Wild Wales: The People, Language, & Scenery

“In a certain neighbourhood he had a great many mistresses, some married and others not. Once upon a time in the month of June he made a secret appointment with each of his lady-loves, the place and hour of meeting being the same for all; each was to meet him at the same hour beneath a mighty oak which stood in the midst of a forest glade. Some time before the appointed hour he went, and climbing up the oak, hid himself amidst the dense foliage of its boughs. When the hour arrived he observed all the nymphs tripping to the place of appointment; all came, to the number of twenty-four, not one stayed away. For some time they remained beneath the oak staring at each other. At length an explanation ensued, and it appeared that they had all come to meet Ab Gwilym.

“‘Oh, the treacherous monster!’ cried they with one accord; ‘only let him show himself and we will tear him to pieces.’

“‘Will you?’ said Ab Gwilym from the oak; ‘here I am! let her who has been most wanton with me make the first attack upon me!’

“The females remained for some time speechless; all of a sudden, however, their anger kindled, not against the bard, but against each other. From harsh and taunting words they soon came to actions: hair was torn off; faces were scratched; blood flowed from cheek and nose. Whilst the tumult was at its fiercest Ab Gwilym slipped away.”

The writer merely repeats this story, and he repeats it as concisely as possible, in order to have an opportunity of saying that he does not believe one particle of it. If he believed it he would forthwith burn the most cherished volume of the small collection of books from which he derives delight and recreation, namely, that which contains the songs of Ab Gwilym, for he would have nothing in his possession belonging to such a heartless scoundrel as Ab Gwilym must have been had he got up the scene above described. Any common man who would expose to each other and the world a number of hapless, trusting females who had favoured him with their affections, and from the top of a tree would feast his eyes upon their agonies of shame and rage would deserve to be.. emasculated. Had Ab Gwilym been so dead to every feeling of gratitude and honour as to play the part which the story makes him play, he would have deserved not only to be emasculated, but to be scourged with harp-strings in every market-town in Wales, and to be dismissed from the service of the Muse. But the writer repeats that he does not believe one tittle of the story, though Ab Gwilym’s biographer, the learned and celebrated William Owen, not only seems to believe it, but rather chuckles over it. It is the opinion of the writer that the story is of Italian origin, and that it formed part of one of the many rascally novels brought over to England after the marriage of Lionel Duke of Clarence, the third son of Edward the Third, with Violante, daughter of Galeazzo, Duke of Milan.

Dafydd Ab Gwilym has been in general considered as a songster who never employed his muse on any subject save that of love, and there can be no doubt that by far the greater number of his pieces are devoted more or less to the subject of love. But to consider him merely in the light of an amatory poet would be wrong. He has written poems of wonderful power on almost every conceivable subject. Ab Gwilym has been styled the Welsh Ovid, and with great justice, but not merely because like the Roman he wrote admirably on love. The Roman was not merely an amatory poet: let the shade of Pythagoras say whether the poet who embodied in immortal verse the oldest, the most wonderful and at the same time the most humane of all philosophy was a mere amatory poet. Let the shade of blind Homer be called up to say whether the bard who composed the tremendous line —

“Surgit ad hos clypei dominus septemplicis Ajax” —

equal to any save one of his own, was a mere amatory songster. Yet, diversified as the genius of the Roman was, there was no species of poetry in which he shone in which the Welshman may not be said to display equal merit. Ab Gwilym then has been fairly styled the Welsh Ovid. But he was something more – and here let there be no sneers about Welsh; the Welsh are equal in genius, intellect and learning to any people under the sun, and speak a language older than Greek, and which is one of the immediate parents of the Greek. He was something more than the Welsh Ovid; he was the Welsh Horace, and wrote light, agreeable, sportive pieces, equal to any things of the kind composed by Horace in his best moods. But he was something more; he was the Welsh Martial, and wrote pieces equal in pungency to those of the great Roman epigrammatist, perhaps more than equal, for we never heard that any of Martial’s epigrams killed anybody, whereas Ab Gwilym’s piece of vituperation on Rhys Meigan – pity that poets should be so virulent – caused the Welshman to fall down dead. But he was yet something more; he could, if he pleased, be a Tyrtæus; he was no fighter – where was there ever a poet that was? – but he wrote an ode on a sword, the only warlike piece that he ever wrote, the best poem on the subject ever written in any language. Finally, he was something more; he was what not one of the great Latin poets was, a Christian; that is, in his latter days, when he began to feel the vanity of all human pursuits, when his nerves began to be unstrung, his hair to fall off, and his teeth to drop out, and he then composed sacred pieces entitling him to rank with – we were going to say Cædmon – had we done so we should have done wrong; no uninspired poet ever handled sacred subjects like the grand Saxon Skald – but which entitle him to be called a great religious poet, inferior to none but the protégé of Hilda.

Before ceasing to speak of Ab Gwilym, it will be necessary to state that his amatory pieces, which constitute more than one-half of his productions, must be divided into two classes, the purely amatory and those only partly devoted to love. His poems to Dyddgu, and the daughter of Ifor Hael, are productions very different from those addressed to Morfudd. There can be no doubt that he had a sincere affection for the two first; there is no levity in the cowydds which he addressed to them, and he seldom introduces any other objects than those of his love. But in his cowydds addressed to Morfudd is there no levity? Is Morfudd ever prominent? His cowydds to that woman abound with humorous levity, and for the most part have far less to do with her than with natural objects – the snow, the mist, the trees of the forest, the birds of the air, and the fishes of the stream. His first piece to Morfudd is full of levity quite inconsistent with true love. It states how, after seeing her for the first time at Rhosyr in Anglesey, and falling in love with her, he sends her a present of wine by the hands of a servant, which present she refuses, casting the wine contemptuously over the head of the valet. This commencement promises little in the way of true passion, so that we are not disappointed when we read a little farther on that the bard is dead and buried, all on account of love, and that Morfudd makes a pilgrimage to Mynyw to seek for pardon for killing him, nor when we find him begging the popish image to convey a message to her. Then presently we almost lose sight of Morfudd amidst birds, animals and trees, and we are not sorry that we do; for though Ab Gwilym is mighty in humour, great in describing the emotions of love and the beauties of the lovely, he is greatest of all in describing objects of nature; indeed in describing them he has no equal, and the writer has no hesitation in saying that in many of his cowydds in which he describes various objects of nature, by which he sends messages to Morfudd, he shows himself a far greater poet than Ovid appears in any one of his Metamorphoses. There are many poets who attempt to describe natural objects without being intimately acquainted with them, but Ab Gwilym was not one of these. No one was better acquainted with nature; he was a stroller, and there is every probability that during the greater part of the summer he had no other roof than the foliage, and that the voices of birds and animals were more familiar to his ears than was the voice of man. During the summer months, indeed, in the early part of his life, he was, if we may credit him, generally lying perdue in the woodland or mountain recesses near the habitation of his mistress, before or after her marriage, awaiting her secret visits, made whenever she could escape the vigilance of her parents, or the watchful jealousy of her husband, and during her absence he had nothing better to do than to observe objects of nature and describe them. His ode to the Fox, one of the most admirable of his pieces, was composed on one of these occasions.

Want of space prevents the writer from saying as much as he could wish about the genius of this wonderful man, the greatest of his country’s songsters, well calculated by nature to do honour to the most polished age and the most widely-spoken language. The bards his contemporaries, and those who succeeded him for several hundred years, were perfectly convinced of his superiority not only over themselves but over all the poets of the past, and one, and a mighty one, old Iolo the bard of Glendower, went so far as to insinuate that after Ab Gwilym it would be of little avail for any one to make verses: —

“Aed lle mae’r eang dangneff,Ac aed y gerdd gydag ef.”To Heaven’s high peace let him depart,And with him go the minstrel art.

He was buried at Ystrad Flur, and a yew tree was planted over his grave, to which Gruffydd Gryg, a brother bard, who was at one time his enemy, but eventually became one of the most ardent of his admirers, addressed an ode, of part of which the following is a paraphrase: —

Thou noble tree; who shelt’rest kindThe dead man’s house from winter’s wind;May lightnings never lay thee low,Nor archer cut from thee his bow;Nor Crispin peel thee pegs to frame,But may thou ever bloom the same,A noble tree the grave to guardOf Cambria’s most illustrious bard!

CHAPTER LXXXVII

Start for Plynlimmon – Plynlimmon’s Celebrity – Troed Rhiw Goch.

The morning of the fifth of November looked rather threatening. As, however, it did not rain, I determined to set off for Plynlimmon, and returning at night to the inn, resume my journey to the south on the following day. On looking into a pocket almanac I found it was Sunday. This very much disconcerted me, and I thought at first of giving up my expedition. Eventually, however, I determined to go, for I reflected that I should be doing no harm, and that I might acknowledge the sacredness of the day by attending morning service at the little Church of England chapel which lay in my way.

The mountain of Plynlimmon to which I was bound is the third in Wales for altitude, being only inferior to Snowdon and Cadair Idris. Its proper name is Pum or Pump Lumon, signifying the five points, because towards the upper part it is divided into five hills or points. Plynlimmon is a celebrated hill on many accounts. It has been the scene of many remarkable events: in the tenth century a dreadful battle was fought on one of its spurs between the Danes and the Welsh, in which the former sustained a bloody overthrow, and in 1401 a conflict took place in one of its valleys between the Welsh under Glendower and the Flemings of Pembrokeshire, who, exasperated at having their homesteads plundered and burned by the chieftain, who was the mortal enemy of their race, assembled in considerable numbers and drove Glendower and his forces before them to Plynlimmon, where the Welshmen standing at bay a contest ensued, in which, though eventually worsted, the Flemings were at one time all but victorious. What, however, has more than anything else contributed to the celebrity of the hill is the circumstance of its giving birth to three rivers. The first of which, the Severn, is the principal stream in Britain; the second, the Wye, the most lovely river, probably, which the world can boast of; and the third, the Rheidol, entitled to high honour from its boldness and impetuosity, and the remarkable banks between which it flows in its very short course, for there are scarcely twenty miles between the ffynnon or source of the Rheidol and the aber or place where it disembogues itself into the sea.

I started about ten o’clock on my expedition, after making, of course, a very hearty breakfast. Scarcely had I crossed the Devil’s Bridge when a shower of hail and rain came on. As, however, it came down nearly perpendicularly, I put up my umbrella and laughed. The shower pelted away till I had nearly reached Spytty Cynwyl, when it suddenly left off, and the day became tolerably fine. On arriving at the Spytty I was sorry to find that there would be no service till three in the afternoon. As waiting till that time was out of the question, I pushed forward on my expedition. Leaving Pont Erwyd at some distance on my left, I went duly north till I came to a place amongst hills where the road was crossed by an angry-looking rivulet, the same I believe which enters the Rheidol near Pont Erwyd, and which is called the Castle River. I was just going to pull off my boots and stockings in order to wade through, when I perceived a pole and a rail laid over the stream at a little distance above where I was. This rustic bridge enabled me to cross without running the danger of getting a regular sousing, for these mountain streams, even when not reaching so high as the knee, occasionally sweep the wader off his legs, as I know by my own experience. From a lad whom I presently met I learned that the place where I crossed the water was called Troed rhiw goch, or the Foot of the Red Slope.

About twenty minutes’ walk from hence brought me to Castell Dyffryn, an inn about six miles distant from the Devil’s Bridge, and situated near a spur of the Plynlimmon range. Here I engaged a man to show me the sources of the rivers and the other wonders of the mountain. He was a tall, athletic fellow, dressed in brown coat, round buff hat, corduroy trowsers, linen leggings and highlows, and though a Cumro had much more the appearance of a native of Tipperary than a Welshman. He was a kind of shepherd to the people of the house, who like many others in South Wales followed farming and inn-keeping at the same time.

CHAPTER LXXXVIII

The Guide – The Great Plynlimmon – A Dangerous Path – Source of the Rheidol – Source of the Severn – Pennillion – Old Times and New – The Corpse-Candle – Supper.

Leaving the inn my guide and myself began to ascend a steep hill just behind it. When we were about half way up I asked my companion, who spoke very fair English, why the place was called the Castle.

“Because, sir,” said he, “there was a castle here in the old time.”

“Whereabouts was it?” said I.

“Yonder,” said the man, standing still and pointing to the right. “Don’t you see yonder brown spot in the valley? There the castle stood.”

“But are there no remains of it?” said I. “I can see nothing but a brown spot.”

“There are none, sir! but there a castle once stood, and from it the place we came from had its name, and likewise the river that runs down to Pont Erwyd.”

“And who lived there?” said I.

“I don’t know, sir,” said the man. “But I suppose they were grand people or they would not have lived in a castle.”

After ascending the hill and passing over its top we went down its western side and soon came to a black frightful bog between two hills. Beyond the bog and at some distance to the west of the two hills rose a brown mountain, not abruptly but gradually, and looking more like what the Welsh call a rhiw or slope than a mynydd or mountain.

“That, sir,” said my guide, “is the great Plynlimmon.”

“It does not look much of a hill,” said I.

“We are on very high ground, sir, or it would look much higher. I question, upon the whole, whether there is a higher hill in the world. God bless Pumlummon Mawr!” said he, looking with reverence towards the hill. “I am sure I have a right to say so, for many is the good crown I have got by showing gentlefolks, like yourself, to the top of him.”

“You talk of Plynlimmon Mawr, or the great Plynlimmon,” said I; “where are the small ones?”

“Yonder they are,” said the guide, pointing to two hills towards the north – “one is Plynlimmon Canol, and the other Plynlimmon Bach. The middle and the small Plynlimmon.”

“Pumlummon,” said I, “means five summits. You have pointed out only three – now, where are the other two?”

“Those two hills which we have just passed make up the five. However, I will tell your worship that there is a sixth summit. Don’t you see that small hill connected with the big Pumlummon, on the right?”

“I see it very clearly,” said I.

“Well, your worship, that’s called Bryn y Llo – the Hill of the Calf, or the Calf Plynlimmon, which makes the sixth summit.”

“Very good,” said I, “and perfectly satisfactory. Now let us ascend the Big Pumlummon.”

In about a quarter of an hour we reached the summit of the hill, where stood a large carn or heap of stones. I got up on the top and looked around me.

A mountainous wilderness extended on every side, a waste of russet-coloured hills, with here and there a black, craggy summit. No signs of life or cultivation were to be discovered, and the eye might search in vain for a grove or even a single tree. The scene would have been cheerless in the extreme had not a bright sun lighted up the landscape.

“This does not seem to be a country of much society,” said I to my guide.

“It is not, sir. The nearest house is the inn we came from, which is now three miles behind us. Straight before you there is not one for at least ten, and on either side it is an anialwch to a vast distance. Plunlummon is not a sociable country, sir; nothing to be found in it, but here and there a few sheep or a shepherd.”

“Now,” said I, descending from the carn, “we will proceed to the sources of the rivers.”

“The ffynnon of the Rheidol is not far off,” said the guide; “it is just below the hill.”

We descended the western side of the hill for some way; at length, coming to a very craggy and precipitous place my guide stopped, and pointing with his finger into the valley below, said:

“There, sir, if you look down you can see the source of the Rheidol.”

I looked down, and saw far below what appeared to be part of a small sheet of water.

“And that is the source of the Rheidol?” said I.

“Yes, sir,” said my guide; “that is the ffynnon of the Rheidol.”

“Well,” said I, “is there no getting to it?”

“O yes! but the path, sir, as you see, is rather steep and dangerous.”

“Never mind,” said I. “Let us try it.”

“Isn’t seeing the fountain sufficient for you, sir?”

“By no means,” said I. “It is not only necessary for me to see the sources of the rivers, but to drink of them, in order that in after times I may be able to harangue about them with a tone of confidence and authority.”

“Then follow me, sir; but please to take care, for this path is more fit for sheep or shepherds than gentlefolk.”

And a truly bad path I found it; so bad indeed that before I had descended twenty yards I almost repented having ventured. I had a capital guide, however, who went before and told me where to plant my steps. There was one particularly bad part, being little better than a sheer precipice; but even here I got down in safety with the assistance of my guide, and a minute afterwards found myself at the source of the Rheidol.

The source of the Rheidol is a small, beautiful lake, about a quarter of a mile in length. It is overhung on the east and north by frightful crags, from which it is fed by a number of small rills. The water is of the deepest blue and of very considerable depth. The banks, except to the north and east, slope gently down, and are clad with soft and beautiful moss. The river, of which it is the head, emerges at the south-western side, and brawls away in the shape of a considerable brook, amidst moss and rushes down a wild glen tending to the south. To the west the prospect is bounded, at a slight distance, by high, swelling ground. If few rivers have a more wild and wondrous channel than the Rheidol, fewer still have a more beautiful and romantic source.

After kneeling down and drinking freely of the lake I said:

“Now, where are we to go to next?”

“The nearest ffynnon to that of the Rheidol, sir, is the ffynnon of the Severn.”

“Very well,” said I; “let us now go and see the ffynnon of the Severn!”

I followed my guide over a hill to the north-west into a valley, at the farther end of which I saw a brook streaming apparently to the south, where was an outlet.

“That brook,” said the guide, “is the young Severn.” The brook came from round the side of a very lofty rock, singularly variegated, black and white, the northern summit presenting something of the appearance of the head of a horse. Passing round this crag we came to a fountain surrounded with rushes, out of which the brook, now exceedingly small, came murmuring.

“The crag above,” said my guide, “is called Crag y Cefyl, or the Rock of the Horse, and this spring at its foot is generally called the ffynnon of the Hafren. However, drink not of it, master; for the ffynnon of the Hafren is higher up the nant. Follow me, and I will presently show you the real ffynnon of the Hafren.”

I followed him up a narrow and very steep dingle. Presently we came to some beautiful little pools of water in the turf, which was here remarkably green.

“These are very pretty pools, an’t they, master?” said my companion. “Now, if I was a false guide I might bid you stoop and drink, saying that these were the sources of the Severn; but I am a true cyfarwydd and therefore tell you not to drink, for these pools are not the sources of the Hafren, no more than the spring below. The ffynnon of the Severn is higher up the nant. Don’t fret, however, but follow me, and we shall be there in a minute.”

So I did as he bade me, following him without fretting higher up the nant. Just at the top he halted and said, “Now, master, I have conducted you to the source of the Severn. I have considered the matter deeply, and have come to the conclusion that here, and here only, is the true source. Therefore stoop down and drink, in full confidence that you are taking possession of the Holy Severn.”

The source of the Severn is a little pool of water some twenty inches long, six wide, and about three deep. It is covered at the bottom with small stones, from between which the water gushes up. It is on the left-hand side of the nant, as you ascend, close by the very top. An unsightly heap of black turf-earth stands just above it to the north. Turf-heaps, both large and small, are in abundance in the vicinity.

After taking possession of the Severn by drinking at its source, rather a shabby source for so noble a stream, I said, “Now let us go to the fountain of the Wye.”

“A quarter of an hour will take us to it, your honour,” said the guide, leading the way.

The source of the Wye, which is a little pool, not much larger than that which constitutes the fountain of the Severn, stands near the top of a grassy hill which forms part of the Great Plynlimmon. The stream after leaving its source runs down the hill towards the east, and then takes a turn to the south. The fountains of the Severn and the Wye are in close proximity to each other. That of the Rheidol stands somewhat apart from both, as if, proud of its own beauty, it disdained the other two for their homeliness. All three are contained within the compass of a mile.

“And now, I suppose, sir, that our work is done, and we may go back to where we came from,” said my guide, as I stood on the grassy hill after drinking copiously of the fountain of the Wye.

“We may,” said I; “but before we do I must repeat some lines made by a man who visited these sources, and experienced the hospitality of a chieftain in this neighbourhood four hundred years ago.” Then taking off my hat I lifted up my voice and sang: —

“From high Plynlimmon’s shaggy sideThree streams in three directions glide,To thousands at their mouth who tarryHoney, gold and mead they carry.Flow also from Plynlimmon highThree streams of generosity;The first, a noble stream indeed,Like rills of Mona runs with mead;The second bears from vineyards thickWine to the feeble and the sick;The third, till time shall be no more,Mingled with gold shall silver pour.”

“Nice pennillion, sir, I dare say,” said my guide, “provided a person could understand them. What’s meant by all this mead, wine, gold and silver?”