The Welsh and Their Literature

The last Vision, that of Hell, is the longest of the three. The Bard is carried in his sleep by the same angel who in his first vision had shown him the madness and vanity of the world, to the regions of eternal horror and woe, where he beholds the lost undergoing tortures proportionate to the crimes which they had committed on earth. After wandering from nook to nook, the Bard and his guide at last come to the court before the palace of the hellish regions, where, amidst thousands of horrible objects, the Bard perceives two feet of enormous magnitude, reaching to the roof of the whole infernal firmament, and inquires of his companion what those horrible things may be, but is told to be quiet for the present, as on his return he will obtain a full view of the monster to whom they belong, and is then conducted into the palace of Lucifer, who is about to hold a grand council. The Arch-Fiend is described as seated on a burning throne in a vast hall, the roof of which is of glowing steel. Around him are his potentates on thrones of fire, and above his head is a huge fist, holding a very frightful thunderbolt, towards which he occasionally casts uneasy glances. In the midst of the palace is a gulf, of yet more horrible and frightful aspect than hell itself, which is continually opening and closing, and which, the angel says, is the month of ‘Unknown’ or extremest hell, to which the devils and the damned are to be hurled for ever on the last day. The council is held in order to devise measures for the farther extension of the kingdom of Lucifer. The Arch-Fiend, in a speech which he makes, boasts that three parts of the world have already been brought to acknowledge his sway, chiefly through the instrumentality of his three daughters – Pleasure, Pride, and Lucre; and he hopes that eventually the whole world will be brought to do the same. He is particularly desirous that Britain should be subject to him, and requests the advice of his counsellors as to the best means to be employed in order to accomplish his wish. Various infernal potentates then arise and give him their advice, each of whom is a personification of some crime, vice, or folly. The debate is frequently interrupted by the sound of war; for, as the angel observes, there is continual war in hell. There is at one time a terrible disturbance and outbreak, arising from a dispute between the Papists, the Mahometans, and the bloody-minded Roundheads, as to which has done most service to the cause of hell, – the Koran, the Creed of Rome, or the Solemn League and Covenant. Lucifer is only able to quell this disturbance – during which Mahomet and Pope Julius assault each other tooth and nail – by causing his old picked soldiers, the champions of hell, to tear the combatants from each other. Amidst interruptions like these the debate proceeds. Each of the personified crimes and vices in succession – amongst whom are Mammon, Pride, Inconsiderateness, Wantonness, and the Demon of Tobacco– offers to go to Britain and do his best to further the views of his master. Lucifer, however, after listening to them all and acknowledging the peculiar merit of each, says that none of them is of sufficient power to be relied upon in the present emergency, but that he has a darling friend, who, with their co-operation, is equal to the enterprise. The friend turns out to be Ease – pleasant Ease – on whose merits he expatiates with great eloquence, and with whom he requests them to co-operate. ‘Go with her,’ says he, ‘and keep everybody in his sleep and his rest, in prosperity and comfort, abundance and carelessness, and then you will see the poor honest man, as soon as he shall drink of the alluring cup of Ease, become a perverse, proud, untractable churl; the industrious labourer change into a careless waggish rattler; and every other person become just as you would desire him.. Follow her to Britain,’ he says in conclusion, ‘and be as obedient to her as to our own royal Majesty’!

Then comes the finale: —

‘At this moment the huge bolt was shaken, and Lucifer and his chief counsellors were struck to the vortex of extremest hell, and oh! how horrible it was to see the throat of Unknown opening to receive them! “Well!” said the Angel, “we will now return; but you have not seen anything in comparison with the whole which is within the bounds of Destruction, and if you had seen the whole, it is nothing to the inexpressible misery which exists in Unknown, for it is not possible to form an idea of the world in extremest hell.” And at that word the celestial messenger snatched me up to the firmament of the accursed kingdom of darkness by a way I had not seen, whence I obtained, from the palace along all the firmament of the black and hot Destruction, and the whole land of forgetfulness, even to the walls of the city of Destruction, a full view of the accursed monster of a giantess, whose feet I had seen before. I do not possess words to describe her figure. But I can tell you that she was a triple-faced giantess, having one very atrocious countenance turned towards the heavens, barking, snorting, and vomiting accursed abomination against the celestial King; another countenance, very fair, towards the earth, to entice men to tarry in her shadow; and another, the most frightful countenance of all, turned towards Hell to torment it to all eternity. She is larger than the entire earth, and is yet daily increasing, and a hundred times more frightful than the whole of hell. She caused hell to be made, and it is she who fills it with inhabitants. If she were removed from hell, hell would become paradise; and if she were removed from the earth, the little world would become heaven; and if she were to go to heaven, she would change the regions of bliss into utter hell. There is nothing in all the universe, except herself, that God did not create. She is the mother of the four female deceivers of the city of Destruction; she is the mother of Death; she is the mother of every evil and misery; and she has a fearful hold on every living man: her name is Sin. “He who escapes from her hook, for ever blessed is he,” said the angel. Thereupon he departed, and I could hear his voice saying, “Write down what thou hast seen, and he who shall read it carefully, shall never have reason to repent.”

The above is an outline of the work of Elis Wyn – an extraordinary work it is. In it there is a singular mixture of the sublime and the coarse, of the terrible and ludicrous, of religion and levity, of the styles of Milton, of Bunyan, and of Quevedo. There is also much in it that is Welsh, and much that may be said emphatically to belong to Elis Wyn alone. The book is written in the purest Cambrian, and from the time of its publication has enjoyed extensive popularity in Wales. It is, however, said that the perusal of it has not unfrequently driven people mad, especially those of a serious and religious turn. The same thing is said in Spain of the ‘Life of Ignatius Loyola.’ Peter Williams, in ‘Lavengro,’ the Welsh preacher who was haunted with the idea that he had committed the sin against the Holy Ghost, is frequently mentioning the work of Elis Wyn. Amongst other things, he says that he took particular delight in its descriptions of the torments of hell. We have no doubt that many an Englishman, of honest Welsh Peter’s gloomy temperament, when he reads the work in its present dress will experience the same kind of fearful joy.

The translation is accompanied by notes explanatory of certain passages of the original beyond the comprehension of the common reader. These notes are good, as far as they go, but they are not sufficiently numerous, as many passages relating to ancient manners and customs – perfectly intelligible, no doubt, to the translator – must, for want of proper notes, remain dark and mysterious to his readers. In the Vision of Hell, a devil, who returns from the world to which he has been despatched, and who gives an account of his mission, says that he had visited two young maidens in Wales who were engaged in turning the shift. Not a few people – ladies, amongst the rest – will be disposed to ask what is meant by turning the shift. Mr. Borrow gives elsewhere the following explanation: ‘It was the custom in Britain in ancient times for the young maiden who wished to see her future lover to sit up by herself at Hallowmass Eve, wash out her smock, shift, or chemise, call it which of the three you please, place it on a linen-horse before the fire, and watch it whilst drying, leaving the door of the room open, in the belief that exactly as the clock began to strike twelve the future bridegroom would look in at the door, and remain visible till the twelfth stroke had ceased to sound.’

Of the notes which Mr. Borrow has given, the most important is certainly that which relates to Taliesin, who, in the Vision of Death, is described as sitting in Hades, watching a caldron which is hanging over a fire, and is continually going bubble, bubble. We give it nearly entire: —

‘Taliesin lived in the sixth century. He was a foundling, discovered in his infancy lying in a coracle on a salmon weir, in the domain of Elphin, a prince of North Wales, who became his patron. During his life he arrogated to himself a supernatural descent and understanding, and for at least a thousand years after his death he was regarded by the descendants of the ancient Britons as a prophet or something more. The poems which he produced procured for him the title of “Bardic King.” They display much that is vigorous and original, but are disfigured by mysticism and extravagant metaphor. When Elis Wyn represents him as sitting by a cauldron in Hades, he alludes to a wild legend concerning him, to the effect that he imbibed awen or poetical genius whilst employed in watching “the seething pot” of the sorceress Cridwen, which legend has much in common with one of the Irish legends about Fin Macoul, which is itself nearly identical with one in the Edda describing the manner in which Sigurd Fafnisbane became possessed of supernatural wisdom.’

It is curious enough that the legend about deriving wisdom from sucking the scalded finger should be found in Wales, Ireland, and Scandinavia. But so it is, and Mr. Borrow is clearly entitled to the credit of having been the first to point out to the world this remarkable fact. In his work called the ‘Romany Rye,’ published some years ago, a story is related containing parts of the early history of the Irish mythic hero Fion Mac Comhail, 8 or Fin Mac Coul, in which there is an account of his burning his thumb whilst smoothing the skin of a fairy salmon which is broiling over a fire, and deriving supernatural knowledge from thrusting his thumb into his mouth and sucking it; and Mr. Borrow tells the relater of that legend, his amusing acquaintance Murtagh, that the same tale is told in the Edda of Sigurd, the Serpent-Killer, with the difference that Sigurd burns his finger, not whilst superintending the broiling of a salmon, but whilst roasting the heart of Fafnir, the man-serpent, whom he had slain.

Here, in his note on Taliesin, he shows that the same thing in substance is said of the ancient Welsh bard. Of the three versions of the legend, the one of which Sigurd Fafnisbane is the hero is probably the most original, and is decidedly the most poetical.

1

It is but right to state that the learned are divided with respect to the meaning of ‘Cumro,’ and that many believe it to denote an original inhabitant.

2

Yehen banog: humped or bunched oxen, probably buffaloes. Banog is derived from ban – a prominence, protuberance, or peak.

3

Above we have given what we believe to be a plain and fair history of Hu Gadarn; but it is necessary to state, that after his death he was deified, and was confounded with the Creator, the vivifying power and the sun, and mixed up with all kinds of myths and legends. Many of the professedly Christian Welsh bards when speaking of the Deity have called Him Hu, and ascribed to the Creator the actions of the creature. Their doing so, however, can cause us but little surprise when we reflect that the bards down to a very late period cherished a great many druidical and heathen notions, and frequently comported themselves in a manner more becoming heathens than Christian men. Of the confounding of what is heavenly with what is earthly we have a remarkable instance in the ode of Iolo Goch to the ploughman, four lines of which, slightly modified, we have given above. In that ode the ploughman is confounded with the Eternal, and the plough with the rainbow: —

‘The Mighty Hu who reigns for ever,Of mead and song to men the giver,The emperor of land and seaAnd of all things which 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,There is no trade the heaven belowSo noble as to guide the plough.’

To the Deity under the name of Hu there are some lines by one Rhys, a Welsh bard of the time of Queen Elizabeth, though they are perhaps more applicable to the Universal Pan or Nature than to the God of the Christians: —

‘If with small things we Hu compare,No smaller thing than Hu is there,Yet greatest of the great is He,Our Lord, our God of Mystery;How swift he moves! a lucid ray,A sunbeam wafts him on his way;He’s great on land, and great on ocean,Of one more great I have no notion;I dread lest I should underrateThis being, infinitely great.’

4

The poetical translations in this notice are taken from Borrow’s ‘Songs of Europe.’

5

‘Oedd balch gwalch golchiad ei lain,Oedd beilch gweilch gweled ei werin.’

In this couplet there is three-fold rhyme. We have the alliteration of lch in the first line: —

‘balch gwalch golchiad;’

and of the w in the second: —

‘gweilch gweled werin;’

secondly, we have the rhymes of balch and gwalch; and thirdly, the rhyming at the lines’ ends.

6

Of this celebrated place we are permitted to extract the following account from Mr. Borrow’s unpublished work, ‘Celtic Bards, Chiefs, and Kings’: —

‘After wandering for many miles towards the south, over a bleak moory country, you come to a place called Ffair Rhos, or something similar, a miserable village consisting of a few half-ruined cottages, situated on the top of a hill. From the hill you look down on a wide valley of a russet colour, along which a river runs towards the south. The whole scene is cheerless; sullen hills are all around. Descending the hill you enter a large village divided into two by the river, which here runs from east to west, but presently takes a turn. There is much mire in the street; immense swine lie in the mire, who turn up their snouts at you as you pass. Women in Welsh hats stand in the mire, along with men without any hats at all, but with short pipes in their mouths. They are talking together; as you pass, however, they hold their tongues, the women leering contemptuously at you, the men glaring sullenly at you, and causing tobacco-smoke to curl in your face. On your taking off your hat, however, and inquiring the way to the Monachlog, everybody is civil enough, and twenty voices tell you the way to the monastery. You ask the name of the river: “The Teivi, Sir, the Teivi.” The name of the bridge: “Pont y Rhyd Fendigaid – the Bridge of the Blessed Ford, Sir!” You cross the bridge of the Blessed Ford, and presently leaving the main road you turn to the east, by a dunghill, up a narrow lane, parallel with the river. After proceeding a mile up the lane amidst trees and copses, and crossing a little brook which runs into the Teivi, out of which you drink, you see before you in the midst of a field, in which are tombstones and broken ruins, a rustic-looking church; a farmhouse is near it, in the garden of which stands the framework of a large gateway. You cross over into the churchyard, stand on a green mound and look about you. You are now in the very midst of the Monachlog Ystrad Flur, the celebrated monastery of Strata Florida, to which in old times popish pilgrims from all parts of the world repaired. The scene is solemn and impressive. On the north side of the river a large bulky hill, called Bunk Pen Bannedd, looks down upon the ruins and the church; and on the south side, some way behind the farmhouse, is another hill which does the same. Rugged mountains form the background of the valley to the east, down from which comes murmuring the fleet but shallow Teivi. Such is the scenery which surrounds what remains of Strata Florida; those scanty broken ruins compose all that remains of that celebrated monastery in which kings, saints, and mitred abbots were buried, and in which, or in whose precincts, was buried Dafydd ab Gwilym, the greatest genius of the Cimbric race, and one of the first poets of the world.’

7

It must be mentioned, however, in justice to Douglas, that in the autobiography of Dr. Carlyle, lately published, we find that ‘John Douglas, who has for some time been Bishop of Salisbury, and who is one of the most able and learned men on that bench, had at this time (1758, some years after Gronwy had left him) but small preferment.’

8

In a late number of the Transactions of the Dublin Ossianic Society – a most admirable institution – there is an account of the early life of Fin ma Coul, in which the burnt finger is mentioned; but that number did not appear till more than a year subsequent to the publication of the ‘Romany Rye,’ and contains not the slightest allusion either to Fafnisbane, i. e. the slayer of Fafnir, or Taliesin – to the Eddacal or the Cumric legend.