Wild Wales: The People, Language, & Scenery

After descending a hill we came to what looked a small suburb, and presently crossed a bridge over the stream, the waters of which sparkled merrily in the beams of the moon which was now shining bright over some lofty hills to the south-east. Beyond the bridge was a small market-place, on the right-hand side of which stood an ancient-looking church. The place upon the whole put me very much in mind of an Andalusian village overhung by its sierra. “Where is the inn?” said I to my companion.

“Yonder it be,” said he, pointing to a large house at the farther end of the market-place. “Very good inn that – Talbot Arms – where they are always glad to see English gentlemans.” Then touching his hat, and politely waving his hand, he turned on one side, and I saw him no more.

CHAPTER XCIII

Tregaron Church – The Minister – Good Morning – Tom Shone’s Disguises – Tom and the Lady – Klim and Catti.

I experienced very good entertainment at the Tregaron Inn, had an excellent supper and a very comfortable bed. I arose at about eight in the morning. The day was dull and misty. After breakfast, according to my usual fashion, I took a stroll to see about. The town, which is very small, stands in a valley, near some wild hills called the Berwyn, like the range to the south of Llangollen. The stream, which runs through it and which falls into the Teivi at a little distance from the town, is called the Brennig, probably because it descends from the Berwyn hills. These southern Berwyns form a very extensive mountain region, extending into Brecon and Carmarthenshire, and contain within them, as I long subsequently found, some of the wildest solitudes and most romantic scenery in Wales. High up amidst them, at about five miles from Tregaron, is a deep broad lake which constitutes the source of the Towy, a very beautiful stream, which, after many turnings and receiving the waters of numerous small streams, discharges itself into Carmarthen Bay.

I did not fail to pay a visit to Tregaron church. It is an antique building with a stone tower. The door being open, as the door of a church always should be, I entered, and was kindly shown by the clerk, whom I met in the aisle, all about the sacred edifice. There was not much to be seen. Amongst the monuments was a stone tablet to John Herbert, who died 1690. The clerk told me that the name of the clergyman of Tregaron was Hughes; he said that he was an excellent charitable man, who preached the Gospel, and gave himself great trouble in educating the children of the poor. He certainly seemed to have succeeded in teaching them good manners: as I was leaving the church, I met a number of little boys belonging to the church school: no sooner did they see me than they drew themselves up in a rank on one side, and as I passed took off their caps and simultaneously shouted “Good morning!”

And now something with respect to the celebrated hero of Tregaron, Tom Shone Catti, concerning whom I picked up a good deal during my short stay there, and of whom I subsequently read something in printed books. 13

According to the tradition of the country, he was the illegitimate son of Sir John Wynn of Gwedir, by one Catharine Jones of Tregaron, and was born at a place called Fynnon Lidiart, close by Tregaron, towards the conclusion of the sixteenth century. He was baptised by the name of Thomas Jones, but was generally called Tom Shone Catti, that is Tom Jones, son of Catti, or Catharine. His mother, who was a person of some little education, brought him up, and taught him to read and write. His life, till his eighteenth year, was much like that of other peasant boys; he kept crows, drove bullocks, and learned to plough and harrow, but always showed a disposition to roguery and mischief. Between eighteen and nineteen, in order to free himself and his mother from the poverty which they had long endured, he adopted the profession of a thief, and soon became celebrated through the whole of Wales for the cleverness and adroitness which he exercised in his calling; qualities in which he appears to have trusted much more than in strength and daring, though well endowed with both. His disguises were innumerable, and all impenetrable; sometimes he would appear as an ancient crone: sometimes as a begging cripple; sometimes as a broken soldier. Though by no means scrupulous as to what he stole, he was particularly addicted to horse and cattle stealing, and was no less successful in altering the appearance of animals than his own, as he would frequently sell cattle to the very persons from whom he had stolen them, after they had been subject to such a metamorphosis, by means of dyes and the scissors, that recognition was quite impossible. Various attempts were made to apprehend him, but all without success; he was never at home to people who particularly wanted him, or if at home he looked anything but the person they came in quest of. Once a strong and resolute man, a farmer, who conceived, and very justly, that Tom had abstracted a bullock from his stall, came to Tregaron well armed in order to seize him. Riding up to the door of Tom’s mother, he saw an aged and miserable-looking object, with a beggar’s staff and wallet, sitting on a stone bench beside the door. “Does Tom Shone Catti live here?” said the farmer. “O yes: he lives here,” replied the beggar. “Is he at home?” “O yes, he is at home.” “Will you hold my horse whilst I go in and speak to him?” “O yes, I will hold your horse.” Thereupon the man dismounted, took a brace of pistols out of his holsters, gave the cripple his horse’s bridle and likewise his whip, and entered the house boldly. No sooner was he inside than the beggar, or rather Tom Shone Catti, for it was he, jumped on the horse’s back, and rode away to the farmer’s house, which was some ten miles distant, altering his dress and appearance as he rode along, having various articles of disguise in his wallet. Arriving at the house he told the farmer’s wife that her husband was in the greatest trouble, and wanted fifty pounds, which she was to send by him, and that he came mounted on her husband’s horse, and brought his whip, that she might know he was authorised to receive the money. The wife seeing the horse and the whip delivered the money to Tom without hesitation, who forthwith made the best of his way to London, where he sold the horse, and made himself merry with the price, and with what he got from the farmer’s wife, not returning to Wales for several months. Though Tom was known by everybody to be a thief, he appears to have lived on very good terms with the generality of his neighbours, both rich and poor. The poor he conciliated by being very free of the money which he acquired by theft and robbery, and with the rich he ingratiated himself by humorous jesting, at which he was a proficient, and by being able to sing a good song. At length, being an extremely good-looking young fellow, he induced a wealthy lady to promise to marry him. This lady is represented by some as a widow, and by others as a virgin heiress. After some time, however, she refused to perform her promise, and barred her doors against him. Tom retired to a cave on the side of a steep wild hill near the lady’s house, to which he frequently repaired, and at last, having induced her to stretch her hand to him through the window bars, under the pretence that he wished to imprint a parting kiss upon it, he won her by seizing her hand and threatening to cut it off unless she performed her promise. Then, as everything at the time at which he lived could be done by means of money, he soon obtained for himself a general pardon, and likewise a commission as justice of the peace, which he held to the time of his death, to the satisfaction of everybody except thieves and ill-doers, against whom he waged incessant war, and with whom he was admirably qualified to cope, from the knowledge he possessed of their ways and habits, from having passed so many years of his life in the exercise of the thieving trade. In his youth he was much addicted to poetry, and a great many pennillion of his composition, chiefly on his own thievish exploits, are yet recited by the inhabitants of certain districts of the Shires of Brecon, Carmarthen, and Cardigan.

Such is the history, or rather the outline of the history of Twm Shone Catti. Concerning the actions attributed to him it is necessary to say that the greater part consist of myths which are told of particular individuals of every country, from the Indian Ocean to the Atlantic: for example, the story of cutting off the bull’s tail is not only told of him but of the Irish thief Delany, and is to be found in the “Lives of Irish Rogues and Rapparees;” certain tricks related of him in the printed tale bearing his name are almost identical with various rogueries related in the story-book of Klim the Russian robber, 14 and the most poetical part of Tom Shone’s history, namely, that in which he threatens to cut off the hand of the reluctant bride unless she performs her promise, is, in all probability, an offshoot of the grand myth of “the severed hand,” which in various ways figures in the stories of most nations, and which is turned to considerable account in the tale of the above-mentioned Russian worthy Klim.

CHAPTER XCIV

Llan Ddewi Brefi – Pelagian Heresy – Hu Gadarn – God of Agriculture – The Silver Cup – Rude Tablet.

It was about eleven o’clock in the morning when I started from Tregaron; the sky was still cloudy and heavy. I took the road to Lampeter, distant about eight miles, intending, however, to go much farther ere I stopped for the night. The road lay nearly south-west. I passed by Aber Coed, a homestead near the bottom of a dingle down which runs a brook into the Teivi, which flows here close by the road; then by Aber Carvan, where another brook disembogues. Aber, as perhaps the reader already knows, is a disemboguement, and wherever a place commences with Aber there to a certainty does a river flow into the sea or a brook or rivulet into a river. I next passed through Nant Derven, and in about three quarters of an hour after leaving Tregaron reached a place of old renown called Llan Ddewi Brefi.

Llan Ddewi Brefi is a small village situated at the entrance of a gorge leading up to some lofty hills which rise to the east and belong to the same mountain range as those near Tregaron. A brook flowing from the hills murmurs through it and at length finds its way into the Teivi – an ancient church stands on a little rising ground just below the hills, multitudes of rooks inhabit its steeple and fill throughout the day the air with their cawing. The place wears a remarkable air of solitude, but presents nothing of gloom and horror, and seems just the kind of spot in which some quiet pensive man, fatigued but not soured by the turmoil of the world, might settle down, enjoy a few innocent pleasures, make his peace with God and then compose himself to his long sleep.

It is not without reason that Llan Ddewi Brefi has been called a place of old renown. In the fifth century, one of the most remarkable ecclesiastical convocations which the world has ever seen was held in this secluded spot. It was for the purpose of refuting certain doctrines which had for some time past caused much agitation in the Church, and which originated with one Morgan, a native of North Wales, who left his country at an early age and repaired to Italy, where having adopted the appellation of Pelagius, which is a Latin translation of his own name Morgan, which signifies “by the seashore,” he soon became noted as a theological writer. It is not necessary to enter into any detailed exposition of his opinions; it will, however, be as well to state that one of the points which he was chiefly anxious to inculcate was that it is possible for a man to lead a life entirely free from sin by obeying the dictates of his own reason without any assistance from the grace of God – a dogma certainly to the last degree delusive and dangerous. When the convocation met there were a great many sermons preached by various learned and eloquent divines, but nothing was produced which was pronounced by the general voice a satisfactory answer to the doctrines of the heresiarch. At length it was resolved to send for Dewi, a celebrated teacher of theology at Mynyw in Pembrokeshire, who from motives of humility had not appeared in the assembly. Messengers therefore were despatched to Dewi, who after repeated entreaties was induced to repair to the place of meeting, where after three days’ labour in a cell he produced a treatise in writing in which the tenets of Morgan were so triumphantly overthrown that the convocation unanimously adopted it and sent it into the world with a testimony of approbation as an antidote to the heresy, and so great was its efficacy that from that moment the doctrines of Morgan fell gradually into disrepute. 15

Dewi shortly afterwards became primate of Wales, being appointed to the see of Minevai or Mynyw, which from that time was called Ty Ddewi or David’s House, a name which it still retains amongst the Cumry, though at present called by the Saxons Saint David’s. About five centuries after his death, the crown of canonisation having been awarded to Dewi, various churches were dedicated to him, amongst which was that now called Llan Ddewi Brefi, which was built above the cell in which the good man composed his celebrated treatise.

If this secluded gorge or valley is connected with a remarkable historical event it is also associated with one of the wildest tales of mythology. Here according to old tradition died one of the humped oxen of the team of Hu Gadarn. Distracted at having lost its comrade, which perished from the dreadful efforts which it made along with the others in drawing the avanc hen or old crocodile from the lake of lakes, it fled away from its master, and wandered about till coming to the glen now called that of Llan Ddewi Brefi it fell down and perished after excessive bellowing, from which noise the place probably derived its name of Brefi, for Bref in Cumric signifies a mighty bellowing or lowing. Horns of enormous size, said to have belonged to this humped ox or bison, were for many ages preserved in the church.

Many will exclaim who was Hu Gadarn? Hu Gadarn in the Gwlad yr Haf or summer country, a certain region of the East, perhaps the Crimea, which seems to be a modification of Cumria, taught the Cumry the arts of civilised life, to build comfortable houses, to sow grain and reap, to tame the buffalo and the bison, and turn their mighty strength to profitable account, to construct boats with wicker and the skins of animals, to drain pools and morasses, to cut down forests, cultivate the vine and encourage bees, make wine and mead, frame lutes and fifes and play upon them, compose rhymes and verses, fuse minerals and form them into various instruments and weapons, and to move in masses against their enemies, and finally when the summer country became over-populated led an immense multitude of his countrymen across many lands to Britain, a country of forests in which bears, wolves and bisons wandered, and of morasses and pools full of dreadful efync or crocodiles, a country inhabited only by a few savage Gauls, but which shortly after the arrival of Hu and his people became a smiling region, forests being thinned, bears and wolves hunted down, efync annihilated, bulls and bisons tamed, corn planted and pleasant cottages erected. After his death he was worshipped as the God of agriculture and war by the Cumry and the Gauls. The Germans paid him divine honours under the name of Heus, from which name the province of Hesse in which there was a mighty temple devoted to him derived its appellation. The Scandinavians worshipped him under the name of Odin and Gautr, the latter word a modification of Cadarn or mighty. The wild Finns feared him as a wizard and honoured him as a musician under the name of Wainoemoinen, and it is very probable that he was the wondrous being whom the Greeks termed Odysses. Till a late period the word Hu amongst the Cumry was frequently used to express God – Gwir Hu, God knows, being a common saying. Many Welsh poets have called the Creator by the name of the creature, amongst others Iolo Goch in his ode to the ploughman: —

The Mighty Hu who lives for ever,Of mead and wine to men the giver,The emperor of land and sea,And of all things that living be,Did hold a plough with his good hand,Soon as the Deluge left the land,To show to men both strong and weak,The haughty-hearted and the meek,Of all the arts the heaven belowThe noblest is to guide the plough.

So much for Hu Gadarn or Hu the Mighty, whose name puts one strangely in mind of the Al Kader Hu or the Almighty He of the Arabians.

I went to see the church. The inside was very rude and plain – a rough table covered with a faded cloth served for an altar – on the right-hand side was a venerable-looking chest.

“What is there in that box?” said I to the old sexton who attended me.

“The treasure of the church, sir,” he replied in a feeble quaking voice.

“Dear me!” said I, “what does the treasure consist of?”

“You shall see, sir,” said he, and drawing a large key out of his pocket he unlocked the chest and taking out a cup of silver he put it into my hand saying: – “This is the treasure of the church, sir!”

I looked at the cup. It was tolerably large and of very chaste workmanship. Graven upon it were the following words: —

“Poculum Eclesie De LXXN Dewy Brefy 1574.”

“Do you always keep this cup in that chest?” said I.

“Yes, sir! we have kept it there since the cup was given to us by de godly Queen Elizabeth.”

I said nothing, but I thought to myself: – “I wonder how long a cup like this would have been safe in a crazy chest in a country church in England.”

I kissed the sacred relic of old times with reverence and returned it to the old sexton.

“What became of the horns of Hu Gadarn’s bull?” said I after he had locked the cup again in its delapidated coffer.

“They did dwindle away, sir, till they came to nothing.”

“Did you ever see any part of them?” said I.

“O no, sir; I did never see any part of them, but one very old man who is buried here did tell me shortly before he died that he had seen one very old man who had seen of dem one little tip.”

“Who was the old man who said that to you?” said I.

“I will show you his monument, sir,” then taking me into a dusky pew he pointed to a small rude tablet against the church wall and said: – “That is his monument, sir.”

The tablet bore the following inscription, and below it a rude englyn on death not worth transcribing: —

Coffadwriaeth amThomas JonesDiweddar o’r Draws Llwyn yn y Plwyf hwn:Bu farw Chwefror 6 fed 1830Yn 92 oedTo the Memory ofThomas JonesOf Traws Llwyn (across the Grove) in thisparish who died February the sixth, 1830Aged 92

After copying the inscription I presented the old man with a trifle and went my way.

CHAPTER XCV

Lampeter – The Monk Austin – The Three Publicans – The Tombstone – Sudden Change – Trampers – A Catholic – The Bridge of Twrch.

The country between Llan Ddewi and Lampeter presented nothing remarkable, and I met on the road nothing worthy of being recorded. On arriving at Lampeter I took a slight refreshment at the inn, and then went to see the college which stands a little to the north of the town. It was founded by Bishop Burgess in the year 1820, for the education of youths intended for the ministry of the Church of England. It is a neat quadrate edifice with a courtyard in which stands a large stone basin. From the courtyard you enter a spacious dining-hall, over the door of which hangs a well-executed portrait of the good bishop. From the hall you ascend by a handsome staircase to the library, a large and lightsome room, well stored with books in various languages. The grand curiosity is a manuscript Codex containing a Latin synopsis of Scripture which once belonged to the monks of Bangor Is Coed. It bears marks of blood with which it was sprinkled when the monks were massacred by the heathen Saxons, at the instigation of Austin the Pope’s missionary in Britain. The number of students seldom exceeds forty.

It might be about half-past two in the afternoon when I left Lampeter. I passed over a bridge, taking the road to Llandovery which, however, I had no intention of attempting to reach that night, as it was considerably upwards of twenty miles distant. The road lay, seemingly, due east. After walking very briskly for about an hour I came to a very small hamlet consisting of not more than six or seven houses; of these three seemed to be public-houses, as they bore large flaming signs. Seeing three rather shabby-looking fellows standing chatting with their hands in their pockets, I stopped and inquired in English the name of the place.

“Pen- something,” said one of them, who had a red face and a large carbuncle on his nose, which served to distinguish him from his companions, who though they had both very rubicund faces had no carbuncles.

“It seems rather a small place to maintain three public-houses,” said I; “how do the publicans manage to live?”

“O, tolerably well, sir; we get bread and cheese and have a groat in our pockets. No great reason to complain; have we, neighbours?”

“No! no great reason to complain,” said the other two.

“Dear me!” said I; “are you the publicans?”

“We are, sir,” said the man with the carbuncle on his nose, “and shall be each of us glad to treat you to a pint in his own house in order to welcome you to Shire Car – shan’t we, neighbours?”

“Yes, in truth we shall,” said the other two.

“By Shire Car,” said I, “I suppose you mean Shire Cardigan?”

“Shire Cardigan!” said the man; “no indeed; by Shire Car is meant Carmarthenshire. Your honour has left beggarly Cardigan some way behind you. Come, your honour, come and have a pint; this is my house,” said he, pointing to one of the buildings.

“But,” said I, “I suppose if I drink at your expense you will expect to drink at mine?”

“Why, we can’t say that we shall have any objection, your honour; I think we will arrange the matter in this way: we will go into my house, where we will each of us treat your honour with a pint, and for each pint we treat your honour with your honour shall treat us with one.”

“Do you mean each?” said I.

“Why, yes! your honour, for a pint amongst three would be rather a short allowance.”

“Then it would come to this,” said I, “I should receive three pints from you three, and you three would receive nine from me.”

“Just so, your honour; I see your honour is a ready reckoner.”

“I know how much three times three make,” said I. “Well, thank you, kindly, but I must decline your offer; I am bound on a journey.”

“Where are you bound to, master?”

“To Llandovery, but if I can find an inn a few miles farther on I shall stop there for the night.”

“Then you will put up at the ‘Pump Saint,’ master; well, you can have your three pints here and your three pipes too, and yet get there easily by seven. Come in, master, come in! If you take my advice you will think of your pint and your pipe and let all the rest go to the devil.”

“Thank you,” said I, “but I can’t accept your invitation, I must be off;” and in spite of yet more pressing solicitations I went on.

I had not gone far when I came to a point where the road parted in two; just at the point where a house and premises belonging apparently to a stone-mason, as a great many pieces of half-cut granite were standing about, and not a few tombstones. I stopped, and looked at one of the latter. It was to the memory of somebody who died at the age of sixty-six, and at the bottom bore the following bit of poetry: —

“Ti ddaear o ddaear ystyria mewn braw,Mai daear i ddaear yn fuan a ddaw;A ddaear mewn ddaear raid aros bob darnNes daear o ddaear gyfrodir i farn.”“Thou earth from earth reflect with anxious mindThat earth to earth must quickly be consigned,And earth in earth must lie entranced enthralledTill earth from earth to judgment shall be called.”

“What conflicting opinions there are in this world,” said I, after I had copied the quatrain and translated it. “The publican yonder tells me to think of my pint and pipe and let everything else go to the devil, and the tombstone here tells me to reflect with dread – a much finer expression by the bye than reflect with anxious mind, as I have got it – that in a very little time I must die, and lie in the ground till I am called to judgment. Now, which is most right, the tombstone or the publican? Why, I should say the tombstone decidedly. The publican is too sweeping when he tells you to think of your pint and pipe and nothing else. A pint and pipe are good things. I don’t smoke myself, but I dare say a pipe is a good thing for them who like it, but there are certainly things worth being thought of in this world besides a pint and pipe – hills and dales, woods and rivers, for example – death and judgment too are worthy now and then of very serious thought. So it won’t do to go with the publican the whole hog. But with respect to the tombstone, it is quite safe and right to go with it its whole length. It tells you to think of death and judgment – and assuredly we ought to think of them. It does not, however, tell you to think of nothing but death and judgment and to eschew every innocent pleasure within your reach. If it did it would be a tombstone quite as sweeping in what it says as the publican, who tells you to think of your pint and pipe and let everything else go to the devil. The wisest course evidently is to blend the whole of the philosophy of the tombstone with a portion of the philosophy of the publican and something more, to enjoy one’s pint and pipe and other innocent pleasures, and to think every now and then of death and judgment – that is what I intend to do, and indeed is what I have done for the last thirty years.”