outside and in; but all connected with Huw; for what should I have known of Barbara the Rose and gallant Richard but for the poem on their affectionate union and untimely separation, the dialogue between the living and the dead, composed by humble Huw, the farmer’s son of Pont y Meibion?”

After gazing through the window till my eyes watered, I turned to the innkeeper, and inquired the way to Llan Rhyadr. Having received from him the desired information, I thanked him for his civility, and set out on my return.

Before I could get clear of the town, I suddenly encountered my friend R – , the clever lawyer and magistrate’s clerk of Llangollen.

“I little expected to see you here,” said he.

“Nor I you,” I replied.

“I came in my official capacity,” said he; “the petty sessions have been held here to-day.”

“I know they have,” I replied; “and that two poachers have been convicted. I came here in my way to South Wales to see the grave of Huw Morris, who, as you know, is buried in the churchyard.”

“Have you seen the clergyman?” said R – .

“No,” I replied.

“Then come with me,” said he; “I am now going to call upon him. I know he will be rejoiced to make your acquaintance.”

He led me to the clergyman’s house, which stood at the south-west end of the village within a garden fenced with iron paling. We found the clergyman in a nice comfortable parlour, or study, the sides of which were decorated with books. He was a sharp, clever-looking man, of about the middle age. On my being introduced to him, he was very glad to see me, as my friend R – told me he would be. He seemed to know all about me, even that I understood Welsh. We conversed on various subjects: on the power of the Welsh language; its mutable letters; on Huw Morris, and likewise on ale, with an excellent glass of which he regaled me. I was much pleased with him, and thought him a capital specimen of the Welsh country clergyman. His name was Walter Jones.

After staying about half-an-hour I took leave of the good kind man, who wished me all kind of happiness, spiritual and temporal, and said that he should always be happy to see me at Llan Silin. My friend R – walked with me a little way and then bade me farewell. It was now late in the afternoon, the sky was grey and gloomy, and a kind of half wintry wind was blowing. In the forenoon I had travelled along the eastern side of the valley, which I will call that of Llan Rhyadr, directing my course to the north, but I was now on the western side of the valley journeying towards the south. In about half-an-hour I found myself nearly parallel with the high crag which I had seen from a distance in the morning. It was now to the east of me. Its western front was very precipitous, but on its northern side it was cultivated nearly to the summit. As I stood looking at it from near the top of a gentle acclivity a boy with a team, whom I had passed a little time before, came up. He was whipping his horses, who were straining up the ascent, and was swearing at them most frightfully in English. I addressed him in that language, inquiring the name of the crag, but he answered Dim Saesneg, and then again fell to cursing his horses in English. I allowed him and his team to get to the top of the ascent, and then overtaking him I said in Welsh: “What do you mean by saying you have no English? you were talking English just now to your horses.”

“Yes,” said the lad, “I have English enough for my horses, and that is all.”

“You seem to have plenty of Welsh,” said I; “why don’t you speak Welsh to your horses?”

“It’s of no use speaking Welsh to them,” said the boy; “Welsh isn’t strong enough.”

“Isn’t Myn Diawl tolerably strong?” said I.

“Not strong enough for horses,” said the boy; “if I were to say Myn Diawl to my horses, or even Cas András they would laugh at me.”

“Do the other carters,” said I, “use the same English to their horses which you do to yours?”

“Yes,” said the boy, “they all use the same English words; if they didn’t the horses wouldn’t mind them.”

“What a triumph,” thought I, “for the English language that the Welsh carters are obliged to have recourse to its oaths and execrations to make their horses get on!”

I said nothing more to the boy on the subject of language, but again asked him the name of the crag. “It is called Craig y Gorllewin,” said he. I thanked him, and soon left him and his team far behind.

Notwithstanding what the boy said about the milk-and-water character of native Welsh oaths, the Welsh have some very pungent execrations, quite as efficacious, I should say, to make a horse get on as any in the English swearing vocabulary. Some of their oaths are curious, being connected with heathen times and Druidical mythology; for example that Cas András mentioned by the boy, which means hateful enemy or horrible András. András or Andraste was the fury or Demigorgon of the Ancient Cumry, to whom they built temples and offered sacrifices out of fear. Curious that the same oath should be used by the Christian Cumry of the present day, which was in vogue amongst their pagan ancestors some three thousand years ago. However, the same thing is observable amongst us Christian English: we say the Duse take you! even as our heathen Saxon forefathers did, who worshipped a kind of Devil so called and named a day of the week after him, which name we still retain in our hebdomadal calendar like those of several other Anglo-Saxon devils. We also say: Go to old Nick! and Nick or Nikkur was a surname of Woden, and also the name of a spirit which haunted fords and was in the habit of drowning passengers.

Night came quickly upon me after I had passed the swearing lad. However, I was fortunate enough to reach Llan Rhyadr, without having experienced any damage or impediment from Diawl, András, Duse or Nick.

CHAPTER LXIX

Church of Llan Rhyadr – The Clerk – The Tablet-Stone – First View of the Cataract.

The night was both windy and rainy like the preceding one, but the morning which followed, unlike that of the day before, was dull and gloomy. After breakfast I walked out to take another view of the little town. As I stood looking at the church a middle-aged man of a remarkably intelligent countenance came up and asked me if I should like to see the inside. I told him I should, whereupon he said that he was the clerk and would admit me with pleasure. Taking a key out of his pocket he unlocked the door of the church and we went in. The inside was sombre, not so much owing to the gloominess of the day as the heaviness of the architecture. It presented something in the form of a cross. I soon found the clerk, what his countenance represented him to be, a highly intelligent person. His answers to my questions were in general ready and satisfactory.

“This seems rather an ancient edifice,” said I; “when was it built?”

“In the sixteenth century,” said the clerk; “in the days of Harry Tudor.”

“Have any remarkable men been clergymen of this church?”

“Several, sir; amongst its vicars was Doctor William Morgan the great South Welshman, the author of the old Welsh version of the Bible, who flourished in the time of Queen Elizabeth. Then there was Doctor Robert South, an eminent divine, who though not a Welshman spoke and preached Welsh better than many of the native clergy. Then there was the last vicar, Walter D – , a great preacher and writer, who styled himself in print Gwalter Mechain.”

“Are Morgan and South buried here?” said I.

“They are not, sir,” said the clerk; “they had been transferred to other benefices before they died.”

I did not inquire whether Walter D – was buried there, for of him I had never heard before, but demanded whether the church possessed any ancient monuments.

“This is the oldest which remains, sir,” said the clerk, and he pointed with his finger to a tablet-stone over a little dark pew on the right side of the oriel window. There was an inscription upon it, but owing to the darkness I could not make out a letter. The clerk however read as follows.

1694. 21 OctrHic Sepultus EstSidneus Bynner

“Do you understand Latin?” said I to the clerk.

“I do not, sir; I believe, however, that the stone is to the memory of one Bynner.”

“That is not a Welsh name,” said I.

“It is not, sir,” said the clerk.

“It seems to be radically the same as Bonner,” said I, “the name of the horrible Popish Bishop of London in Mary’s time. Do any people of the name of Bynner reside in the neighbourhood at present?”

“None, sir,” said the clerk; “and if the Bynners are the descendants of Bonner, it is, perhaps, well that there are none.”

I made the clerk, who appeared almost fit to be a clergyman, a small present, and returned to the inn. After paying my bill I flung my satchel over my shoulder, took my umbrella by the middle in my right hand, and set off for the Rhyadr.

I entered the narrow glen at the western extremity of the town and proceeded briskly along. The scenery was romantically beautiful: on my left was the little brook, the waters of which run through the town; beyond it a lofty hill; on my right was a hill covered with wood from the top to the bottom. I enjoyed the scene, and should have enjoyed it more had there been a little sunshine to gild it.

I passed through a small village, the name of which I think was Cynmen, and presently overtook a man and boy. The man saluted me in English and I entered into conversation with him in that language. He told me that he came from Llan Gedwin, and was going to a place called Gwern something in order to fetch home some sheep. After a time he asked me where I was going.

“I am going to see the Pistyll Rhyadr,” said I.

We had then just come to the top of a rising ground.

“Yonder’s the Pistyll!” said he, pointing to the west.

I looked in the direction of his finger, and saw something at a great distance, which looked like a strip of grey linen, hanging over a crag.

“That is the waterfall,” he continued, “which so many of the Saxons come to see. And now I must bid you good-bye, master; for my way to the Gwern is on the right.”

Then followed by the boy he turned aside into a wild road at the corner of a savage, precipitous rock.

CHAPTER LXX

Mountain Scenery – The Rhyadr – Wonderful Feat.

After walking about a mile with the cataract always in sight, I emerged from the glen into an oblong valley extending from south to north, having lofty hills on all sides, especially on the west, from which direction the cataract comes. I advanced across the vale till within a furlong of this object, when I was stopped by a deep hollow or nether vale into which the waters of the cataract tumble. On the side of this hollow I sat down, and gazed before me and on either side. The water comes spouting over a crag of perhaps two hundred feet in altitude between two hills, one south-east and the other nearly north. The southern hill is wooded from the top, nearly down to where the cataract burst forth; and so, but not so thickly, is the northern hill, which bears a singular resemblance to a hog’s back. Groves of pine are on the lower parts of both; in front of a grove low down on the northern hill is a small white house of a picturesque appearance. The water of the cataract, after reaching the bottom of the precipice, rushes in a narrow brook down the vale in the direction of Llan Rhyadr. To the north-east, between the hog-backed hill and another strange-looking mountain, is a wild glen, from which comes a brook to swell the waters discharged by the Rhyadr. The south-west side of the vale is steep, and from a cleft of a hill in that quarter a slender stream rushing impetuously joins the brook of the Rhyadr, like the rill of the northern glen. The principal object of the whole is of course the Rhyadr. What shall I liken it to? I scarcely know, unless to an immense skein of silk agitated and disturbed by tempestuous blasts, or to the long tail of a grey courser at furious speed. Through the profusion of long silvery threads or hairs, or what looked such, I could here and there see the black sides of the crag down which the Rhyadr precipitated itself with something between a boom and a roar.

After sitting on the verge of the hollow for a considerable time I got up, and directed my course towards the house in front of the grove. I turned down the path which brought me to the brook which runs from the northern glen into the waters discharged by the Rhyadr, and crossing it by stepping-stones found myself on the lowest spur of the hog-backed hill. A steep path led towards the house. As I drew near, two handsome dogs came rushing to welcome the stranger. Coming to a door on the northern side of the house I tapped and a handsome girl of about thirteen making her appearance I enquired in English the nearest way to the waterfall; she smiled, and in her native language said that she had no Saxon. On my telling her in Welsh that I was come to see the Pistyll she smiled again, and said that I was welcome, then taking me round the house she pointed to a path and bade me follow it. I followed the path which led downwards to a tiny bridge of planks, a little way below the fall. I advanced to the middle of the bridge, then turning to the west looked at the wonderful object before me.

There are many remarkable cataracts in Britain and the neighbouring isles, even the little Celtic Isle of Man has its remarkable waterfall; but this Rhyadr, the grand cataract of North Wales, far exceeds them all in altitude and beauty, though it is inferior to several of them in the volume of its flood. I never saw water falling so gracefully, so much like thin beautiful threads as here. Yet even this cataract has its blemish. What beautiful object has not something which more or less mars its loveliness? There is an ugly black bridge or semicircle of rock, about two feet in diameter and about twenty feet high, which rises some little way below it, and under which the water, after reaching the bottom, passes, which intercepts the sight, and prevents it from taking in the whole fall at once. This unsightly object has stood where it now stands since the day of creation, and will probably remain there to the day of judgment. It would be a desecration of nature to remove it by art, but no one could regret if nature in one of her floods were to sweep it away.

As I was standing on the planks a woman plainly but neatly dressed came from the house. She addressed me in very imperfect English, saying that she was the mistress of the house and should be happy to show me about. I thanked her for her offer and told her that she might speak Welsh, whereupon she looked glad and said in that tongue that she could speak Welsh much better than Saesneg. She took me by a winding path up a steep bank on the southern side of the fall to a small plateau, and told me that was the best place to see the Pistyll from. I did not think so, for we were now so near that we were almost blinded by the spray, though, it is true, the semicircle of rock no longer impeded the sight; this object we now saw nearly laterally rising up like a spectral arch, spray and foam above it, and water rushing below. “That is a bridge rather for ysprydoedd 8 to pass over than men,” said I.