NormalizeHEADmain

95 files changed, 17 insertions, 10563 deletions

diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..d7b82bc
--- /dev/null
+++ b/.gitattributes
@@ -0,0 +1,4 @@
+*.txt text eol=lf
+*.htm text eol=lf
+*.html text eol=lf
+*.md text eol=lf
diff --git a/LICENSE.txt b/LICENSE.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..6312041
--- /dev/null
+++ b/LICENSE.txt
@@ -0,0 +1,11 @@
+This eBook, including all associated images, markup, improvements,
+metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be
+in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES.
+
+Procedures for determining public domain status are described in
+the "Copyright How-To" at https://www.gutenberg.org.
+
+No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in
+jurisdictions other than the United States. Anyone seeking to utilize
+this eBook outside of the United States should confirm copyright
+status under the laws that apply to them.
diff --git a/README.md b/README.md
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..639e8c4
--- /dev/null
+++ b/README.md
@@ -0,0 +1,2 @@
+Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for
+eBook #53248 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/53248)
diff --git a/old/53248-0.txt b/old/53248-0.txt
deleted file mode 100644
index 51409ff..0000000
--- a/old/53248-0.txt
+++ /dev/null
@@ -1,4241 +0,0 @@
-Project Gutenberg's Gallant Little Wales, by Jeannette Augustus Marks
-
-This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most
-other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions
-whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of
-the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at
-www.gutenberg.org.  If you are not located in the United States, you'll have
-to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this ebook.
-
-
-
-Title: Gallant Little Wales
-       Sketches of its people, places and customs
-
-Author: Jeannette Augustus Marks
-
-Release Date: October 11, 2016 [EBook #53248]
-
-Language: English
-
-Character set encoding: UTF-8
-
-*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK GALLANT LITTLE WALES ***
-
-
-
-
-Produced by MWS and the Online Distributed Proofreading
-Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from
-images generously made available by The Internet
-Archive/American Libraries.)
-
-
-
-
-
-
-[Illustration: PETERS, ENGRS., BOSTON]
-
-
-
-
-                          By Jeannette Marks
-
-                 GALLANT LITTLE WALES. Sketches of its
-               People, Places, and Customs. Illustrated.
-
-                    THE END OF A SONG. Illustrated.
-
-                 THROUGH WELSH DOORWAYS. Illustrated.
-
-                       HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY
-                          BOSTON AND NEW YORK
-
-
-
-
-_Gallant Little Wales_
-
-[Illustration: THE LADIES OF LLANGOLLEN]
-
-
-
-
-                        _Gallant Little Wales_
-
-                    _Sketches of its People, Places
-                             and Customs_
-
-                          BY JEANNETTE MARKS
-
-                          WITH ILLUSTRATIONS
-
-                            [Illustration]
-
-                          BOSTON AND NEW YORK
-                       HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY
-                     The Riverside Press Cambridge
-                                 1912
-
-                  COPYRIGHT 1912, BY JEANNETTE MARKS
-                          ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
-
-                       _Published October 1912_
-
-
-
-
-CALON WRTH GALON
-
-[Illustration]
-
-
-
-
-_Preface_
-
-
-As a guide-book this volume will be found to contain too few
-unpronounceable Welsh place-names to be adequate, but as an
-introduction to the North Welsh land, its customs, its village life,
-its little churches, its holiday possibilities, its history and
-associations, its folk-lore and romance, its music, its cottages and
-castles, GALLANT LITTLE WALES should be useful. It is my intention to
-follow this book with a companion volume on South Wales.
-
-I wish to express my debt to Mr. Henry Blackwell, who has always been
-quick to lend me volumes from his priceless Welsh library and who went
-over some of my manuscript for me. I am under obligations also to Rev.
-Gwilym O. Griffith of Carnarvonshire, North Wales. Thanks, too, I owe
-to Miss Dorothy Foster for her work upon the map which appears as a
-separate page in this volume.
-
-The English know where beauty and comfort, good care, and good
-Welsh mutton are to be had for a moderate tariff. But long before
-the Englishman went for his vacations to these British Alps and the
-American followed him, excursions were made into Wales. The Roman spent
-a summer holiday or so both in North and South Wales, and left there
-his villas and his fortresses and his roads. The Roman, having set or
-followed a good example--and who shall say which it was?--and having
-with Roman certainty got what he wanted, departed, leaving the country
-open to other invaders who pillaged and plundered. Nor, since that
-time, has the country ever been without an invader.
-
-I, too, have gone my wonder-ways in Wales, plundering where I could.
-I, too, Celt and Celt again, have followed its beauty and felt a
-biting hunger for a land which, once loved, can never be forgotten.
-As did another Celt, William Morris, in his poems, so in prose this
-little book and I have wrought in an old garden, hoping to make “fresh
-flowers spring up from hoarded seed” and to bring back again--“back to
-folk weary”--some fragrance of old days and old deeds. Friendliness,
-solitude, memories, beauty for the eye and beauty for the ear,--he who
-would have one or all of these, let him go and go again to gallant
-little Wales.
-
-JEANNETTE MARKS.
-
-ATTIC PEACE, May 13, 1912.
-
-
-
-
-_Contents_
-
-
-       I. WELSH WALES                                 3
-
-      II. A VILLAGE IN ERYRI                         17
-
-     III. HILLTOP CHURCHES                           30
-
-      IV. DR. JOHNSON’S TOUR OF NORTH WALES          59
-
-       V. WELSH FOLK-LORE                            86
-
-      VI. THE CITY OF THE PRINCE OF WALES           105
-
-     VII. THE EISTEDDFOD                            117
-
-    VIII. CAMBRIAN COTTAGES                         133
-
-      IX. CASTLE AND ABBEYS IN NORTH WALES          155
-
-    APPENDIX: SUGGESTIONS FOR SOME TOURS            177
-
-
-
-
-_Illustrations_
-
-
-    THE LADIES OF LLANGOLLEN              _Frontispiece_
-
-    CONWAY CASTLE                                    10
-    From an old print.
-
-    THE QUEEN’S TOWER, CONWAY CASTLE                 24
-    From an engraving by Cuitt, 1817.
-
-    THE GREAT HALL AT CONWAY CASTLE                  32
-    From an engraving by Cuitt.
-
-    ST. WINIFRED’S WELL, HOLYHEAD                    40
-    From an engraving by Cuitt, 1813.
-
-    THE EAGLE TOWER OF CARNARVON CASTLE              52
-    From an engraving by Cuitt.
-
-    GATEWAY OF CARNARVON CASTLE                      66
-    From an engraving by Cuitt.
-
-    A VIEW OF DENBIGH CASTLE                         80
-    From an engraving by Boydell, 1750.
-
-    RUTHIN CASTLE                                    92
-    From an engraving by Buck, 1742.
-
-    THE COMPLEAT ANGLER IN WALES                    100
-
-    THE TOWER OF DOLBADARN ON LLANBERIS LAKE        112
-
-    LLANBERIS                                       124
-    From an old print.
-
-    BEAUMARIS                                       140
-    From a proof before letters by Turner.
-
-    A WELSH WATERFALL NEAR PENMAEN-MAWR             148
-    From an engraving by Boydell, 1750.
-
-    BEDDGELERT                                      160
-    From an old print.
-
-    THE SUMMIT OF SNOWDON                           172
-    From an old print.
-
-    MAP                             _Inside front cover_
-
-
-
-
-_Gallant Little Wales_
-
-
-
-
-I
-
-_Welsh Wales_
-
-
-It is a vanished past that haunts the imagination in Wales, so that
-forever after in thoughts of that country one goes spellbound. It is
-the beautiful present, the cry of the sheep upon the mountain-sides,
-the church bells ringing from their little bell-cots and sounding
-sweetly in valleys and on highland meadows, the very flowers of the
-roadsides,--foxglove, bluebell, heather,--that keep one lingering in
-Wales or draw one back to that land again. There are little churches
-of twelfth-century foundation, gray or washed white,--their golden
-glowing saffron wash of long ago unrenewed by the Welsh of to-day.
-There are little cottages, white or yellow or pink, with their bright
-doorsills of copper, their clean, shining flagstones, their latticed
-windows, and all the homely and dignified tranquillity within. There,
-towering above, are bare rock-strewn summits upon which the yew still
-stands, and, by its side, springing from the tuft of grass which the
-wind has not swept away, grows the white harebell; the yew monument
-to a thousand years, the harebell a fragile thing of yesterday. And
-above these church-crowned hills are mountain summits, gray and craggy,
-stripped of everything verdant, places where there are “shapes that
-haunt thought’s wilderness,” and suggestions of an endless, unending
-journey.
-
-It was Bishop Baldwin, I think, accompanied on his famous
-twelfth-century journey through Cambria by Gerald of Wales, who said,
-getting his breath with difficulty as he surmounted a Welsh hill, “The
-nightingale followed wise counsel and never came into Wales.” Were this
-true, the reply might be that Wales has no need of nightingales, so
-many and so beautiful are the wind-played songs over the rocks, and so
-incomparably lovely are the voices of the Welsh people themselves. In
-any event, _had_ the nightingales come into Wales, a plump one--as it
-seems Bishop Baldwin himself must have been--would never have remained
-long in the mountain fastnesses of northern Wales,--at least not in
-the neighbourhood of Snowdon or Nant Francon or Twll Ddu,--the “black
-hole” of Wales. Neither, if Bishop Baldwin ever climbed to a Welsh
-mountain-top, would this princely prelate have liked the views there.
-A comfortable, fat living in some Welsh community like Valle Crucis
-Abbey, near the river Dee, by Llangollen, would probably have been
-far more to his liking. Even now these mountain inns are not of the
-accepted kind, but merely a cromlech over which the wind still plays
-its devil tunes, a cave or the ridgepole of a long sharp mountain
-crest, broken by crags down to the very edge of the sea.
-
-Wales is a land of mountains, of little alpine heights ranged on
-the western coast of Great Britain. Set between plain and sea, full
-of hill fastnesses, its turbulent history is partly explained by
-the topography of Gwalia. Independence, lack of unity,--these words
-summarize most of the early history of Wales. To the different parts of
-Cambria, alpine Snowdonia, the pasture lands of Berwyn, the moorlands
-and vast coal-fields of the south, came two races: one short and dark,
-the Iberian; the other tall and fair, the Celtic. These are still the
-two peoples of Wales. And after them came Rome; but Rome is gone, has
-vanished, except for her walls and foundations and roads, and these
-dark and fair races are still there, mingled, their racial traits still
-impregnable, still intact.
-
-When you add to what might be called the natural and inherent
-difficulties of the necessary mountain climbing in Wales, those of
-the Welsh language, you have a combination that is beyond words to
-describe. Even the veriest tyro a-visiting Wales will tell you that the
-language defies all description and the most conscientious efforts to
-master it.
-
-One warm day we were making a melancholy progress up a mountain-side
-when steps passed swiftly and a voice said in Welsh, “Stepping
-upwards?” The young man, an itinerant Welsh minister, was travelling in
-the same direction with us and it did not seem polite to say “Goodbye,”
-although I could think of no other Welsh words. Finally two inept ones
-came to me, “Da iawn” (very good), and I spoke them. But then, not
-content to let well enough alone, something more had to be said and I
-kept on repeating those words like a parrot. The Welshman looked around
-doubtfully, as if he wondered what the “Very good” was all about, and
-I heard him murmuring to himself and saw him hasten upwards a little
-faster.
-
-“Say something else,” my companion whispered.
-
-“I am going to if you will just give me time,” I snapped back.
-
-But I didn’t say anything else; I couldn’t, for not another thing
-would come. If any one feels disposed to criticize an alien because he
-is unable to speak Welsh, then let him go test its difficulties for
-himself, its long words, its savage consonants, its poor little vowels
-lost like some bleating lamb upon rocky mountain-sides. You just get it
-satisfactorily settled in your own mind that “Dad” means father,--very
-natural and proper,--when suddenly you discover that “Tad” and “Nhad”
-and “Thad” also mean father and are one and the same word. With mother
-or “Mam” you suffer a similar though not the same fate. To begin with,
-the Cymric alphabet differs from ours: it consists of thirty-one
-letters, some of which, “mh,” “ch,” “dd,” “ff,” “ng,” “ngh,” “ll,”
-“nh,” “ph,” “rh,” “th,” never occur in the English alphabet as letters
-_per se_. Your honest grammarian will tell you flatly that in the case
-of “ll” there is no sound in any language corresponding to it. Most
-like it are the Spanish “ll” and the Italian “gl.” Then what to do? Do
-as you would have to do in rope skipping: watch the rope, run and jump
-in if you can. The “c” is hard in Welsh, never soft like “c” in “city”;
-“ch” is like the guttural German “ch”; the “dd” sometimes like “eth”;
-“f” like “v”; “ff” like “f”; “g” is never soft as in “giant,” but like
-“g” in “get”; “i,” both long and short, as “i” in “pin” and “ee” in
-“fleet”; “o” is short like “o” in “got” or long like “o” in “note”; “p”
-as in English; “s” is like “s” in “sin”; “u” is sometimes like “i” and
-sometimes not; the “w” is like “u”; “y” has two sounds, first like “u”
-in “fur,” second like the Welsh “u.” A few words will illustrate Welsh
-pronunciation. “Cymru” is pronounced, as nearly as one can suggest
-its pronunciation, as if spelled “Kumree”; “Gwalia” as if “Gooalia”;
-“Mawddwy” as if “Mauthooy”; “Wnion” as if “Oonion”; “Pwllheli” as if
-“Pooltheli”; “Dolgelley” as if “Dolgethley.”
-
-I have had some experiences with my “small” Welsh which I would
-not exchange for those of “big” German in the past, or of any other
-language in which I have been trained to read or speak. I remember one
-experience that happened when we were in search of a certain little
-church of ancient foundation, set upon a hilltop. In Wales there are
-many of these little churches on the hilltops, like Llanrychwyn and
-Llangelynin, and also little churches by the sea, like Llandanwg,
-almost at the foot of Harlech. Within their mediæval lychgates and
-high stone walls the dead are crowded close in their last sleep. Sweet
-places are those old churches, with the yew standing sentinel near
-them, and about them the shelter of the valley or the wide sweep of
-the hilltop view. This time it was a hilltop church for which we were
-searching. Again it was “Da iawn” which graced the conversation, but in
-how different a manner!
-
-We were in need of tea, and at the cottage next to the church, the only
-cottage upon that summit, I rapped with my stick and said to the old
-woman who came, “Dyma le da i gael te” (this is a good place to have
-tea).
-
-“Yiss,” was her reply, her face brightening; “Te?”
-
-“Yes,” said I; “tea and bread-and-butter.”
-
-“Jam?” asked she, remembering what I had forgotten.
-
-“Yes,” I answered.
-
-She spread the cover in the place on the turf to which we pointed and
-smiled brightly at me, as if she, too, appreciated the beauty of that
-place with its wide mountain and valley landscape, the trustful sheep
-browsing near me, and down at our feet the magnificent pile of Harlech
-Castle looking across the wide flat marsh at its feet and over the sea
-toward the palace of King Mark.
-
-“Da iawn” (very good), said I emphatically.
-
-And her answering smile told me that we understood each other, even if
-we could not speak each other’s language very well.
-
-[Illustration: CONWAY CASTLE
-
-_From an old print_]
-
-Changeling Welsh words are begot of elves and fairies. Even as those
-words are full of poetry, of romance, of a wild emotionalism,--the
-“Scream of the Celt” it has been called, but in Wales it is a subdued
-scream,--so, still, are the superstitions about fairies and elves
-living among these Welsh hills and valleys. Childish tales they may
-seem to you, if you are fortunate enough to be told anything about them
-at all by the Welsh peasants, who are both suspicious and shy of the
-“foreigner.” The tales one may hear even now in Wales are full of a
-haunting race life. The Welsh speak of the fairies as the “little folk”
-or the “fair folk” or “family”--“y Tylwyth Teg.” And well do these
-little creatures deserve the name, for they are friendly in Wales.
-Ghosts there are, too, and the death portents, the old hag of the mist
-and others that groan or moan or sing or stamp with their feet. And
-there are “Corpse Candles” and “Goblin Funerals.” Shakespeare knew a
-deal about Welsh folk-lore, but where he got it from no one has yet
-discovered. With Shakespeare “mab” meant a little thing, just as in any
-Welsh village to-day “mabcath” means a kitten.
-
-No matter where I have been I have found the Welsh conscious of the
-beauty and significance of their land, its legendary lore, its history,
-its marvellous natural attraction. They have always been eager to
-give me information about some landmark, some incident about which I
-might be inquiring. Over their shop counters, across the doorsills of
-the humblest of Welsh cottages, by some kitchen fire where the brass
-tea-kettle sang and glowed in the subdued light of the ingle, they
-have poured forth titles of books and data,--things for which I was
-searching, or needed to know. One old man, eighty-six years old and
-bedridden, held my hand in an eager, childish clasp, while he tried
-to tell me something about a church, the poor tired mind working like
-a rundown clock, the half-sightless eyes looking at me in petition to
-help him recall the days that had slipped so far away. He asked me
-about friends of his,--people who had died before I had thought of
-being born. He corrected my few words of Welsh, a ghost of a smile
-about the old mouth, but he could not recollect what I wanted to know.
-Without the information I was seeking, I went away saying “Nos da” to
-him, which was, indeed, good night.
-
-When Dr. Samuel Johnson made his memorable tour of Wales, he wrote,
-“Wales is so little different from England that it offers nothing to
-the speculations of the traveller.” He seemed wholly oblivious to the
-strong racial difference between Welsh and English, which alters not
-only the visage of the people, but also the visage of the very country.
-He was so indifferent to the grandeur of Snowdon scenery that, going
-around the base of that mountain of eagles in a chaise, he spent his
-time keeping account of the number of sheep for “Miss Thrale,”--his
-little favourite “Queenie.” I do not believe that Johnson’s disgust
-would have been the least appeased by knowing that in the years to come
-other great people were to go and go again to Wales, as to a beloved
-lap of rest: Wordsworth, Shelley, Kingsley, Froude, Newman, Huxley,
-Tyndall, Tennyson, Arnold, Tom Taylor, John Bright, Carmen Sylva, and
-many another. The good Doctor scorned Welsh rivers, called them brooks
-and offered to jump over them. He would have despised such a cottage
-kitchen as I have lingered in many a time impressed by its beautiful
-and dignified simplicity. Sweet places are these old kitchens,
-hospitable, warm, cheerful. Sunlight or firelight, one or the other,
-you may have always in them. Bright they are with fuchsias and little
-gleaming leaded window-panes, with polished oak and polished brass and
-copper, with the shining face of a grandfather clock, with pewter,
-with lustre pitchers and creamers, with gleaming pots and kettles, and
-the salt glistening on bacons and hams hanging from the blackened oak
-rafters. Gay are they, too, with the life and laughter of children,
-with the good cheer of contented older people, with the purr of the
-house cat and the bubbling of the tea-kettle. More homelike, more
-motherly, more charming old kitchens, it has never been my good fortune
-to see.
-
-There was only one thing in Wales which profoundly satisfied the
-great Doctor and that was its castles, Harlech and Conway, and
-Carnarvon Castle most of all. Almost every Welsh town has its
-historical traditions of importance, but Carnarvon, the city of the
-Prince of Wales, even more than others. There Elen, the Great Welsh
-road-maker, was sought and won by the Emperor Maximus. Of that little
-city, once the Roman city of Segontium, there is a description in the
-“Mabinogion,” the classic of Welsh literature and one of the classics
-of the world. The Roman Emperor saw in his dream but what we see now, a
-fair and mighty castle, rocks, precipices, mountains of great height.
-The Prince of Wales was born, according to legend, in Carnarvon Castle,
-and there investiture ceremonies are still held. But veracious history
-assures us that he was born in the town, outside the castle of which
-he himself had built the very tower where he was supposed to have been
-born. Tumultuous, confused, legendary is Welsh history, full of the
-more or less mythical deeds of their great King Arthur, their brave
-Prince Llewelyn, the fate that overtook the hopes and ideals of this
-prince, their last fight for independence and their loss of it; their
-submission to the yoke of conquerors and the history of English princes
-who were put over them. It is a wild, sad, eventful history whose
-sorrows and tragedies seem only to have bitten all that is most Cymric
-in Welsh Wales deeper into Welsh lives and hearts, so that to-day,
-despite all that conqueror or civilization can do, their language,
-their lives, are still separate.
-
-And the Welsh Eisteddfod, a festival of song and poetry, is a
-revelation of the unique national Welsh spirit. From every hamlet in
-Wales, even those reached only by Welsh ponies, visitors travel on
-foot or by train to this feast of song and to witness the Gorsedd, a
-druidical ceremony old as the Eye of Light itself. “Gallant little
-Wales” shows itself to the least and last participant in the Eisteddfod
-as Welsh Wales. Educationally this Eisteddfod ceremony is of great
-value to Wales, democratic, representative, instructive; and nowhere
-could the fact that Welsh educational ideals are quite different from
-those of England--popular and progressive, with something of the
-so-called American spirit in them--reveal itself more completely than
-in this assembly of the people. Wales is essentially a democracy--a
-democracy of song, a democracy of poetry, a democracy of education and
-religion, and the Eisteddfod is the popular university of the people.
-To comprehend what is deepest and best in Welsh Wales one must go to
-the Eisteddfod and hear the Welsh, sensitive, capable of the “Hwyl,”
-imaginative, passionate, fervidly patriotic, sing,--
-
-HEN WLAD FY NHADAU (OLD LAND OF MY FATHERS)
-
-    “Old mountain-built Cymru, the bard’s Paradise,
-    The farm in the cwm, the wild crag in the skies,
-    The river that winds, have entwined tenderly
-    With a love spell my spirit in me.”
-
-      _Chorus_: Land, Land,
-                Too fondly I love thee, dear Land,
-                Till warring sea and shore be gone,
-                Pray God let the old tongue live on.”
-
-
-
-
-II
-
-_A Village in Eryri_
-
-    “Curates mind the parish,
-    Sweepers mind the court,
-    We’ll away to Snowdon,
-    For our ten days’ sport.”
-
-    _Kingsley’s Letter to Tom Hughes._
-
-
-At the centre of a wide meadow with valleys running in towards the
-centre from east and south and west lies a little village of North
-Wales. All the cottages are gray, gray as the stones of St. John’s, but
-they are of the crisp, compact gray of slate, and not the crumbling,
-fretted stone of Oxford. Occasionally some cottage nestling to the
-craggy side of one of the valley roads is whitewashed with white or
-pink, or fitted so neatly into the jutting rocks of the mountain-side
-that only the humble façade, a screen of blooming roses, is visible.
-Whitewash, roses, gleam of copper doorsills, running water, flash gaily
-in the midst of the gray of Beddgelert. Above the houses is the blue
-roadway of sky walled in by craggy mountain-summits, the sides of the
-mountains carpeted with myriad tufts of heather, lavender or purple or
-pink, and in autumn with the vivid yellow of the prickly gorse. Bees
-desert tiny gardens of well-hedged roses for this wide principality
-of bracken and heather, where around tufted blossoms they hum to the
-tossing of some stream casting itself down the hills. Up the rocks
-clamber ivy and sheep; about the moist edges of the pools and over the
-cushions of damp moss, black and brown watered-silk snails measure
-leisurely in well-fed content; and in little terraced glens of thick
-sod and along the roadways grow bluebells and columbine and foxglove
-and elfin white birches. But above these troops of upland bluebells and
-slender, swaying birches hang rocks, wild, rugged, whipped bare even
-of heather. And from the rough spine of Craig-y-Llan stretches away
-towards Snowdon and Pen-y-Pass, a wilderness of naked rocks, weird,
-jagged, shining gray and black in utter desolation.
-
-At the meeting of the Colwyn and Gwynen rivers, with the hollow
-sound of rushing water in its village lanes and the tinkling of sheep
-bells scattering from the overhanging hills, the meadow strips lie
-beside the valley roads, deep green with abundant grass or yellow with
-grain. Life, however, has been strenuous in this village of fourscore
-mountain huts, and many fathers and sons have had to labour to clear
-the grassy fields. For these honest, independent, thrifty Welshmen,
-slate and sheep are the chief means of support. The rivers yield, too,
-a fair quantity of salmon as pink as some of the mountain huts, salmon
-weighing from one to eighteen pounds. In a flood, although the torrent
-sometimes reduces the number of inhabitants, the catch of salmon is
-greater, and the villagers face the delicate task of balancing an
-all-wise but unscrupulous Providence.
-
-The way to a Welshman’s heart, nevertheless, is not through his
-stomach; the Welsh think but little of what they eat. Before English
-tourists came to the village the inns of the place, Ty Ucha--now the
-Saracen’s Head--and Ty Isaf, provided a bill of fare consisting of oat
-and barley bread, ale, porter, and eggs. English and Americans, unlike
-the Welsh, do not go lightly on a holiday without consideration of
-what there will be to eat. And our lodging-table, set by as kindly and
-generous a hostess as three wanderers ever found, bore slender chickens
-whose proportions suggested mountain climbing, mutton tender as the
-ivy the poor sheep had been nibbling, salmon trout fresh as the stream
-pouring by the corner of our cottage, Glan Afon, pound-cake filled
-with plums, and tawny mountain honey. And, too, there were vegetables
-for whose mere names we felt a careless indifference. Even the loaf of
-bread Baucis and Philemon set before their wanderers was no better, I
-am certain, than the bread of Beddgelert, light, sweet, with crackly
-golden-brown crust. Often have we done nothing but watch--and joy
-enough it was--the mammoth loaves coming home from the village bakery
-across the village bridge, little children staggering under them, small
-boys bearing them jauntily, mothers grasping them firmly under one arm,
-a baby tucked away under the other.
-
-At the inns, of which the Royal Goat is most pretentious,--it has a
-piano,--there is much quiet holiday life led by quiet holiday people.
-The simple folk who come to stay are for the most part the Welsh people
-themselves, for whom Beddgelert is in the nature of a shrine, a place
-canonized by the brave deed of one of their own Welsh greyhounds,
-Prince Llewelyn’s Gelert. The visitors who travel through the valley
-during the holiday month of August are English and Welsh tourists on
-the coaches driving over Llanberis Pass, said to be the highest coach
-drive in the world, and going to Carnarvon, the ancient Roman city of
-Segontium, fourteen miles distant from Beddgelert.
-
-In the last hundred years the village has harboured many a
-distinguished man who, giving thanks for his undiscovered seclusion,
-has come and gone unknown. Wordsworth came there with his friend,
-Robert Jones; Shelley, living at Tan yr Allt, a few miles out of
-Beddgelert, must often have passed through its lanes, his ragged brown
-hair whipped by the valley wind, his great eyes blue as the roadway of
-sky overhead; Kingsley, with a quick smile for the jolly little urchins
-perched venturesomely on the sharp slate coping of the bridge, Frederic
-Temple, Derwent Coleridge, J. A. Froude, Professor F. W. Newman,
-Huxley, Tyndall, all found holiday rest in this quiet meadow sheltered
-by its rampart of mountains. Gladstone came there, too. A village cow
-with an eye for distinction endeavoured to hook the Prime Minister and
-had afterwards the satisfaction of being sold for a large sum of money.
-There also in the valley was born “Golden Rule” Jones, of Toledo fame,
-a good man, and but one of many good men who have gone forth from this
-fastness of peace to dream ever afterwards of a return to its gray
-houses, its streams, its hills and heather and wilderness of crags.
-
-Ty Isaf and Ty Ucha are the oldest inns of the village. Ty Isaf is
-at the entrance of the lane leading to the church, and it was there,
-not so many years ago, that the minister was still expected to drink a
-cup or two of ale before entering the pulpit or fail in due prelusive
-inspiration. At Ty Isaf was kept the Large Pint of Beddgelert (“Hen
-Beint Mawr Bedd Gelert”), a pewter mug which held two quarts of old
-beer. Any man who could drink this quantity at a breath might charge
-the amount to the lord of the manor; if he failed, he paid for it
-himself. But so often was the heroic deed accomplished by capacious
-Welshmen that it is recorded the tenants paid but half their rent in
-money. It would be interesting to know for how many goblins, fairies,
-“Lantern Jacks,” flickering “Candles of the Dead,” Hen Beint Mawr was
-responsible! Now over every little inn is the sign “Temperance,” for
-Welsh revivals have played havoc with these noble drinking-feats.
-One signboard, I can never pass without a smile, has gone so far as
-rather to insist upon the temperance issue in the words, “Rooms and
-Temperance.” Incidentally, the rector of the Episcopal Church has
-given up his potation, and next door the Welsh Calvinistic Methodist
-minister, also unsupported by home-brewed beer, wrestles with his
-flock. Beddgelert Sabbath-keeping has all the force of an unbroken
-tradition. A gentleman riding a-hunting on Sunday was confronted by
-an old woman who shook her Welsh Bible at him and showered vindictive
-Welsh _l’s_ on his worldly head. Nor was our own experience much
-happier. Our drinking-water was fetched from Ty Ucha, and we had good
-reason to believe it was responsible for wretched feelings. One Sunday
-morning I consulted our Welsh hostess, explained to her what we thought
-of the water, and asked whether we might have some brought from another
-spring. We were told that it could not be drawn on the Sabbath, but
-would be brought to us on Monday morning! In every cottage there is
-a mammoth Welsh Bible, and groups of smaller Bibles both Welsh and
-English. We went into one deserted mountain hut to take pictures of the
-interior; inside, together with an old trunk, a rusty fluting-iron,
-kettles, pans, a portion of the woven couch strung over the wide
-fireplace, and old clothes, we found two Welsh Bibles, one English
-Bible, and a torn portion of “Pilgrim’s Progress.”
-
-[Illustration: THE QUEEN’S TOWER, CONWAY CASTLE
-
-_From an engraving by Cuitt, 1817_]
-
-Indeed, the religious spirit of the place is a tradition but
-infrequently broken in the past thousand years. Edward I had burned
-the priory (now St. Mary’s Church), which was erected as a hospitium
-in connexion with a small chapel and schoolhouse in the second half of
-the sixth century; Henry VIII endeavoured to crush its power, and then
-in 1830 the good villagers themselves entered upon the pious task of
-renovation. In order to make the renovation as thorough as possible,
-they tore down all the rare wood-carving, using it for kindling-wood,
-and in some instances making pieces of household furniture from it;
-they put in a false ceiling of clapboards hiding the fine Gothic arch
-of the roof; the ceiling, together with the walls, they whitewashed,
-and completed their pious task by boarding up several exquisitely
-shaped lancet windows. Fortunately the renovation has been followed by
-a restoration, and now the priory may be seen in some of its ancient
-beauty, with the old yew tree spreading low over the gravestones and
-the Gwynen pouring by its northern walls, singing the same mountain
-song it sang when the canons regular of St. Augustine, barefooted,
-gray-habited, with crucifix and rosary, marched solemnly from chapel to
-hospitium.
-
-The name Beddgelert, the Grave of Gelert (?), brings hundreds of Welsh
-people to see this town each year. It is not an uncommon spectacle
-to see a man, as he stands by the dog’s grave, brushing away tears,
-or a little child crying bitterly. The story is of Prince Llewelyn’s
-greyhound, who saved his master’s baby by killing a fierce wolf, and
-then was slain by his master’s sword, for the Prince, entering, saw the
-cradle overturned and the greyhound’s mouth covered with blood. The
-name of the place, however, has nothing to do with the myth of Gelert;
-the little hill on which the grave stands had for hundreds of years
-been called “Bryn-y-Bedd,” the “Hill of the Grave,” a mound where the
-Irish chief Celert, a far earlier hero than the dog, may have been
-buried. There are parallels in other folk-lore for this tale, and one
-even in the Sanscrit has been discovered in which, in place of Northern
-wolf, a snake is the evil agent. There is an unmistakable twinkle in
-a Beddgelert eye whenever the story is told. Alas! that the greyhound
-buried there was not presented to Prince Llewelyn by his father-in-law,
-King John, in the year 1205, but, the petted possession of two
-Beddgelert spinsters, was presented by them at the beginning of the
-nineteenth century to the sagacious David Prichard, the first owner of
-the Royal Goat Hotel, and promptly interred by him in the famous mound.
-
-Every one of the three valley roads of Beddgelert is filled with
-incidents of Welsh legend and folk-lore. Even in our materialistic
-age the credulous spirit abides here in this mountain-bred people,
-quick, lively, romantic. The village is filled with lovely legend and
-quaint lore; in the farmhouses among the hills heroic stories are still
-told about Arthur and songs sung to Welsh melodies. There are tales
-of ghosts, and of goblins, brown road goblins, and gray goblins of
-the mist; of water sprites in the mountain torrents, now a beautiful,
-half-naked maiden, now a fleshless old man; of the “Candle of the Dead”
-with its clear white flame; of the little red-eyed, red-eared “Hounds
-of Hell” flocking like sheep down some mountain-path; of the pranks
-of “Lantern Jack” on dark winter nights; of the fairies living in the
-summer among the bracken, in winter among heather and gorse, coming out
-of their haunts to dive thievishly into the farmers’ pockets, or to
-steal butter and milk and cheese from the careful housewives. There are
-stories, too, of amiable, kindly fairies who carol and dance nightly.
-
-Driving up from Tremadoc past Tan yr Allt, where Shelley lived for a
-year, one comes to the bridge at the mouth of the pass. This bridge
-is said to have been built by no less a person than the Devil, who
-for his trouble got nothing in toll but a poor little dog that was
-first to scamper over it. Down the Nant Gwynen Valley, a narrow river
-valley running east out of Beddgelert, is Dinas Emrys, the home of
-the magician Merlin and at many times the abiding place of King
-Arthur. Merlin’s well, on the very summit of Dinas Emrys, is still a
-discoverable well. There, too, surrounding the crown of this singular
-hill, are traces and remains of the walls of an old Roman fortress; and
-the entrance over the narrow ridge to the crown of Dinas Emrys bears
-marks of stone hewn hundreds of years ago. Not more than three miles
-further in the same valley is a precipitous pass leading up towards
-Lliwedd by Snowdon, where some legends say Arthur fell and lies buried.
-Up this valley road over Pen y Pass, in a wilderness of boulders
-and crags tumbled hither and thither, is an interesting specimen of
-cromlech, and near by some gigantic rocks so fitted together that they
-form a hut in which an old woman is said to have lived many, many
-years. I hope life was pleasanter to her during all those years than
-it was for us during even the few minutes we were within the strange
-enclosure.
-
-The third valley running out of Beddgelert is the valley of the Colwyn.
-This leads past Moel Hebog--in a cave on whose perpendicular side Owen
-Glendwr lay in hiding for months--towards Carnarvon, a city of a castle
-with casements:--
-
-    “Charm’d magic casements, opening on the foam
-    Of perilous seas, in faery lands forlorn.”
-
-There lying before one over the summer sea is the rim of Anglesey,
-quiet in its mirage of white sand and the green land stretching
-away into gray distance. Still many portions of the old Roman road
-connecting Segontium and Heriri Mons may be seen in this valley,
-bridle-paths the Welsh call “Ffyrdd Elen,” “Elen’s Roads.” Towering
-above, Snowdon looks down, untroubled, from its splendid reach, upon
-these paths, from which, in sunshine and in mist, Druid and Roman,
-henchman of Edward and John, prince and poet and painter, have made
-the steep ascent and seen swimming before them, like the sea of time,
-a hundred hills; beyond, the wide glimmer of the ocean; and heard
-rising through the air the roar of torrent and stream. Halfway up
-Snowdon are the remains of a druidical temple. There, kneeling on some
-of the stones, I listened to the song of wind and sea, the Harp of
-Eryri, and tried to catch a little of the vast panorama, which was,
-somehow, strangely, mournfully human, holding in sky-line and sea-line
-dim shadow of the hearts which had knelt here before--the immemorial
-worshippers of untold beauty.
-
-
-
-
-III
-
-_Hilltop Churches_
-
-
-“Ah,” said Bishop Baldwin, recovering his breath, “the nightingale
-followed wise counsel and never came into Wales.” So, jocund as the
-most unordained, Baldwin’s holy company of the twelfth century moved
-on its way, gathering ever more and more to it cloaks signed with
-the crusading cross of red. To mind come other figures and to mind
-come other pictures--wild, powerful, beautiful, pathetic--of a past
-that is a thousand or two thousand years old. In some rock-strewn
-valley, bleak and barren as the uttermost parts of the earth or
-terrible as the valley of the shadow of death, rises the cry of human
-sacrifice. Hundreds of years later, down a roadway bordered then as
-now with foxglove and bluebells and heather, rides a gallant company,
-gentle-mannered, on pleasure bent. Or by the walls of Conway Castle,
-Edward I bears the body of his Eleanor to its far resting-place in
-Westminster Abbey, where the stones are still fresh from the chisels
-of the builders. Here is “the unimaginable touch of Time,” a Past that
-as it slips away joins the mystery of a Future even at this instant in
-retreat.
-
-But the traveller does not go on foot week after week many scores of
-miles, with these thoughts always present, like Christian with a pack
-upon his back, and meeting as did Christian many difficulties. True, a
-good heart faces the open road expecting many obstacles, and can find
-its wonder-ways even if it loses a night’s rest. Giraldus Cambrensis,
-on the forward march with the Bishop through Wales, could vouch for an
-island in which no one dies, for a wandering bell, for a whale with
-three golden teeth, for grasshoppers that sing better when their heads
-are cut off. He tells the story of a lad, Sisillus Long Leg by name,
-who suffered a violent persecution from toads that in the end consumed
-the young man to the very bones. And like most ecclesiastics, Giraldus
-allows himself the relaxation of a good fish story.
-
-This credulity, charming as it is and panacea for the physical
-tedium of the open road, is the faculty of which the pedestrian of
-to-day must strip himself. No other pilgrimages of which I know have
-been made to these little churches, except by Mr. Herbert North, of
-Wales,--who has studied the old churches of Arllechwyd simply, and to
-whose architectural insight I am greatly indebted,--and by myself.
-During many weeks my journey took me from hillside to hillside and
-mountain-top to mountain-top, studying these ancient foundations. My
-work was grounded upon incredulity; everything was recorded, nothing
-concluded. As a motto the remark of the only thoughtful sexton I have
-met out of literature might have been taken. Contemplating an old stone
-at St. Mary, Conway, inscribed “Y 1066,” he said, “Hit wants a wise
-’ead to find hit out.” At Gyffin beyond Conway we pointed to one object
-after another in the church with the single question--an American
-question:--
-
-“How old is it?”
-
-“It’s very old, mum,” came the reply.
-
-“How old?”
-
-“Oh, very old, mum,” in an impressive voice.
-
-[Illustration: THE GREAT HALL AT CONWAY CASTLE
-
-_From an engraving by Cuitt_]
-
-Having tested barrel vault, paintings, chancel, windows, rood screen,
-roof, walls, doors, in this fashion, we had worked ourselves out of the
-church, so to speak, and I pointed up to a shiny tin rooster crowing
-upon the bell-cot.
-
-“How old is it, the rooster?” I said.
-
-“Oh, very old, mum,” came the solemn reply.
-
-At another place we were told that the bell swinging in the cot, and
-sounding sweetly after the long journey uphill, dated from the fourth
-century. It was useless to inform the poor soul that there were none
-but hand-bells then in North Wales, and that she was in this case only
-a little matter of one thousand years out of the way. After a mount
-up to Llangelynin, taken hastily, and much investigation of objects
-genuinely ancient, the woman who had us in thrall said, pointing
-to a dark recess under a narrow, fixed pew, black as darkness, and
-not more than one foot from the pew in front of it, “There’s a very
-old tablet there, mum, my son says.” Perhaps she had calculated the
-discrepancy between the width of the pew and myself; however, I got
-through to the floor, wiped off the dust with a handkerchief, and
-out blinked, as sleepily as if it were the very Rip Van Winkle of
-stones, the young date 1874! Wild steeple chases there were in plenty,
-with minor fatalities to limb and courage. It is useless, when one
-mountain-top has been achieved, to find that after all there is nothing
-left except the inconsiderable mountain itself,--it is useless then
-to discover upon an opposite summit, whose peak could be reached by a
-well-modulated voice, an extant church of indubitable antiquity, for to
-meet with that church would require an all-day’s walk. There was one
-steeple chase without even the comfort of another church in view.
-
-Once reconciled to these surprises, for which no one can be held
-accountable, and to the ineffectiveness of the sextons whom no one must
-suppose responsible, there are no chances for disappointments except
-such as are self-created. The attendants in most cases are women,
-and wretched creatures some of them are. In one place a woman with a
-goitre, and one eye gone, kept the keys. She was admirably proud of her
-son because he did know something, but as the son spent all his days
-in a mine we were not in a way to inherit his wisdom. Another woman
-was deaf and dumb and foolish. A lad who took us through a church of
-considerable importance, if antiquity can make these deserted churches
-important, was so stupid he received a lecture upon his ignorance.
-His unanswerable sectarian reply was that he did not belong to that
-church anyway. We met with some smart young girls who, with their
-twenty years of wisdom, were above knowledge concerning anything so
-rusty and tumble-down as the church by means of which they hoped to win
-sixpences for ribbons. There were two or three apple-cheeked old women
-clad in caps and bobbing their curtsies. To one, a sweet old soul, I
-was explaining that a certain door could not be very ancient and have
-the big nails it had in it. “Uch,” she replied, in distress. “Well,
-indeed, mum, perhaps they were put in later to hold it together.” It
-may be said, I think, that the keys are kept as far away as possible,
-why I cannot say. So is the vicar kept as far away as possible: even
-the curates get the habit and stay away when they can. As a rule, the
-churches are not set down in the midst of habitable villages, but most
-often upon remote hillsides or hilltops. There is another difficulty
-to be encountered also, in the person of the kindly individual who
-could show you what you wish, but wishes to show you something else.
-One old woman--the Ancient Mariner himself could not have been more
-irresistible--detained us endlessly while she searched for and
-displayed the Duchess of Westminster’s photograph.
-
-These are some of the troubles in a progress otherwise enchanting;
-once realized, it is well to forget them, together with the feet that
-were sometimes too weary to travel five miles further and the shoulder
-that ached under the strap. With its ache of all the ages the dream
-of ancient beauty has no place in it for an hour’s weariness. As if
-the riddle of existence could be explained by a wall rain-washed and
-worn, upon which grow lichen, moss, rustling grass, and even trees,
-and by lintels tipping earthward, golden flowers blowing upon them!
-The eye travels thirstily from stone to stone, or to some peaceful
-bell-cot pointing the bare ridge of a bleak, sheep-covered hill,
-or to the far-away hills and gray sky and solemn, dreary places.
-Spiritually it is easy to understand why these churches are on the
-hills, and the controversy about their position seems a matter of no
-further moment. There are other pictures, too, of churches by the
-sea, in the main not as old as those upon the mountains, enclosures
-where even the tombstones are crowded together in their last sleep.
-Beyond these churchyards lies the encircling shore with ever the white
-lip of the sea at its edge; above, low-lying regiments of clouds
-march Snowdon-wards. Upon one eminence is the church, upon another,
-nearer the water, a castle, and in the valley between these crumbling
-sanctities of power and spirit is the little town, busy still, its
-roofs making a joyous show of colour beneath the blue sky. Within
-these churches by the sea there is ever the tideless roar of the
-waters ringing upon the shores, and from these church doorways the
-eye dreams upon the castle wasting with the land at its feet, or the
-“llys” of King Mark, or upon the faint blue rim of some island, holy
-as the mother of good men. Along the road on one side is the sea; on
-the other, green hills rise into the blue of the sky, their slopes a
-mosaic of gray sheep walls. And here out of the village at the end of
-a grass-grown road, by the sea, lies a little church, around which
-the sands have blown through so many centuries that the windows show
-just the caps looking like sleepy eyes out of the huddled graves. One
-minute time rolls like a chariot wheel crushing all things, another
-moment and it is a mystic circle without beginning and without end. The
-graves upon the hillsides, young in their hundreds of years, look down
-upon the mounds of the British undisturbed in a millennial repose, and
-upon a stone lying as hands two thousand years ago placed it. And past
-the ears rush the centuries of all eternity, as in the travelling of a
-mighty wind.
-
-Seeing with the eye of visions it is not hard to re-create a
-vanished past, to construct again the primitive British church of wood
-and wattle, with its beauty of oaken rafter and carved wood which stone
-now encloses. There is still an ancient wooden church in Greenstead,
-Essex, in plan much like little churches of North Wales,--the walls
-six feet high made of half trees side by side, the roof a tie beam,
-with struts, less than six feet from the floor. This parallelogram
-follows out the double square of what was undoubtedly the plan of
-the ancient British church, something that was still geometrically
-the square sanctuary with its square altar typifying the heavenly
-Jerusalem. Bede, in his “Ecclesiastical History,” speaks of “a church
-fit for an Episcopal See; which, however, after the manner of the
-Scots, he [Finan] did not erect of stone, but of sawn timber, covering
-it with reeds.” It is worth remembering that the little churches being
-discussed are unique examples of a national type based, not upon the
-Roman basilica, but upon the Temple, with its square Holy of Holies,
-and illustrating certain features; a square east end with east window,
-an altar concealed behind screens, and a south door instead of a
-western portal. The wood and wattle churches have disappeared, but upon
-the foundation lines have arisen the present stone churches of North
-Wales, dating back in general to the eleventh and twelfth centuries.
-Their walls of stone are daubed at the joints with mud, similar to the
-treatment the wattle buildings had received, and the whole whitewashed
-inside and out. The roof, later covered with oaken shingles and now
-with soft-coloured slates, was in the Middle Ages thatched deeply
-with reed or straw. At the east end was the small slit window, and
-at the south end a door so low that even a short person must stoop
-to enter it. Originally there were no bell turrets or porches, and
-at the eastern gable merely a wooden cross. Inside, a screen divided
-the building in half, the squints covered by veils, and several doors
-opening into the altar space. Probably the screen was decorated with
-painting as the barrel vaults came to be. Within and without, the
-sanctuary gleamed pure white. The Saxons learned the use of whitewash
-from the British, and St. Wilfrid gloried in having washed the York
-Minster of his day “whiter than snow.”
-
-[Illustration: ST. WINIFRED’S WELL, HOLYHEAD
-
-_From an engraving by Cuitt, 1813_]
-
-As the cottages, coloured white or yellow or pink, are seen nestling
-against the hills of Wales, one regrets that the church no longer
-receives as in olden days the same treatment. With the wash worn from
-the churches and never renewed, the country has lost in picturesque
-beauty. How pretty these buildings must have looked, with their steep
-thatched roofs and white bell-cots gleaming in the midst of dark
-yews, or perhaps some golden-tinted church glowing like a crocus in
-the midst of pines. Not only have the colours faded, as if the land
-were some bright missal turning gray, but the odd circular huts with
-their conical thatched roofs, in which the natives once lived, have
-tumbled down. In those days was a beautiful hospitality, the host and
-hostess serving until all were served, and in these rude dwellings
-the ancient harp was played; and from the wooden book, its revolving
-square crossbars inscribed with letters or notes of music, were read
-the ancient song and poetry of Wales. When the rectangular cottage
-came in it did not differ greatly from the circular hut. There were
-windows--“wind-eyes”--covered with a wooden lattice and shutter, the
-walls smoothly plastered, and the interior made less primitive by the
-use of three-legged tables and chairs. Still later, in the seventeenth
-and eighteenth centuries, the one space was divided off into kitchen,
-chamber, and loft, the kitchen open to the roof and airy, healthful,
-and clean. Hospitality was sacred then; any man might enter a dwelling,
-and delivering up his arms stay as long as he would.
-
-The church was but another sanctuary in olden days where men could
-take refuge from sin or foe. The “llan,” which is the prefix to fully
-eight tenths of all the names of ancient churches in North Wales,
-means “enclosure.” Probably in these places were the earliest monastic
-settlements, at a time when the “llan,” as the Irish “rath,” enclosed
-habitation as well as sanctuary. But as the years brought about
-greater specification in the functions of church and state the term
-narrowed itself down and was applied solely to the church. The old
-churchyard walls are still more or less circular like British fort
-walls. Llangelynin has an enclosure that undoubtedly follows the old
-lines. The walls of the churchyard near Holyhead are extremely ancient,
-seventeen feet high and six feet thick. This masonry, from the presence
-of certain round towers and the particular plastering used, is known
-to be Roman. Set away from the world that is “too much with us,” these
-enclosures are charming old spaces, habitable in a sweet sense. The
-grass looks peace into tired eyes, and to eyes eager with plans rest
-here is merely an emphasis upon the joy of living. And here, as the
-stiles into the close show, the children play and have played from
-generation to generation. Here they climbed upon the roof, and here
-against the north and west walls, where burials are never made, they
-played ball and scratched upon the stone their scoring-marks.
-
-At Llangelynin there are no yew trees; that windy height is too bleak
-for even the sturdy yew. Only white harebells and hardy grass blow
-about on its bare rock-strewn summit. But in most of the enclosures
-the yew still stands as the one enduring monument of a past whose very
-rocks have been covered by the silt of over a thousand years. Many of
-these trees date from a British period and remain emblematic to-day
-as they were then. Sometimes it is a single yew by the lychgate which
-one sees, or an alley of the deathless green, or perhaps yew branches
-completely veil a gable end of the little church. At Beddgelert, the
-oldest foundation in all Wales, the yew stands to-day as it stood
-some two thousand years ago; about its base have rushed the floods of
-wild mountain torrents, from its feet the graves of centuries have
-been washed away down to the all-embracing sea. Like children of
-yesterday are the mediæval lychgates through which one passes into the
-church enclosure and through which is often caught the first glimpse
-of the church bell-cot. At Caerhûn (the ancient Canovium), where the
-yew spreads over the gate is a double bell-cot, which, as it has the
-traditional straight ridge and gable in the middle, is amongst the
-oldest in Wales, of the fourteenth or fifteenth century, for the cots
-as well as the lychgates are “recent” in the life of these churches.
-The little crucifixes with their straight arms are also of this date.
-Before this time the local churches had nothing but hand-bells, which
-were held in great reverence. One of them may be seen in the stone
-coffin of Llewelyn the Great at Llanrwst. It is about ten inches high
-and cast on an oblong plan. Gildas gave such a bell to St. David. Six
-hundred years later, in the twelfth century, Giraldus Cambrensis tells
-the story of a portable bell called “Bangu” which, when a certain woman
-carried it to a castle where her husband was wrongfully imprisoned,
-caused the destruction of the whole town except the church walls. The
-campanology of North Wales is a romance in itself, a collection of odd,
-interesting, pathetic tales of past miracles, past friendships, past
-enmities.
-
-The original buildings not only did not have lychgates and bell-cots,
-they also did not have porches, and some to-day do not have them. But
-they are being added from time to time, and fearful are some of them
-to behold. At St. Mary’s, Llanfwrog Church, just across the bridge
-from quaint Ruthin, where the Duchess of Westminster has lived and
-is of vastly more interest to the people than gable ends and oaken
-rafters and other such stuff, fit only for the attics of men’s minds,
-is a bit of “restoration” suitable for display in the windows of a
-carriage-shop. The chancel railing is bright green, red, and black,
-the pews black and red,--a foretaste possibly of the landscape into
-which some of their occupants will one day take a dip,--and the stained
-glass vies with a refracted solar ray in yellows and oranges and reds
-and blues and greens. From this “restored” edifice drops a long flight
-of steps past the windows and signboard of an ancient hostelry, “Ye
-Labour in Vain Inn.” One cannot help wishing that the white gentleman
-upon the signboard, who is scrubbing a black man in a tub of water,
-would take his scrubbing-brush up to the church. Often, after all else
-has been hopelessly restored and all vestiges of harmonious beauty
-have disappeared, the old doorway remains, witness of an instinctive
-reverence for a threshold. Many of the circular-headed doorways, now
-hooded with porches, date from the eleventh and twelfth centuries and
-even earlier, and through them one passes over a mere sill into the
-sacred enclosure.
-
-A few points, simple and easy to remember as well as easy to discover,
-give an added intelligent pleasure in the study of these churches. The
-oldest churches are generally from twelve feet six inches to fourteen
-feet wide; the early walls from three feet to three feet six inches
-thick. Sixteenth-century walls rarely exceed two feet and a half in
-thickness. The old wattle buildings were daubed with a mixture of clay
-and cow dung; these church walls are built with earth and rendered
-on the face with lime and mortar. Buttresses are sometimes found,
-but they do not belong to early local work. The roofs are easy to
-examine and often of an enchanting beauty. At Llangelynin is a roof
-which is probably the original twelfth-century covering. The roof at
-Llanrhychwyn is also of the close couple type; here the struts are
-straight, but carved, and there are two ties across the nave. In some
-of these roofs are intermediary rafters, added when the thatch was
-replaced by slate.
-
-The earliest mention of a chancel of which I know is that in the
-poems of Cynddelw, who lived in the twelfth century, in his ode to
-Tysilio, when he speaks of a certain church as the “light or shining
-church” with a chancel for mass. We cannot assume that even in the
-twelfth century chancels were by any means common in North Wales.
-At Mallwyd Church there was, not so long ago, a communion table in
-the centre of the building, and there is no question but that holy
-ceremonies were performed originally, instead of at a chancel end, in
-the midst of this rectangular Holy of Holies. At Bardsey, Pennant found
-an insulated stone altar rather nearer the east end than the centre.
-The rough, uneven slate paving in these churches is comparatively
-modern, and it might be added comparatively luxurious. The first paving
-was mud and sometimes flat stones. Formerly the windows were covered
-by wooden shutters or lattices; that was the usage in all conventual
-buildings. Now the windows are either well or illy filled with coloured
-glass. In many of the churches falling into great dilapidation the
-windows have been stuffed with stone and mortar, or rudely boarded
-over. Some of the stained glass is genuinely ugly and some of it
-genuinely and anciently lovely. That at Llanrhychwyn, coloured in brown
-line and yellow stain and representing the Virgin and Child and the
-Holy Trinity, is of the fifteenth century and still beautiful. Probably
-the use of glass was not introduced into Wales till the thirteenth
-century. West windows were unknown in local Welsh work. Where a window
-with such an exposure is found, the opening did not belong to the early
-church. There are windows of great antiquity in these churches. Look at
-the lintelled window in the passageway into St. Beuno’s Chapel. Courage
-hesitates at assigning a date to this bit of work. There are windows
-far more elaborate of a comparatively early date, but they are the
-work of Latin monks and do not follow the straight lines of the native
-British architecture. An exquisite example of early Latin work is that
-of the Gilbertine monks upon the Beddgelert triplet.
-
-The barrel vaults in these churches are curious concave coverings
-over the chancel end, ark-like in form and supposed type of the ancient
-church. These oaken canopies have been elaborately painted in the past;
-now they are to be seen in every stage of dilapidation, provoking the
-eye by their interrupted pictures or faint lines of red and blue. They
-are approximately of the same date, although not in the same condition,
-for their destruction is due to leaky roofs and not to age. The ground
-colour was the green-blue the Middle Ages loved so well, and the other
-colours red, yellow, and white. At Llandanwg, where the sea would flow
-into the western door were it not for a big embankment, there is a
-barrel vault with faint traces of painting upon it. An old man whose
-father and mother were the last people to be married there told us he
-took an interest in it, it was the only church in Harlech Parish fifty
-years ago, and “the only service held there then was when the parson
-and the clerk used to go over and enjoy drinking their beer on the
-gravestones.” English came stiff to his tongue, but he described the
-fearful condition of the church, and the way the people took off the
-seats for firewood and the children made a playhouse of the abandoned
-structure. In one corner of the barrel vault was a picture of the Devil
-prodding people down into hell. The children threw things at these
-paintings, mud and other articles, till the pictures were completely
-destroyed. Whatever the subject, it is pleasant to recall the colouring
-of the barrel vaults, for, executed five or six hundred years ago, they
-must have been brightly beautiful like the margins of an illuminated
-book, radiant with something of the blue and gold of very heaven
-itself. Of the rood screens and lofts that veiled the chancel space,
-there are but few left intact; of the sacred rood itself, no vestige
-except the socket on the candlebeam into which its pedestal slipped.
-Fanaticism has swept this feature away. In Beddgelert their rood-screen
-carving was converted into chairs for household use or fuel for warmth.
-Strangely enough, Queen Elizabeth was the last defender of the screen’s
-mystical beauty of carven wood and the silent admonishing figure
-stretched upon its façade. At Llanengan there is a screen of rare
-delicacy, stolen, together with some elbow stalls and silver bells,
-from Bardsey, that resting-place of saints which seems to have been to
-the ecclesiastical world what Fuseli said Blake was to the art world,
-“good to steal from.” Chests, worm-eaten and with rusty bolts, are
-often among the church treasures. St. Beuno’s chest at Clynnog is as
-old as the saint himself. And at Clynnog, too, are dog tongs, or lazy
-tongs as they were sometimes called, in each paddle four sharpened
-nails which must have seemed bitter to any doggie’s sides, lean or fat,
-as he was lifted ignominiously out of the sanctuary. And, oh, woe if it
-caught him by the tail or foot! There are different types of fonts in
-these churches: small square fonts like the earliest of Palestine, Asia
-Minor, Egypt; extremely small fonts of various shapes dating from the
-eleventh to the fourteenth century; large fonts used for immersion, and
-belonging to the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. At Llanderfel near
-Corwen is a wooden image, never, I imagine, satisfactorily accounted
-for. It is a horse, though curiously like a deer in appearance. This
-figure was the standard for the image that rested upon it and which
-went, several hundred years ago, to help in the burning of poor Friar
-Forest at Smithfield, to whom, while the fire crackled about his feet,
-Latimer preached a sermon. Now even the brass tablet on the standard
-has been sent to the British Museum, and the standard itself, till
-within the last few years, used for a pig-trough.
-
-Apparently London thought a Welshman who denied the supremacy of
-the king worth burning, difficult to be rid of. Well might Englishmen
-consider such a man’s forebears in saintship. The Latins tried to rid
-the Western world of these anomalies in spiritual heritage--in vain!
-The Reformation burnt them. In vain, too, for the Welshman to-day,
-nonconformist and conformist alike, is as tenacious of the lists of
-his hagiology as ever he was a thousand years ago. To the ancient Celt
-there were three free dignitaries: church, land, and poet. To-day these
-remain the revered dignitaries to the Welshman. In the past these
-offices had been closely united, for to a Welshman saintship came by
-birth, celebrity depended afterwards upon how he acted. There is an odd
-title to a Welsh catalogue of saints: “Bonedd Saint ynys Prydain,”--the
-Gentility of the Saints of the Isle of Britain. An old Irish song says
-of St. Patrick that he “was a gentleman and came of decent people,” a
-fact which to us does not seem prerequisite for saintdom. Not so to the
-Celt; and it is best to keep this essential difference in mind, or one
-might be puzzled by running across the annals, some day, of a saint
-in so cheery a state that he fell into his own holy well and escaped
-drowning only because of the good luck universally known to attend
-people in a similar condition. The object of the Celtic saint, till
-he became Latinized, was to serve his tribe by increasing its riches
-and enlarging its boundaries. It was not necessary for him, as it was
-for his brother Latin, to receive any papal sanction for his sainthood
-or to work any miracles. His _carte_ to sanctity was membership in a
-certain family or monastery. The Latin Christian world, establishing
-its supremacy by degrees, could not fail to scoff at the temporal
-emphasis of Welsh saintdom. Even Giraldus, a Welshman, comments mildly
-upon the vindictiveness of certain saints, of whom he often knew more
-than he cared to tell. Gradually, by ridicule chiefly, the lists of
-Celtic holy men were closed. Even Bardsey, the _Insula Sanctorum_ of
-the Welsh, does not escape a laugh from many critics, one of whom
-observes that “It would be more facile to find graves in Bardsey for
-so many saints than saints for so many graves”; a remark grudging and
-ungracious, for the world has condescended to steal everything from
-Bardsey and might leave it at least the glory of claiming as many dead
-saints as it pleases.
-
-[Illustration: THE EAGLE TOWER OF CARNARVON CASTLE
-
-_From an engraving by Cuitt_]
-
-The tales, fabulous and odd, told of Welsh saints, Welsh relics, and
-holy wells, are particularly charming because they are not marred by
-over-didacticism. Tydecho was an illustrious saint who lived in the
-time of King Arthur. Retiring from the world, he led a life of mingled
-austerity in penance and of useful hours of ploughing. One day a youth
-seized his oxen, but the next day wild stags were drawing the plough,
-and a wolf harrowing after them. Furious, the youth brought his dogs
-to chase away Tydecho’s wild friends. While enjoying this diversion he
-seated himself upon a stone; attempting to rise he found himself fixed
-to the rock. Truly a humiliating position for a proud-spirited youth
-who enjoys taunting an old man! Friendship between man and beast is
-woven into these tales like the bright colours threading the letters
-of an ancient bestiary. St. Monacella protected hares from Brochwel
-Yscythrog, who was hunting them. She hid the trembling little beasts
-under her robe and, praying devoutly, faced the dogs. The dogs ceased
-their running, and even when the horn was blown as a command to them
-to follow the hare, they stole away howling and the horn stuck to the
-huntsman’s lips. After Brochwel had listened to Monacella’s plea, the
-little creatures were released, and to this day no one in the parish
-will hunt one of Monacella’s lambs.
-
-Many and attractively full of poetry are the superstitions that
-still live in the solitudes of northern Wales. “Bees were created in
-paradise,” say the “Leges Wallicæ,” “and no light save beeswax is to be
-used at mass.” When on the fall of man they left paradise, God Himself
-is said to have blessed them. They produced, too, the nectarious “medd”
-of which the ancient Britons thought so much. One day we encountered a
-hillside woman in great distress, breathless and flapping her apron;
-her bees were running away and apparently the worldly creature had no
-intention of letting them run back to paradise. Bent pins are still to
-be found at the bottom of the sacred well within the church close, pins
-dropped in before bathing to cure warts. Woe to the bather who failed
-to drop in the propitiatory pin, for he promptly caught the warts
-of which others had got rid. And in these holy wells the clothes of
-sick children were washed, with happy auguries if the little garments
-floated, with fell portent if they sank. At Llangelynin, where the
-well is still in excellent condition, an old woman told me that to
-cure a sick child a stranger to the family must dip the child in after
-sundown. Spitting upon hearing the name of the Devil may not be polite,
-but it is a simple way of expressing contempt, and so, too, is smiting
-the breast in self-condemnatory woe at the name of Judas. Some of their
-superstitions and customs, despite the smack of folly, are wise in
-their emphasis upon the power of the imagination.
-
-There are, too, some wholesome customs of precedence. The parson always
-used to go out of chapel first,--in some places he does so still,--and
-the parishioner who disputed this order of rank might have his ears
-boxed for his trouble. After the baptism of a little child old women
-wash their failing eyes in the font with pathetic faith in the virtue
-of new, God-given life. There used to be some sweet customs, not
-entirely lost yet, connected with burial. As the coffin rested on the
-bier outside the door, the next of kin among the women gave to the
-poorest persons in the parish, over the body of the dead, a great dish
-filled with white bread. Then a cup of drink was handed across the bier
-to the same poor and all knelt to repeat the Lord’s Prayer. At every
-crossroad between the house and church they knelt again to pray, the
-sexton’s hand-bell quiet only when all knees were on the earth.
-
-On the way from church to church many tablets arrest the eye, kneeling
-fathers and mothers with processions of kneeling children in a line
-behind them. The _viva voce_ history of these reliefs suggests the
-less quaint and more beautiful and enduring _relievo_ of sepulchral
-urns. At Clynnog I counted thirteen children in happy procession
-after one father. At Conway I might have counted twenty-nine if I
-had wished to, but I had no such wish. At Corwen we found knee-holes
-in both footstones and headstones to make comfortable the knees of
-friends while they prayed,--or meditated, as I confess I did, upon the
-hideousness of most sepulchral carving and inscription. There was one
-part of these records which, with even the best traditions behind me,
-could not be undertaken--the epitaph or similar memento. Early in the
-journey this inscription was encountered:
-
-                        Heare lyeth the body of
-                     John, ap Robert, ap Porth, ap
-                     David, ap Griffith, ap David
-                        Vauchan, ap Blethyn, ap
-                        Griffith, ap Meredith,
-                       ap Jerworth, ap Llewelyn,
-                       ap Jerorh, ap Heilin, ap
-                         Cowryd, ap Cadvan, ap
-                        Alawgwa, ap Cadell, the
-                          King of Powys, who
-                        departed this life the
-                        XX day of March, in the
-                         Year of our Lord God
-                             1642, and of
-                             his age XCV.
-
-Now it was plain that this was one of the results of the saints’
-unsaintly emphasis upon a family-tree. Certainly a man has a right
-to as many ancestors as he can compass. But thereafter, when I saw
-the usual clusters of “aps” and “Griffyevanjoneses,” I experienced a
-reluctant and fluttering sensation within accompanied by external haste
-to get elsewhere. Just one other epitaph, by reason of its brevity,
-caught my pencil:--
-
-                         Here lies John Shore,
-                            I say no more;
-                            Who was alive
-                            In sixty-five.
-
-
-
-
-IV
-
-_Dr. Johnson’s Tour of North Wales_
-
-                      “What should we speak of
-    When we are as old as you? When we shall hear
-    The rain and wind beat dark December, how
-    In this our pinching cave, shall we discourse
-    The freezing hours away? We have seen nothing.”
-
-
-Even the motion of driving in a post-chaise captivated the fancy of
-Dr. Johnson, for he said, “If I had no duties, and no reference to
-futurity, I would spend my life in driving briskly in a post-chaise
-with a pretty woman; but she should be one who could understand me, and
-would add something to the conversation.” Mrs. Piozzi, who, except for
-that of prettiness, fulfilled these requirements both as a brilliant
-conversationalist and owner of a post-chaise, asked her beloved Doctor
-why he doted on a coach. Johnson’s reply was, that in the first place
-the company was shut in with him “and could not escape as out of a
-room,” and that in the second place, he could hear all the conversation
-in a carriage. Any lamentations while travelling thus he considered
-proof of an empty head or tongue that wished to talk and had nothing
-about which to talk. “A mill that goes without grist,” he exclaimed,
-“is as good a companion as such creatures.” As for himself, he felt no
-inconvenience upon the road and he expected others to feel none. He
-allowed nobody to complain of rain, sun, or dust. And so greatly did
-he love this act of going forward that Mrs. Thrale (Mrs. Piozzi) said
-she could not tell how far he might be taken before he would think of
-refreshments.
-
-Yet the impression which Macaulay gave of Johnson’s attitude towards
-travelling is the one generally held: “Of foreign travel and of history
-he spoke with the fierce and boisterous contempt of ignorance. ‘What
-does a man learn by travelling? Is Beauclerk the better for travelling?
-What did Lord Claremount learn in his travels, except that there was
-a snake in one of the pyramids of Egypt?’” History has proved that
-Macaulay could be brilliantly inaccurate; certainly in this estimate
-of Johnson he was so. In still another passage Macaulay says that Dr.
-Johnson “took it for granted that everybody who lived in the country
-was either stupid or miserable.” The first twenty-seven years of
-his life Johnson spent in small country towns and, although he was
-sometimes miserable, because he was wretchedly poor, he was never
-stupid.
-
-It was the young traveller whom he censured, not the mature traveller
-or travelling in general. It was characteristic of him to say, “I never
-like young travellers; they go too raw to make any great remarks.”
-Indeed, so grave was his sense of the value of travel that he took
-it upon himself to rebuke Boswell, as Boswell records: “Dr. Johnson
-expressed a particular enthusiasm with respect to visiting the Wall of
-China. I catched it for the moment, and said I really believed I should
-go and see the Wall of China had I not children, of whom it was my duty
-to take care. ‘Sir,’ (said he), ‘by doing so you would do what would be
-of importance in raising your children to eminence. There would be a
-lustre reflected upon them from your spirit and curiosity. They would
-be at all times as the children of a man who had gone to view the Wall
-of China. I am serious, sir.’”
-
-In his college days Johnson may not have had the same reasons as the
-young poet Keats for going “wonder-ways,” but reasons he had. With the
-Doctor, perhaps even more truly than with Keats, curiosity was “the
-first passion and the last.” While an undergraduate he was heard to
-say, “I have a mind to see what is done in other places of learning.
-I’ll go and visit the universities abroad. I’ll go to France and Italy.
-I’ll go to Padua.” Twice he urged Boswell “to perambulate Spain,” and
-of their tour to the Hebrides everybody knows. There was talk of his
-going to Iceland, and for a time the great Doctor discussed travelling
-around the world with two friends.
-
-Of the existence of the journal of Johnson’s tour in North Wales even
-Boswell did not know. This journey was begun by the Thrales and the
-Doctor leaving Streatham at eleven o’clock on Tuesday morning of July
-15, 1774. On their way they stopped at Litchfield at the house of Dr.
-Darwin, psychologist, poet, and grandfather of Charles Darwin, of whose
-roses Mrs. Piozzi wrote, “I have no roses equal to those at Litchfield,
-where on one tree I recollect counting eighty-four within my own reach;
-it grew against the house of Dr. Darwin.”
-
-After passing through several towns on their route to North Wales
-they came, a party of four, Mr. and Mrs. Thrale, little Queenie and
-Johnson, to Chester on July twenty-seventh. Of Chester the Doctor made
-short work. He was more interested in a grammar school held in part
-of the Abbey refectory than in aught else, and wrote particularly,
-“The Master seemed glad to see me.” Of course the Master was glad, for
-was not Johnson the greatest man of his day? There is not one word
-for the quiet beauty of the Dee, no mention of Cheshire cheese, and
-nothing about Chester ale, which perhaps Johnson found as bad as did
-Sion Tudor. Of their sojourn in Chester we get a more lively picture
-from Mrs. Thrale’s comment on the entry in the Doctor’s journal than
-from the journal itself. Johnson wrote, “We walked round the walls,
-which are compleat.” Mrs. Piozzi observed, “Of those _ill-fated_
-walls Dr. Johnson might have learned the extent from any one. He has
-since put me fairly out of countenance by saying, ‘I have known _my
-mistress_ fifteen years, and never saw her fairly out of humour but
-on Chester wall’; it was because he would keep Miss Thrale beyond
-her hour of going to bed to walk on the wall, where from the want of
-light, I apprehended some accident to her,--perhaps to him.” Probably
-nine-year-old “Miss Thrale” did not mind being kept beyond her hour of
-going to bed by a stout gentleman who was her devoted slave!
-
-The next day they entered Wales, dined at Mold and came to Llewenni.
-Mrs. Thrale’s cousin, Robert Cotton, was living at Llewenni Hall, which
-in 1817, after having been one thousand years in possession of the
-family, was torn down. At Whitchurch, a few miles away, is an alabaster
-altar monument to one of the Salusbury’s who owned this hall, Sir John,
-or Syr John y Bodiau (“Sir John of the Thumbs”). This ancestor of
-Mrs. Piozzi was not only distinguished by two thumbs on either hand,
-but also by a giant’s strength. With his bare fist he is supposed to
-have slain a white lioness in the Tower of London. Since then white
-lionesses have all disappeared. Sir John of the Thumbs also killed a
-mythical beast in a lair below a near-by castle, and overthrew a famous
-giant. Is it any wonder that Mrs. Thrale, with such a forefather,
-should sometimes have painted things _plus beau que le vérité_, and
-that, even as her ancestor was fond of pulling up trees by the roots
-when he had nothing better to do, his descendant should once in a while
-give truth a little tug?
-
-But if Mrs. Thrale had a distinguished progenitor, she had an even
-more distinguished ancestress, for there at Llewenni Hall lived “Mam
-Cymru,” the Mother of Wales. This Catherine de Berain’s first husband
-was a Salusbury, her second husband was Sir Richard Clough. The second
-daughter of the second marriage married Salusbury of Bachycraig,
-and from this marriage Mrs. Piozzi was descended. Later, Catherine
-de Berain became the third wife of Maurice Wynne, who was her third
-husband. It is said that on the way home from the funeral of her first
-husband, Wynne asked her to marry him. She had to refuse, however, as
-Sir Richard Clough had asked her on the way _to_ the church. But she
-assured him that she was not superstitious about the number 3, and
-agreed to give Wynne the next opportunity. She kept her word.
-
-When the Welsh used to speak of a rich person, they did not say “rich
-as Crœsus” but “rich as a Clough.” On July thirtieth, Johnson and the
-Thrales visited a remarkable house built by Sir Richard, the second
-husband of “Mam Cymru.” On the thirty-first day they drove to the
-Cathedral of St. Asaph, once the even smaller church of Llanelwy, to
-which Giraldus Cambrensis in his tour in 1188 referred as “paupercula.”
-About that time this tiny cathedral was changed from wickerwork or wood
-to stone. On the same day they saw the Chapel of Llewenni, founded by
-one of the Salusburys, where Johnson was surprised because the service,
-read thrice on Sundays, was read only once in English.
-
-[Illustration: GATEWAY OF CARNARVON CASTLE
-
-_From an engraving by Cuitt_]
-
-He was dissatisfied not only with the order of Welsh services, but
-also with the behaviour of Welsh rivers. On this day he writes: “The
-rivers here are mere torrents which are suddenly swelled by the rain to
-great breadth and great violence, but have very little constant stream;
-such are the Clwyd and the Elwy.” About Welsh rivers Johnson makes a
-great many remarks. He is as scornful of them as an American is of the
-Thames. Mrs. Piozzi says that his “ideas of anything not positively
-large were ever mingled with contempt.” He asked of one of the sharp
-currents in North Wales, “Has this _brook_ e’er a name?” “Why, dear
-Sir, this is the _River_ Ustrad.” “Let us,” said Dr. Johnson, turning
-to his friend, “jump over it directly, and show them how an Englishman
-should treat a Welsh river.” Johnson was always of opinion that when
-one had seen the ocean, cascades were but little things. He used to
-laugh at Shenstone most unmercifully for not caring whether there was
-anything good to eat in the streams he was so fond of. “As if,” says
-Johnson, “one could fill one’s belly with hearing soft murmurs, or
-looking at rough cascades!”
-
-It would be difficult to make a summary of all the objects Johnson
-called “mean” in North Wales. Among them were towns, rivers, inns,
-dinners, churches, houses, choirs. It is safe to say that the great
-Doctor could not rid himself altogether of English prejudices against
-the Welsh and all things Welsh. George Borrow’s experience on the
-summit of Snowdon was not at all unusual, except that in this instance
-an Englishman in the presence of English people became the champion of
-the Welsh. Undoubtedly Johnson was influenced in his contempt not only
-by his English feeling, but also by the fact that he was a true son of
-the eighteenth century, with all that century’s emphasis on power, on
-size, on utility.
-
-Yet Johnson was not totally incapable of appreciating the romantic
-scenery of Wales. Some part of it, the more cultivated, he seems
-to have felt, for on the very next day there is this record: “The
-way lay through pleasant lanes, and overlooked a region beautifully
-diversified with trees and grass.” It mortified Mrs. Thrale because
-Mr. Thrale, a lover of landscapes, could not enjoy them with the great
-Doctor, who would say, “Never heed such nonsense, a blade of grass is
-always a blade of grass, whether in one country or another. Let us, if
-we _do_ talk, talk about something; men and women are my subject of
-enquiry; let us see how these differ from those we have left behind.”
-However, Johnson was certainly not insensible to the beauty of nature.
-In describing his emotions at the sight of Iona, he wrote: “Whatever
-withdraws us from the power of our senses, whatever makes the past, the
-distant, or the future predominate over the present, advances us in the
-dignity of thinking beings.” In his tour in the Hebrides he welcomed
-even the inconveniences of travelling, such as wind and rain, when they
-meant finer scenery and more pictures for the mind.
-
-Much on this same August second was found “mean,” including Mrs.
-Thrale’s gift to the romantic old clerk of the parish church of
-Bachycraig where Mrs. Thrale’s father was buried. The day following,
-on their arrival in Holywell, Johnson had to admit that the town was
-“neither very small nor very mean.” He was amazed and impressed by
-the yield of water from St. Winifred’s Well, and the number of mill
-wheels the water turned. But when they went down by the stream to see
-a prospect, Johnson adds very specifically that he “had no part” in
-it. He was vastly more interested in some brass and copper works, in
-_lapis calaminaris_, in pigs of copper, and in some ironworks where he
-saw iron half an inch thick “square-cut with shears worked by water,”
-and hammers that moved as quick “as by the hand.” One has a curious
-feeling that, were the Doctor suddenly translated to this world again,
-foundries would interest him vastly more than any natural panorama.
-In this Johnson was truly a man of his times, which were epoch-making
-because of their new interest in the mechanics of industry, their
-gigantic industrial impulse. Without a word for the singular beauties
-of Holywell, without reference to the legend of St. Winifred or mention
-of the ruins of the Abbey, he concludes his journal for August third:
-“I then saw wire drawn, and gave a shilling. I have enlarged my notion,
-though not being able to see the movements, and not having time to peep
-closely, I know less than I might.”
-
-Another feature of the land impressed him favourably, the houses of
-country gentlemen. “This country seems full of very splendid houses,”
-he notes on August fourth, after visiting a Mr. Lloyd’s house near
-Ruthin, where he had been to see the castle. He writes quite at length
-on the ruins of Ruthin and ends characteristically, “Only one tower had
-a chimney, so that there was [little] commodity of living. It was only
-a place of strength.” It was on this day that the keep of the castle,
-when he heard that Mrs. Thrale was a native of North Wales, told her
-that his wife had been a Welshwoman, and had desired to be buried at
-Ruthin. “So,” said the man, “I went with the corpse myself, because I
-thought it would be a pleasant journey, and indeed I found Ruthin a
-very beautiful place.”
-
-Two days later they dined at Mr. Myddleton’s, of Gwaenynog, the
-gentleman who raised the unwelcome monument to Johnson’s memory before
-the Doctor had had a chance to die, and while he still considered
-himself very much alive. This memorial is on the site at Gwaenynog
-where Johnson used to stroll up and down. It reads: “This spot was
-often dignified by the presence of Samuel Johnson, LL.D., whose moral
-writings, exactly conformable to the precepts of Christianity, gave
-ardour to Virtue and confidence to Truth.” Perhaps it is not strange
-that Johnson was not pleased with the monument. He wrote to Mrs.
-Thrale, “Mr. Myddleton’s attention looks like an intention to bury
-me alive. I would as willingly see my friend, however benevolent and
-hospitable, quietly inurned. Let him think, for the present, of some
-more acceptable memorial.”
-
-To the Doctor death was always an enemy who would, he knew, outwit him
-in the end, a terrifying presence against which he struggled. “But who
-can run the race with death?” he cries despairingly. This premature
-memorial must have revolted everything in him, for to him “the whole
-of life” was but keeping away the thoughts of death. Even a dark road
-troubled him.
-
-Leaving Llewenni on August eighteenth, they started definitely forward
-on their journey. They passed through Abergele, “a mean little town,”
-to Bangor, where they found “a very mean inn.” Certainly meanness is
-accumulating in Wales! Johnson had the instinctive contempt for things
-Welsh which so many English people hold. But, after finding Lord
-Bulkely’s house at Bangor also “very mean,” this is the point in the
-great Doctor’s journal where the lover of Wales may take heart.
-
-There was one contrivance of the hand and mind of man which impressed
-Dr. Johnson tremendously. Where such works of the Creator as Snowdon,
-for example, failed, where the mystery of this land of legend passed
-him by, castles succeeded by virtue of their size, the strength of
-their walls, the completeness of their equipment. In Denbigh, Johnson
-had eagerly tried to trace the lines of that “prodigious pile” of a
-castle. So much of the comment we get in this neglected Welsh journal
-and in Johnson’s other writings seems to summarize itself in two
-words: size and power. He told Mrs. Piozzi to get a book on gardening,
-since she would stay in the country, feed the chickens, and starve her
-intellect, “and learn,” he said, “to raise the _largest_ turnips, and
-to breed the _biggest_ fowls.” It was in vain that Mrs. Piozzi told him
-that the goodness of these dishes did not depend upon their size.
-
-From Beaumaris Castle to Carnarvon there is a crescendo of praise,
-ending in the memorable words about Carnarvon: “To survey this place
-would take much time. I did not think there had been such buildings;
-it surpassed my ideas.” Of Beaumaris, Johnson wrote: “The Castle is
-a mighty pile.… This Castle corresponds with all the representatives
-of romancing narratives. Here is not wanting the private passage, the
-dark cavity, the deep dungeon, or the lofty tower. We did not discover
-the well. This is the most compleat view that I have yet had of an old
-Castle.” And then came four last delighted words, “It had a moat.”
-
-Nor was the next day, August twentieth, less of a success. After
-meeting with some friends they went to see the castle in Carnarvon,
-which Johnson describes as “an edifice of stupendous magnitude and
-strength; it has in it all that we observed at Beaumaris, and much
-greater dimensions, many of the smaller rooms floored with stone are
-entire; of the larger rooms, the beams and planks are all left; this is
-the state of all buildings left to time. We mounted the Eagle Tower by
-one hundred and sixty-nine steps, each of ten inches. We did not find
-the well; nor did I trace the moat; but moats there were, I believe, to
-all castles on the plain, which not only hindered access, but prevented
-mines. We saw but a very small part of the mighty ruin, and in all
-these old buildings, the subterraneous works are concealed by the
-rubbish.”
-
-When Johnson and the Thrales were on their way from Llewenni to
-Bangor, they passed through Conway. The Doctor was much exercised
-in Conway because of the plight of an Irish gentlewoman and her
-young family who could get no beds to sleep in, but the one feature
-in this rare old town which might have impressed him, its castle,
-he did not notice in the journal. Built by the same architect who
-planned Carnarvon, it has much of its grace and is in some respects
-even more beautifully placed. With its machicolated towers, its vast
-banqueting-hall, Queen Eleanor’s oratory, and the river washing at
-its foundations, it is still a wonderful old pile. On the return trip
-Johnson makes a short, practical note to the effect that the castle
-afforded them nothing new, and that if it was larger than that of
-Beaumaris, it was smaller than that of Carnarvon. Carnarvon was the
-largest, and the Doctor was not to be weaned from it any more than from
-the idea that Mrs. Thrale ought to raise the largest turnips.
-
-The day following this memorable inspection of Carnarvon Castle,
-they dined with Sir Thomas Wynne and his Lady. Johnson’s comment was
-brief,--“the dinner mean, Sir Thomas civil, his Lady nothing.” It would
-seem that Lady Wynne failed to recognize the greatness of her visitor,
-and, accustomed to a distinguished reception, the great man’s vanity
-was hurt. Afterwards he made remarks about Sir Thomas’s Lady, in which
-she was compared to “sour small beer” and “run tea.” Of a lady in
-Scotland he had said “that she resembled a dead nettle; were she alive
-she would sting.”
-
-This mean dinner and, we presume, its meaner hostess were but a
-sorry prelude to a melancholy journey which the party had to take
-to Mrs. Thrale’s old home at Bodvel. They found nothing there as in
-Mrs. Thrale’s childhood; the walk was cut down, the pond was dry.
-The near-by churches which Mrs. Thrale held by impropriation Johnson
-thought “mean and neglected to a degree scarcely imaginable. They
-have no pavement, and the earth is full of holes. The seats are
-rude benches; the altars have no rails. One of them has a breach in
-the roof. On the desk, I think, of each lay a folio Welsh Bible of
-the black letter, which the curate cannot easily read.” Over one
-hundred and thirty years later it was that I made the tour, which I
-have described for you, of these Welsh churches of early foundation.
-Mysterious, desolate, dilapidated old places they are; in comparison
-with the ugly, comfortable nonconformist chapels, spectacles for the
-prosperous to jeer at.
-
-Mrs. Piozzi tells a story which shows that the great Doctor brought
-terror to the hearts of the Welsh parsons. “It was impossible not to
-laugh at the patience Dr. Johnson showed, when a Welsh parson of mean
-abilities, though a good heart, struck with reverence at the sight of
-Dr. Johnson, whom he had heard of as the greatest man living, could
-not find any words to answer his enquiries concerning a motto around
-somebody’s arms which adorned a tombstone in Ruabon Churchyard. If I
-remember right, the words were,--
-
-    Heb Dw, Heb Dym (Without God, without all)
-    Dw o’ diggon (God is all sufficient).[1]
-
-And though of not very difficult construction, the gentleman seemed
-wholly confounded, and unable to explain them; till Dr. Johnson, having
-picked out the meaning by little and little, said to the man, ‘_Heb_ is
-a preposition, I believe, Sir, is it not?’ My countryman, recovering
-some spirits upon the sudden question, cried out, ‘So I humbly presume,
-Sir,’ very comically.”
-
-About Bodvel they found the Methodist “prevalent,” which could not
-have been a pleasant circumstance to Johnson. With nonconformity the
-great Doctor had no sympathy. Boswell says that Johnson thought them
-“too sanguine in their accounts of their success among savages, and
-that much of what they tell is not to be believed. He owned that the
-Methodists had done good; had spread religious impressions among the
-vulgar part of mankind; but, he said, they had great bitterness against
-other Christians, and that he never could get a Methodist to explain in
-what he excelled others.”
-
-This unhappy day they concluded suitably by going to Pwllheli, “a mean
-old town at the extremity of the country,” where they bought something
-by which to remember its meanness. Pwllheli is still mean, but in a
-different way, for it has become a noisy watering-resort from which the
-quiet traveller longs to escape at the first moment to quiet Abersoch
-or to Llanengan or Aberdaron, where “trippers” cease from troubling and
-tourists are at rest.
-
-Nowadays, even the most breathless will grant Snowdon a few words of
-praise--praise for its lakes, awe for its rock-strewn valleys like the
-valley of the shadow of death. Of the two lakes, Llyn Beris and Llyn
-Padarn, which receive the waters on the northern slope of Snowdon,
-Johnson did not think much, for he complained that “the boat is always
-near one bank or the other.” As for Snowdon itself, the record is, “We
-climbed with great labour. I was breathless and harassed.” There is
-no word for all that is romantic or awe-inspiring, not an exclamation
-for the summit to which have mounted king, poet, priest, bard, wise
-men, through countless ages--only a record of Queenie’s goats, “one
-hundred and forty-nine, I think.” Mr. Thrale, Queenie’s father, was
-near-sighted and could not see the goats, so he had promised the child
-a penny for every one she showed him. Dr. Johnson, the devoted friend
-of Queenie, kept the account.
-
-On their way back to the English border again, they passed through
-Bangor, where Johnson must have been happy in finding that “the quire
-is mean!” On August twenty-eighth they were once more with hospitable
-Mr. Myddleton. Here they stayed for over a week, and the journal
-contains, among other things, a long note about a Mr. Griffiths. The
-addition of the name of his estate or village fails to identify him
-now; looking for a Griffiths or a Jones in Wales, even a particular
-Jones or Griffiths, is like looking for a needle in a haystack. Perhaps
-the present limitation to a dozen patronymics is a blessing for courts
-of law, but it is baffling for the curious-minded man. The historian
-finds the old Welsh John ap Robert ap David ap Griffith ap Meredith ap
-David ap Vauchan ap Blethyn ap Griffith ap Meredith, and so on for a
-dozen more “aps,” easier for purposes of identification.
-
-On their homeward way Johnson was enthusiastic about Wrexham and its
-“large and magnificent” church, one of the Seven Wonders of Wales. On
-the seventh of September they came to Chirk Castle, but I cannot find
-that they went into this residence, a place which undoubtedly would
-have delighted Johnson more on account of its “commodity of living”
-and solid grandeur than because one of its heiresses was the unamiable
-Warwick Dowager who had married Addison. They left for Shrewsbury after
-they had viewed the little waterfall of Pistyll Rhaiadr, where the
-Doctor remarked only upon its height and the copiousness of its fall.
-If Johnson had been an up-to-date Cambrian railway tourist, he could
-not have entered and left North Wales in more approved style, for he
-came in by way of Chester and left by way of Shrewsbury. Safely out of
-Wales they journeyed homeward through Worcester, probably Birmingham,
-and Oxford. On September twenty-fourth there is this simple record: “We
-went home.”
-
-[Illustration: A VIEW OF DENBIGH CASTLE
-
-_From an engraving by Boydell, 1750_]
-
-It is to be remembered that on this tour Johnson lacked the
-companionship of the faithful Boswell. Yet the scantiness of the diary
-and its critical attitude cannot be accounted for wholly on this
-ground, but were due, I think, far more to the fact that the Doctor was
-thoroughly English in prejudice. Tobias Smollett’s feeling in “Humphrey
-Clinker,” for example, is even more English and uncomplimentary. All
-through his tour of the Hebrides, though he denounced Scotland and all
-things Scottish, called the Scotch liars and their country naked, yet
-the Doctor had an uneasy conviction of their superiority. As far as
-Wales was concerned, he simply did not consider this country of Arthur,
-of bard and of poet, this country of an indestructible nationalism,
-worthy his serious interest. Had he lived in Shakespeare’s day his
-concern would have been much greater, his respect more solicitous.
-
-On the first visit to Mr. Myddleton the preservation of the Welsh
-language had been discussed. In his journal for that date Dr. Johnson
-wrote, “Myddleton is the only man, who, in Wales, has talked to me
-of literature.” He was visiting people who, almost universally, were
-supremely indifferent to Wales and all things Welsh. In other words, he
-was visiting the upper or ruling classes. It is not so many years ago
-that the children of the gentry were still not allowed to learn Welsh
-for fear their English accent might be spoiled. Now, happily, they are
-taught Welsh, a fact which not only improves the relationship between
-them and the working classes, but also is contributing generously to a
-revival of all that is best in Welsh song and literature. Even a prince
-of the blood royal learns Welsh and speaks it.
-
-Dr. Johnson was in Wales at a time when the intellectual interests
-of Welshmen were most flagging, that is, just before the introduction
-of the Welsh Sunday Schools which, with their educational rather than
-exclusively religious function, gave impulse to a period of modern
-Welsh literature. Not only in chronology but also in importance, the
-establishment of the Welsh Sunday School must take precedence of
-Lady Charlotte Guest’s translations of the “Mabinogion.” Yet what
-Macpherson’s “Ossian” did for Scotland in the seventies in arousing
-interest, Lady Guest did for Wales in 1838. It is possible, if one
-can presuppose the impossible, that with these translations in hand
-Dr. Johnson’s journal would have been very different. However, one
-is fearful that, fortified even with Lady Charlotte’s beautiful
-translations, there would have been passages in the authentic Welsh
-“Mabinogion” as angrily rejected by him as Macpherson’s imposture
-was. Johnson said that he never could get the meaning of an Erse song
-explained to him. He asked a young lady who had sung such a song what
-it was about, and she replied that it was for the entertainment of the
-company. He explained that it was its meaning he could not understand,
-whereupon she answered that it was a love song. And that was all the
-intelligence, Johnson said, that he could get.
-
-There was strong probability, as a Welsh traveller in 1682 expressed
-it, of Welsh being “English’d out of Wales, as Latin was barbarously
-Goth’d out of Italy.” From the time of the Great Rebellion, however,
-the condition of the Welsh language began to improve, and it is
-possible greatly to overrate the difficulties with which Johnson met in
-coming to know the life of the people. Impatiently he had exclaimed,
-“Let us, if we do talk, talk about something; men and women are my
-subject of enquiry; let us see how these differ from those we have left
-behind.” But from any evidence in his journal Johnson did not consider
-it worth his while to discover how much the Welsh really do differ from
-the English. The visible physical fact with which he was confronted
-was the dark-haired, dark-eyed, dark-complexioned Welshman of medium
-stature, very Spanish-looking, sometimes almost Oriental. What he
-heard were voices quite distinct from the English, quiet and pure in
-enunciation. What he must have felt--if he felt the Welsh as distinct,
-except in inferiority--was a race as different as the south is from
-the north, sensitive, imaginative, excitable, deeply impressionable to
-everything that is beautiful, as capable of the “howl” as the Irish,
-yet more critical, of an intellectual independence which makes Roman
-Catholicism unwelcome to the Welsh, with a shrewdness that is the logic
-of success in money-getting, a captive race with minds which can never
-be servile. Yet in a letter to Boswell announcing that he had visited
-five out of the six counties of North Wales, Dr. Johnson wrote: “Wales
-is so little different from England, that it offers nothing to the
-speculation of the traveller.” Johnson was capable, too, of taunting
-Boswell with the sterility of Scotland. He had a certain strain of
-contrariness in him, “tonic” some call it, which made him emphasize the
-undesirable features of a country or a personality. Three years after
-this journey, forgetting even his interest in castles, he was able to
-say: “Except the woods of _Bachycraigh_, what is there in Wales that
-can fill the hunger of ignorance, or quench the thirst of curiosity?”
-
-[1] Heb Duw, Heb Dym (Without God, Nothing), Duw a’ diggon (God and
-plenty) would be more correct Welsh and a better translation.
-
-
-
-
-V
-
-_Welsh Folk-Lore_
-
-
-Many and attractively full of poetry are the superstitions still
-living in the solitary Welsh hills. One day I encountered a hillside
-woman while we were looking for a hilltop church. She was in great
-distress, breathless and flapping her apron. Now there is a Welsh
-legend that bees were created in paradise, and her bees were running
-away. Apparently, this worldly, heartless creature had no intention, if
-an apron could prevent it, of allowing her bees to go back to heaven.
-Fairyland is Cambria in Wales, if you will let me juggle with my
-words in this fashion, for I do not know how to express it otherwise.
-And yearning for continued love and life, even with the bees, is the
-breath of the phantom and spirit world called “Fairyland.” Although the
-instinct of faith in the supernatural may be primitive and the Welsh of
-to-day highly civilized, yet supernatural belief is still ineradicated
-among the people. Their childish tales, often so hard to understand,
-are full of a haunting race life. Conviction, for example, that fairies
-are the souls of dead mortals, mortals not good enough for heaven or
-bad enough for hell,--at least the thought is a gentle one, and as such
-not to be despised. And to their gentle masters the fairies themselves
-seem to have given an uncommon devotion. If fairies are troublesome,
-one can sometimes get rid of them by changing one’s residence. But
-not so with these Welsh fairies! Like the family servant for whom
-every one longs, they stick closer than a brother. Even going into
-England will not drive Welsh fairies away from those they love. Matthew
-Arnold should have considered this when he was studying the Celtic
-temperament, and denouncing it for its inconstancy, for the essence of
-all that is Celtic is the Welsh fairy.
-
-One is a little of the opinion of the youth, who, when he first saw
-the Lady of the Lake, thought she was a goose. That is what I thought
-of my first fairies, and still think of them. Yet, in this day and
-generation, it is something to have seen a fairy at all! It was dusk,
-and I had come through a tiny hill village, where white cottages were
-gleaming in the dark, and light shining on garden walls. It was so
-quiet that I could hear pine needles dropping on the ground, and the
-wind talking in the branches of the rain, still miles distant upon the
-sea. The noise of a tardy bumblebee, hurrying homeward in the dark,
-fairly boomed in my ears, and the sounds of shale rock slipping down
-the hillside came and went mysteriously. Through lighted windows I
-caught glimpses of evening comfort, of a bright fire glowing with peat,
-whose aroma was everywhere on the soft air, of dressers and tridarns,
-brave with countless ornaments, of a grandfather’s clock whose wise old
-face shone with light, of children’s heads about the supper table.
-
-But a higher hill was calling me, and an adventure of whose nature I
-had not even dreamed. I turned off the road by a Wesleyan chapel and
-mounted a steep path. Up, up, up I went around the side of a green
-hill, sometimes listening to the night stir of the birds, sometimes
-startled by a brown rabbit, leaping for cover. Out beyond, the
-mountains of Snowdonia were piled height on height, all washed in sepia
-depth upon a sky, moonless, but brilliant with stars. I hastened, for
-I was eager to reach the pine-crowned summit. Up there would be no
-sound except the wind in the trees, and once in a while some homely
-noises from the villages in the valley below: the sharp bark of a dog,
-the bleating of a lamb, the closing of some cottage door, a resonant
-“good-night.”
-
-Once on the hilltop, I lay down to rest, listening to the soft flight
-and hooting of some young owl, and feeling the grass cool and deep to
-my head and hands. As I lay there, eyes half closed, I heard some one
-coming up the path. Nearer and nearer drew uncertain footsteps and the
-tapping of a cane over loose stones. I sat up quickly, and there in
-the dark was an old woman, a cane in one hand, a basket in the other.
-Something cried piteously from the basket and I asked what it was. The
-old crone said that it was a kitten, and showed me a sack in which
-something else, tied up, squirmed and mewed. But she did not open the
-bag. After a due amount of greeting and curtseying, the old woman went
-on. I noticed that she kept looking back as she followed the path over
-the crown of the hill.
-
-My attention was diverted from her by the approach of more footsteps.
-It was a boy, a very large boy, and in his hand I could clearly see a
-school-bag, ridiculously small for such a big lad, in which he, too,
-carried something. Behind him walked a huge dog, feathered on back and
-legs so heavily that his shaggy hair trailed on the ground. I heard
-something cry from the little bag, and I asked what it was. The lad
-replied in Welsh that it was a kitten. I could see him smiling as he
-stood his ground. Except in Welsh there was nothing further for me to
-do. Under the most favourable circumstances it is a great deal to do
-anything at all in Welsh, and with my heart beating rapidly and my
-tongue growing dry, I did not feel that I could do anything more in any
-language. We were silent while the little thing kept on “miaowing,”
-and this boy, like an ordinary boy, hitched about for a few moments,
-kicking stones from the path, and then went on, followed by the dog.
-
-Erect and uneasy, I continued to sit up. Just as dog and boy were
-out of sight I heard some one else stumbling up the path and a faint
-kitten-like noise. I began to be afraid of those kittens being carried
-one after one over this desolate hilltop. It suggested a little the
-enchantments in the “Mabinogion,” only in the “Mabinogion” mice and
-not kittens played the leading part. I got up and fled before this
-experience should have a chance to become the beginning of some
-enchantment. But already I felt as if a spell were upon me, and even
-when I was quite far away from the kitteny place, I was still in a
-strange condition of excitement. One feels a natural dislike for any
-sort of hilltop enchantments, and I did.
-
-I was making considerable speed in my Welsh-soled boots and feeling
-more like an ordinary person, when the path took a sharp turn and I saw
-something strange in front of me. Down below ran the road, hard enough
-to be a fact, and lighted by the clear glow of the stars. If only one
-could always be sure of what is coming in this world, such a turning
-as I had taken would be like Keats’s beauty, “a joy forever.” But
-alas! close at my own right hand, very distinct, unmistakably clear,
-rose something my eyes had never met before: a chimney with no house
-attached to it. And on the treeless meadow in front of this apparition
-I saw the old woman leaning on her stick and the boy sitting beside his
-dog. Clearly the spell had worked. But how I struggled out from under
-this enchantment is another story.
-
-The least credulous may look at fairy and goblin food in the woods
-and fields, and their gloves, the foxglove, growing beside the road.
-And their animals, their sheep, their horses, their dogs are visible
-on many a dim hillside. The Welsh speak of these little people as the
-fair folk or family--“y Tylwyth Teg.” And well do they deserve the
-name. Sometimes they are spoken of as the fair folk of the wood or the
-fair folk of the mine. In gowns of green, blue, white, and scarlet they
-dance on moonlit nights. If they like you they will bestow blessings on
-you, and are frequently called “mothers’ blessings” because mothers are
-glad to have such little ones. But if one speaks unkindly of them, one
-will get into trouble. And here, whether one be talking of fairies or
-of mortals, who cannot always avenge themselves as readily as fairies,
-is a lesson worth remembering.
-
-[Illustration: RUTHIN CASTLE
-
-_From an engraving by Buck, 1742_]
-
-Elves, according to the Welsh,--I have seen only a picture of one
-drawn by a Welsh miner,--also live on goblin food and wear foxgloves
-when they have any particularly hard work to do. The Queen of the Elves
-is none other than the Shakespearean fairy spoken of by Mercutio, who
-comes
-
-    “In shape no bigger than an agate stone
-    On the forefinger of an alderman.”
-
-No one who has _not_ seen a fairy can have any idea how difficult it
-is to draw the line between history and story. The difficulties of the
-folklorist are as nothing,--for his is the scientific spirit,--compared
-with the trouble the real fairy hunter has in the open. Nowadays, of
-course, no one believes everything or possibly anything he is told. But
-in times past mankind seems to have been gifted with a more intimate
-faith in and knowledge of some things than we have to-day. For example,
-people used to know Satan better and were more afraid of him. An honest
-Welsh farmer saw him lying across the road with his head on one wall
-and his tail on the other. The Devil was moaning horribly, which in
-this uncomfortable position would not be strange for any one.
-
-In criticism of Welsh fairies there is one thing to be said. They not
-only have a rather practical-joking sort of humour, but they also have
-very little sense of equity. A man may do his best for them, and then
-they repay him in the end by a trick. A Welsh piper was coming home
-in the gray of the evening, and had to cross a little running stream,
-from which he saw only the shadowed hillside and heard only the voice
-of the wind. But when he had travelled beyond the hill, music became
-audible, and, turning, instead of the knoll he had been looking at,
-there was a great castle with lights blazing and music playing and the
-sound of dancing feet. He went back and was caught in the procession
-coming out from its doors and taken in to pipe to them. He piped for a
-day or so, but he was anxious to return to his people, and the fairies
-seemed to understand. They said they would let him go if he would play
-a favourite tune. He played his best, they danced fast and furiously.
-And at last he was set free on the dark hillside, with only the voice
-of the wind for company. He went home hastily, but when he entered his
-father’s house no one knew him. An old man awoke from a doze by the
-fire, and said that he had heard, when a boy, of a piper who had gone
-away on a quiet evening and never come back again. That was over a
-hundred years ago.
-
-Perhaps there is no reason why the fairies, as well as poor mortals,
-should not be allowed a natural and happy alternation between badness
-and goodness. Metaphorically speaking, they are not the only creatures
-who steal money and butter and cheese, and who whisk away helpless,
-unbaptized infants. Doubtless a New England Mather--those early New
-England Mathers were hard on babies--would say that an infant who
-remained unbaptized long enough to be discovered by a fairy deserved
-to be stolen. Such an idea could have flourished only in New England.
-As if it were not bad enough to face the-survival-of-the-fittest
-test in this life without carrying it over into heaven! I, for one,
-am not disposed to find fault with the fairies when, as happened in
-Beddgelert, they led a man into beautiful lodgings. To know what a
-temptation a beautiful apartment might become, one must have lived,
-as I have, in that little mountain-cupped village. When the man awoke
-in the morning after a peaceful night’s rest, he was sleeping on a
-swamp with a clump of rushes for his pillow. If he had been a nervous,
-sleepless, modern man, instead of finding fault as he did, he would
-have been grateful for the night’s sound rest and forthwith tried
-the swamp again. After this there would have been a “Swamp Cure for
-Insomnia.”
-
-There are ghosts, too, in Wales, but they are rather spiritless
-creatures, much easier to catch and not so tricksy as the fairies. Nor
-do they select prickly furze and stony hilltops as their hiding-places.
-But on the whole they are difficult to subdue, especially the farm
-ghosts. While the servants are busy making the butter, the ghost or
-spirit frequently throws something unclean into the milk or sends
-the pans spinning around like mad. In one farm the farmer offered a
-reward of five pounds to any one who would lay their particularly
-lively spirit. Several people tried it, including an aged priest in
-whose face the impertinent ghost waved a woman’s bonnet. Finally, the
-Established Church being unable to cope with this sprightly situation,
-an Independent minister from Llanarmon coaxed the ghost into the barn.
-There the spirit, still unsubdued, turned into a lion, a mastiff, and
-other ferocious beasts, but in no incarnation could it do any harm to
-the Independent Griffiths. It became discouraged, and the minister
-persuaded the poor thing to appear in the form of a fly. Perhaps
-in this incarnation the wretched thing still had hopes of revenge.
-However, the intrepid Griffiths was too much for it, and it was
-captured in a tobacco box and borne off, never to trouble the farmer
-any more.
-
-The death portents in Cambria reveal all the strangeness and
-lawlessness of the Celtic imagination. No one who does not know the
-Welsh hills, who has not been on them day after day, can feel the
-significance of these death portents. One must have travelled on the
-top and edge of the Welsh mountain world to understand,--have looked
-out upon a sea of hills gray and barren in their utter colourlessness,
-and down upon valleys like the valley of the shadow of death. There
-abyss and altitude are alike full of terrors, of mist before which mind
-and step falter, of an Unknown which presses home in bodily anguish,
-which distorts the vision and strikes upon the ear with the outcry of
-bewildered souls. It is not strange, then, that the Welsh have the
-most horrible of banshees. It is known as the Gwrach y Rhybin, the old
-hag of the mist; and a Cyhyraeth which moans dolefully in the night
-but is never seen; and a Tolaeth which groans or sings or saws, or
-tramps with its feet, and is also unseen. And there are, besides, the
-“Dogs of Hell” and the “Dogs of the Sky” and the “Corpse Candle” and
-the “Goblin Funeral,”--all of them portents of death. Several years
-ago I came very near seeing one of these portentous dogs. I was on
-a treeless upland pasture, rich with ruby like a deep agate, with
-lavender, flecked with emerald-green as musk is freaked with brown;
-purple, pink, and opalescent in the sunshine that came and went. There
-were black sheep and white in that pasture, I remember, and some little
-lambs that straddled with surprise. One rose, stretching and curling
-its tail with the delicious energy of waking from sleep. I looked down
-what seemed like a particoloured gulf of greensward into valleys where
-men and cattle had become dots in size, and up to more fern and heather
-and altitudes where the curlew cried. It was as I looked up that I saw
-an impressively large black dog that went through an impossibly small
-sheep-hole in a sheep-wall. But a wisp of mist came over the Welsh
-mountain-side, and one never makes an effort to see that sort of thing
-or to run after it. Hunting rollicking elves and lightfoot fairies is
-quite a different matter!
-
-One of the most beautiful legends in the Iolo Manuscripts is the
-story of one of these death portents. There was a lord rich in houses
-and land and gold. Every luxury of life was his for the asking. One
-night he heard a voice cry out distinctly three times, “The greatest
-and richest man of this parish shall perish to-night.” He was aware
-that there was no other man so great or rich as he, and he sent for
-the physician and prepared to die. But the night passed and day came
-and he still lived. At sunrise he heard the bell tolling and knew that
-some one must have died, and he sent to enquire who it was. It was
-an old blind beggar who had asked for charity at the lord’s gate and
-been refused. Then this great lord saw that the voice had come as a
-warning to him, that his riches were as nothing in comparison with the
-treasure and wealth which the blind man had in the kingdom of heaven.
-He accepted the warning and relieved all who were poor or in need. When
-he died, angels were heard to sing him a welcome, and after his death
-he was buried, as he had asked to be, in the blind beggar’s grave.
-
-Of hags and witches there used to be far too many in Wales.
-Shakespeare tells all one needs to know of them. For some reasons,
-hidden to us, he had peculiarly intimate and extensive information
-concerning Celtic folk-lore. Macbeth, speaking of witches, says, “I
-have learned by the perfectest report, they have more in them than
-mortal knowledge. When I burned in desire to question them further,
-they made themselves air, into which they vanished.” These witches
-did not hesitate to throw even portions of human beings into seething
-cauldrons:--
-
-    “Round about the cauldron go;
-    In the poisoned entrails throw.”
-
-They threw in other things, too, as the third witch tells us,--
-
-    “Scale of dragon, tooth of wolf,
-    Witches’ mummy, maw and gulf
-    Of the ravin’d salt-sea shark,
-    Root of hemlock digged i’ the dark,
-    Liver of blaspheming Jew,
-    Gall of goat, and slips of yew
-    Silver’d in the moon’s eclipse,
-    Nose of Turk, and Tartar’s lips.”
-
-[Illustration: THE COMPLEAT ANGLER IN WALES]
-
-In Wales the knowledge which witches possessed they did not use for
-the good of others, but for their hurt; they tormented children and
-animals, they plagued the hard-working and industrious, and upset the
-Welsh household. In Cambria there are witches unlike any I have ever
-heard of, witches that will cause cows to sit down like cats before the
-fire. No wonder the Welsh farmer keeps his Bible handy in the kitchen
-chest, and runs for it post-haste, to read his seated cow a chapter and
-unwitch her! No wonder that with such witches conjurors are needed,--if
-for no other reason, then to unseat the cows; and that country folk
-pluck the snapdragon to protect themselves from these hags! No wonder
-the peasants cross their doors, even to this day in isolated districts,
-to shield themselves, and that they keep horseshoes and churchyard
-earth to preserve their cottages from spells!
-
-No matter how he fumbled the English fairies, Shakespeare never made
-any mistake with the Welsh. He understood what “mab” meant,--that it
-meant a little thing,--just as “mabcath” in Welsh means a kitten, or
-“mabinogi,” the singular of “mabinogion,” means a tale told to the
-little ones. No one who has not seen a fairy can have any idea how
-difficult it is to draw the line between history and story. That some
-of the fairies seen on the way home from fairs and from patriotic
-Eisteddfodau--Welsh national festivals of poetry and song--are due to
-ale, cannot be disputed. It is commonly said that the Methodists are
-driving the fairies out of Cambria. These nonconformists are usually
-teetotallers. However, the real fairy is still in Wales, and if you do
-not believe me, all I can say is, that you must go to Wales and prove
-that I am wrong. But perhaps it would be well before you take the
-journey to look at your foot, for if you find you have not a foot that
-water runs under, it is best for you not to go. So runs the ancient
-proverb, and without that lucky foot no fairy shall you see.
-
-There is only one thing that can possibly counteract the lack of a
-requisite instep for those who desire to see fairies, and that is
-eating a good deal of cheese. I do not know why this is, but I do
-know that as far back as one can go, much further back than Giraldus
-Cambrensis or even Taliessin or the archest of the archdruids, Welsh
-rarebit and roasted cheese have been the very bread of Cymric diet.
-There is a story in John Rastell’s “Hundred Mery Talys,” printed in
-the sixteenth century, which shows that before Shakespeare came to
-elucidate the Welsh fairy, this question of cheese and the Welsh
-had been duly considered: “I fynde wrytten amonge olde gestes, howe
-God mayde Saynt Peter porter of heuen, and that God of hys goodnes,
-sone after his passyon, suffered many men to come to the kyngdome of
-Heuen with small deseruynge; at whych tyme there was in heuen a great
-companye of Welchmen, whyche with crakynge and babelynge troubled all
-the other. Wherefore God sayde to saynte Peter that he was wery of
-them, and that he wold fayne haue them out of heuen. To whome Saynte
-Peter sayd: Good Lorde, I warrente you, that shall be done. Wherefore
-Saynt Peter wente out of heuen gates and cried with a loud voice _Cause
-bobe_ (caws pob), that is as moche to saye as rosted chese, whiche
-thynge the Welchemen herynge, ranne out of heuen a great pace. And when
-Saynt Peter saw them all out, he suddenly wente into Heuen, and locked
-the dore, and so sparred all the Welchmen out.”
-
-Undoubtedly among everything Welsh, even in literature, cheese is the
-“Open Sesame.” It is encountered in “Mabinogion” romance and beauty,
-which is the same thing as to say cheese among the Welsh! Is there any
-other folk-lore in the history of the world in which cheese plays so
-important a rôle? It might in German folk-lore, but the fact is that
-it does not. Bread, milk, the juice of the grape, but cheese? No, that
-is lifted into the realm of imagination and of a world-classic only in
-Cambria. Again Shakespeare showed his surprisingly accurate knowledge
-of the Celt when Falstaff exclaims, “Heaven defend me from that Welsh
-Fairy, lest he transform me to a piece of cheese!”
-
-
-
-
-VI
-
-_The City of the Prince of Wales_
-
-
-From the heart of Snowdon, some thirteen miles or more, on roads gray
-with altitudes of rock, green with shining hillside pastures dotted
-with white sheep, and crossed by rushing streams, we walked down to
-Carnarvon. From the rocky heights behind it, this city of the Prince
-of Wales--the great castle pile, the castle walls enclosing the roofs
-of many buildings--extends to the edge of the sea, where the boom of
-a sailing-vessel swinging around might easily touch the castle wall.
-And beyond are the ships, the Island of Anglesey, Mona, beloved in all
-Welsh hearts, peaceful and fertile, with the clouds above.
-
-It was tranquil, luxuriant, established, unshaken by anything that
-Time had been able to do. There still were the walls strong to defend;
-the ships from the sea, and cottage chimneys symbol of many an ingle
-nook, of quiet firesides, of homely comforts, of beloved household
-faces, of young joy and ancient peace.
-
-“Caer Seint yn Arfon!” “Caer ar Fon,” Carnarvon, meaning the
-stronghold opposite Mona or Anglesey. “Caer,” the fortress, the
-station, where in Welsh legend, Elen, the great Welsh road-maker, was
-sought and won by the Emperor Maximus,--history this, or tradition,
-which makes the thirteenth century and its Edwards and its castles
-seem but as the children of yesterday. I thought of the description
-of the old city in the “Dream of Maxen Wledig,” the dream of Maximus,
-the tyrant, in the “Mabinogion,” one of the classics of the world and
-_the_ classic of Welsh literature. In that dream what did that Roman
-Emperor see but what we now saw? “Valleys he saw, and steeps, and rocks
-of wondrous height, and rugged precipices, never yet saw he the like.
-And thence he beheld an island in the sea facing this rugged land. And
-between him and this land was a country of which the plain was as large
-as the sea, the mountain as vast as the wood. And from the mountain he
-saw a river that flowed through the land and fell into the sea. And at
-the mouth of the river he beheld a castle, the fairest that man ever
-saw, and the gate of the castle was open, and he went into the castle.”
-
-Probably “Helen of the Roads” is the legendary form which the power of
-Rome has taken in Wales. On either side of the mountains two roads run
-their straight course from south to north, roads that were marked by
-camps in strategic places and by Roman houses of stone in the sunshiny
-reaches of the hillsides. Rome is still everywhere in Wales: the way
-it thinks in politics, its speech, its literature,--and nowhere more
-beautifully than in the “Dream of Maxen Wledig.” The Britons were
-in the sorry plight of having to choose between enemies; and of the
-two, Roman or heathen invader, the Romans were the more friendly and
-beneficent, for the wild birds of the heathen carried only fire on
-their wings, and alighted on the ripe grain to burn it, but the Romans
-maintained order and conferred power. There in this most ancient city
-of Segontium are still the walls of the Roman town as well as the more
-recent walls of the castle town, and a remain which suggests a Roman
-hypocaust; there coins and other fragments of this ancient empire are
-constantly being found. There the body of the father of Constantine,
-the first Christian Emperor, was discovered in the reign of Edward I.
-And Edward, brutal and practical though he was, had it interred with
-pomp and honour in the church.
-
-The very size and strength of Carnarvon Castle as it still stands
-shows how important strategically Edward thought the town. That Roman
-stronghold which was there before the present castle must have been
-beautiful, too, if in the legend of “Maxen Wledig” we have recollection
-of what it was like. Both in the dream and with the messengers whom
-the Emperor sent, they traversed the land until they came to Snowdon.
-“Behold,” said the messengers, “the rugged land that our master saw.”
-And then they went forward until they saw Anglesey, and Aber Sain, and
-a castle at the mouth of the river. “And in the castle he saw a fair
-hall, of which the roof seemed to be all gold, the walls of the hall
-seemed to be entirely of glittering precious gems, the doors all seemed
-to be of gold. Golden seats he saw in the hall, and silver tables. And
-on a seat opposite to him he beheld two auburn-haired youths playing at
-chess. He saw a silver board for the chess, and golden pieces thereon.
-The garments of the youths were of jet black satin, and chaplets of
-ruddy gold bound their hair, whereon were sparkling jewels of great
-price, rubies and gems, alternating with imperial stones.… And beside a
-pillar in the hall he saw a hoary-headed man, in a chair of ivory, with
-the figures of two eagles in ruddy gold thereon. Bracelets of gold were
-upon his arms, many rings were on his hands and a gold torque about his
-neck; and his hair was bound with a golden diadem. He was of powerful
-aspect. A chessboard of gold was before him, and a rod of gold, and a
-steel file in his hand. And he was carving out chessmen. And he saw a
-maiden sitting before him in a chair of ruddy gold. Not more easy than
-to gaze upon the sun when brightest, was it to look upon her by reason
-of her beauty. A vest of white silk was upon the maiden, with clasps of
-ruddy gold at the breast, and a surcoat of gold tissue upon her, and a
-frontlet of ruddy gold upon her head, and rubies and gems were in the
-frontlet, alternating with pearls and imperial stones. And a girdle
-of ruddy gold was around her. She was the fairest sight that man ever
-beheld.” What more beautiful in any castle to be, in any modern royal
-pageant of to-day or to-morrow, could there be than this Helen of Wales
-of whom the Emperor dreamed and whom he sought and found? Unlike the
-other Grecian Helen, she left, not records of war and strife behind
-to attest her beauty, but serviceable roads over many of which we may
-still travel to-day.
-
-With the exception of Alnwick, Carnarvon Castle is the finest in Great
-Britain. It is a wonderful creation of man, a thing of strength and
-beauty, of might and grace; its decorated castellated architecture,
-facing two ways towards the sea, giving it a visionary appearance
-of charm wholly lacking in the bulky massiveness of Conway and
-Harlech,--magic casements, these, as I said before,--
-
-                        “opening on the foam
-    Of perilous seas, in faery lands forlorn.”
-
-Its thirteen towers, pentagonal, hexagonal, octagonal, perfect in
-their slender grace from walls ten feet thick. About one hundred and
-fifty years ago, Pennant wrote: “This town is justly the boast of
-North Wales, for the beauty of situation, goodness of the buildings,
-regularity of the plan, and, above all, the grandeur of the castle, the
-most magnificent badge of our subjection.”
-
-It was in the Eagle Tower in which Edward II, the first Prince of
-Wales,--though why they should forget their own valiant Gruffyd ap
-Llewelyn is more than the writer can see,--is supposed to have been
-born. The ivy clings now everywhere upon its castellated summits.
-Probably the famous tower was so called because of the bird carved upon
-its walls. “Within a little dark room of this tower,” says Pennant,
-“not twelve feet long, nor eight in breadth, was born Edward II; so
-little, in those days, did a royal consort consult either pomp or
-conveniency.” Alas, the Prince was not born in that little tower as
-records well show! The Welsh refused to acknowledge the English king
-unless he would dwell in Wales. This was impossible; so their demands
-were modified to the requirement that the prince placed over them must
-be of their own nation and language and of an unblamable life. Queen
-Eleanor was about to be confined, and, although it was midwinter and
-harsh weather, the king sent for her and she was brought to Carnarvon
-where the first English Prince of Wales was born. As soon as Edward
-heard that the child was born he called the Welsh nobility together at
-Rhuddlan, ostensibly to consult about the public good and safety of
-all Wales. Once there, he told them that in case he had to leave the
-country he would appoint in his place a prince who would fulfil the
-conditions they had given, provided they would obey him, naming one who
-had been “born in Wales, could speak no English, and whose life and
-conversation nobody could stain,” and then named his own son just born
-in Carnarvon. In his seventeenth year, 1301, this Prince of Wales was
-formally invested, even as in 1911 another Prince of Wales was endued,
-“with a chaplet of gold round his head, a golden ring on his finger,
-and a silver sceptre in his hand.” The title is never inherited, but is
-conferred by special creation and investiture.
-
-[Illustration: THE TOWER OF DOLBADARN ON LLANBERIS LAKE]
-
-Unfortunate for romantic tradition is it that Edward II built the
-Eagle Tower and was not born in it. But these are the facts of
-the case, and the people of Carnarvon know them perfectly well.
-Undoubtedly, however, this prince was born in the town. One feels
-indignant sometimes, perhaps often, in Wales at the value set upon
-celebrity, the celebrity which “pays”; at Denbigh the proud claiming of
-Stanley, the explorer, where the poor lad was knocked about and abused
-worse than some cur of the streets; the exploitation of Dr. Johnson,
-who happened to be with Mrs. Piozzi in the vicinity of Denbigh for a
-few days; and then this English Prince of Wales whom the Welsh insist
-upon having born in the tower which he himself built! Ah, well,--
-
-    “Why should not gallant Taffy
-      Have his relics and his bones,
-    Llewelyns and Cadwallos,
-      And Griffyevanjones?”
-
-And we must just be willing to let this cherished Eagle Tower be an
-indispensable Welsh bone--or relic of contention.
-
-The gateway of Carnarvon Castle is very impressive, of great size and
-strength, as are most of these North Wales castles, but, as is not
-the case with most of them, with romantic grace added. Vines clamber
-up it and over it, cracks etch the portions of the walls which are
-bare. Above the gateway, in its niche high out of reach of destructive
-enemies, is the figure of Edward II; and to the right and to the left
-graceful turrets rise above the walls. Low on the face of the gateway
-tower are slits for defence, above them at a safe altitude are windows
-with part of the tracery still intact. This entrance was besieged by
-Glendower in the fifteenth century and by a Parliamentary army in the
-seventeenth. Bitter battles were fought about the old gate and in the
-town beyond. One day at Carnarvon, when the peasant folk were holding a
-fair, one Madoc, who claimed to be the son of Llewelyn, burst into the
-market square, stormed the castle, and left the town a smouldering ruin.
-
-But distant, far, far distant are those ancient days of primitive
-strife. And as I turned off my Snowdon road to enter by this castle
-gateway I had still in mind the peaceful, prosperous town through which
-I had come and the ships on the sea beyond and the shining island
-shore of Mona, mother of Wales. We paid our entrance fee and, as I was
-doing that, my eye caught sight of an old table there under the arch,
-littered with books for sale. I looked at the shimmering green grass
-beyond in the castle courtyard down upon which the sun was flooding. We
-were in no haste. I wanted to dally, and dally I did by the bookstall,
-my hand falling upon a first edition of Goldsmith’s “Bee”, to be sold
-at sixpence! We paid for it, and I could hear my friend saying, “Do you
-suppose it really is a first edition?”
-
-My fingers between the leaves of this book, I turned to and opened
-“A City Night-Peace,” reading, “There may come a time when this
-temporary solitude may be made continual, and the city itself, like its
-inhabitants, fade away, and leave a desert in its room.” Then we went
-through into the sunshine in the courtyard beyond, the book clasped
-tightly in my hand, and the hours passed as in a dream. There was the
-touch of time made visible, there was life carried forward even in
-the busy chirping of the birds upon the vine-covered walls, there was
-sunshine as it had been in those olden but not more golden days than
-this, there was the sound of voices, voices beloved so long, long ago,
-and speaking again; there was joy, and sorrow, living again for me and
-in me; there once more was all that eager, ardent, daily commonplace of
-human lives, that daily friendliness of little things which makes life
-so worth the living. I felt it in all about us, woven into everything,
-the cheerful noise of birds, the voices from beyond the castle walls,
-the sunshine, the colour; and more and more the spirit of the place
-took possession of me.
-
-Again as in a dream within a dream we passed through the castle
-gateway out into the town with its simple old houses, its little shops
-with their signboards and gay windows, its inns and lodgings, past the
-Welsh children playing in the streets and their elders going gravely
-to and fro about their business, and the sleek horses and whirling
-motors, up the hill past Llanbeblig Church, the churchyard Watts-Dunton
-has used as part of the setting of his story “Aylwin,” and on to the
-country road which, with thirteen miles’ walking, would bring us
-home--to our Welsh home at the foot of Snowdon, Eryri, the home of
-eagles. Behind us, as we turned, the ships had become but white moths
-on a vast sea, Anglesey was growing dimmer, the cows pastured on the
-plain about the old town were but specks, the coast-line was merging
-into the water. But still the castle dominated everything, and I
-thought of Dr. Samuel Johnson’s delight in that vast pile and his naïve
-record in the Cambrian journal: “I did not think there had been such
-buildings; it surpassed my ideas.”
-
-
-
-
-VII
-
-_The Eisteddfod_
-
-
-It was the first morning of my first Welsh National Eisteddfod, and I
-sat by the window working, and glancing away from my work to a hillside
-up which led narrow steps to the summits above, among which were hidden
-away some half a dozen tiny villages. Colwyn Bay, where the Eisteddfod
-was to be held, was--as the crow does _not_ fly--about forty miles
-distant. It was a glorious morning of sunshine in which gleamed the
-river, glossy beeches and pines, and little whitewashed Welsh cottages.
-As I looked, there began to emerge from the steps a stream of people;
-down and down they flowed, bright in their pretty dresses or shining
-in their black Sunday-best broadcloth. All those mountain hamlets up
-above, reached by roads passable only for mountain ponies, were sending
-their men, women, and children to the Welsh festival of song and poetry.
-
-Talking and excited about who would be chaired as bard, who would
-be crowned, what female choir would win in the choral contests, what
-male choir, and discussing a thousand little competitions, even to a
-set of insertions for sheets, shams, and towels, we were borne on the
-train from Bettws-y-Coed swiftly through the Vale of Conway, beside the
-river, past Caerhûn, the once ancient city of Canovium, past Conway
-Castle, with its harp-shaped walls still encircling the town, and so to
-Colwyn Bay.
-
-Then all these enthusiastic people who had climbed down a hill to
-take the train, climbed up another to see the first Gorsedd ceremony.
-As we passed, from one of the cottages was heard the voice of a woman
-screaming in great excitement, “Mrs. Jones, Mrs. Jones, come to the
-front door quickly. There’s some people going by; they’re dressed in
-blue and white. Dear me, Mrs. Jones, they’re MEN!” The procession,
-fully aware that Mrs. Jones, and all the little Joneses and all the
-big and middling Joneses, too, had come, went on gravely up, up, up
-the hill to “Y Fanerig” (the Flagstaff), where stood the “Maen Llog
-of the Gorsedd” and its encircling stones. The paths were steep, and
-even bards and druids are subject to _embonpoint_. Old Eos Dar, who can
-sing penillion with never a pause for breath, lost his “wind,” and the
-“Bearer of the Great Sword of the Gorsedd” was no more to be found. A
-boy scout, perhaps thinking of Scott’s minstrel, who said,--
-
-    “The way was long, the wind was cold,
-    The minstrel was infirm and old,”
-
-was despatched downhill after him, and found him and the sword, arm in
-arm, lagging comfortably behind. Druidical deportment is astonishingly
-human at times. But the hilltop achieved and wind recovered, the
-bards soberly made their way into the druidical circle of stones that
-surround the great Gorsedd stone. Nowhere, as the Archdruid remarked,
-had the Bardic Brotherhood been brought nearer heaven.
-
-From the summit, north, east, south, west, the soft valleys, the
-towering mountains, the secluded villages, the shining rivers, and the
-great sea were visible. And there on this hilltop the bards, druids,
-and ovates dressed in blue and white and green robes, celebrated rites
-only less old than the Eye of Light itself. After the sounding of the
-trumpet (“Corn Gwlad”), the Gorsedd prayer was recited in Welsh,--
-
-    “Grant, O God, Thy Protection;
-    And in Protection, Strength;
-    And in Strength, Understanding;
-    And in Understanding, Knowledge;
-    And in Knowledge, the Knowledge of Justice;
-    And in the Knowledge of Justice, the Love of it;
-    And in that Love, the Love of all Existence;
-    And in the Love of all Existence, the Love of God.
-              God and all Goodness.”
-
-Then the Archdruid, Dyfed, standing upon the Gorsedd stone and facing
-the east, unsheathed the great sword, crying out thrice, “Aoes
-Heddwch?” (Is it peace?) and the bards and ovates replied “Heddwch!”
-(Peace.)
-
-There are some scholars who question the “identity of the Bardic
-Gorsedd with the druidic system.” The Welsh Gorsedd, this side of the
-controversial point, is forty centuries old, and in all conscience
-that is old enough. Diodorus, the Cicilian, wrote, “There are, among
-the Gauls, makers of verses, whom they name bards. There are also
-certain philosophers and theologists, exceedingly esteemed, whom they
-call Druids.” Strabo, the geographer, says, “Amongst the whole of the
-Gauls three classes are especially held in distinguished honour--the
-bards, the prophets, and the druids. The bards are singers and poets,
-the prophets are sacrificers and philosophers, but the druids, besides
-physiology, practised ethical philosophy.” As far back as we can
-look in the life of the Cymru, poetry, song, and theology have been
-inextricably woven together. The Gorsedd was then, formally, for the
-Welsh people what it still is informally: a popular university, a law
-court, a parliament. The modern Gorsedd, with its twelve stones, is
-supposed to represent the signs of the zodiac through which the sun
-passes, with a central stone, called the “Maen Llog,” in the position
-of the sacrificial fire in the druidical temple. A close reverence for
-nature, a certain pantheism in the cult of the druids, shows itself in
-various ways,--in the belief that the oak tree was the home of the god
-of lightning, that mistletoe, which usually grows upon the oak, was
-a mark of divine favour. The most prominent symbol of the Gorsedd is
-the “Broad Arrow” or “mystic mark,” supposed to represent the rays of
-light which the druids worshipped. Even the colours of the robes of the
-druids, ovates, and bards are full of characteristic worship of nature;
-the druids in white symbolical of the purity of truth and light, the
-ovates in green like the life and growth of nature, the bards in blue,
-the hue of the sky and in token of the loftiness of their calling.
-
-Up there on the hilltop, with its vast panorama of hill and valley,
-sea and sky, time became as nothing. The Gorsedd became again the
-democratic Witenagemot of the Welsh, and there still were represented
-the mountain shepherd, the pale collier, the lusty townsman, the gentle
-knight, the expounder of law, the teacher and the priest. But if upon
-the hill time was as nothing, down below in the gigantic Eisteddfod
-pavilion some ten thousand people were waiting. “Gallant little Wales,”
-which has certainly awakened from its long sleep, was past the period
-of rubbing its eyes. It was shouting and calling for the Eisteddfod
-ceremonies to begin, perhaps as the folk in Caerwys had called
-impatiently in the days of the twelfth century, or again in that old
-town in the days of Elizabeth, the last that memorable Eisteddfod when
-a commission was appointed by Elizabeth herself to check the bad habits
-of a crowd of lazy illiterate bards who went about the country begging.
-
-That great Eisteddfodic pavilion, where the people were waiting
-good-naturedly but impatiently, is primarily a place of music. Even as
-in the world, so in Wales music comes first in the hearts of mankind
-and poetry second. And it may be, since music is more social and
-democratic, that the popular preference is as it should be. The human
-element in all that happens at a Welsh Eisteddfod is robust and teeming
-with enthusiasm. It is true that prize-taking socks, shawls, pillow
-shams, and such homely articles no longer hang in festoons above the
-platform as they did some twenty or thirty years ago. Now the walls
-are gaily decorated with banners bearing thousands of spiteful-looking
-dragons, and pennants inscribed with the names of scores of famous
-Welshmen, and with such mottoes as “Y Gwir yn Erbyn y Byd” (the truth
-against the world), “Gwlad y Mabinogion” (the land of the Mabinogion),
-“Calon wrth Galon” (heart with heart), and others.
-
-After the procession of dignitaries was seated upon the platform, a
-worried-looking bard began to call out prizes for every conceivably
-useful thing under the sun, among them a clock tower which he seemed
-to be in need of himself as a rostrum for his throat-splitting yells.
-During these announcements the choirs were filing in, a pretty child
-with a ’cello much larger than herself was taking off her hat and coat,
-a stiff, self-conscious young man was bustling about with an air of
-importance, and in the front, just below the platform, sat newspaper
-reporters, from all over the United Kingdom, busy at their work. Among
-them were the gray, the young, the weary, the dusty, the smart, the
-shabby, and one who wore a wig, but made up in roses in his buttonhole
-for what he lacked in hair. There were occasional cheers as some
-local prima donna entered the choir seats, and many jokes from the
-anxious-looking master of ceremonies.
-
-At last the first choir was assembled, and a little lady, somebody’s
-good mother, mounted upon a chair. The choir began to sing,--
-
-    “Come, sisters, come,
-    Where light and shadows mingle,
-    And elves and fairies dance and sing,
-    Upon the meadow land.”
-
-[Illustration: LLANBERIS
-
-_From an old print_]
-
-The little lady never worked harder, her baton, her hands, her head,
-her lips, her eyes were all busy. Was it the Celtic spirit that made
-those elves and fairies _seem_ to dance upon the meadows or did they
-really dance? The next choir was composed of younger women, among them
-many a beauty-loving face, alas! too pale and telling of the hard
-life of the hills or of the harder life of some mining-town. Of the
-third choir the leader was a merry little man, scarcely as high as the
-leader’s stand, with a wild look in his twinkling eyes as he waved a
-baton and the choir began,--
-
-    “Far beneath the stars we lie,
-    Far from gaze of mortal eye,
-    Far beneath the ocean swell,
-    Here we merry mermaids dwell.”
-
-He believed not only in his choir, but also in those mermaidens, and
-so did the little lad, not much bigger than Hofmann when he first began
-to tour, who played the accompaniment. When that choir went out, a
-fourth came in, still inviting the sisters to come. At last the sisters
-not only came, but also decided to stay, and another choir lured the
-sailor successfully to his doom, and all was over, for even in choir
-tragedies there must be an end to the song. The gallant little mother
-had won the first prize. It takes the mothers to win prizes, and the
-audience thought so, too. The crowd yelled and stamped with delight.
-
-When one asks one’s self whether Surrey, for example, or such a state
-as Massachusetts in America, could be brought to send its people from
-every farm, every valley, every hilltop, to a festival thousands
-strong, day after day for a whole week, one realizes how tremendous a
-thing this Welsh national enthusiasm is. Educationally nothing could be
-a greater movement for Wales. To the Welsh the beauty of worship, of
-music, of poetry are inseparable. Only so can this passion for beauty,
-which brings multitudes together to take part in all that is noblest
-and best in Welsh life, be explained. Only so can you understand why
-some young collier, pale and work-worn, sings with his whole soul and
-shakes with the song within him even as a bird shakes with the notes
-that are too great for its body. These Welsh sing as if music were all
-the world to them, and in it they forget the world. Behind the passion
-of their song lies a devout religious conviction, and their song
-sweeps up in praise and petition to an Almighty God, who listens to
-Shelley’s “Ode to the West Wind” as well as to some great hymn. To hear
-ten thousand Welsh people singing “Land of my Fathers,” each taking
-naturally one of the four parts and all singing in perfect harmony, is
-to have one of the great experiences of life. To hear Shelley’s “Ode”
-set to Elgar’s music and sung by several choirs, to hear that wild,
-far-travelling wind sweep along in a tumult of harmonies, to know that
-every heart there was as a lyre even to the least breath of that wind,
-to hear that last cry,--
-
-                      “Oh, wind,
-    If winter comes, can spring be far behind?”--
-
-to listen again to those choirs late in the evening on the station
-platform with the sea dim and vast and muting the song to its own
-greater music, is to have felt in the Welsh spirit what no tongue can
-describe,--it is to understand the meaning of the word “hwyl,” that
-untranslatable word of a passionate emotionalism.
-
-All that went on behind the scenes the audience could not know. They
-saw only those considered by the adjudicators fit to survive. They did
-not see the six blind people, for even the blind have their place in
-this great festival, who entered the little school-room off Abergele
-Road to take the preliminary tests, the girl who played “The Harmonious
-Blacksmith,” and, shaking from excitement and holding on to her guide,
-was led away unsuccessful. They did not see the lad who played “Men of
-Harlech” crudely, his anxious ageing, work-worn mother sitting beside
-him, holding his stick and nodding her head in approval. All they heard
-were a selected two who were considered by the judges fit to play,
-a man both blind and deaf who performed a _scherzo_ of Brahms and a
-Carnarvon sea-captain, now blind, who played on the violin. The quiet
-of the one-time sea-captain’s face laid against the violin, the peace
-and pleasure in the lines about the sightless eyes, would have repaid
-the whole audience--even if the violinist had not been an exceptionally
-good player--for listening.
-
-One of the inspiring and amusing events of the week was the discovery
-of a marvellous contralto. A young girl, shabbily dressed and ill at
-ease, came out to sing. Everything was being pressed forward towards
-the crowning of the bard, one of the great events of the Eisteddfod.
-People were impatient, and somewhat noisy. But as the girl began to
-sing they quieted down, then they listened with wonder, and in a minute
-you could have heard a pin drop in that throng of ten thousand. Before
-she had finished singing, “Jesu, Lover of my Soul,” the audience knew
-that it had listened to one of the great singers of the world. When she
-had finished her song and unclasped her hands, she became again nothing
-more than an awkward, silly, giggling child whom Llew Tegid had to hold
-by the arm.
-
-The audience shouted, “What’s her name?”
-
-“Maggie Jones,” he replied; “that begins well.”
-
-“Where does she come from?” demanded the crowd.
-
-“Police station,” answered Llew Tegid lugubriously.
-
-The audience roared with laughter and demanded the name of the town.
-Maggie Jones is the daughter of Police Superintendent Jones of
-Pwllheli. Perhaps in the years to come the world will hear her name
-again.
-
-There are children at these Eisteddfodau whose little feet can scarce
-reach the pedals of a harp. Even the robins singing up in the high
-pavilion roof who had joined in the music from time to time, trilling
-joyously to Handel’s “Oh, had I Jubal’s Lyre,” twittered with surprise
-that anything so small could play anything so large. But no one of
-the thousands there, even the children, grew tired for an instant,
-unless it was these same robins, who were weary at times because of the
-cheerless character of some of the sacred music sung in competition and
-themselves started up singing blithely and gladly as God meant that
-birds and men should sing. The robins twittered madly when some sturdy
-little Welshman stepped into the penillion singing, accompanied by the
-harp, no more to be daunted than a child stepping into rope skipping.
-When the grown-ups had finished, two little children came forward and
-sang their songs, North Wales style.
-
-The afternoon was growing later and later; it was high time for the
-name of the bard of the crown poem to be announced. At last, with due
-pomp, the name of the young bard was announced. Every one looked to see
-where he might be sitting. He was found sitting modestly in the rear of
-the big pavilion, and there were shouts of “Dyma fo!” (here he is). Two
-bards came down and escorted him to the platform, where all the druids,
-ovates, and bards were awaiting him. The band, the trumpeter, the harp,
-and the sword now all performed their service, the sun slanting down
-through the western windows on to this bardic pageant. The sparrows
-flew in and out of the sunlight, unafraid of the dragons that waved
-about them and the bands that played beneath them, and the great sword
-held sheathed over the young bard’s head. The sword was bared three
-times and sheathed again as all shouted “Heddwch!” The bard was crowned
-and the whole audience rose to the Welsh national song.
-
-What is the meaning of this unique festival of poetry and song? Mr.
-Lloyd George, who had escaped from the din of battle outside, and the
-jeers of the Goths and Vandals who couldn’t or wouldn’t understand the
-Fourth Form, said, amidst laughter, that there was no budget to raise
-taxes for the upkeep of the Eisteddfod. Then he continued, “The bards
-are not compelled by law to fill up forms. There is no conscription to
-raise an army from the ranks of the people to defend the Eisteddfod’s
-empire in the heart of the nation. And yet, after the lapse of
-generations, the Eisteddfod is more alive than ever. Well, of what good
-is she? I will tell you one thing--she demonstrates what the democracy
-of Wales can do at its best. The democracy has kept her alive; the
-democracy has filled her chairs; the sons of the democracy compete for
-her honours. I shall never forget my visit to the Llangollen Eisteddfod
-two years ago. When crossing the hills between Flintshire and the
-valley of the Dee, I saw their slopes darkened with the streams of
-shepherds and cottagers and their families going towards the town. What
-did they go to see? To see a man of their nation honoured for a piece
-of poetry.… And the people were as quick to appreciate the points as
-any expert of the Gorsedd, and wonderfully responsive to every lofty
-thought.” Yes, unlike any other gathering in the world, the Eisteddfod
-is all that. Long ago in the latter half of the eighteenth century Iolo
-Morganwg stated the objects of Welsh bardism,--“to reform the morals
-and customs; to secure peace; to praise (or encourage) all that is good
-or excellent.” This national festival is the popular university of
-the people, it is the centre of Welsh nationalism, the feast of Welsh
-brotherhood. Only listened to in this spirit can one understand what
-it means when an Eisteddfodic throng, after the crowning of the bard,
-rises to sing “Hen Wlad fy Nhadau,”--
-
-    “Old land that our fathers before us held dear.”
-
-
-
-
-VIII
-
-_Cambrian Cottages_
-
-
-In the “Dream of Rhonabwy,” from the “Mabinogion,” one of the great
-books of the imaginative literature of the world, it is not a very
-pleasant picture which we get of a Welsh home. Yet the Welsh cottage
-home of to-day is a treasure of beauty and orderliness. Doubtless this
-picture from the “Dream of Rhonabwy,” in its realistic detail, making
-allowances for certain Norman influences at work upon the various
-stories of the “Mabinogion,” is a true one. The strength and rustiness
-of the colouring of the house of Heilyn Goch, the blackness of the old
-hall, the upright gable out of the door of which poured the household
-smoke, the floor inside full of puddles and slippery with the mire of
-cattle, the boughs of holly spread on the floor, and at one side of the
-hall an old hag making a fire, the yellow calf-skin it was a privilege
-for any one to get upon, the barley bread and cheese and milk which,
-after the people of the house had entered,--a ruddy, curly-headed man
-with faggots on his back, and a pale slender woman,--they were given to
-eat;--all, I say, forms a picture rude, coarse, strong in its primitive
-detail of twelfth-century Cymric household life. Something more,
-too, it suggests. As Matthew Arnold says, “The very first thing that
-strikes one, in reading the ‘Mabinogion,’ is how evidently the mediæval
-story-teller is pillaging an antiquity of which he does not fully
-possess the secret; he is like a peasant building his hut on the side
-of Halicarnassus or Ephesus; he builds, but what he builds is full of
-materials of which he knows not the history, or knows by a glimmering
-tradition merely.”
-
-There are other pictures, too, in the “Mabinogion” of early Welsh
-household life, pictures which one must question because of their
-luxury and general magnificence, features evidently due to the strong
-Norman influence one finds at work almost throughout these stories.
-No picture could be more rich and more beautiful than that in the
-“Dream of Maxen Wledig,” where Helen is found by the Emperor’s
-messenger sitting in the old castle hall at Carnarvon. These are the
-tales of the splendid, barbaric youth of a people, filled with the
-vividness, the crowding, the vitality of youth, and touched to an
-even more magnificent beauty by another hand which was deliberate
-and Norman--stories divinely disregardful of what might have been
-intelligible; in their mystery and wonder full of the life of the
-young. Barbaric touches, magic, fantastic elements, crude life,
-gorgeous colouring,--all this and thrice more than this does one find
-in the “Mabinogion.”
-
-At first dreaming,--for dream one must over the cottages of Wales
-if one is ever truly to enter them,--these homes of a more recent
-time would seem to have suffered a loss in vividness, in interest,
-so immeasurable that there could be no gain to balance against it.
-Gone are the mystery and the semblance of splendour; the sense of
-adventure and the strong, wild life of these earlier centuries are
-forever vanished. Yes, gone they are, and gone they were before ever a
-_rédacteur_ took down one of the tales of the “Mabinogion” from report
-that was already becoming but tradition. Purposely did I select the
-“Dream of Rhonabwy,” for not only in closeness to human reality, but
-also in architectural detail, do I believe it to be an exact picture
-of early Welsh home life. After the sordid picture of the hall, the
-description of the rainstorm comes but as a reinforcing touch of
-truthfulness: “And there arose a storm of wind and rain, so that it
-was hardly possible to go forth with safety. And being weary with
-their journey, they laid themselves down and sought sleep. And when
-they looked at the couch, it seemed to be made but of a little coarse
-straw … with the stems of boughs sticking therethrough, for the cattle
-had eaten all the straw that was placed at the head and at the foot.
-And upon it was stretched an old russet-coloured rug, threadbare and
-ragged; and a coarse sheet, full of slits, was upon the rug, and an
-ill-stuffed pillow, and a worn-out cover upon the sheet. And after
-much suffering from … the discomfort of their couch, a heavy sleep
-fell on Rhonabwy’s companion. But Rhonabwy, not being able either to
-sleep or to rest, thought he should suffer less if he went to lie upon
-the yellow calf-skin that was stretched out on the floor. And there
-he slept.” Undoubtedly here even the slit sheet is a touch of Norman
-elegance.
-
-In the “Dream of Rhonabwy,” not in the far more beautiful “Dream of
-Maxen Wledig,” with its elaborate interior descriptions, do we find
-something like prototype for the Welsh cottage of to-day: the fire
-made against the gable end, even as it is now in the cottages, the
-sleeping accommodations at the opposite ends. This is the arrangement
-still of the vast majority of the cottages. Originally probably there
-were no windows other than, it may be, little slits--“wind-eyes”
-they were called with that relevant quaintness characteristic of
-early speech--such as we see to this day in old Welsh barns. In the
-“Mabinogion” story of Geraint, with its white stag, its divergent
-sense of the forest and of a bustling town life and the beautiful
-Gwenhwyvar, there is reference to glass windows: “And one morning in
-the summer time they were upon their couch, and Geraint lay upon the
-edge of it. And Enid was without sleep in the apartment, which had
-windows of glass. And the sun shone upon the couch. And the clothes
-had slipped from off his arms and his breast, and he was asleep. Then
-she gazed upon the marvellous beauty of his appearance, and she said,
-‘Alas, and I am the cause that these arms and this breast have lost
-their glory and the war-like fame which they once so richly enjoyed.’”
-Are any lines in Tennyson’s “Enid” taken from this “Mabinogion” tale,
-that story upon which Tennyson’s widest popularity was founded, more
-vivid than this beautiful romantic touch? Undoubtedly these glass
-windows which revealed the manly beauty of Geraint in overthrow were
-glass lattices. They could not have been very common, and considerably
-later they were followed by wooden lattices in general use in the
-Welsh cottage, and still occasionally to be found to-day. I have found
-them several times in the dairy-rooms of old cottages in North Wales.
-Norman influence was at work in this story of the late twelfth or early
-thirteenth century from the “Mabinogion.” Sometime in the fourteenth
-or fifteenth century it was that the lattice window of the cottage
-came in, nor did it go out of use until the end of the seventeenth
-century. The window was a double frame--just as it is most frequently
-now--filled with woven diamond lattice. Within were wooden shutters
-opening inwards. A distant view or sketch of the leaded panes of to-day
-or of the diamond lattice of a long ago yesterday reveals no difference
-between the two, so closely has the type of window been kept, as, for
-example, the little, old-style windows of Beddgelert and Carnarvon.
-
-And the beauty out upon which these old windows look is ever the
-same--Eryri, Eagle’s Eyrie, is this land of North Wales. Peak,
-precipice, lake, rushing stream, valley, forest lie always before
-one, sometimes shrouded for a while by the mist, again pricked out in
-indescribable altitude of mountain or whiteness of falling water before
-eyes that cannot fail to wonder at their beauty. In the fourteenth book
-of the “Prelude,” Wordsworth writes of the ascent which he and his
-Welsh friend made of Snowdon from Beddgelert at dawn, and we may, if
-we have not been in that mountain-cupped heart of Wales to hear it for
-ourselves, hear with Wordsworth the mounting
-
-        “roar of waters, torrents, streams,
-    Innumerable, roaring with one voice!”
-
-And with the poet, too, behold an
-
-    “Emblem of a mind
-    That feeds upon infinity.”
-
-The majestic beauty of these little Alps of Wales seems but to
-emphasize the cheerfulness and cosiness of the life man has made for
-himself. Indeed, nowhere are valleys greener, more sheltering, more
-homelike, more cosey. And the cottages, with their ascending spirals
-of peat smoke, the sweet fragrance of their homely life, speak a
-language of welcome no one can mistake. Gone are the old barbaric days,
-with their rough, strong life, their adventure; gone are the days of
-chivalry, with their bright pageant, their luxury, their courtly ways.
-Here we may turn a stone of those mediæval days, there touch a fretted
-memorial of still earlier times, even before Arthur had come to wake
-the world to a new romance and a new and selfless endeavour. Lessened,
-cheaper may this humble cottage heritage of the present seem than those
-times which have gone their “journey of all days” into the past. But
-not so does this sweet homeliness seem to me. Life is gentler, life is
-better, perhaps even kindlier within them by the bright hearth where,
-for the asking, any one may sit welcomed and at ease. Their purple
-roofs are but modest regal seal upon the happiness within. One feels
-singularly close to that great mother of us all in these tiny Welsh
-cottages, near to what is essential, what is real. Mortals who have not
-been dissevered from their proper feeling for houses will realize that
-these little homes have sprung, as it were, from the soil, that the
-cord binding them to the earth has never been cut.
-
-[Illustration: BEAUMARIS
-
-_From a proof before letters by Turner_]
-
-The “Cyttiau Gwyddelod” or circular huts were the earliest forms of
-dwellings of which there are still remains. One finds them in various
-places on the meadows lying between and in front of Pen-y-Pass and
-Pen-y-Gwyrd where Charles Kingsley loved to stop. There are many other
-places, too, one not far out of Barmouth where Tennyson stayed and
-where some of the stanzas from “In Memoriam” were written; and some
-near Bettws-y-Coed, one of whose valleys, the Lledr, Ruskin called the
-most beautiful in the world. The little circular rings of foundation
-stones are curiously disappointing, scarcely worth the seeing, except
-that, in touching them, it may be one presses a hand’s breadth nearer
-to a vanished past. These circular huts lasted through a Roman-British
-period, and looked, probably, much like a wigwam, with a circular
-foundation wall of stone, wood, or wattle, from four to six feet high,
-capped with woven boughs of thatch, and within, a floor diameter from
-twelve to twenty-four feet. Gradually the circular hut gave place
-to the rectangular, at first with slight improvement in comfort,
-as I think the picture of “Rhonabwy” suggests. There was still no
-chimney or ingle and the smoke poured out of the open doorway. Yet
-in the arrangement described in “Rhonabwy” we have embryonically the
-arrangement of to-day. The subdivision of the interior space was still
-to come.
-
-The earliest examples extant of the rectangular type are of the
-fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. Up till three years ago, when
-it was destroyed to make room for an extension of the Calvinistic
-Methodist Chapel, such a little cottage there still was in Beddgelert,
-Ty Ucha. Such a cot there still is in Bettws-y-Coed, Dol y Waenydd;
-also Tyddyn Cynal, near Aber Conway, as well as Old Plas, Llanfair
-Fechan, to give but a few examples which any lover of Welsh life may
-consult for himself. These little cottages are to be distinguished
-by their roof principals, which start from the floor, heavy curved
-pieces of oak meeting at the ridge in the roof. No doubt the earliest
-churches were built in this fashion and the cottages were copied from
-them. The churches of old foundation which survive, however, are,
-as I have said in the chapter on the little churches of Wales, in
-the style the Latin monks dictated and Llewelyn the Great introduced
-into Wales,--twelfth-century churches such as those at Llanrhychwyn,
-Gyffin, and Caerhûn. Beyond question, Welsh cottages represent a native
-influence which antedates that of the oldest churches now extant in
-Wales.
-
-In the Welsh women who sit by the ingle fire of this cottage life
-one feels an age-old continuity of home, of the heart of things, of
-association, of service, of beauty; the pale slender woman of the
-“Dream of Rhonabwy” who entered the hall with the ruddy man; the maiden
-with “yellow curling hair” whom, in the “Lady of the Fountain,” Owain
-sees through an aperture in the gate, a row of houses on either side
-of the maiden; and others who kindle fires and perform the household
-tasks, who accoutre the knights, who embroider with gold upon yellow
-satin. Much of the colour of that mediæval world is a thing of the
-past, but not its women: they are essentially the same, though of a
-democratic to-day, simple as Enid in her worn habiliments when Arthur
-asked her what expedition this was and she replied, “I know not, lord,
-save that it behoves me to journey by the same road that he journeys.”
-The woman of to-day knows now what that journey of her mate is, and
-still she goes with him, not driven before him, but by his side.
-
-It was on the road that, as I studied these little cottages from week
-to week, I encountered the Welshwoman of both an olden romance and a
-present world of fact. Very humble little pilgrimages were these of
-mine, not made without their diverse experiences of joy and fatigue.
-Sometimes it was a little lane I travelled on foot, off the highroad
-and through the heart of a farmland, the hedges eight feet high with
-honeysuckle and heaven-deep with fragrance; again I dropped down a
-hill, heather and foxglove making a royal display in bare places, and
-in the distance the bells of Llanycil ringing; or I climbed a hill on
-the way to Llangynog, a ridge which seemed the top and the edge of
-the world, treeless upland pastures like deep agate rich with ruby,
-lavender, brown and freaked with emerald green, purple and pink, and
-all opalescent with sunshine, dotted with black sheep and white sheep
-and little lambs, some straddling with surprise as they rose stretching
-and curling their tails with the delicious energy of awakening. Or,
-like Moses, I came down from Nebo, only it was a Welsh Nebo and my
-hands were full of peppermints bought for twopence, and children,
-rosy-cheeked youngsters in a frenzy of joy, were running about me. Into
-strange places may even a cottage gleam lead. Once it took me to that
-most primitive of all shelters, a cromlech, where gorse made sunshine
-on the hill and heather made a glory, and in a near-by oat-field
-pansies bloomed, and, above, a crown of pines sung in the ever-blowing
-winds. Or the gleam led me beside some tiny stream, almost invisible,
-that found its way like a thread downhill.
-
-    “Down from the mountain
-    And over the level,
-    And streaming and shining on
-    Silent river,
-    Silvery willow,
-    Pasture and plowland,
-    Innocent maidens,
-    Garrulous children,
-    Homestead and harvest,
-    Reaper and gleaner,
-    And rough-ruddy faces
-    Of lowly labour
-    I followed the gleam.”
-
-A gleam that led me on and on was this bright-shining, fragrant,
-humble cottage life of Wales, with its much-needed assurance, amidst
-the sorrows of our present times, that some magic of a life still full
-of faith is lived among these solitary hillsides, among busy towns and
-in sheltered Welsh valleys. Into human difficulties, too, did my gleam
-lead me, as gleams have a way of doing. My first adventure was to find
-a cottage called “Buarthau” (pronounced _Bee-ar-thai_). I knew that
-it was on the hillside beyond Hendra Farm outside of Dolwyddelan, at
-the head of that valley, the Lledr, which Ruskin has called the most
-beautiful in the world. A child who spoke very little English summoned
-her mother, a pale, slender woman with a baby in her arms, to point
-out the cottage to me. The little girl led me and we climbed the steep
-hillside. Beside it were wild roses, cool in pink and green; beyond
-us was a magnificent view of Siabod, Snowdon, Aran, and Moel Hebog,
-becoming with every upward-mounting step more grand. The old roof of
-the sixteenth or seventeenth century which I had come to see was partly
-destroyed, the large curved principals which came almost to the ground
-had been well rubbed and gnawed by the teeth of kine. Under a tree near
-a little cottage we ate our luncheon, a tree which accommodatingly
-turned itself into a harp. Then we came down, across the Lledr River,
-and turned and entered the village where the heart of the place is St.
-Gwyddelan’s Church, built about 1500 A.D., with a rood screen removed
-from some earlier church, a knocker to claim sanctuary still upon the
-door, and warm hay piled high and spread in the sun over the old graves.
-
-There was another day when I was in search of an old house still
-habitable, but of the same date of building as Buarthau. From
-Bettws-y-Coed I followed slowly up a long hill, from which I looked
-down into an ever-deepening valley, where lay the road leading up past
-the Conway and the Lledr to Dolwyddelan. After I passed Pentrevoelas,
-I picked up a little fellow carrying a school-bag. We passed a big
-empty graveyard place where five new graves were crowded against the
-wall,--the living were planning well for the jostling of the dead who
-were to come,--then I put the little fellow down by the chapel where
-his mother lived. The road to Giler grew more and more difficult. At
-last I came to a beautiful old house with a fortified gate and high
-surrounding walls. Outside the walls, mother and daughter, farmer and
-farm hands, were all milking the cows. They courteously led me through
-the ancient gateway, a friendly place within, for not only did the cats
-run to meet us, but also the pigs. I ascended the outside steps of the
-fortified gateway into a room where was the Pryce coat of arms and the
-date 1623 upon the walls. Then we went into the farmhouse through an
-old doorway that would be the joy of any antiquary who might behold it.
-Even this was fortified. Within, the oak panelling, the oak partitions,
-the seats around the walls, the deep, small-paned, narrow windows, the
-kitchen, the storeroom, the dairy, the mill--all were as they had been
-four hundred years ago--a little the worse for wear, but still staunch,
-still comely, still generous and hospitable. One fireplace I stood
-before was twelve feet long and four or five feet deep. On the way home
-I saw a flock of lapwings in the meadow. I passed the chapel corner
-where the little fellow was; I saw two rabbits rubbing noses in the
-field; and then, facing toward the sun, which was setting over Siabod
-and the Ogwen Valley, I followed home.
-
-[Illustration: A WELSH WATERFALL NEAR PENMAEN-MAWR
-
-_From an engraving by Boydell, 1750_]
-
-These Welsh cottages and granges are like a well-made person or
-a well-made life: they have nothing to conceal. They reveal their
-construction, and their beauty inheres in this revelation of what
-they really are. Instead of being all daubed over with plaster and
-smeared with unattractive paper, their joists and beams, their
-panelled oak partitions, the ingle-heart of the house, the warm, brown
-oaken dressers and tridarn, the grandfather clock and settles, the
-three-legged tables and three-legged chairs form a picture of simple
-harmony, which at its best it would be hard to rival either in dignity
-or homely beauty. I am not referring to the Welsh lodging-house which
-is all many an Englishman or American knows in Wales. The floor of
-the cottage may be but of beaten clay, neatly whitewashed around the
-edge. This, however, is surely a more attractive floor covering than
-many which cost, even before they leave the carpet factory, a good
-deal more. Beautiful rooms are these where, from the lustre-ware,
-the pewter, the copper and brass and latticed windows, many a
-lesson is still to be learned by some of us who think it impossible
-that we should be able to take anything from so humble a place. In
-these Welsh cottages life has continued more or less unchanged in
-a beautiful simplicity. It is not merely the simplicity imposed by
-poverty,--although that does exist to a depressing extent in Wales,--it
-is rather their sense of fitness, their love of what is beautiful, that
-innate instinct of theirs, not only for the right word, but also for
-the right beauty of a room, even of a kitchen. When they would imitate
-under the pressure of modern fussiness and vulgarities, something still
-holds them back. The lodging-house in Wales represents a concession
-to modernity, their mistaken and delicate tribute to the visitor. It
-is the Welsh farmhouse kitchen in all its dignity of use and beauty
-which represents the true life of the Cymri, the ineradicable æsthetic
-fineness of Gwalia. In Wales, and at a time when the world pays it but
-scant respect, poetry dwells everywhere and is at home. The grimiest
-coal centre, the dustiest slate quarry eating into the very bowels
-of the earth and the skin of the people, cannot drive poetry and
-music away from Wales. They dwell by the doorway of the whitewashed
-cottage in that group of oaks, or under that sheltering sycamore and
-the cottage roof of flowering thatch, in the water-split stains of
-the slates upon the roofs, in the gleam of the doorsill over which
-one steps. Here in these Welsh cottages is simplicity as compelling,
-because more human and not less unself-conscious, as that of the palace.
-
-Practically every characteristic possessed by the Welsh makes for love
-of home. Their very shyness drives them through the house door to the
-fireside, before all that is best can be revealed. Sensitive, full of
-feeling, gay and melancholy by turns, they are like their own hills,
-now sombre and now bright. It is temperament that makes the music of
-the Welsh cottage, its picturesqueness, its romance. Without the Cymric
-temperament there could have been no Welsh revivals, no invincible
-Lloyd George, no Eisteddfodau. The delicacy of the woman, who is
-always the home-maker, inheres in the Celt. He feels the significance
-of the home with such yearning and such passion that it is almost
-incomprehensible to his fellows of coarser fibre. It was that feminine
-love of home which made Celtic chivalry what it was. And I dare to say
-that it is still that element which makes the humble Welsh cottage what
-it is to-day.
-
-Those qualities which caused the Cymri to reverence their bards and
-esteem learning are the qualities at work in their lives now. The
-passionate admiration which in olden times made them follow a leader
-like Llewelyn the Great or a lost cause, is what makes them shout by
-the tens of thousands for Lloyd George to-day and a winning cause.
-Their low, quiet voices, their gentle ways, their spiritual intensity,
-all throw a glamour about the lives they lead. One does not expect to
-find a sage in yon little cottage where the village bread is baked.
-Yet he is there, his books two deep on every shelf of his little
-room, his lamp burning far into the night. Nor does one expect to
-find a Welsh Jenny Lind in this cot whose brass doorsill we have just
-left; but, busy about her work, a voice the world might well run to
-listen to follows us down these Welsh upland meadows. And behind that
-counter, over which we buy sweets for the children, is an historian
-and antiquary; in yon post-office a bard,--even the very farmer spends
-his leisure not as other farmers do; and nothing is as many, in their
-commonplaceness, their German _Gemeinheit_, expect and demand that it
-shall be.
-
-It is a far cry, some may think, from the “Mabinogion,” one of the
-possessions of all the world, to a little Welsh cottage. No, it is not
-a far cry; it is a history, interrupted here and there by haunting
-words, broken by words not to be recovered, but still a history from
-those first (?) “cyttiau gwyddelod,” with their rude music of harp and
-their tales read from a revolving wooden book, down to this cot whose
-shelter we have sought in a valley or upland meadow, even as Wordsworth
-some one hundred years ago or Shelley sought such shelter at the base
-of Snowdon. It is a far cry, some may think, from that smoke curling
-out of the gable end of the hall in the “Dream of Rhonabwy” to this
-ingle by which we have sat. No, it is a development, a continuance
-marked only by the steps of man’s desire to strengthen and make more
-perfect his home here, forgetting that Chaucer has told us in his poem
-“Truth”;
-
-    “Her nis non hom, her nis but wildernesse:
-    Forth, pilgrim, forth! Forth, beste, out of thy stal!”
-
-For the gray of a gray day outside, here by this hearth is the rose
-of fire, the tongue of flame by which we warm ourselves, the fluttering
-of those dreams beneath which we hide ourselves as under a sheltering
-wing. The passionate heart of a passionately sensitive people is
-this hearth and flame of a Welsh cottage. To have lived by it is to
-have lost the need to hear those tonic words of Matthew Arnold, for
-here, indeed, the Celt may still, in his dreams, his love, his song,
-react against the despotism of fact. And outside is a world of magic,
-sometimes hostile but more often friendly, a world of beauty and of
-enchantment. From the “Dream of Rhonabwy,” its women, its homes, its
-organized life, its beauty, down to the castle and cottage in Carnarvon
-or Conway, it is but one history, however many stages that history may
-have passed through; and until the traveller or the alien in Wales
-realizes this fact, he passes blindfold through its valleys and over
-its mountains and in and out of its cottage doors.
-
-
-
-
-IX
-
-Castles and Abbeys in North Wales
-
-
-    Old Time … gentlest among the Thralls
-    Of Destiny, upon these wounds hath laid
-    His lenient touches, soft as light that falls,
-    From the wan Moon, upon the towers and walls,
-    Light deepening the profoundest sleep of shade
-
-    WORDSWORTH, “Ruins of a Castle in North Wales.”
-
-The more one lives in Wales the more one recognizes the need for
-nonconformity. The Established Church has frequently conformed too
-much, certainly to the bars found in all public inns, and probably
-to the “jorum” measure set by castle life and even by the abbey life
-that is now no more. No doubt, if there were less poverty, there might
-be less drinking; on the other hand, if there were less drinking,
-there would certainly be less poverty. Even now, as I write in the
-most respectable old inn in Denbigh,--the place where all the gentry
-go,--for an inn sign I am looking out on three liquor kegs crossed one
-above another with a bunch of grapes pendant.
-
-But the hill on which this quaint, small, prosperous town of
-Denbigh is built does the best it can by its steepness to keep the
-people in good condition. In Welsh Denbigh Castle is called “Castell
-Caledfryn-yn-Rhos,” the “Castle of the Craggy Hill in Rhos.” From the
-“bottom,” as the natives call the foot of the town and hill,--they
-are identical,--it is a sheer climb to the top where the castle is
-situated, and in that climb one has traversed the entire village. Close
-by the castle is the Church of St. Hilary, more or less falling to
-pieces now, where once masses were said for the soul of Henry de Lacy.
-Within the castle enclosure, in a tiny cottage, John Henry Rowlands,
-or Stanley, the African explorer, was born. Very eager is Denbigh to
-claim this distinguished man, and but little can you get them to say
-about the brutal treatment which drove him away from home and made him
-a wanderer upon the face of the earth. Denbigh claims Twm o’r Nant
-also,--he is buried at the bottom of the town in Whitchurch,--but
-not content with claiming him, they canonize him with the absurd
-name of “Welsh Shakespeare.” Born in 1739, he developed, without any
-educational advantages whatsoever, remarkable skill in the writing
-of interludes, which for many years he himself played up and down
-the country, and by which, because he championed the cause of the
-people “against the evils of the day,” he got the ear of his popular
-audiences. Denbigh claims Dr. Samuel Johnson, too, and exaggerates his
-brief visit to Middleton at Gwaenynog. They have even photographed one
-cottage and called it Johnson’s.
-
-A few miles west from Denbigh, at Rhuddlan, they have made the most
-of their history, but it is not recent; rather it is standardized
-and dignified by an antiquity which antedates even the ivy-covered
-ruins of the castle. There starlings flutter in and out,--perhaps a
-descendant of that starling which Branwen had taught to speak and who
-carried across the sea to Carnarvon, to her brother, Bendigeid Vran,
-the tale of her sufferings. There, too, are the fireplaces of an ample
-hospitality which is no more. I thought of the promise Edward had made
-in Rhuddlan that he would give the people a prince born in Wales and
-who could speak no English. I thought of that battle between Saxon
-and Welsh, in 769, on Morfa (marsh) Rhuddlan, which, before our eyes,
-stretched gently and mysteriously away to the sea, and of the song that
-had commemorated it and of the defeat of the Cymru:--
-
-    “Calm the sun sets o’er the hills of Carnarvon,
-    Deep fall the shadows on valley and lea,
-    Scarce a breath ripples the breast of old ocean,
-    Faint on the ear falls the roll of the sea.”
-
-Also in the old song is heard again the din of weapons, the hissing of
-arrows, and the cries of those who fought and those who fell. Even in
-its English translation it is still a stirring old song.
-
-On the coast, a few miles north of Rhuddlan, is one of the most famous
-castles in British history, Flint Castle; but a dolorous, sorrowful old
-place it is now, set down in the midst of belching smokestacks and a
-sooty modern life that cares nothing for it. At Flint the dismantling
-of Richard II was performed. Froissart, the chronicler, speaking of
-Richard’s departure from Flint Castle in the custody of the Duke of
-Lancaster, tells us a strange story. King Richard had a beautiful
-greyhound who loved him beyond measure. As the Duke and the King were
-conversing in the court of the castle, the greyhound was loosed and
-immediately ran to the Duke, paying him all the attentions he had
-always given to the King. The Duke asked what was the meaning of this
-fondness. “Cousin,” replied the King, “it means a great deal for you
-and very little for me.”
-
-Above Flint, on the River Dee, is Hawarden Castle, the new residence
-and the old ruin made famous to us in recent years by the fact that
-William Ewart Gladstone lived there. And there, centuries ago,
-Llewelyn, the great Welsh prince, first saw his Eleanor. The people
-in this vicinity are called “Harden Jews.” In this connection an
-interesting story from legendary history is told. It was in the year
-946 that Cynan ap Ellis ap Anarawd was king of North Wales and a
-Christian church stood there. In this church was a roodloft surmounted
-by a figure of the Virgin bearing a holy cross in her hands. The
-summer had been hot and dry and the people began to pray for rain.
-Lady Trawst, wife of Sytsylt, governor of the castle, was one of those
-who prayed most often to the image. One day while she was on her knees
-the cross fell and killed her. The weather continued hot and the
-indignant people decided to bring the rood to trial for the murder of
-Lady Trawst. This was done and the Virgin and cross sentenced to be
-hanged, but Spar of Mancot, one of the jury, thought drowning would be
-better. Finally the judgment was partially amended and the image was
-laid upon the beach and the tide did the rest. It was carried up to the
-walls of Chester, and the citizens of that town, ancient even in 946,
-reverently took it up and buried it, setting above it a monument with
-this inscription upon it:--
-
-    “The Jews their God did crucify,
-    The Hardeners theirs did drown,
-    Because their wants she’d not supply,
-    And lies under this cold stone.”
-
-And from this time forth the river, which had been called the Usk, was
-called Rood Die or Dee.
-
-[Illustration: BEDDGELERT, A VALLEY-SHELTERED HOME
-
-_From an old print_]
-
-It is not possible to re-create that olden castle life in Wales.
-A fragment here and a fragment there one finds, and when the broken
-life has been put together again, as in the “Mabinogion,” the Norman
-influence is more than a varnish to its ancient surface,--it is often
-colour, with occasionally an entirely new figure painted in. Glimpses
-of the palace life do we get, of the sleeping-rooms and halls and
-chambers, of beautiful buildings, of youths and pages, of vestures of
-silk and gold and yellow robes of shining satin. Pictures of maidens,
-too, there are, who live for us still as if they had not vanished from
-within walls which Time has partially destroyed. One maiden there was
-who was made from the blossoms of the oak and of the broom and of the
-yellow meadow sweet, and whom they called Blodeuwedd or Flower-face.
-Another, not Blodwen, but Olwen, she who was clothed in a “robe of
-flame-coloured silk … more yellow was her head than the flower of the
-broom, and her skin was whiter than the foam of the wave, and fairer
-were her hands and her fingers than the blossoms of the wood anemone
-amidst the spray of the meadow fountain.… Four white trefoils sprung up
-wherever she trod. And therefore was she called Olwen.” Pictures, too,
-there are in the “Mabinogion” and elsewhere of the castles in which
-these maidens embroidered, sitting in golden chairs and clad in yellow
-satin. One description there is in “The Lady of the Fountain,” which
-is a vivid picture of a Welsh castle: “And at length it chanced that I
-came to the fairest valley in the world, wherein were trees of equal
-growth; and a river ran through the valley, and a path was by the side
-of the river. And I followed the path until midday, and I continued
-my journey along the remainder of the valley until the evening: and
-at the extremity of a plain I came to a large and lustrous castle, at
-the foot of which was a torrent.” The fair valley, the path by the
-riverside, the lustrous castle, the torrent--all are still a part of
-the life of Wales to-day. Again, for the mere opening of a book, we
-may see knights in their encounters as of old: the horse that pricks
-forward, the furious blows upon the faces of the shields, the broken
-armour and bursting girths, and then the battle on foot, their arms
-striking sparks, and blood and sweat filling their eyes. Nowhere in all
-literature is there a more beautiful picture of a horse than in Kilhwch
-and Olwen: “And the youth pricked forth upon a steed with head dappled
-gray, of four winters old, firm of limb, with shell-formed hoofs,
-having a bridle of linked gold on his head, and upon him a saddle of
-costly gold. And in the youth’s hand were two spears of silver, sharp,
-well-tempered, headed with steel, three ells in length, of an edge to
-wound the wind, and cause blood to flow, and swifter than the fall of
-the dewdrop from the blade of reed-grass upon the earth when the dew
-of June is at the heaviest. A gold-hilted sword was upon his thigh,
-the blade of which was of gold, bearing a cross of inlaid gold of the
-hue of the lightning of heaven; his war-horn was of ivory. Before him
-were two brindled, white-breasted greyhounds, having strong collars of
-rubies about their necks, reaching from the shoulder to the ear. And
-the one that was on the left side bounded across to the right side, and
-the one on the right to the left, and like two sea-swallows sported
-around him. And his courser cast up four sods with his four hoofs, like
-four swallows in the air, about his head, now above, now below. About
-him was a four-cornered cloth of purple, and an apple of gold was at
-each corner, and every one of the apples was of the value of an hundred
-kine. And there was precious gold of the value of three hundred kine
-upon his shoes, and upon his stirrups, from his knee to the tip of his
-toe. And the blade of grass bent not beneath him, so light was his
-courser’s tread as he journeyed towards the gate of Arthur’s Palace.”
-
-Charming pictures of friendship there are, too, lived within castle
-and abbey; and descriptions of the love of birds and journeys taken
-upon sea and land; and harsh and barbaric touches to remind us of
-a past still more ancient and of a cruelty still more primitive.
-Possible flashes do we get of the humour of this olden life: the
-refreshing gentleman in Branwen, the daughter of Llyr, whom no house
-could ever contain; Bendigeid Vran, the brother of Branwen, that good
-brother who sat upon the rock of Harlech looking over the sea, and all
-unconsciously welcoming those who were to break the heart of the sister
-he loved. Poetry and wisdom also there are in this ancient life: the
-Coranians, who, however low words might be spoken, if the wind met that
-speech, it was made known to them; and Arthur granting a boon in words
-which are a poem in themselves,--“as far as the wind dries, and the
-rain moistens, and the sun revolves, and the sea encircles, and the
-earth extends.” “There is no remedy for that which is past, be it as it
-may,” said Luned. And in the “Mabinogion,” as in every life, there was
-one door which when those who were bearing the head of Bendigeid Vran
-to London opened and looked through, “they were as conscious of all the
-evils they had ever sustained, and of all the friends and companions
-they had lost, and of all the misery that had befallen them, as if it
-had all happened in that very spot.”
-
-South from Flint and south from Hawarden, yet near the windings of the
-river Dee, is Castle Dinas Bran, “Crow Castle,” as the English call
-it, mistakenly turning “Bran,” a word whose actual meaning is unknown,
-into “Crow.” Scarcely a stone of this very famous and ancient old
-castle situated on a high hill is left intact. The very rubble of its
-walls is exposed. Of the castle there is not enough left to repay any
-one for a visit, except a lover of desolation. Here, in another land,
-are walls like those of Balclutha, and desolate are they. Here the fox
-looks out of the window and the rank grass waves about its head, and
-here on the wind the song of mourning lifts itself bewailing the days
-that are gone. Yet from the valley below, with its quaint old town of
-Llangollen, its wonderful Abbey of Valle Crucis, and the shimmering of
-the running waters of the river Dee, the present is a reassuring one.
-Smoke curls up cheerfully from scores of household chimneys. The sun
-shines down upon the abbey walls, upon the chapter house, still intact,
-and upon the broken walls of the church itself.
-
-    “Ivy’d Valle Crucis; time decay’d
-    Dim on the brink of Deva’s wandering floods,
-    Your ivy’d arch glittering through the tangled shade,
-    Your gray hills towering o’er your night of woods;
-    Deep in the vale recesses as you stand,
-    And, desolately great.”
-
-Inseparable from and a part of the spiritual beauty of this scene is
-the thought of the old blind rector, who is now custodian of the abbey
-and who still speaks lovingly of the beauty of the things he can no
-longer see. He has been there twenty-nine years, and through many of
-those years he has been going blind. Yet he told us cheerfully that
-he was greatly encouraged by our interest. “I never destroy anything
-that is old,” he said; “I stick to the old.” As we stood there talking,
-the lovely little white English daisies looking up from the grass at
-us, the venerable old man told us something of his work. He was much
-discouraged because people were not interested, and even as he leaned
-on his stick, doubtless hoping for other visitors, his ear-sight
-quickened by the eye-sight he had lost, people were passing by outside
-walking toward the Pillar of Eliseg and a wooded vale beyond.
-
-In Llangollen, the village near the abbey, lived and died the ladies
-of Llangollen, two dear, quaint, sentimental souls, with personalities
-sufficiently marked and fearless so that they were unafraid to be
-themselves. Louisa Costello, in her account of a Welsh tour, gives them
-rather sharp treatment. She says that they were foolish, condescending,
-proud, vain, and pompous, yet she admits that they were charitable and
-considerate of their neighbours. Of their friendship she has nothing
-good to say. In a word, they were a couple of eccentric sentimentalists
-and both frightfully ugly. With the larger charity of the man,
-Wordsworth, who paid them a visit and wrote them a sonnet, described
-their appearance in the following words, “So oddly was one of these
-ladies attired that we took her, at a little distance, for a Roman
-Catholic priest, with a crucifix and relics hung at his neck. They were
-without caps, their hair, bushy and white as snow, which contributed to
-the mistake.” In the sonnet addressed to them there are, among others,
-two lines of pure tribute:--
-
-    “The Vale of Friendship, let this spot
-    Be named; there, faithful to a low roofed Cot,
-    On Deva’s banks, ye have abode so long;
-    Sisters in love, a love allowed to climb,
-    Even on this earth, above the reach of Time.”
-
-Lady Eleanor Butler was the daughter of the Earl of Ormond. She was
-born in Dublin and was both wealthy and beautiful. The Honourable Miss
-Ponsonby, a member of an ancient family, was an early friend of Lady
-Eleanor. She, too, was born in Dublin, and both lost their parents at
-the same time. They loved independence and did not love their suitors.
-Many things drew them together and, as Wordsworth aptly phrases it,
-they retired into notice in the Vale of Llangollen. Now they lie buried
-there, their faithful servant, Mrs. Mary Carryll, lying in an equal
-grave beside them.
-
-In this neighbourhood are many castles, among them Chirk the property
-of Lord Howard de Walden, and Ruthin Castle which is not very
-interesting. About northwest from Llangollen lies the old town of
-Conway, with its castle and its rare old Plas Mawr. Suetonius says that
-the chief motive assigned by the Romans for the invasion of Britain
-was that they might obtain possession of the Conway pearl fisheries.
-One of the Conway pearls, now no longer much thought of, was placed
-in the regal crown and presented by Sir R. Wynne to Richard II. The
-picturesqueness of Conway streets is greater than that of any other
-North Walian town. Little gable ends look out and down upon the streets
-like curious eyes. The houses are irregular and there are odd turns
-and twistings of the streets; cobblestones and old flagstones and an
-occasional black-and-white house; and everywhere glimpses through
-castle gate or over castle wall. The exterior of the castle is still
-singularly perfect; only one part of it seems to be falling, that
-nearest the river and looking out upon the sea. Overlooking the town,
-upon the river, is Queen Eleanor’s oratory:--
-
-    “In her oryall then she was
-    Closyd well with royall glas:
-    Fulfullyd it was with ymagery,
-    Every windowe by and by,
-    On each side had ther a gynne
-    Sperde with manie a dyvers pynne.”
-
-It matters not now whether this was a place of prayer or place in
-which the Queen arrayed herself. Pennant, when he made his famous “Tour
-in Wales,” described Conway as castle of matchless magnificence, and a
-matchlessly magnificent Castle it still is.
-
-It takes but a single effort of the imagination to see again the
-life within that ancient harp-shaped town as it must have been even
-so recently as seventy-five years ago: the varying colours of the
-peasants’ dresses, their large market-baskets and umbrellas, their
-bright handkerchiefs, the tall North Walian beaver hats and frilled
-caps peeping out beneath, the bright cheeks and even brighter pink
-cotton jackets worn by the girls. Healthy, well-made peasants those,
-neat of garb and gay of heart, good-looking, both men and women. Again
-the old market-place, beyond Plas Mawr and the church, rings with their
-laughter and their lively barter, and the clatter of their ponies’
-hoofs; again the soft voices of the women are heard and the heavier
-voices of the men; again they mount their horses, sometimes double, and
-ride away out of the lively town to the silent hills beyond, through
-Gyffin, where the colours in the old barrel vault of the church must
-have been even brighter than they are now; perhaps they go as far as
-some hillside like that on which Llangelynin still keeps its gray
-sanctuary. Again down upon the old town settles a double silence. The
-day’s work is done; twilight has come, and over all reigns a stillness
-which is as that of a Welsh Sabbath.
-
-Through the Vale of Conway, past Trevriw and Llanrwst with its Gwyder
-Castle, past beautiful Bettws-y-Coed and Capel Curig, and on to the
-Pass of Llanberis, a walk of unrivalled beauty, there appears at last,
-as one travels down to Pen-y-Pass (the head of the pass), the single
-tower of the ruined castle of Dolbadarn. A Welsh triad says there are
-three primary requisites for poetry: an eye that can see nature, a
-heart that can feel nature, and a resolution that dares follow nature.
-No one can come down from this road over the towering summits of
-Snowdon to the little green valley in which Dolbadarn lies without, for
-the time, becoming a poet, even to the resolution that dares follow
-the spiritual counsels which come from sky and mountain and rushing
-stream and the very rocks that fill this valley. “Nature has here,”
-says Camden, “reared huge groups of mountains, as if she intended
-to bind the island fast to the bowels of the earth, and make a safe
-retreat for Britons in the time of war. For here are so many crags and
-rocks, so many wooded valleys, rendered impassable by so many lakes,
-that the lightest troops, much less an army, could never find their way
-among them. These mountains may be truly called the British Alps; for,
-besides that they are the highest in the whole island, they are, like
-the Alps, bespread with broken crags on every side, all surrounding one
-which, towering in the centre, far above the rest, lifts its head so
-loftily, as if it meant not only to threaten, but to thrust it into the
-sky.”
-
-[Illustration: THE SUMMIT OF SNOWDON
-
-_From an old print_]
-
-The better one comes to know the castles of North Wales, the more is
-one impressed with the extraordinary ability shown in fortifying every
-access into the country. Dolbadarn itself is ancient; whether it dates
-from before or after the Roman Conquest is doubtful; it was with the
-thought of Llanberis Pass in mind that Tennyson wrote his “Golden
-Year”; it was there that he heard
-
-                  “the great echo flap
-    And buffet round the hill from bluff to bluff.”
-
-Here in this castle Owen Goch was imprisoned by his brother Llewelyn.
-To this prisoner a bard, Howel Voel ap Griffi ap Pwyll Gwyddel,
-composed his Welsh awdl, or ode, called “The Captive of Dolbadarn.” The
-feeling in this poem is still quick even after all the changes of the
-centuries and even with all the loss from translation:--
-
-    “His palace gates no more unclose,
-      No harp is heard within his hall,
-    His friends are vassals to his foes,
-      Grief and despair have vanquished all.
-    He, the defender,--he, the good and just,--
-    Is gone; his name, his honour, in the dust!
-
-    “He prized but treasures to bestow,
-      He cherish’d state but to be free;
-    None from his walls unsped might go,
-      To all he gave, but most to me!
-
-    “Ruddy his cheeks as morning’s light,
-      His ready lance was firm and bright,
-    The crimson stains that on it glow
-      Tell of the Saxon’s overthrow.
-
-    “Shame, that a prince like this should lie
-      An outcast, in captivity.
-    And oh! what years of ceaseless shame,
-      Should cloud the Lord of Snowdon’s name!”
-
-Professor O. M. Edwards, in his book called “Wales,” describes
-Dolbadarn as the last home of Welsh independence.
-
-Hundreds of years before the sad, peace-loving life of Llewelyn had
-played its great part in Welsh history, in the valley that runs from
-the head of the pass along the low margin of beautiful Gwynant Lake,
-by a little river that talks gayly in all weathers but most gayly in
-the stormiest, past Llyn (lake) Dinas to Beddgelert,--in this valley is
-situated on Dinas Emrys some fragments and traces of one of the oldest
-and most important strongholds in Great Britain. This was the fort of
-Merlin who “called up spirits from the vasty deep.” There is melancholy
-and romantic interest to be found on the summit of Dinas Emrys,
-tracing what still remains. Something there is, perhaps enough for the
-archæologist to re-create all that has been lost. On this same road,
-some thirteen miles beyond, lies Carnarvon Castle, of whose history and
-beauty I have written in “The City of the Prince of Wales.”
-
-In the “Mabinogion” there are wild-wood touches showing aspects of
-the life the Cymru had lived. The redactor of the old story of Branwen
-says: “Then they went on to Harlech … and there came three birds and
-began singing unto them a certain song, and all the songs they had ever
-heard were unpleasant compared thereto; and the birds seemed to them
-to be at a great distance from them over the sea, yet they appeared as
-distinct as if they were close by.” And again, “In Harlech you will
-be feasting seven years, the birds of Rhiannon singing unto you the
-while.” Just as the “Dream of Maxen Wledig” is in a sense the story
-of Carnarvon Castle, so is this tale of Branwen, the “fair-bosomed,”
-full of pictures and suggestions of Harlech Castle, Bendigeid Vran
-(the blessed) sitting on a rock and looking out to sea,--across that
-enchanted bay, on the other side of which lies Criccieth Castle, while
-the King of Ireland, Matholwch, his ships flying pennants of satin,
-comes wooing the sister of Branwen. A strange story this which has
-come out of that old castle stronghold, its royal Irish lover, its
-good Bendigeid Vran, its beautiful Branwen, the tame starlings and the
-singing-birds of Rhiannon, and that cry of Branwen, “Alas, woe is me
-that I was ever born”; and after that cry, the heart that broke and was
-buried in the four-sided grave on the banks of the Alaw.
-
-Harlech Castle was probably originally built about the middle of
-the sixth century by a British prince. Edward I constructed the
-present castle on the ruins of the former one. It was finished in
-the thirteenth century and became the seat of many conflicts between
-Owen Glendwr and the English. Thither heroic Margaret of Anjou fled,
-following the battle of Northampton. It was the last of the castles
-to hold out for Charles. The whole life of this stronghold has been
-heroic, stupendous in size, gallant in its human figures, impressive
-in its human sorrows, indomitable in its human courage. Here, and in
-the other castles of North Wales, many of those strange prophecies of
-Taliessin have been fulfilled or in part fulfilled, something at least
-of
-
-    “All the angels’ words
-    As to peace and war.”
-
-                                THE END
-
-
-
-
-_Appendix_
-
-
-
-
-APPENDIX
-
-_Suggestions for Some Tours_[2]
-
-
-At the junction of the Llugwy and Conway valleys, embowered in
-trees, cut by rushing streams, surrounded by mountains, among them
-Siabod, the Glyders, and some of the lesser hills of Snowdonia, is
-Bettws-y-Coed, one of the most beautiful and, be it said, the most
-comfortable villages in all North Wales. There are good inns, good
-lodgings, excellent train-service, coaches,--all that mankind in a
-holiday humour can desire. This little “chapel in the woods” is a place
-rich in beautiful legend, near the sea, in the midst of mountains, for
-the sportsman blessed with good fishing and good hunting. Artists go
-there, and where artists go, others can afford to follow. The Lledr
-Valley, which meets the Conway just outside of Bettws, Ruskin called
-the most beautiful valley in the world. At Bettws-y-Coed, I think, are
-as fine headquarters as any in North Wales for a series of tours. The
-Waterloo Hotel, the Royal Oak, the Gwydir are all good hotels, well
-run, sanitary, and with excellent food. In Bettws, too, there is a
-first-rate garage from which you can get good cars at any time.
-
-Repeated experience of life in North Wales in its most isolated,
-tiny hamlets, where the tourist had never been before and where it
-was impossible to secure lodging; experience in the small towns like
-Conway and Carnarvon, full of association, quiet and yet prosperous;
-and experience in the larger centres of Welsh life, have given me a
-perspective which is, perhaps, uncommon. The great advantage of Bettws
-is that you can not only get everywhere from that delightful place, but
-that you can also be most comfortable at a reasonable rate.
-
-If you are touring in an automobile you will find each one of the tours
-which I suggest food merely for a day of comfortable delight. If you
-are walking, or driving, these tours can be broken up and shortened or
-extended indefinitely.
-
-       *       *       *       *       *
-
-For the FIRST DAY go up the Vale of Conway, stopping at Trefriw.
-On your way to Trefriw, you will pass through Llanrwst, which, dear
-old market-town that it is, will for liveliness on a market-day
-suggest Piccadilly rather than a little Welsh town. There from miles
-around--and if you wish to see a Welsh market you cannot do better
-than to go to Llanrwst, for during centuries it has had a great
-reputation as a place of barter--there from miles around, the Welsh
-peasants gather, and there you will see Welsh household articles
-which you could not find in any shop. There is much in Llanrwst worth
-taking a glimpse at, the old bridge built by Inigo Jones which would
-be enough to send a well-regulated motor car to the madhouse, but
-from the artist point of view is still useful; the little cottage by
-the bridge, Gwydir Castle just beyond the cottage, not a tumble-down
-castle either, but resplendent with gorgeously carved furniture and
-Spanish-leather-covered walls and relics too many and too old to
-enumerate.
-
-But on to Trefriw and from Trefriw climb the hill on foot,--it is only
-a short hill,--to see Llanrhychwyn Church, a double-aisled church of
-the most primitive simplicity, where Prince Llewelyn used in tumultuous
-days to worship. One aisle is considerably older than the other,
-dating, as its architecture, the details of its rafters, the windows
-and doors show, perhaps back as far as the eighth century, surely the
-ninth. And now to Conway, stopping by the way at Caerhûn for just a
-glimpse of the old church there and a long enough time to realize that
-you are standing on the foundations of what was once the ancient Roman
-city of Canovium. Do not stay there so long that you will not have
-time to turn on a road just about a mile and a half outside of Conway
-that leads up the hill to Llangelynin Church, also one of the oldest
-foundations in all Great Britain, a poor, stricken, old place tended by
-a woman scarcely strong enough to creep around, apart from any village
-or any cottages, remote, pathetic in its semi-decay, and containing
-still the old pulpit, some of the old glass, and a leper’s window
-through which lepers used in the Middle Ages to receive the sacrament
-and to listen to the services.
-
-And now you are almost within the harp-shaped castle walls of Conway
-itself--old Conway with its cobbled streets, its beautiful Plas Mawr,
-its ancient hostelries, its massive castle with the oratory of Queen
-Eleanor still looking out upon the sea, and--treasure not to be
-despised--near the castle the tiniest cottage in all Great Britain.
-There are good hotels in Conway where an excellent luncheon or dinner
-may be found, and if there is time for sight-seeing, perhaps the
-best thing to do would be to buy one of Abel Heywood’s penny guides,
-for in these penny guides is found a wealth of reliable information.
-Enough, this, for one day’s joy, and I have discovered for you what
-no guide-book would do--two, and perhaps three, of the sweetest old
-churches of primitive Wales.
-
-       *       *       *       *       *
-
-Leaving Bettws-y-Coed on the SECOND DAY, you will go through Capel
-Curig, stopping on the way for a glimpse of the Swallow Falls. Now,
-down through the valley past Llyn Ogwen, from which you can visit, if
-you wish, the Devil’s Kitchen or Twll Ddu, the “black hole,” as the
-Welsh call it, where, every year, foolish young collegians lose their
-lives in scaling the walls. In its lack of verdure, in its stupendous
-rocky mountain summits, in its gigantic boulders of stone thrown hither
-and yon, this valley is a veritable valley of the shadow of death,
-gray, desolate, rock-strewn. You will pass through Bethesda on your
-way to Bangor, seeing, as you go along, hillsides covered with rubbish
-from slate quarries. And now to Bangor, where Dr. Samuel Johnson over
-one hundred years ago found the inn, together with a great deal else
-in Wales, “very mean.” Although the good Doctor was tremendously
-interested in his food, despite the very meanness of the inns, he found
-Bangor, its Beaumaris Castle, and its cathedral, interesting. But they
-have changed the “meanness” of their inns now, for this Welsh town has
-become a university town and you will find good food and good inns.
-
-Only a few miles beyond is Carnarvon,--that old town which North
-Walians claim as the most interesting of all their towns,--and
-Carnarvon Castle, in the words of Pennant, “the most magnificent badge
-of our subjection to the English.” There in Carnarvon the investitures
-of the Princes of Wales have taken place. Carnarvon Castle is, with the
-exception of Alnwick, the finest of all Great Britain and possessed of
-the romantic grace--its casements looking out upon the sea and the dim
-romantic shores of Anglesey and its towers back upon the rocky sides
-of Snowdon--of any European castle. Within the walls of this castle,
-begun by Edward I and completed by his son, the first English Prince
-of Wales, and within the walls of the town,--for Carnarvon is a city
-of the early Middle Ages founded upon the ancient city of the Romans
-called Segontium,--many hours, even days, might be spent.
-
-Homewards now to Bettws through Llanberis, up the long, beautifully
-graded road to Pen-y-Pass (which means simply the head of the pass),
-where you will find an inn for mountaineers in whose attractive
-dining-room you can have delicious tea and a view unrivalled in all
-North Wales. From Pen-y-Pass one of the easiest ascents of Snowdon can
-be made, and, with Bettws as a centre, it would be a very simple thing
-to run down to Pen-y-Pass for an ascent. You are within a few miles of
-Bettws now and will reach there in time for supper or dinner at seven
-o’clock.
-
-       *       *       *       *       *
-
-On the THIRD DAY go through Capel Curig again, turning at
-Pen-y-Gwryd,--where Charles Kingsley, the novelist, and Tom Hood spent
-so many happy days and where there is an excellent inn,--to go to
-Beddgelert. You will run down one of the most beautiful roads in Great
-Britain, wide, smooth, with all Snowdonia at your right-hand side,
-and on the left, mountains that roll away towards the jagged summit
-of Cynicht; down past beautiful Lake Gwynant; past beautiful country
-places; past Dinas Lake where a remarkable creature of mythological
-times is supposed to have lived--fairy tale seems to have made a sort
-of crocodile out of what was probably a beaver;--past Dinas Emrys,
-on which there are still remains of a Roman stronghold and where the
-magician Merlin Ambrosius worked many a spell and Arthur has often
-been; still on, past Aran, a mountain only less high than Snowdon, from
-whose side leaps a little waterfall; along a road with a turbulent
-Welsh river on one side and fawn-like, mottled beach trees on the
-other; now on to the outskirts of the village, where one begins to
-see signboards announcing lodgings, and finally, into the village of
-Beddgelert, set sheltered and surrounded in its cup of mountains, and
-where, if you have a heart for legend, you may see a dog’s grave and
-believe the beautiful old tale; and where, if you have an eye for
-beauty, you may have your eyes filled--eat your cake, indeed, and take
-some of it away with you;--and where, if you have a mind to rest, you
-may stay on indefinitely, finding each day more peaceful and more
-lovely than the last in that little mountain-cupped village, with the
-sound of its running rivers and its tumbling mountain streams and the
-day-long cawing of its rooks. If you want a welcome from some one who
-loves Americans and who will do all that she can for them, you could
-not do better than go to Mrs. Howell Griffith Powell, who will give you
-excellent simple food and, if it is a cold day or you happen merely
-to want it as an added pleasure, an open fire. There are good hotels
-there, too, the Royal Goat Hotel and the Prince Llewelyn.
-
-Then in the afternoon you will go on down through Aberglaslyn Pass.
-Perhaps you will stand on the old bridge for a few minutes and read or
-listen to the story of how the Devil--always a singularly active figure
-in Wales and the Welsh imagination--tried to get an unjust toll for
-the building of that bridge and was outwitted. The Welsh mind--and the
-revival is a point in proof--takes a singular delight in outwitting
-the Devil. Now, on to Tremadoc, where on the right-hand side of the
-road you will see the house in which Shelley, the poet, lived for a
-year with poor unhappy Harriet. From Portmadoc you can take a short
-détour to Harlech and its castle, a tremendous old pile of a fortress,
-scarcely beautiful, but very impressive as it stands upon its vast rock
-looking out over the sea and the mountains, and down over the little
-cottages sheltered at its foot. As you look across the sea, you are
-gazing upon the land where King Mark is supposed to have had his palace
-and upon Criccieth, where you may still see an old stub of a castle.
-Perhaps you will be even more interested to know that Lloyd George has
-his summer home in Criccieth, and that not far from Harlech, Bernard
-Shaw has spent a good deal of his time preparing his next delightfully
-wicked laugh at the expense of himself and mankind. Just opposite
-Harlech Castle is a good inn where one can get an ample dinner or
-luncheon or tea; and a car or one’s walking-traps may be left.
-
-Retracing a few miles from Harlech, follow the road through the
-beautiful Vale of Maentwrog. It was in the Vale of Maentwrog that Lord
-Lyttleton said, “One might with the woman one loves pass an age in this
-vale and think it but a day.” Up through this wonderful vale you will
-see a tiny narrow-gauge railway making its way. Sharp is the contrast
-between the country at Festiniog, from which one looks down upon the
-Vale of Maentwrog, and the country about Blaenau Festiniog, which is
-the next town beyond. Blaenau Festiniog--high up on the mountain side,
-with the peaks of gray rock summits towering high above the village
-and rocks everywhere coming down to the backs of the houses, miles of
-slate rubbish within sight of every street in the village--has for its
-proud boast the fact that it contains the largest slate quarries in the
-world. Here are quarried the beautiful blue slates of which Wales is
-proud, and which, alas, the cheaper French slates have been driving out
-of the market. It is well worth the trouble to climb the quarry steps
-up the Oakeley Quarry. Then on through the Lledr Valley, with every
-turn of the road near the Lledr River, through plantations of pines,
-past little houses, down this beautifully graded road until the Lledr
-River joins the Conway, past the Fairy Glen, and so home once more to
-Bettws.
-
-       *       *       *       *       *
-
-A FOURTH DAY should be spent in a more fertile part of the country
-following the Cerrig-y-Druidion road through to Corwen. A few miles
-farther on, along the river Dee, one comes to Llangollen, a sweet old
-town, where lived those two dear, high-spirited, quaint old ladies of
-Llangollen; where there are excellent inns in a fertile valley, good
-shops, a town Welsh to its finger tips, and an old abbey called Valle
-Crucis. One hears so much of Tintern Abbey on its southern English
-river, yet there is something about Valle Crucis which I think is no
-less lovely. More of a ruin it is, and in some ways more of a treasure.
-On the whole, it has fallen into greater dilapidation, but there are
-parts of it from which one can read much of a life that is past.
-There is a charming old chapter house almost intact; a delightful old
-fishpond from which the monks, who had an eye for what was good to
-eat, took their carp; and there are such graceful Norman chimneys and
-fireplaces as I do not remember having seen any place else; and there,
-too, the old blind rector shows one the things which he cannot see any
-more, saying over and over as he guides one around, “I never destroy
-anything that is old.” The restoration of this abbey is his work, his
-life, and before his sight went he had put into print such records of
-its past life that he had identified himself with its history for all
-time to come. Americans he loves, too, and you will give as well as get
-pleasure.
-
-       *       *       *       *       *
-
-In conclusion, a few general suggestions. You would find it amply
-worth your while to motor over to Bala, or, if you are not motoring,
-to take the train over there. The lake is beautiful, accommodations
-are good, and one can, from Bala as a centre, make several short and
-most interesting trips:--one to Dolgelly, where Tennyson spent so
-many of his vacations; another up to the quaint little town of Ruthin
-in which Dr. Johnson and Mrs. Piozzi (Mrs. Thrale) spent some little
-time and of which Mrs. Piozzi tells the charming story which I have
-repeated elsewhere. She was discussing with the caretaker of one of
-the little churches in the possession of the Thrale family her plans
-for her journey and mentioned that she was going to Ruthin. “Ruthin,
-mum,” he said, “my wife came from Ruthin, and when she died I made up
-my mind I’d go with the body to Ruthin, for I thought I would find it a
-pleasant journey, and indeed, mum, I found it a very pleasant journey.”
-
-[2] Buy anywhere you happen to be in Wales, _The Gossiping Guide to
-Wales_; its maps, big and small, and its text answer all questions.
-Price, one shilling.
-
-                          The Riverside Press
-                       CAMBRIDGE . MASSACHUSETTS
-                               U . S . A
-
-
-
-
-
-End of Project Gutenberg's Gallant Little Wales, by Jeannette Augustus Marks
-
-*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK GALLANT LITTLE WALES ***
-
-***** This file should be named 53248-0.txt or 53248-0.zip *****
-This and all associated files of various formats will be found in:
-        http://www.gutenberg.org/5/3/2/4/53248/
-
-Produced by MWS and the Online Distributed Proofreading
-Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from
-images generously made available by The Internet
-Archive/American Libraries.)
-
-
-Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will
-be renamed.
-
-Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright
-law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works,
-so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United
-States without permission and without paying copyright
-royalties. Special rules, set forth in the General Terms of Use part
-of this license, apply to copying and distributing Project
-Gutenberg-tm electronic works to protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm
-concept and trademark. Project Gutenberg is a registered trademark,
-and may not be used if you charge for the eBooks, unless you receive
-specific permission. If you do not charge anything for copies of this
-eBook, complying with the rules is very easy. You may use this eBook
-for nearly any purpose such as creation of derivative works, reports,
-performances and research. They may be modified and printed and given
-away--you may do practically ANYTHING in the United States with eBooks
-not protected by U.S. copyright law. Redistribution is subject to the
-trademark license, especially commercial redistribution.
-
-START: FULL LICENSE
-
-THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE
-PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK
-
-To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free
-distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work
-(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase "Project
-Gutenberg"), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full
-Project Gutenberg-tm License available with this file or online at
-www.gutenberg.org/license.
-
-Section 1. General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project
-Gutenberg-tm electronic works
-
-1.A. By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm
-electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to
-and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property
-(trademark/copyright) agreement. If you do not agree to abide by all
-the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or
-destroy all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your
-possession. If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a
-Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound
-by the terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the
-person or entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph
-1.E.8.
-
-1.B. "Project Gutenberg" is a registered trademark. It may only be
-used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who
-agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement. There are a few
-things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works
-even without complying with the full terms of this agreement. See
-paragraph 1.C below. There are a lot of things you can do with Project
-Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this
-agreement and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm
-electronic works. See paragraph 1.E below.
-
-1.C. The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation ("the
-Foundation" or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection
-of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works. Nearly all the individual
-works in the collection are in the public domain in the United
-States. If an individual work is unprotected by copyright law in the
-United States and you are located in the United States, we do not
-claim a right to prevent you from copying, distributing, performing,
-displaying or creating derivative works based on the work as long as
-all references to Project Gutenberg are removed. Of course, we hope
-that you will support the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting
-free access to electronic works by freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm
-works in compliance with the terms of this agreement for keeping the
-Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with the work. You can easily
-comply with the terms of this agreement by keeping this work in the
-same format with its attached full Project Gutenberg-tm License when
-you share it without charge with others.
-
-1.D. The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern
-what you can do with this work. Copyright laws in most countries are
-in a constant state of change. If you are outside the United States,
-check the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this
-agreement before downloading, copying, displaying, performing,
-distributing or creating derivative works based on this work or any
-other Project Gutenberg-tm work. The Foundation makes no
-representations concerning the copyright status of any work in any
-country outside the United States.
-
-1.E. Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg:
-
-1.E.1. The following sentence, with active links to, or other
-immediate access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear
-prominently whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work
-on which the phrase "Project Gutenberg" appears, or with which the
-phrase "Project Gutenberg" is associated) is accessed, displayed,
-performed, viewed, copied or distributed:
-
-  This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and
-  most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no
-  restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it
-  under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this
-  eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the
-  United States, you'll have to check the laws of the country where you
-  are located before using this ebook.
-
-1.E.2. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is
-derived from texts not protected by U.S. copyright law (does not
-contain a notice indicating that it is posted with permission of the
-copyright holder), the work can be copied and distributed to anyone in
-the United States without paying any fees or charges. If you are
-redistributing or providing access to a work with the phrase "Project
-Gutenberg" associated with or appearing on the work, you must comply
-either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 or
-obtain permission for the use of the work and the Project Gutenberg-tm
-trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or 1.E.9.
-
-1.E.3. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted
-with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution
-must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any
-additional terms imposed by the copyright holder. Additional terms
-will be linked to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works
-posted with the permission of the copyright holder found at the
-beginning of this work.
-
-1.E.4. Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm
-License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this
-work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm.
-
-1.E.5. Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this
-electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without
-prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with
-active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project
-Gutenberg-tm License.
-
-1.E.6. You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary,
-compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including
-any word processing or hypertext form. However, if you provide access
-to or distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format
-other than "Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other format used in the official
-version posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm web site
-(www.gutenberg.org), you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense
-to the user, provide a copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means
-of obtaining a copy upon request, of the work in its original "Plain
-Vanilla ASCII" or other form. Any alternate format must include the
-full Project Gutenberg-tm License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1.
-
-1.E.7. Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying,
-performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works
-unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9.
-
-1.E.8. You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing
-access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works
-provided that
-
-* You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from
-  the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method
-  you already use to calculate your applicable taxes. The fee is owed
-  to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he has
-  agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the Project
-  Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation. Royalty payments must be paid
-  within 60 days following each date on which you prepare (or are
-  legally required to prepare) your periodic tax returns. Royalty
-  payments should be clearly marked as such and sent to the Project
-  Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the address specified in
-  Section 4, "Information about donations to the Project Gutenberg
-  Literary Archive Foundation."
-
-* You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies
-  you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he
-  does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm
-  License. You must require such a user to return or destroy all
-  copies of the works possessed in a physical medium and discontinue
-  all use of and all access to other copies of Project Gutenberg-tm
-  works.
-
-* You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of
-  any money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the
-  electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days of
-  receipt of the work.
-
-* You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free
-  distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works.
-
-1.E.9. If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project
-Gutenberg-tm electronic work or group of works on different terms than
-are set forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing
-from both the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and The
-Project Gutenberg Trademark LLC, the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm
-trademark. Contact the Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below.
-
-1.F.
-
-1.F.1. Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable
-effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread
-works not protected by U.S. copyright law in creating the Project
-Gutenberg-tm collection. Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm
-electronic works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may
-contain "Defects," such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate
-or corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other
-intellectual property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or
-other medium, a computer virus, or computer codes that damage or
-cannot be read by your equipment.
-
-1.F.2. LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the "Right
-of Replacement or Refund" described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project
-Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project
-Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project
-Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all
-liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal
-fees. YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT
-LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE
-PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH 1.F.3. YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE
-TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE
-LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR
-INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH
-DAMAGE.
-
-1.F.3. LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a
-defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can
-receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a
-written explanation to the person you received the work from. If you
-received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium
-with your written explanation. The person or entity that provided you
-with the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in
-lieu of a refund. If you received the work electronically, the person
-or entity providing it to you may choose to give you a second
-opportunity to receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund. If
-the second copy is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing
-without further opportunities to fix the problem.
-
-1.F.4. Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth
-in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you 'AS-IS', WITH NO
-OTHER WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT
-LIMITED TO WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE.
-
-1.F.5. Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied
-warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of
-damages. If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement
-violates the law of the state applicable to this agreement, the
-agreement shall be interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or
-limitation permitted by the applicable state law. The invalidity or
-unenforceability of any provision of this agreement shall not void the
-remaining provisions.
-
-1.F.6. INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the
-trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone
-providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in
-accordance with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the
-production, promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm
-electronic works, harmless from all liability, costs and expenses,
-including legal fees, that arise directly or indirectly from any of
-the following which you do or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this
-or any Project Gutenberg-tm work, (b) alteration, modification, or
-additions or deletions to any Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any
-Defect you cause.
-
-Section 2. Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm
-
-Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of
-electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of
-computers including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers. It
-exists because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations
-from people in all walks of life.
-
-Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the
-assistance they need are critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm's
-goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will
-remain freely available for generations to come. In 2001, the Project
-Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure
-and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future
-generations. To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary
-Archive Foundation and how your efforts and donations can help, see
-Sections 3 and 4 and the Foundation information page at
-www.gutenberg.org Section 3. Information about the Project Gutenberg
-Literary Archive Foundation
-
-The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non profit
-501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the
-state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal
-Revenue Service. The Foundation's EIN or federal tax identification
-number is 64-6221541. Contributions to the Project Gutenberg Literary
-Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent permitted by
-U.S. federal laws and your state's laws.
-
-The Foundation's principal office is in Fairbanks, Alaska, with the
-mailing address: PO Box 750175, Fairbanks, AK 99775, but its
-volunteers and employees are scattered throughout numerous
-locations. Its business office is located at 809 North 1500 West, Salt
-Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887. Email contact links and up to
-date contact information can be found at the Foundation's web site and
-official page at www.gutenberg.org/contact
-
-For additional contact information:
-
-    Dr. Gregory B. Newby
-    Chief Executive and Director
-    gbnewby@pglaf.org
-
-Section 4. Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg
-Literary Archive Foundation
-
-Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without wide
-spread public support and donations to carry out its mission of
-increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be
-freely distributed in machine readable form accessible by the widest
-array of equipment including outdated equipment. Many small donations
-($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt
-status with the IRS.
-
-The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating
-charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United
-States. Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a
-considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up
-with these requirements. We do not solicit donations in locations
-where we have not received written confirmation of compliance. To SEND
-DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any particular
-state visit www.gutenberg.org/donate
-
-While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we
-have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition
-against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who
-approach us with offers to donate.
-
-International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make
-any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from
-outside the United States. U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff.
-
-Please check the Project Gutenberg Web pages for current donation
-methods and addresses. Donations are accepted in a number of other
-ways including checks, online payments and credit card donations. To
-donate, please visit: www.gutenberg.org/donate
-
-Section 5. General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works.
-
-Professor Michael S. Hart was the originator of the Project
-Gutenberg-tm concept of a library of electronic works that could be
-freely shared with anyone. For forty years, he produced and
-distributed Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of
-volunteer support.
-
-Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed
-editions, all of which are confirmed as not protected by copyright in
-the U.S. unless a copyright notice is included. Thus, we do not
-necessarily keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper
-edition.
-
-Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search
-facility: www.gutenberg.org
-
-This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm,
-including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary
-Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to
-subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks.
-
diff --git a/old/53248-0.zip b/old/53248-0.zip
deleted file mode 100644
index acd721d..0000000
--- a/old/53248-0.zip
+++ /dev/null
diff --git a/old/53248-h.zip b/old/53248-h.zip
deleted file mode 100644
index 340f448..0000000
--- a/old/53248-h.zip
+++ /dev/null
diff --git a/old/53248-h/53248-h.htm b/old/53248-h/53248-h.htm
deleted file mode 100644
index 3da25ea..0000000
--- a/old/53248-h/53248-h.htm
+++ /dev/null
@@ -1,6322 +0,0 @@
-<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN"
-    "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd">
-<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="en" lang="en">
-  <head>
-    <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;charset=utf-8" />
-    <meta http-equiv="Content-Style-Type" content="text/css" />
-    <title>
-      The Project Gutenberg eBook of Gallant Little Wales, by Jeannette Marks.
-    </title>
-
-    <link rel="coverpage" href="images/cover.jpg" />
-
-<style type="text/css">
-
-a {
-    text-decoration: none;
-}
-
-body {
-    margin-left: 10%;
-    margin-right: 10%;
-}
-
-h1,h2 {
-    text-align: center;
-    clear: both;
-}
-
-hr {
-    margin-top: 2em;
-    margin-bottom: 2em;
-    clear: both;
-}
-
-hr.tb {
-    width: 45%;
-    margin-left: 27.5%;
-    margin-right: 27.5%;
-}
-
-hr.chap {
-    width: 65%;
-    margin-left: 17.5%;
-    margin-right: 17.5%;
-}
-
-p {
-    margin-top: 0.5em;
-    text-align: justify;
-    margin-bottom: 0.5em;
-    text-indent: 1em;
-}
-
-table {
-    margin: 1em auto 1em auto;
-    max-width: 40em;
-}
-
-td {
-    padding-left: 2.25em;
-    padding-right: 0.25em;
-    vertical-align: top;
-    text-indent: -2em;
-}
-
-.bbox {
-    border: thin solid black;
-    padding: 1em;
-    margin: auto;
-    max-width: 20em;
-}
-
-.caption {
-    text-align: center;
-    margin-bottom: 1em;
-    font-size: 90%;
-    text-indent: 0em;
-}
-
-.center {
-    text-align: center;
-    text-indent: 0em;
-}
-
-.figcenter {
-    margin: auto;
-    text-align: center;
-}
-
-.footnotes {
-    margin-top: 1em;
-    border: dashed 1px;
-}
-
-.footnote {
-    margin-left: 10%;
-    margin-right: 10%;
-    font-size: 0.9em;
-}
-
-.footnote .label {
-    position: absolute;
-    right: 84%;
-    text-align: right;
-}
-
-.fnanchor {
-    vertical-align: super;
-    font-size: .8em;
-    text-decoration: none;
-}
-
-.hanging {
-    padding-left: 2em;
-    text-indent: -2em;
-}
-
-.noindent {
-    text-indent: 0em;
-}
-
-.larger {
-    font-size: 150%;
-}
-
-.pagenum {
-    position: absolute;
-    right: 4%;
-    font-size: smaller;
-    text-align: right;
-    font-style: normal;
-}
-
-.poetry-container {
-    text-align: center;
-    margin: 1em;
-}
-
-.poetry {
-    display: inline-block;
-    text-align: left;
-}
-
-.poetry .stanza {
-    margin: 1em 0em 1em 0em;
-}
-
-.poetry .verse {
-    text-indent: -3em;
-    padding-left: 3em;
-}
-
-.poetry .indent1 {
-    text-indent: -2em;
-}
-
-.poetry .indent2 {
-    text-indent: -1em;
-}
-
-.poetry .indent4 {
-    text-indent: 2em;
-}
-
-.poetry .indent9 {
-    text-indent: 6em;
-}
-
-.right {
-    text-align: right;
-}
-
-.smaller {
-    font-size: 80%;
-}
-
-.smcap {
-    font-variant: small-caps;
-    font-style: normal;
-}
-
-.smcapuc {
-    font-variant: small-caps;
-    font-style: normal;
-    text-transform: lowercase;
-}
-
-.tdindent {
-    text-indent: 0;
-    font-size: 80%;
-}
-
-.tdr {
-    text-align: right;
-}
-
-.titlepage {
-    text-align: center;
-    margin-top: 3em;
-    text-indent: 0em;
-}
-
-@media handheld {
-
-img {
-    max-width: 100%;
-    width: auto;
-    height: auto;
-}
-
-.poetry {
-    display: block;
-    margin-left: 1.5em;
-}
-}
-    </style>
-  </head>
-<body>
-
-
-<pre>
-
-Project Gutenberg's Gallant Little Wales, by Jeannette Augustus Marks
-
-This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most
-other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions
-whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of
-the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at
-www.gutenberg.org.  If you are not located in the United States, you'll have
-to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this ebook.
-
-
-
-Title: Gallant Little Wales
-       Sketches of its people, places and customs
-
-Author: Jeannette Augustus Marks
-
-Release Date: October 11, 2016 [EBook #53248]
-
-Language: English
-
-Character set encoding: UTF-8
-
-*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK GALLANT LITTLE WALES ***
-
-
-
-
-Produced by MWS and the Online Distributed Proofreading
-Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from
-images generously made available by The Internet
-Archive/American Libraries.)
-
-
-
-
-
-
-</pre>
-
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 300px;" id="map">
-<a href="images/map.jpg"><img src="images/map-thumbnail.jpg" width="300" height="230" alt="Map of Wales" /></a>
-<p class="caption">PETERS, ENGRS., BOSTON</p>
-</div>
-
-<hr class="chap" />
-
-<div class="bbox">
-
-<p class="center">By Jeannette Marks</p>
-
-<p class="hanging">GALLANT LITTLE WALES. Sketches of its
-People, Places, and Customs. Illustrated.</p>
-
-<p class="hanging">THE END OF A SONG. Illustrated.</p>
-
-<p class="hanging">THROUGH WELSH DOORWAYS. Illustrated.</p>
-
-<p class="titlepage">HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY<br />
-<span class="smcap">Boston and New York</span></p>
-
-</div>
-
-<hr class="chap" />
-
-<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_i" id="Page_i">[i]</a></span></p>
-
-<p class="center larger"><i>Gallant Little Wales</i></p>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_ii" id="Page_ii">[ii]</a></span></p>
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 460px;" id="frontispiece">
-<img src="images/frontispiece.jpg" width="460" height="600" alt="" />
-<p class="caption">THE LADIES OF LLANGOLLEN</p>
-</div>
-
-<hr class="chap" />
-
-<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_iii" id="Page_iii">[iii]</a></span></p>
-
-<p class="titlepage larger"><i>Gallant Little Wales</i></p>
-
-<p class="center"><i>Sketches of its People, Places<br />
-and Customs</i></p>
-
-<p class="titlepage">BY JEANNETTE MARKS</p>
-
-<p class="titlepage smaller">WITH ILLUSTRATIONS</p>
-
-<div class="figcenter titlepage" style="width: 250px;">
-<img src="images/titlepage.jpg" width="250" height="250" alt="Welsh cottages" />
-</div>
-
-<p class="titlepage">BOSTON AND NEW YORK<br />
-HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY<br />
-The Riverside Press Cambridge<br />
-1912</p>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_iv" id="Page_iv">[iv]</a></span></p>
-
-<p class="titlepage smaller">COPYRIGHT 1912, BY JEANNETTE MARKS<br />
-ALL RIGHTS RESERVED</p>
-
-<p class="titlepage smaller"><i>Published October 1912</i></p>
-
-<hr class="chap" />
-
-<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_v" id="Page_v">[v]</a></span></p>
-
-<p class="center larger">CALON WRTH GALON</p>
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 200px;">
-<img src="images/leeks.jpg" width="200" height="50" alt="Leeks" />
-</div>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_vi" id="Page_vi">[vi]</a></span></p>
-
-<hr class="chap" />
-
-<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_vii" id="Page_vii">[vii]</a></span></p>
-
-<h2><i>Preface</i></h2>
-
-<p>As a guide-book this volume will be found to
-contain too few unpronounceable Welsh place-names
-to be adequate, but as an introduction to
-the North Welsh land, its customs, its village
-life, its little churches, its holiday possibilities, its
-history and associations, its folk-lore and romance,
-its music, its cottages and castles, <span class="smcap">Gallant
-Little Wales</span> should be useful. It is my intention
-to follow this book with a companion volume
-on South Wales.</p>
-
-<p>I wish to express my debt to Mr. Henry Blackwell,
-who has always been quick to lend me
-volumes from his priceless Welsh library and
-who went over some of my manuscript for me.
-I am under obligations also to Rev. Gwilym
-O. Griffith of Carnarvonshire, North Wales.
-Thanks, too, I owe to Miss Dorothy Foster for
-her work upon <a href="#map">the map</a> which appears as a separate
-page in this volume.</p>
-
-<p>The English know where beauty and comfort,
-good care, and good Welsh mutton are to be had
-for a moderate tariff. But long before the Englishman
-went for his vacations to these British<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_viii" id="Page_viii">[viii]</a></span>
-Alps and the American followed him, excursions
-were made into Wales. The Roman spent a summer
-holiday or so both in North and South
-Wales, and left there his villas and his fortresses
-and his roads. The Roman, having set or followed
-a good example&mdash;and who shall say which
-it was?&mdash;and having with Roman certainty got
-what he wanted, departed, leaving the country
-open to other invaders who pillaged and plundered.
-Nor, since that time, has the country ever
-been without an invader.</p>
-
-<p>I, too, have gone my wonder-ways in Wales,
-plundering where I could. I, too, Celt and Celt
-again, have followed its beauty and felt a biting
-hunger for a land which, once loved, can never be
-forgotten. As did another Celt, William Morris,
-in his poems, so in prose this little book and I
-have wrought in an old garden, hoping to make
-“fresh flowers spring up from hoarded seed” and
-to bring back again&mdash;“back to folk weary”&mdash;some
-fragrance of old days and old deeds. Friendliness,
-solitude, memories, beauty for the eye and
-beauty for the ear,&mdash;he who would have one or
-all of these, let him go and go again to gallant
-little Wales.</p>
-
-<p class="right"><span class="smcap">Jeannette Marks.</span></p>
-
-<p class="smaller"><span class="smcap">Attic Peace</span>, May 13, 1912.</p>
-
-<hr class="chap" />
-
-<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_ix" id="Page_ix">[ix]</a></span></p>
-
-<h2><i>Contents</i></h2>
-
-<table summary="Contents">
-  <tr>
-    <td class="tdr">I.</td>
-    <td><span class="smcap">Welsh Wales</span></td>
-    <td class="tdr"><a href="#I">3</a></td>
-  </tr>
-  <tr>
-    <td class="tdr">II.</td>
-    <td><span class="smcap">A Village in Eryri</span></td>
-    <td class="tdr"><a href="#II">17</a></td>
-  </tr>
-  <tr>
-    <td class="tdr">III.</td>
-    <td><span class="smcap">Hilltop Churches</span></td>
-    <td class="tdr"><a href="#III">30</a></td>
-  </tr>
-  <tr>
-    <td class="tdr">IV.</td>
-    <td><span class="smcap">Dr. Johnson’s Tour of North Wales</span></td>
-    <td class="tdr"><a href="#IV">59</a></td>
-  </tr>
-  <tr>
-    <td class="tdr">V.</td>
-    <td><span class="smcap">Welsh Folk-Lore </span></td>
-    <td class="tdr"><a href="#V">86</a></td>
-  </tr>
-  <tr>
-    <td class="tdr">VI.</td>
-    <td><span class="smcap">The City of the Prince of Wales</span></td>
-    <td class="tdr"><a href="#VI">105</a></td>
-  </tr>
-  <tr>
-    <td class="tdr">VII.</td>
-    <td><span class="smcap">The Eisteddfod</span></td>
-    <td class="tdr"><a href="#VII">117</a></td>
-  </tr>
-  <tr>
-    <td class="tdr">VIII.</td>
-    <td><span class="smcap">Cambrian Cottages</span></td>
-    <td class="tdr"><a href="#VIII">133</a></td>
-  </tr>
-  <tr>
-    <td class="tdr">IX.</td>
-    <td><span class="smcap">Castle and Abbeys in North Wales</span></td>
-    <td class="tdr"><a href="#IX">155</a></td>
-  </tr>
-  <tr>
-    <td class="tdr"></td>
-    <td><span class="smcap">Appendix: Suggestions for Some Tours</span></td>
-    <td class="tdr"><a href="#APPENDIX">177</a></td>
-  </tr>
-</table>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_x" id="Page_x">[x]</a></span></p>
-
-<hr class="chap" />
-
-<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_xi" id="Page_xi">[xi]</a></span></p>
-
-<h2><i>Illustrations</i></h2>
-
-<table summary="List of illustrations">
-  <tr>
-    <td><span class="smcap">The Ladies of Llangollen</span></td>
-    <td class="tdr"><a href="#frontispiece"><i>Frontispiece</i></a></td>
-  </tr>
-  <tr>
-    <td><span class="smcap">Conway Castle</span></td>
-    <td class="tdr"><a href="#illus1">10</a></td>
-  </tr>
-  <tr>
-    <td class="tdindent">From an old print.</td><td></td>
-  </tr>
-  <tr>
-    <td><span class="smcap">The Queen’s Tower, Conway Castle</span></td>
-    <td class="tdr"><a href="#illus2">24</a></td>
-  </tr>
-  <tr>
-    <td class="tdindent">From an engraving by Cuitt, 1817.</td><td></td>
-  </tr>
-  <tr>
-    <td><span class="smcap">The Great Hall at Conway Castle</span></td>
-    <td class="tdr"><a href="#illus3">32</a></td>
-  </tr>
-  <tr>
-    <td class="tdindent">From an engraving by Cuitt.</td><td></td>
-  </tr>
-  <tr>
-    <td><span class="smcap">St. Winifred’s Well, Holyhead </span></td>
-    <td class="tdr"><a href="#illus4">40</a></td>
-  </tr>
-  <tr>
-    <td class="tdindent">From an engraving by Cuitt, 1813.</td><td></td>
-  </tr>
-  <tr>
-    <td><span class="smcap">The Eagle Tower of Carnarvon Castle</span></td>
-    <td class="tdr"><a href="#illus5">52</a></td>
-  </tr>
-  <tr>
-    <td class="tdindent">From an engraving by Cuitt.</td><td></td>
-  </tr>
-  <tr>
-    <td><span class="smcap">Gateway of Carnarvon Castle</span></td>
-    <td class="tdr"><a href="#illus6">66</a></td>
-  </tr>
-  <tr>
-    <td class="tdindent">From an engraving by Cuitt.</td><td></td>
-  </tr>
-  <tr>
-    <td><span class="smcap">A View of Denbigh Castle</span></td>
-    <td class="tdr"><a href="#illus7">80</a></td>
-  </tr>
-  <tr>
-    <td class="tdindent">From an engraving by Boydell, 1750.</td><td></td>
-  </tr>
-  <tr>
-    <td><span class="smcap">Ruthin Castle</span></td>
-    <td class="tdr"><a href="#illus8">92</a></td>
-  </tr>
-  <tr>
-    <td class="tdindent">From an engraving by Buck, 1742.</td><td></td>
-  </tr>
-  <tr>
-    <td><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_xii" id="Page_xii">[xii]</a></span><span class="smcap">The Compleat Angler in Wales </span></td>
-    <td class="tdr"><a href="#illus9">100</a></td>
-  </tr>
-  <tr>
-    <td><span class="smcap">The Tower of Dolbadarn on Llanberis Lake</span></td>
-    <td class="tdr"><a href="#illus10">112</a></td>
-  </tr>
-  <tr>
-    <td><span class="smcap">Llanberis</span></td>
-    <td class="tdr"><a href="#illus11">124</a></td>
-  </tr>
-  <tr>
-    <td class="tdindent">From an old print.</td><td></td>
-  </tr>
-  <tr>
-    <td><span class="smcap">Beaumaris</span></td>
-    <td class="tdr"><a href="#illus12">140</a></td>
-  </tr>
-  <tr>
-    <td class="tdindent">From a proof before letters by Turner.</td><td></td>
-  </tr>
-  <tr>
-    <td><span class="smcap">A Welsh Waterfall near Penmaen-Mawr</span></td>
-    <td class="tdr"><a href="#illus13">148</a></td>
-  </tr>
-  <tr>
-    <td class="tdindent">From an engraving by Boydell, 1750.</td><td></td>
-  </tr>
-  <tr>
-    <td><span class="smcap">Beddgelert</span></td>
-    <td class="tdr"><a href="#illus14">160</a></td>
-  </tr>
-  <tr>
-    <td class="tdindent">From an old print.</td><td></td>
-  </tr>
-  <tr>
-    <td><span class="smcap">The Summit of Snowdon</span></td>
-    <td class="tdr"><a href="#illus15">172</a></td>
-  </tr>
-  <tr>
-    <td class="tdindent">From an old print.</td><td></td>
-  </tr>
-  <tr>
-    <td><span class="smcap">Map</span></td>
-    <td class="tdr"><a href="#map"><i>Inside front cover</i></a></td>
-  </tr>
-</table>
-
-<hr class="chap" />
-
-<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_1" id="Page_1">[1]</a><br />
-<a name="Page_2" id="Page_2">[2]</a><br />
-<a name="Page_3" id="Page_3">[3]</a></span></p>
-
-<h1><i>Gallant Little Wales</i></h1>
-
-<h2 id="I">I<br />
-<span class="smaller"><i>Welsh Wales</i></span></h2>
-
-<p>It is a vanished past that haunts the imagination
-in Wales, so that forever after in thoughts
-of that country one goes spellbound. It is the
-beautiful present, the cry of the sheep upon the
-mountain-sides, the church bells ringing from
-their little bell-cots and sounding sweetly in
-valleys and on highland meadows, the very
-flowers of the roadsides,&mdash;foxglove, bluebell,
-heather,&mdash;that keep one lingering in Wales or
-draw one back to that land again. There are
-little churches of twelfth-century foundation,
-gray or washed white,&mdash;their golden glowing
-saffron wash of long ago unrenewed by the
-Welsh of to-day. There are little cottages,
-white or yellow or pink, with their bright doorsills
-of copper, their clean, shining flagstones,
-their latticed windows, and all the homely and
-dignified tranquillity within. There, towering
-above, are bare rock-strewn summits upon which<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_4" id="Page_4">[4]</a></span>
-the yew still stands, and, by its side, springing
-from the tuft of grass which the wind has not
-swept away, grows the white harebell; the yew
-monument to a thousand years, the harebell a
-fragile thing of yesterday. And above these
-church-crowned hills are mountain summits,
-gray and craggy, stripped of everything verdant,
-places where there are “shapes that haunt
-thought’s wilderness,” and suggestions of an
-endless, unending journey.</p>
-
-<p>It was Bishop Baldwin, I think, accompanied
-on his famous twelfth-century journey
-through Cambria by Gerald of Wales, who said,
-getting his breath with difficulty as he surmounted
-a Welsh hill, “The nightingale followed
-wise counsel and never came into Wales.”
-Were this true, the reply might be that Wales
-has no need of nightingales, so many and so
-beautiful are the wind-played songs over the
-rocks, and so incomparably lovely are the voices
-of the Welsh people themselves. In any event,
-<em>had</em> the nightingales come into Wales, a plump
-one&mdash;as it seems Bishop Baldwin himself must
-have been&mdash;would never have remained long
-in the mountain fastnesses of northern Wales,&mdash;at
-least not in the neighbourhood of Snowdon<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_5" id="Page_5">[5]</a></span>
-or Nant Francon or Twll Ddu,&mdash;the “black
-hole” of Wales. Neither, if Bishop Baldwin
-ever climbed to a Welsh mountain-top, would
-this princely prelate have liked the views there.
-A comfortable, fat living in some Welsh community
-like Valle Crucis Abbey, near the river
-Dee, by Llangollen, would probably have been
-far more to his liking. Even now these mountain
-inns are not of the accepted kind, but
-merely a cromlech over which the wind still
-plays its devil tunes, a cave or the ridgepole of
-a long sharp mountain crest, broken by crags
-down to the very edge of the sea.</p>
-
-<p>Wales is a land of mountains, of little alpine
-heights ranged on the western coast of Great
-Britain. Set between plain and sea, full of hill
-fastnesses, its turbulent history is partly explained
-by the topography of Gwalia. Independence,
-lack of unity,&mdash;these words summarize
-most of the early history of Wales. To the
-different parts of Cambria, alpine Snowdonia,
-the pasture lands of Berwyn, the moorlands and
-vast coal-fields of the south, came two races:
-one short and dark, the Iberian; the other tall
-and fair, the Celtic. These are still the two peoples
-of Wales. And after them came Rome;<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_6" id="Page_6">[6]</a></span>
-but Rome is gone, has vanished, except for her
-walls and foundations and roads, and these dark
-and fair races are still there, mingled, their racial
-traits still impregnable, still intact.</p>
-
-<p>When you add to what might be called the
-natural and inherent difficulties of the necessary
-mountain climbing in Wales, those of the
-Welsh language, you have a combination that
-is beyond words to describe. Even the veriest
-tyro a-visiting Wales will tell you that the language
-defies all description and the most conscientious
-efforts to master it.</p>
-
-<p>One warm day we were making a melancholy
-progress up a mountain-side when steps passed
-swiftly and a voice said in Welsh, “Stepping
-upwards?” The young man, an itinerant Welsh
-minister, was travelling in the same direction
-with us and it did not seem polite to say “Goodbye,”
-although I could think of no other Welsh
-words. Finally two inept ones came to me,
-“Da iawn” (very good), and I spoke them.
-But then, not content to let well enough alone,
-something more had to be said and I kept on
-repeating those words like a parrot. The Welshman
-looked around doubtfully, as if he wondered
-what the “Very good” was all about, and I<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_7" id="Page_7">[7]</a></span>
-heard him murmuring to himself and saw him
-hasten upwards a little faster.</p>
-
-<p>“Say something else,” my companion whispered.</p>
-
-<p>“I am going to if you will just give me time,”
-I snapped back.</p>
-
-<p>But I didn’t say anything else; I couldn’t,
-for not another thing would come. If any one
-feels disposed to criticize an alien because he is
-unable to speak Welsh, then let him go test its
-difficulties for himself, its long words, its savage
-consonants, its poor little vowels lost like some
-bleating lamb upon rocky mountain-sides. You
-just get it satisfactorily settled in your own
-mind that “Dad” means father,&mdash;very natural
-and proper,&mdash;when suddenly you discover that
-“Tad” and “Nhad” and “Thad” also mean
-father and are one and the same word. With
-mother or “Mam” you suffer a similar though
-not the same fate. To begin with, the Cymric
-alphabet differs from ours: it consists of thirty-one
-letters, some of which, “mh,” “ch,” “dd,”
-“ff,” “ng,” “ngh,” “ll,” “nh,” “ph,” “rh,” “th,”
-never occur in the English alphabet as letters
-<i lang="la">per se</i>. Your honest grammarian will tell you
-flatly that in the case of “ll” there is no sound<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_8" id="Page_8">[8]</a></span>
-in any language corresponding to it. Most like
-it are the Spanish “ll” and the Italian “gl.”
-Then what to do? Do as you would have to
-do in rope skipping: watch the rope, run and
-jump in if you can. The “c” is hard in Welsh,
-never soft like “c” in “city”; “ch” is like the
-guttural German “ch”; the “dd” sometimes
-like “eth”; “f” like “v”; “ff” like “f”; “g”
-is never soft as in “giant,” but like “g” in “get”;
-“i,” both long and short, as “i” in “pin” and
-“ee” in “fleet”; “o” is short like “o” in “got”
-or long like “o” in “note”; “p” as in English;
-“s” is like “s” in “sin”; “u” is sometimes
-like “i” and sometimes not; the “w” is like
-“u”; “y” has two sounds, first like “u” in
-“fur,” second like the Welsh “u.” A few words
-will illustrate Welsh pronunciation. “Cymru”
-is pronounced, as nearly as one can suggest its
-pronunciation, as if spelled “Kumree”; “Gwalia”
-as if “Gooalia”; “Mawddwy” as if “Mauthooy”;
-“Wnion” as if “Oonion”; “Pwllheli”
-as if “Pooltheli”; “Dolgelley” as if “Dolgethley.”</p>
-
-<p>I have had some experiences with my “small”
-Welsh which I would not exchange for those
-of “big” German in the past, or of any other<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_9" id="Page_9">[9]</a></span>
-language in which I have been trained to read
-or speak. I remember one experience that happened
-when we were in search of a certain little
-church of ancient foundation, set upon a hilltop.
-In Wales there are many of these little
-churches on the hilltops, like Llanrychwyn and
-Llangelynin, and also little churches by the sea,
-like Llandanwg, almost at the foot of Harlech.
-Within their mediæval lychgates and high
-stone walls the dead are crowded close in their
-last sleep. Sweet places are those old churches,
-with the yew standing sentinel near them,
-and about them the shelter of the valley or
-the wide sweep of the hilltop view. This time
-it was a hilltop church for which we were
-searching. Again it was “Da iawn” which
-graced the conversation, but in how different
-a manner!</p>
-
-<p>We were in need of tea, and at the cottage
-next to the church, the only cottage upon that
-summit, I rapped with my stick and said to the
-old woman who came, “Dyma le da i gael te”
-(this is a good place to have tea).</p>
-
-<p>“Yiss,” was her reply, her face brightening;
-“Te?”</p>
-
-<p>“Yes,” said I; “tea and bread-and-butter.”</p>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_10" id="Page_10">[10]</a></span></p>
-
-<p>“Jam?” asked she, remembering what I had
-forgotten.</p>
-
-<p>“Yes,” I answered.</p>
-
-<p>She spread the cover in the place on the turf
-to which we pointed and smiled brightly at me,
-as if she, too, appreciated the beauty of that
-place with its wide mountain and valley landscape,
-the trustful sheep browsing near me, and
-down at our feet the magnificent pile of Harlech
-Castle looking across the wide flat marsh
-at its feet and over the sea toward the palace of
-King Mark.</p>
-
-<p>“Da iawn” (very good), said I emphatically.</p>
-
-<p>And her answering smile told me that we
-understood each other, even if we could not
-speak each other’s language very well.</p>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_11" id="Page_11">[11]</a></span></p>
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;" id="illus1">
-<img src="images/i_030.jpg" width="600" height="425" alt="" />
-<p class="caption">CONWAY CASTLE</p>
-<p class="caption"><i>From an old print</i></p>
-</div>
-
-<p>Changeling Welsh words are begot of elves
-and fairies. Even as those words are full of
-poetry, of romance, of a wild emotionalism,&mdash;the
-“Scream of the Celt” it has been called,
-but in Wales it is a subdued scream,&mdash;so, still,
-are the superstitions about fairies and elves living
-among these Welsh hills and valleys. Childish
-tales they may seem to you, if you are fortunate
-enough to be told anything about them
-at all by the Welsh peasants, who are both suspicious
-and shy of the “foreigner.” The tales
-one may hear even now in Wales are full of a
-haunting race life. The Welsh speak of the
-fairies as the “little folk” or the “fair folk” or
-“family”&mdash;“y Tylwyth Teg.” And well do
-these little creatures deserve the name, for they
-are friendly in Wales. Ghosts there are, too, and
-the death portents, the old hag of the mist and
-others that groan or moan or sing or stamp with
-their feet. And there are “Corpse Candles” and
-“Goblin Funerals.” Shakespeare knew a deal
-about Welsh folk-lore, but where he got it from
-no one has yet discovered. With Shakespeare
-“mab” meant a little thing, just as in any Welsh
-village to-day “mabcath” means a kitten.</p>
-
-<p>No matter where I have been I have found
-the Welsh conscious of the beauty and significance
-of their land, its legendary lore, its history,
-its marvellous natural attraction. They
-have always been eager to give me information
-about some landmark, some incident about which
-I might be inquiring. Over their shop counters,
-across the doorsills of the humblest of Welsh
-cottages, by some kitchen fire where the brass
-tea-kettle sang and glowed in the subdued light
-of the ingle, they have poured forth titles of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_12" id="Page_12">[12]</a></span>
-books and data,&mdash;things for which I was searching,
-or needed to know. One old man, eighty-six
-years old and bedridden, held my hand in
-an eager, childish clasp, while he tried to tell me
-something about a church, the poor tired mind
-working like a rundown clock, the half-sightless
-eyes looking at me in petition to help him recall
-the days that had slipped so far away. He
-asked me about friends of his,&mdash;people who
-had died before I had thought of being born.
-He corrected my few words of Welsh, a ghost
-of a smile about the old mouth, but he could
-not recollect what I wanted to know. Without
-the information I was seeking, I went away
-saying “Nos da” to him, which was, indeed,
-good night.</p>
-
-<p>When Dr. Samuel Johnson made his memorable
-tour of Wales, he wrote, “Wales is so
-little different from England that it offers nothing
-to the speculations of the traveller.” He
-seemed wholly oblivious to the strong racial
-difference between Welsh and English, which
-alters not only the visage of the people, but
-also the visage of the very country. He was so
-indifferent to the grandeur of Snowdon scenery
-that, going around the base of that mountain of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_13" id="Page_13">[13]</a></span>
-eagles in a chaise, he spent his time keeping
-account of the number of sheep for “Miss
-Thrale,”&mdash;his little favourite “Queenie.” I do
-not believe that Johnson’s disgust would have
-been the least appeased by knowing that in the
-years to come other great people were to go and
-go again to Wales, as to a beloved lap of rest:
-Wordsworth, Shelley, Kingsley, Froude, Newman,
-Huxley, Tyndall, Tennyson, Arnold, Tom
-Taylor, John Bright, Carmen Sylva, and many
-another. The good Doctor scorned Welsh rivers,
-called them brooks and offered to jump
-over them. He would have despised such a cottage
-kitchen as I have lingered in many a time
-impressed by its beautiful and dignified simplicity.
-Sweet places are these old kitchens, hospitable,
-warm, cheerful. Sunlight or firelight,
-one or the other, you may have always in them.
-Bright they are with fuchsias and little gleaming
-leaded window-panes, with polished oak
-and polished brass and copper, with the shining
-face of a grandfather clock, with pewter, with
-lustre pitchers and creamers, with gleaming pots
-and kettles, and the salt glistening on bacons
-and hams hanging from the blackened oak rafters.
-Gay are they, too, with the life and laughter<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_14" id="Page_14">[14]</a></span>
-of children, with the good cheer of contented
-older people, with the purr of the house cat and
-the bubbling of the tea-kettle. More homelike,
-more motherly, more charming old kitchens, it
-has never been my good fortune to see.</p>
-
-<p>There was only one thing in Wales which
-profoundly satisfied the great Doctor and that
-was its castles, Harlech and Conway, and Carnarvon
-Castle most of all. Almost every Welsh
-town has its historical traditions of importance,
-but Carnarvon, the city of the Prince of Wales,
-even more than others. There Elen, the Great
-Welsh road-maker, was sought and won by the
-Emperor Maximus. Of that little city, once
-the Roman city of Segontium, there is a description
-in the “Mabinogion,” the classic of Welsh
-literature and one of the classics of the world.
-The Roman Emperor saw in his dream but what
-we see now, a fair and mighty castle, rocks, precipices,
-mountains of great height. The Prince
-of Wales was born, according to legend, in Carnarvon
-Castle, and there investiture ceremonies
-are still held. But veracious history assures
-us that he was born in the town, outside the
-castle of which he himself had built the very
-tower where he was supposed to have been born.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_15" id="Page_15">[15]</a></span>
-Tumultuous, confused, legendary is Welsh history,
-full of the more or less mythical deeds
-of their great King Arthur, their brave Prince
-Llewelyn, the fate that overtook the hopes and
-ideals of this prince, their last fight for independence
-and their loss of it; their submission
-to the yoke of conquerors and the history of
-English princes who were put over them. It is
-a wild, sad, eventful history whose sorrows and
-tragedies seem only to have bitten all that is
-most Cymric in Welsh Wales deeper into
-Welsh lives and hearts, so that to-day, despite
-all that conqueror or civilization can do, their
-language, their lives, are still separate.</p>
-
-<p>And the Welsh Eisteddfod, a festival of
-song and poetry, is a revelation of the unique
-national Welsh spirit. From every hamlet in
-Wales, even those reached only by Welsh
-ponies, visitors travel on foot or by train to
-this feast of song and to witness the Gorsedd, a
-druidical ceremony old as the Eye of Light
-itself. “Gallant little Wales” shows itself to
-the least and last participant in the Eisteddfod
-as Welsh Wales. Educationally this Eisteddfod
-ceremony is of great value to Wales, democratic,
-representative, instructive; and nowhere<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_16" id="Page_16">[16]</a></span>
-could the fact that Welsh educational ideals
-are quite different from those of England&mdash;popular
-and progressive, with something of the
-so-called American spirit in them&mdash;reveal itself
-more completely than in this assembly of
-the people. Wales is essentially a democracy&mdash;a
-democracy of song, a democracy of poetry,
-a democracy of education and religion, and
-the Eisteddfod is the popular university of the
-people. To comprehend what is deepest and
-best in Welsh Wales one must go to the Eisteddfod
-and hear the Welsh, sensitive, capable
-of the “Hwyl,” imaginative, passionate, fervidly
-patriotic, sing,&mdash;</p>
-
-<div class="poetry-container">
-<div class="poetry">
-<p class="center">HEN WLAD FY NHADAU (OLD LAND OF
-MY FATHERS)</p>
-<div class="stanza">
-<div class="verse">“Old mountain-built Cymru, the bard’s Paradise,</div>
-<div class="verse">The farm in the cwm, the wild crag in the skies,</div>
-<div class="verse">The river that winds, have entwined tenderly</div>
-<div class="verse">With a love spell my spirit in me.”</div>
-</div>
-<div class="stanza">
-<div class="verse indent1"><i>Chorus</i>: Land, Land,</div>
-<div class="verse indent4">Too fondly I love thee, dear Land,</div>
-<div class="verse indent4">Till warring sea and shore be gone,</div>
-<div class="verse indent4">Pray God let the old tongue live on.”</div>
-</div>
-</div>
-</div>
-
-<hr class="chap" />
-
-<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_17" id="Page_17">[17]</a></span></p>
-
-<h2 id="II">II<br />
-<span class="smaller"><i>A Village in Eryri</i></span></h2>
-
-<div class="poetry-container">
-<div class="poetry">
-<div class="stanza">
-<div class="verse">“Curates mind the parish,</div>
-<div class="verse">Sweepers mind the court,</div>
-<div class="verse">We’ll away to Snowdon,</div>
-<div class="verse">For our ten days’ sport.”</div>
-</div><div class="stanza">
-<div class="verse"><i>Kingsley’s Letter to Tom Hughes.</i></div>
-</div>
-</div>
-</div>
-
-<p>At the centre of a wide meadow with valleys
-running in towards the centre from east and
-south and west lies a little village of North
-Wales. All the cottages are gray, gray as the
-stones of St. John’s, but they are of the crisp,
-compact gray of slate, and not the crumbling,
-fretted stone of Oxford. Occasionally some cottage
-nestling to the craggy side of one of the
-valley roads is whitewashed with white or pink,
-or fitted so neatly into the jutting rocks of the
-mountain-side that only the humble façade, a
-screen of blooming roses, is visible. Whitewash,
-roses, gleam of copper doorsills, running
-water, flash gaily in the midst of the gray of
-Beddgelert. Above the houses is the blue roadway
-of sky walled in by craggy mountain-summits,
-the sides of the mountains carpeted with<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_18" id="Page_18">[18]</a></span>
-myriad tufts of heather, lavender or purple or
-pink, and in autumn with the vivid yellow of
-the prickly gorse. Bees desert tiny gardens of
-well-hedged roses for this wide principality
-of bracken and heather, where around tufted
-blossoms they hum to the tossing of some
-stream casting itself down the hills. Up the
-rocks clamber ivy and sheep; about the moist
-edges of the pools and over the cushions of
-damp moss, black and brown watered-silk
-snails measure leisurely in well-fed content;
-and in little terraced glens of thick sod and
-along the roadways grow bluebells and columbine
-and foxglove and elfin white birches. But
-above these troops of upland bluebells and slender,
-swaying birches hang rocks, wild, rugged,
-whipped bare even of heather. And from the
-rough spine of Craig-y-Llan stretches away
-towards Snowdon and Pen-y-Pass, a wilderness
-of naked rocks, weird, jagged, shining gray and
-black in utter desolation.</p>
-
-<p>At the meeting of the Colwyn and Gwynen
-rivers, with the hollow sound of rushing water
-in its village lanes and the tinkling of sheep
-bells scattering from the overhanging hills, the
-meadow strips lie beside the valley roads, deep<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_19" id="Page_19">[19]</a></span>
-green with abundant grass or yellow with grain.
-Life, however, has been strenuous in this village
-of fourscore mountain huts, and many fathers
-and sons have had to labour to clear the grassy
-fields. For these honest, independent, thrifty
-Welshmen, slate and sheep are the chief means
-of support. The rivers yield, too, a fair quantity
-of salmon as pink as some of the mountain
-huts, salmon weighing from one to eighteen
-pounds. In a flood, although the torrent sometimes
-reduces the number of inhabitants, the
-catch of salmon is greater, and the villagers face
-the delicate task of balancing an all-wise but
-unscrupulous Providence.</p>
-
-<p>The way to a Welshman’s heart, nevertheless,
-is not through his stomach; the Welsh think
-but little of what they eat. Before English tourists
-came to the village the inns of the place,
-Ty Ucha&mdash;now the Saracen’s Head&mdash;and Ty
-Isaf, provided a bill of fare consisting of oat and
-barley bread, ale, porter, and eggs. English and
-Americans, unlike the Welsh, do not go lightly
-on a holiday without consideration of what there
-will be to eat. And our lodging-table, set by as
-kindly and generous a hostess as three wanderers
-ever found, bore slender chickens whose proportions<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_20" id="Page_20">[20]</a></span>
-suggested mountain climbing, mutton
-tender as the ivy the poor sheep had been nibbling,
-salmon trout fresh as the stream pouring
-by the corner of our cottage, Glan Afon, pound-cake
-filled with plums, and tawny mountain
-honey. And, too, there were vegetables for whose
-mere names we felt a careless indifference. Even
-the loaf of bread Baucis and Philemon set before
-their wanderers was no better, I am certain,
-than the bread of Beddgelert, light, sweet, with
-crackly golden-brown crust. Often have we done
-nothing but watch&mdash;and joy enough it was&mdash;the
-mammoth loaves coming home from the
-village bakery across the village bridge, little
-children staggering under them, small boys
-bearing them jauntily, mothers grasping them
-firmly under one arm, a baby tucked away under
-the other.</p>
-
-<p>At the inns, of which the Royal Goat is most
-pretentious,&mdash;it has a piano,&mdash;there is much
-quiet holiday life led by quiet holiday people.
-The simple folk who come to stay are for the
-most part the Welsh people themselves, for
-whom Beddgelert is in the nature of a shrine, a
-place canonized by the brave deed of one of
-their own Welsh greyhounds, Prince Llewelyn’s<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_21" id="Page_21">[21]</a></span>
-Gelert. The visitors who travel through the
-valley during the holiday month of August are
-English and Welsh tourists on the coaches driving
-over Llanberis Pass, said to be the highest
-coach drive in the world, and going to Carnarvon,
-the ancient Roman city of Segontium,
-fourteen miles distant from Beddgelert.</p>
-
-<p>In the last hundred years the village has harboured
-many a distinguished man who, giving
-thanks for his undiscovered seclusion, has come
-and gone unknown. Wordsworth came there
-with his friend, Robert Jones; Shelley, living at
-Tan yr Allt, a few miles out of Beddgelert, must
-often have passed through its lanes, his ragged
-brown hair whipped by the valley wind, his
-great eyes blue as the roadway of sky overhead;
-Kingsley, with a quick smile for the jolly little
-urchins perched venturesomely on the sharp
-slate coping of the bridge, Frederic Temple,
-Derwent Coleridge, J. A. Froude, Professor F.
-W. Newman, Huxley, Tyndall, all found holiday
-rest in this quiet meadow sheltered by its
-rampart of mountains. Gladstone came there,
-too. A village cow with an eye for distinction
-endeavoured to hook the Prime Minister and
-had afterwards the satisfaction of being sold for<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_22" id="Page_22">[22]</a></span>
-a large sum of money. There also in the valley
-was born “Golden Rule” Jones, of Toledo fame,
-a good man, and but one of many good men
-who have gone forth from this fastness of peace
-to dream ever afterwards of a return to its gray
-houses, its streams, its hills and heather and
-wilderness of crags.</p>
-
-<p>Ty Isaf and Ty Ucha are the oldest inns of
-the village. Ty Isaf is at the entrance of the
-lane leading to the church, and it was there, not
-so many years ago, that the minister was still
-expected to drink a cup or two of ale before
-entering the pulpit or fail in due prelusive
-inspiration. At Ty Isaf was kept the Large
-Pint of Beddgelert (“Hen Beint Mawr Bedd
-Gelert”), a pewter mug which held two quarts
-of old beer. Any man who could drink this
-quantity at a breath might charge the amount
-to the lord of the manor; if he failed, he paid
-for it himself. But so often was the heroic deed
-accomplished by capacious Welshmen that it
-is recorded the tenants paid but half their rent
-in money. It would be interesting to know for
-how many goblins, fairies, “Lantern Jacks,”
-flickering “Candles of the Dead,” Hen Beint
-Mawr was responsible! Now over every little<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_23" id="Page_23">[23]</a></span>
-inn is the sign “Temperance,” for Welsh revivals
-have played havoc with these noble drinking-feats.
-One signboard, I can never pass without
-a smile, has gone so far as rather to insist
-upon the temperance issue in the words, “Rooms
-and Temperance.” Incidentally, the rector of
-the Episcopal Church has given up his potation,
-and next door the Welsh Calvinistic Methodist
-minister, also unsupported by home-brewed
-beer, wrestles with his flock. Beddgelert Sabbath-keeping
-has all the force of an unbroken
-tradition. A gentleman riding a-hunting on
-Sunday was confronted by an old woman who
-shook her Welsh Bible at him and showered
-vindictive Welsh <i>l’s</i> on his worldly head. Nor
-was our own experience much happier. Our
-drinking-water was fetched from Ty Ucha,
-and we had good reason to believe it was responsible
-for wretched feelings. One Sunday
-morning I consulted our Welsh hostess, explained
-to her what we thought of the water,
-and asked whether we might have some brought
-from another spring. We were told that it
-could not be drawn on the Sabbath, but would
-be brought to us on Monday morning! In
-every cottage there is a mammoth Welsh Bible,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_24" id="Page_24">[24]</a></span>
-and groups of smaller Bibles both Welsh and
-English. We went into one deserted mountain
-hut to take pictures of the interior; inside,
-together with an old trunk, a rusty fluting-iron,
-kettles, pans, a portion of the woven couch
-strung over the wide fireplace, and old clothes,
-we found two Welsh Bibles, one English Bible,
-and a torn portion of “Pilgrim’s Progress.”</p>
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 425px;" id="illus2">
-<img src="images/i_046.jpg" width="425" height="600" alt="" />
-<p class="caption">THE QUEEN’S TOWER, CONWAY CASTLE</p>
-<p class="caption"><i>From an engraving by Cuitt, 1817</i></p>
-</div>
-
-<p>Indeed, the religious spirit of the place is a
-tradition but infrequently broken in the past
-thousand years. Edward I had burned the priory
-(now St. Mary’s Church), which was erected
-as a hospitium in connexion with a small chapel
-and schoolhouse in the second half of the sixth
-century; Henry VIII endeavoured to crush its
-power, and then in 1830 the good villagers
-themselves entered upon the pious task of renovation.
-In order to make the renovation as
-thorough as possible, they tore down all the
-rare wood-carving, using it for kindling-wood,
-and in some instances making pieces of household
-furniture from it; they put in a false ceiling
-of clapboards hiding the fine Gothic arch
-of the roof; the ceiling, together with the walls,
-they whitewashed, and completed their pious
-task by boarding up several exquisitely shaped<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_25" id="Page_25">[25]</a></span>
-lancet windows. Fortunately the renovation
-has been followed by a restoration, and now
-the priory may be seen in some of its ancient
-beauty, with the old yew tree spreading low
-over the gravestones and the Gwynen pouring
-by its northern walls, singing the same mountain
-song it sang when the canons regular of
-St. Augustine, barefooted, gray-habited, with
-crucifix and rosary, marched solemnly from
-chapel to hospitium.</p>
-
-<p>The name Beddgelert, the Grave of Gelert
-(?), brings hundreds of Welsh people to see
-this town each year. It is not an uncommon
-spectacle to see a man, as he stands by the
-dog’s grave, brushing away tears, or a little
-child crying bitterly. The story is of Prince
-Llewelyn’s greyhound, who saved his master’s
-baby by killing a fierce wolf, and then was slain
-by his master’s sword, for the Prince, entering,
-saw the cradle overturned and the greyhound’s
-mouth covered with blood. The name of the
-place, however, has nothing to do with the
-myth of Gelert; the little hill on which the
-grave stands had for hundreds of years been
-called “Bryn-y-Bedd,” the “Hill of the Grave,”
-a mound where the Irish chief Celert, a far<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_26" id="Page_26">[26]</a></span>
-earlier hero than the dog, may have been
-buried. There are parallels in other folk-lore
-for this tale, and one even in the Sanscrit has
-been discovered in which, in place of Northern
-wolf, a snake is the evil agent. There is an
-unmistakable twinkle in a Beddgelert eye whenever
-the story is told. Alas! that the greyhound
-buried there was not presented to Prince Llewelyn
-by his father-in-law, King John, in the
-year 1205, but, the petted possession of two
-Beddgelert spinsters, was presented by them at
-the beginning of the nineteenth century to the
-sagacious David Prichard, the first owner of the
-Royal Goat Hotel, and promptly interred by
-him in the famous mound.</p>
-
-<p>Every one of the three valley roads of Beddgelert
-is filled with incidents of Welsh legend
-and folk-lore. Even in our materialistic age the
-credulous spirit abides here in this mountain-bred
-people, quick, lively, romantic. The village
-is filled with lovely legend and quaint lore;
-in the farmhouses among the hills heroic stories
-are still told about Arthur and songs sung to
-Welsh melodies. There are tales of ghosts,
-and of goblins, brown road goblins, and gray
-goblins of the mist; of water sprites in the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_27" id="Page_27">[27]</a></span>
-mountain torrents, now a beautiful, half-naked
-maiden, now a fleshless old man; of the “Candle
-of the Dead” with its clear white flame; of
-the little red-eyed, red-eared “Hounds of Hell”
-flocking like sheep down some mountain-path;
-of the pranks of “Lantern Jack” on dark winter
-nights; of the fairies living in the summer
-among the bracken, in winter among heather
-and gorse, coming out of their haunts to dive
-thievishly into the farmers’ pockets, or to steal
-butter and milk and cheese from the careful
-housewives. There are stories, too, of amiable,
-kindly fairies who carol and dance nightly.</p>
-
-<p>Driving up from Tremadoc past Tan yr
-Allt, where Shelley lived for a year, one comes
-to the bridge at the mouth of the pass. This
-bridge is said to have been built by no less a
-person than the Devil, who for his trouble got
-nothing in toll but a poor little dog that was
-first to scamper over it. Down the Nant Gwynen
-Valley, a narrow river valley running east out
-of Beddgelert, is Dinas Emrys, the home of the
-magician Merlin and at many times the abiding
-place of King Arthur. Merlin’s well, on the
-very summit of Dinas Emrys, is still a discoverable
-well. There, too, surrounding the crown<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_28" id="Page_28">[28]</a></span>
-of this singular hill, are traces and remains of
-the walls of an old Roman fortress; and the entrance
-over the narrow ridge to the crown of
-Dinas Emrys bears marks of stone hewn hundreds
-of years ago. Not more than three miles
-further in the same valley is a precipitous pass
-leading up towards Lliwedd by Snowdon, where
-some legends say Arthur fell and lies buried.
-Up this valley road over Pen y Pass, in a
-wilderness of boulders and crags tumbled hither
-and thither, is an interesting specimen of cromlech,
-and near by some gigantic rocks so fitted
-together that they form a hut in which an old
-woman is said to have lived many, many years.
-I hope life was pleasanter to her during all
-those years than it was for us during even
-the few minutes we were within the strange
-enclosure.</p>
-
-<p>The third valley running out of Beddgelert
-is the valley of the Colwyn. This leads past
-Moel Hebog&mdash;in a cave on whose perpendicular
-side Owen Glendwr lay in hiding for
-months&mdash;towards Carnarvon, a city of a castle
-with casements:&mdash;</p>
-
-<div class="poetry-container">
-<div class="poetry">
-<div class="stanza">
-<div class="verse">“Charm’d magic casements, opening on the foam</div>
-<div class="verse">Of perilous seas, in faery lands forlorn.”</div>
-</div>
-</div>
-</div>
-<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_29" id="Page_29">[29]</a></span></p>
-<p>There lying before one over the summer sea is
-the rim of Anglesey, quiet in its mirage of
-white sand and the green land stretching away
-into gray distance. Still many portions of the
-old Roman road connecting Segontium and
-Heriri Mons may be seen in this valley, bridle-paths
-the Welsh call “Ffyrdd Elen,” “Elen’s
-Roads.” Towering above, Snowdon looks down,
-untroubled, from its splendid reach, upon these
-paths, from which, in sunshine and in mist,
-Druid and Roman, henchman of Edward and
-John, prince and poet and painter, have made
-the steep ascent and seen swimming before
-them, like the sea of time, a hundred hills;
-beyond, the wide glimmer of the ocean; and
-heard rising through the air the roar of torrent
-and stream. Halfway up Snowdon are the remains
-of a druidical temple. There, kneeling on
-some of the stones, I listened to the song of
-wind and sea, the Harp of Eryri, and tried to
-catch a little of the vast panorama, which was,
-somehow, strangely, mournfully human, holding
-in sky-line and sea-line dim shadow of the
-hearts which had knelt here before&mdash;the immemorial
-worshippers of untold beauty.</p>
-
-<hr class="chap" />
-
-<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_30" id="Page_30">[30]</a></span></p>
-
-<h2 id="III">III<br />
-<span class="smaller"><i>Hilltop Churches</i></span></h2>
-
-<p>“Ah,” said Bishop Baldwin, recovering his
-breath, “the nightingale followed wise counsel
-and never came into Wales.” So, jocund as the
-most unordained, Baldwin’s holy company of
-the twelfth century moved on its way, gathering
-ever more and more to it cloaks signed with
-the crusading cross of red. To mind come other
-figures and to mind come other pictures&mdash;wild,
-powerful, beautiful, pathetic&mdash;of a past that is a
-thousand or two thousand years old. In some
-rock-strewn valley, bleak and barren as the uttermost
-parts of the earth or terrible as the valley
-of the shadow of death, rises the cry of human
-sacrifice. Hundreds of years later, down a roadway
-bordered then as now with foxglove and
-bluebells and heather, rides a gallant company,
-gentle-mannered, on pleasure bent. Or by the
-walls of Conway Castle, Edward I bears the body
-of his Eleanor to its far resting-place in Westminster
-Abbey, where the stones are still fresh
-from the chisels of the builders. Here is “the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_31" id="Page_31">[31]</a></span>
-unimaginable touch of Time,” a Past that as it
-slips away joins the mystery of a Future even
-at this instant in retreat.</p>
-
-<p>But the traveller does not go on foot week
-after week many scores of miles, with these
-thoughts always present, like Christian with a
-pack upon his back, and meeting as did Christian
-many difficulties. True, a good heart faces
-the open road expecting many obstacles, and
-can find its wonder-ways even if it loses a night’s
-rest. Giraldus Cambrensis, on the forward march
-with the Bishop through Wales, could vouch
-for an island in which no one dies, for a wandering
-bell, for a whale with three golden teeth,
-for grasshoppers that sing better when their heads
-are cut off. He tells the story of a lad, Sisillus
-Long Leg by name, who suffered a violent persecution
-from toads that in the end consumed
-the young man to the very bones. And like
-most ecclesiastics, Giraldus allows himself the
-relaxation of a good fish story.</p>
-
-<p>This credulity, charming as it is and panacea
-for the physical tedium of the open road, is the
-faculty of which the pedestrian of to-day must
-strip himself. No other pilgrimages of which I
-know have been made to these little churches,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_32" id="Page_32">[32]</a></span>
-except by Mr. Herbert North, of Wales,&mdash;who
-has studied the old churches of Arllechwyd
-simply, and to whose architectural insight I
-am greatly indebted,&mdash;and by myself. During
-many weeks my journey took me from hillside
-to hillside and mountain-top to mountain-top,
-studying these ancient foundations. My work
-was grounded upon incredulity; everything
-was recorded, nothing concluded. As a motto
-the remark of the only thoughtful sexton I have
-met out of literature might have been taken.
-Contemplating an old stone at St. Mary, Conway,
-inscribed “Y 1066,” he said, “Hit wants
-a wise ’ead to find hit out.” At Gyffin beyond
-Conway we pointed to one object after another
-in the church with the single question&mdash;an
-American question:&mdash;</p>
-
-<p>“How old is it?”</p>
-
-<p>“It’s very old, mum,” came the reply.</p>
-
-<p>“How old?”</p>
-
-<p>“Oh, very old, mum,” in an impressive voice.</p>
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 425px;" id="illus3">
-<img src="images/i_056.jpg" width="425" height="600" alt="" />
-<p class="caption">THE GREAT HALL AT CONWAY CASTLE</p>
-<p class="caption"><i>From an engraving by Cuitt</i></p>
-</div>
-
-<p>Having tested barrel vault, paintings, chancel,
-windows, rood screen, roof, walls, doors, in
-this fashion, we had worked ourselves out of
-the church, so to speak, and I pointed up to a
-shiny tin rooster crowing upon the bell-cot.</p>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_33" id="Page_33">[33]</a></span></p>
-
-<p>“How old is it, the rooster?” I said.</p>
-
-<p>“Oh, very old, mum,” came the solemn reply.</p>
-
-<p>At another place we were told that the bell
-swinging in the cot, and sounding sweetly after
-the long journey uphill, dated from the fourth
-century. It was useless to inform the poor soul
-that there were none but hand-bells then in North
-Wales, and that she was in this case only a
-little matter of one thousand years out of the
-way. After a mount up to Llangelynin, taken
-hastily, and much investigation of objects genuinely
-ancient, the woman who had us in thrall
-said, pointing to a dark recess under a narrow,
-fixed pew, black as darkness, and not more than
-one foot from the pew in front of it, “There’s
-a very old tablet there, mum, my son says.”
-Perhaps she had calculated the discrepancy
-between the width of the pew and myself; however,
-I got through to the floor, wiped off the
-dust with a handkerchief, and out blinked, as
-sleepily as if it were the very Rip Van Winkle
-of stones, the young date 1874! Wild steeple
-chases there were in plenty, with minor fatalities
-to limb and courage. It is useless, when one
-mountain-top has been achieved, to find that
-after all there is nothing left except the inconsiderable<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_34" id="Page_34">[34]</a></span>
-mountain itself,&mdash;it is useless then to
-discover upon an opposite summit, whose peak
-could be reached by a well-modulated voice, an
-extant church of indubitable antiquity, for to
-meet with that church would require an all-day’s
-walk. There was one steeple chase without even
-the comfort of another church in view.</p>
-
-<p>Once reconciled to these surprises, for which
-no one can be held accountable, and to the ineffectiveness
-of the sextons whom no one must
-suppose responsible, there are no chances for
-disappointments except such as are self-created.
-The attendants in most cases are women, and
-wretched creatures some of them are. In one
-place a woman with a goitre, and one eye gone,
-kept the keys. She was admirably proud of her
-son because he did know something, but as the
-son spent all his days in a mine we were not in
-a way to inherit his wisdom. Another woman
-was deaf and dumb and foolish. A lad who took
-us through a church of considerable importance,
-if antiquity can make these deserted churches
-important, was so stupid he received a lecture
-upon his ignorance. His unanswerable sectarian
-reply was that he did not belong to that church
-anyway. We met with some smart young girls<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_35" id="Page_35">[35]</a></span>
-who, with their twenty years of wisdom, were
-above knowledge concerning anything so rusty
-and tumble-down as the church by means of
-which they hoped to win sixpences for ribbons.
-There were two or three apple-cheeked old
-women clad in caps and bobbing their curtsies.
-To one, a sweet old soul, I was explaining that
-a certain door could not be very ancient and
-have the big nails it had in it. “Uch,” she replied,
-in distress. “Well, indeed, mum, perhaps
-they were put in later to hold it together.” It
-may be said, I think, that the keys are kept as
-far away as possible, why I cannot say. So is
-the vicar kept as far away as possible: even the
-curates get the habit and stay away when they
-can. As a rule, the churches are not set down
-in the midst of habitable villages, but most often
-upon remote hillsides or hilltops. There is another
-difficulty to be encountered also, in the
-person of the kindly individual who could show
-you what you wish, but wishes to show you
-something else. One old woman&mdash;the Ancient
-Mariner himself could not have been more
-irresistible&mdash;detained us endlessly while she
-searched for and displayed the Duchess of
-Westminster’s photograph.</p>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_36" id="Page_36">[36]</a></span></p>
-
-<p>These are some of the troubles in a progress
-otherwise enchanting; once realized, it is well
-to forget them, together with the feet that were
-sometimes too weary to travel five miles further
-and the shoulder that ached under the strap.
-With its ache of all the ages the dream of ancient
-beauty has no place in it for an hour’s
-weariness. As if the riddle of existence could
-be explained by a wall rain-washed and worn,
-upon which grow lichen, moss, rustling grass,
-and even trees, and by lintels tipping earthward,
-golden flowers blowing upon them! The eye
-travels thirstily from stone to stone, or to some
-peaceful bell-cot pointing the bare ridge of a
-bleak, sheep-covered hill, or to the far-away hills
-and gray sky and solemn, dreary places. Spiritually
-it is easy to understand why these churches
-are on the hills, and the controversy about their
-position seems a matter of no further moment.
-There are other pictures, too, of churches by
-the sea, in the main not as old as those upon
-the mountains, enclosures where even the tombstones
-are crowded together in their last sleep.
-Beyond these churchyards lies the encircling
-shore with ever the white lip of the sea at its
-edge; above, low-lying regiments of clouds<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_37" id="Page_37">[37]</a></span>
-march Snowdon-wards. Upon one eminence is
-the church, upon another, nearer the water, a
-castle, and in the valley between these crumbling
-sanctities of power and spirit is the little
-town, busy still, its roofs making a joyous show
-of colour beneath the blue sky. Within these
-churches by the sea there is ever the tideless roar
-of the waters ringing upon the shores, and from
-these church doorways the eye dreams upon
-the castle wasting with the land at its feet, or
-the “llys” of King Mark, or upon the faint
-blue rim of some island, holy as the mother of
-good men. Along the road on one side is the
-sea; on the other, green hills rise into the blue
-of the sky, their slopes a mosaic of gray sheep
-walls. And here out of the village at the end of
-a grass-grown road, by the sea, lies a little church,
-around which the sands have blown through so
-many centuries that the windows show just the
-caps looking like sleepy eyes out of the huddled
-graves. One minute time rolls like a chariot
-wheel crushing all things, another moment
-and it is a mystic circle without beginning and
-without end. The graves upon the hillsides,
-young in their hundreds of years, look down
-upon the mounds of the British undisturbed in<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_38" id="Page_38">[38]</a></span>
-a millennial repose, and upon a stone lying as
-hands two thousand years ago placed it. And
-past the ears rush the centuries of all eternity,
-as in the travelling of a mighty wind.</p>
-
-<p>Seeing with the eye of visions it is not hard
-to re-create a vanished past, to construct again
-the primitive British church of wood and wattle,
-with its beauty of oaken rafter and carved
-wood which stone now encloses. There is still
-an ancient wooden church in Greenstead, Essex,
-in plan much like little churches of North
-Wales,&mdash;the walls six feet high made of half
-trees side by side, the roof a tie beam, with
-struts, less than six feet from the floor. This
-parallelogram follows out the double square of
-what was undoubtedly the plan of the ancient
-British church, something that was still geometrically
-the square sanctuary with its square
-altar typifying the heavenly Jerusalem. Bede,
-in his “Ecclesiastical History,” speaks of “a
-church fit for an Episcopal See; which, however,
-after the manner of the Scots, he [Finan]
-did not erect of stone, but of sawn timber,
-covering it with reeds.” It is worth remembering
-that the little churches being discussed are
-unique examples of a national type based, not<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_39" id="Page_39">[39]</a></span>
-upon the Roman basilica, but upon the Temple,
-with its square Holy of Holies, and illustrating
-certain features; a square east end with
-east window, an altar concealed behind screens,
-and a south door instead of a western portal.
-The wood and wattle churches have disappeared,
-but upon the foundation lines have
-arisen the present stone churches of North
-Wales, dating back in general to the eleventh
-and twelfth centuries. Their walls of stone are
-daubed at the joints with mud, similar to the
-treatment the wattle buildings had received,
-and the whole whitewashed inside and out.
-The roof, later covered with oaken shingles and
-now with soft-coloured slates, was in the Middle
-Ages thatched deeply with reed or straw.
-At the east end was the small slit window, and
-at the south end a door so low that even a short
-person must stoop to enter it. Originally there
-were no bell turrets or porches, and at the eastern
-gable merely a wooden cross. Inside, a
-screen divided the building in half, the squints
-covered by veils, and several doors opening
-into the altar space. Probably the screen was
-decorated with painting as the barrel vaults
-came to be. Within and without, the sanctuary<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_40" id="Page_40">[40]</a></span>
-gleamed pure white. The Saxons learned the
-use of whitewash from the British, and St. Wilfrid
-gloried in having washed the York Minster
-of his day “whiter than snow.”</p>
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;" id="illus4">
-<img src="images/i_066.jpg" width="600" height="460" alt="" />
-<p class="caption">ST. WINIFRED’S WELL, HOLYHEAD</p>
-<p class="caption"><i>From an engraving by Cuitt, 1813</i></p>
-</div>
-
-<p>As the cottages, coloured white or yellow or
-pink, are seen nestling against the hills of Wales,
-one regrets that the church no longer receives
-as in olden days the same treatment. With the
-wash worn from the churches and never renewed,
-the country has lost in picturesque
-beauty. How pretty these buildings must have
-looked, with their steep thatched roofs and
-white bell-cots gleaming in the midst of
-dark yews, or perhaps some golden-tinted
-church glowing like a crocus in the midst of
-pines. Not only have the colours faded, as if
-the land were some bright missal turning gray,
-but the odd circular huts with their conical
-thatched roofs, in which the natives once lived,
-have tumbled down. In those days was a beautiful
-hospitality, the host and hostess serving
-until all were served, and in these rude dwellings
-the ancient harp was played; and from the
-wooden book, its revolving square crossbars
-inscribed with letters or notes of music, were
-read the ancient song and poetry of Wales.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_41" id="Page_41">[41]</a></span>
-When the rectangular cottage came in it did
-not differ greatly from the circular hut. There
-were windows&mdash;“wind-eyes”&mdash;covered with
-a wooden lattice and shutter, the walls smoothly
-plastered, and the interior made less primitive
-by the use of three-legged tables and chairs.
-Still later, in the seventeenth and eighteenth
-centuries, the one space was divided off into
-kitchen, chamber, and loft, the kitchen open to
-the roof and airy, healthful, and clean. Hospitality
-was sacred then; any man might enter a
-dwelling, and delivering up his arms stay as
-long as he would.</p>
-
-<p>The church was but another sanctuary in
-olden days where men could take refuge from
-sin or foe. The “llan,” which is the prefix to
-fully eight tenths of all the names of ancient
-churches in North Wales, means “enclosure.”
-Probably in these places were the earliest monastic
-settlements, at a time when the “llan,” as
-the Irish “rath,” enclosed habitation as well as
-sanctuary. But as the years brought about greater
-specification in the functions of church and state
-the term narrowed itself down and was applied
-solely to the church. The old churchyard walls
-are still more or less circular like British fort<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_42" id="Page_42">[42]</a></span>
-walls. Llangelynin has an enclosure that undoubtedly
-follows the old lines. The walls of the
-churchyard near Holyhead are extremely ancient,
-seventeen feet high and six feet thick. This
-masonry, from the presence of certain round
-towers and the particular plastering used, is
-known to be Roman. Set away from the world
-that is “too much with us,” these enclosures are
-charming old spaces, habitable in a sweet sense.
-The grass looks peace into tired eyes, and to
-eyes eager with plans rest here is merely an
-emphasis upon the joy of living. And here, as
-the stiles into the close show, the children play
-and have played from generation to generation.
-Here they climbed upon the roof, and here
-against the north and west walls, where burials
-are never made, they played ball and scratched
-upon the stone their scoring-marks.</p>
-
-<p>At Llangelynin there are no yew trees; that
-windy height is too bleak for even the sturdy
-yew. Only white harebells and hardy grass blow
-about on its bare rock-strewn summit. But in
-most of the enclosures the yew still stands as
-the one enduring monument of a past whose
-very rocks have been covered by the silt of over
-a thousand years. Many of these trees date from<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_43" id="Page_43">[43]</a></span>
-a British period and remain emblematic to-day
-as they were then. Sometimes it is a single yew
-by the lychgate which one sees, or an alley of
-the deathless green, or perhaps yew branches completely
-veil a gable end of the little church. At
-Beddgelert, the oldest foundation in all Wales,
-the yew stands to-day as it stood some two thousand
-years ago; about its base have rushed
-the floods of wild mountain torrents, from its
-feet the graves of centuries have been washed
-away down to the all-embracing sea. Like children
-of yesterday are the mediæval lychgates
-through which one passes into the church enclosure
-and through which is often caught the first
-glimpse of the church bell-cot. At Caerhûn (the
-ancient Canovium), where the yew spreads over
-the gate is a double bell-cot, which, as it has the
-traditional straight ridge and gable in the middle,
-is amongst the oldest in Wales, of the fourteenth
-or fifteenth century, for the cots as well as the lychgates
-are “recent” in the life of these churches.
-The little crucifixes with their straight arms are
-also of this date. Before this time the local
-churches had nothing but hand-bells, which were
-held in great reverence. One of them may be
-seen in the stone coffin of Llewelyn the Great<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_44" id="Page_44">[44]</a></span>
-at Llanrwst. It is about ten inches high and
-cast on an oblong plan. Gildas gave such a bell
-to St. David. Six hundred years later, in the
-twelfth century, Giraldus Cambrensis tells the
-story of a portable bell called “Bangu” which,
-when a certain woman carried it to a castle where
-her husband was wrongfully imprisoned, caused
-the destruction of the whole town except the
-church walls. The campanology of North Wales
-is a romance in itself, a collection of odd, interesting,
-pathetic tales of past miracles, past friendships,
-past enmities.</p>
-
-<p>The original buildings not only did not have
-lychgates and bell-cots, they also did not have
-porches, and some to-day do not have them.
-But they are being added from time to time,
-and fearful are some of them to behold. At
-St. Mary’s, Llanfwrog Church, just across the
-bridge from quaint Ruthin, where the Duchess
-of Westminster has lived and is of vastly more
-interest to the people than gable ends and oaken
-rafters and other such stuff, fit only for the attics
-of men’s minds, is a bit of “restoration” suitable
-for display in the windows of a carriage-shop.
-The chancel railing is bright green, red, and
-black, the pews black and red,&mdash;a foretaste<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_45" id="Page_45">[45]</a></span>
-possibly of the landscape into which some of
-their occupants will one day take a dip,&mdash;and
-the stained glass vies with a refracted solar
-ray in yellows and oranges and reds and blues
-and greens. From this “restored” edifice drops
-a long flight of steps past the windows and signboard
-of an ancient hostelry, “Ye Labour in
-Vain Inn.” One cannot help wishing that the
-white gentleman upon the signboard, who is
-scrubbing a black man in a tub of water, would
-take his scrubbing-brush up to the church. Often,
-after all else has been hopelessly restored and all
-vestiges of harmonious beauty have disappeared,
-the old doorway remains, witness of an instinctive
-reverence for a threshold. Many of the
-circular-headed doorways, now hooded with
-porches, date from the eleventh and twelfth
-centuries and even earlier, and through them
-one passes over a mere sill into the sacred
-enclosure.</p>
-
-<p>A few points, simple and easy to remember
-as well as easy to discover, give an added intelligent
-pleasure in the study of these churches.
-The oldest churches are generally from twelve
-feet six inches to fourteen feet wide; the early
-walls from three feet to three feet six inches<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_46" id="Page_46">[46]</a></span>
-thick. Sixteenth-century walls rarely exceed two
-feet and a half in thickness. The old wattle
-buildings were daubed with a mixture of clay
-and cow dung; these church walls are built with
-earth and rendered on the face with lime and
-mortar. Buttresses are sometimes found, but
-they do not belong to early local work. The
-roofs are easy to examine and often of an enchanting
-beauty. At Llangelynin is a roof which
-is probably the original twelfth-century covering.
-The roof at Llanrhychwyn is also of the
-close couple type; here the struts are straight,
-but carved, and there are two ties across the
-nave. In some of these roofs are intermediary
-rafters, added when the thatch was replaced by
-slate.</p>
-
-<p>The earliest mention of a chancel of which I
-know is that in the poems of Cynddelw, who
-lived in the twelfth century, in his ode to Tysilio,
-when he speaks of a certain church as
-the “light or shining church” with a chancel
-for mass. We cannot assume that even in
-the twelfth century chancels were by any means
-common in North Wales. At Mallwyd Church
-there was, not so long ago, a communion table
-in the centre of the building, and there is no<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_47" id="Page_47">[47]</a></span>
-question but that holy ceremonies were performed
-originally, instead of at a chancel end,
-in the midst of this rectangular Holy of Holies.
-At Bardsey, Pennant found an insulated stone
-altar rather nearer the east end than the centre.
-The rough, uneven slate paving in these churches
-is comparatively modern, and it might be added
-comparatively luxurious. The first paving was
-mud and sometimes flat stones. Formerly the
-windows were covered by wooden shutters or
-lattices; that was the usage in all conventual
-buildings. Now the windows are either well
-or illy filled with coloured glass. In many of
-the churches falling into great dilapidation the
-windows have been stuffed with stone and mortar,
-or rudely boarded over. Some of the stained
-glass is genuinely ugly and some of it genuinely
-and anciently lovely. That at Llanrhychwyn,
-coloured in brown line and yellow stain and
-representing the Virgin and Child and the Holy
-Trinity, is of the fifteenth century and still beautiful.
-Probably the use of glass was not introduced
-into Wales till the thirteenth century.
-West windows were unknown in local Welsh
-work. Where a window with such an exposure
-is found, the opening did not belong to the early<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_48" id="Page_48">[48]</a></span>
-church. There are windows of great antiquity
-in these churches. Look at the lintelled window
-in the passageway into St. Beuno’s Chapel.
-Courage hesitates at assigning a date to this bit
-of work. There are windows far more elaborate
-of a comparatively early date, but they are the
-work of Latin monks and do not follow the
-straight lines of the native British architecture.
-An exquisite example of early Latin work is
-that of the Gilbertine monks upon the Beddgelert
-triplet.</p>
-
-<p>The barrel vaults in these churches are curious
-concave coverings over the chancel end, ark-like
-in form and supposed type of the ancient
-church. These oaken canopies have been elaborately
-painted in the past; now they are to be
-seen in every stage of dilapidation, provoking
-the eye by their interrupted pictures or faint
-lines of red and blue. They are approximately
-of the same date, although not in the same
-condition, for their destruction is due to leaky
-roofs and not to age. The ground colour was
-the green-blue the Middle Ages loved so well,
-and the other colours red, yellow, and white.
-At Llandanwg, where the sea would flow into
-the western door were it not for a big embankment,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_49" id="Page_49">[49]</a></span>
-there is a barrel vault with faint traces of
-painting upon it. An old man whose father and
-mother were the last people to be married there
-told us he took an interest in it, it was the only
-church in Harlech Parish fifty years ago, and “the
-only service held there then was when the parson
-and the clerk used to go over and enjoy drinking
-their beer on the gravestones.” English came
-stiff to his tongue, but he described the fearful
-condition of the church, and the way the
-people took off the seats for firewood and the
-children made a playhouse of the abandoned
-structure. In one corner of the barrel vault was
-a picture of the Devil prodding people down
-into hell. The children threw things at these
-paintings, mud and other articles, till the pictures
-were completely destroyed. Whatever the subject,
-it is pleasant to recall the colouring of the
-barrel vaults, for, executed five or six hundred
-years ago, they must have been brightly beautiful
-like the margins of an illuminated book,
-radiant with something of the blue and gold of
-very heaven itself. Of the rood screens and lofts
-that veiled the chancel space, there are but few
-left intact; of the sacred rood itself, no vestige
-except the socket on the candlebeam into which<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_50" id="Page_50">[50]</a></span>
-its pedestal slipped. Fanaticism has swept this
-feature away. In Beddgelert their rood-screen
-carving was converted into chairs for household
-use or fuel for warmth. Strangely enough, Queen
-Elizabeth was the last defender of the screen’s
-mystical beauty of carven wood and the silent
-admonishing figure stretched upon its façade.
-At Llanengan there is a screen of rare delicacy,
-stolen, together with some elbow stalls and silver
-bells, from Bardsey, that resting-place of
-saints which seems to have been to the ecclesiastical
-world what Fuseli said Blake was to the
-art world, “good to steal from.” Chests, worm-eaten
-and with rusty bolts, are often among the
-church treasures. St. Beuno’s chest at Clynnog
-is as old as the saint himself. And at Clynnog,
-too, are dog tongs, or lazy tongs as they were
-sometimes called, in each paddle four sharpened
-nails which must have seemed bitter to
-any doggie’s sides, lean or fat, as he was lifted ignominiously
-out of the sanctuary. And, oh, woe if
-it caught him by the tail or foot! There are
-different types of fonts in these churches: small
-square fonts like the earliest of Palestine, Asia
-Minor, Egypt; extremely small fonts of various
-shapes dating from the eleventh to the fourteenth<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_51" id="Page_51">[51]</a></span>
-century; large fonts used for immersion,
-and belonging to the fifteenth and sixteenth
-centuries. At Llanderfel near Corwen is a
-wooden image, never, I imagine, satisfactorily
-accounted for. It is a horse, though curiously
-like a deer in appearance. This figure was the
-standard for the image that rested upon it and
-which went, several hundred years ago, to help
-in the burning of poor Friar Forest at Smithfield,
-to whom, while the fire crackled about
-his feet, Latimer preached a sermon. Now even
-the brass tablet on the standard has been sent to
-the British Museum, and the standard itself, till
-within the last few years, used for a pig-trough.</p>
-
-<p>Apparently London thought a Welshman
-who denied the supremacy of the king worth
-burning, difficult to be rid of. Well might
-Englishmen consider such a man’s forebears in
-saintship. The Latins tried to rid the Western
-world of these anomalies in spiritual heritage&mdash;in
-vain! The Reformation burnt them. In vain,
-too, for the Welshman to-day, nonconformist
-and conformist alike, is as tenacious of the lists
-of his hagiology as ever he was a thousand years
-ago. To the ancient Celt there were three free
-dignitaries: church, land, and poet. To-day<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_52" id="Page_52">[52]</a></span>
-these remain the revered dignitaries to the
-Welshman. In the past these offices had been
-closely united, for to a Welshman saintship
-came by birth, celebrity depended afterwards
-upon how he acted. There is an odd title to a
-Welsh catalogue of saints: “Bonedd Saint ynys
-Prydain,”&mdash;the Gentility of the Saints of the
-Isle of Britain. An old Irish song says of St.
-Patrick that he “was a gentleman and came of
-decent people,” a fact which to us does not
-seem prerequisite for saintdom. Not so to the
-Celt; and it is best to keep this essential difference
-in mind, or one might be puzzled by running
-across the annals, some day, of a saint in
-so cheery a state that he fell into his own holy
-well and escaped drowning only because of the
-good luck universally known to attend people
-in a similar condition. The object of the Celtic
-saint, till he became Latinized, was to serve his
-tribe by increasing its riches and enlarging its
-boundaries. It was not necessary for him, as it
-was for his brother Latin, to receive any papal
-sanction for his sainthood or to work any miracles.
-His <i lang="fr">carte</i> to sanctity was membership
-in a certain family or monastery. The Latin
-Christian world, establishing its supremacy by<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_53" id="Page_53">[53]</a></span>
-degrees, could not fail to scoff at the temporal
-emphasis of Welsh saintdom. Even Giraldus,
-a Welshman, comments mildly upon the vindictiveness
-of certain saints, of whom he often
-knew more than he cared to tell. Gradually,
-by ridicule chiefly, the lists of Celtic holy men
-were closed. Even Bardsey, the <i lang="la">Insula Sanctorum</i>
-of the Welsh, does not escape a laugh
-from many critics, one of whom observes that
-“It would be more facile to find graves in
-Bardsey for so many saints than saints for so
-many graves”; a remark grudging and ungracious,
-for the world has condescended to steal
-everything from Bardsey and might leave it at
-least the glory of claiming as many dead saints
-as it pleases.</p>
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 425px;" id="illus5">
-<img src="images/i_080.jpg" width="425" height="600" alt="" />
-<p class="caption">THE EAGLE TOWER OF CARNARVON CASTLE</p>
-<p class="caption"><i>From an engraving by Cuitt</i></p>
-</div>
-
-<p>The tales, fabulous and odd, told of Welsh
-saints, Welsh relics, and holy wells, are particularly
-charming because they are not marred
-by over-didacticism. Tydecho was an illustrious
-saint who lived in the time of King Arthur.
-Retiring from the world, he led a life of mingled
-austerity in penance and of useful hours of
-ploughing. One day a youth seized his oxen,
-but the next day wild stags were drawing the
-plough, and a wolf harrowing after them. Furious,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_54" id="Page_54">[54]</a></span>
-the youth brought his dogs to chase away
-Tydecho’s wild friends. While enjoying this
-diversion he seated himself upon a stone; attempting
-to rise he found himself fixed to the
-rock. Truly a humiliating position for a proud-spirited
-youth who enjoys taunting an old man!
-Friendship between man and beast is woven
-into these tales like the bright colours threading
-the letters of an ancient bestiary. St. Monacella
-protected hares from Brochwel Yscythrog, who
-was hunting them. She hid the trembling little
-beasts under her robe and, praying devoutly,
-faced the dogs. The dogs ceased their running,
-and even when the horn was blown as a command
-to them to follow the hare, they stole
-away howling and the horn stuck to the huntsman’s
-lips. After Brochwel had listened to
-Monacella’s plea, the little creatures were released,
-and to this day no one in the parish will
-hunt one of Monacella’s lambs.</p>
-
-<p>Many and attractively full of poetry are the
-superstitions that still live in the solitudes of
-northern Wales. “Bees were created in paradise,”
-say the “Leges Wallicæ,” “and no light
-save beeswax is to be used at mass.” When on
-the fall of man they left paradise, God Himself<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_55" id="Page_55">[55]</a></span>
-is said to have blessed them. They produced,
-too, the nectarious “medd” of which the ancient
-Britons thought so much. One day we encountered
-a hillside woman in great distress, breathless
-and flapping her apron; her bees were
-running away and apparently the worldly creature
-had no intention of letting them run back
-to paradise. Bent pins are still to be found at
-the bottom of the sacred well within the church
-close, pins dropped in before bathing to cure
-warts. Woe to the bather who failed to drop
-in the propitiatory pin, for he promptly caught
-the warts of which others had got rid. And in
-these holy wells the clothes of sick children
-were washed, with happy auguries if the little
-garments floated, with fell portent if they sank.
-At Llangelynin, where the well is still in excellent
-condition, an old woman told me that
-to cure a sick child a stranger to the family
-must dip the child in after sundown. Spitting
-upon hearing the name of the Devil may not
-be polite, but it is a simple way of expressing
-contempt, and so, too, is smiting the breast
-in self-condemnatory woe at the name of
-Judas. Some of their superstitions and customs,
-despite the smack of folly, are wise in<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_56" id="Page_56">[56]</a></span>
-their emphasis upon the power of the imagination.</p>
-
-<p>There are, too, some wholesome customs of
-precedence. The parson always used to go out
-of chapel first,&mdash;in some places he does so
-still,&mdash;and the parishioner who disputed this
-order of rank might have his ears boxed for his
-trouble. After the baptism of a little child old
-women wash their failing eyes in the font with
-pathetic faith in the virtue of new, God-given
-life. There used to be some sweet customs, not
-entirely lost yet, connected with burial. As the
-coffin rested on the bier outside the door, the
-next of kin among the women gave to the poorest
-persons in the parish, over the body of the
-dead, a great dish filled with white bread. Then
-a cup of drink was handed across the bier to
-the same poor and all knelt to repeat the Lord’s
-Prayer. At every crossroad between the house
-and church they knelt again to pray, the sexton’s
-hand-bell quiet only when all knees were
-on the earth.</p>
-
-<p>On the way from church to church many
-tablets arrest the eye, kneeling fathers and
-mothers with processions of kneeling children
-in a line behind them. The <i lang="la">viva voce</i> history of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_57" id="Page_57">[57]</a></span>
-these reliefs suggests the less quaint and more
-beautiful and enduring <i lang="la">relievo</i> of sepulchral
-urns. At Clynnog I counted thirteen children
-in happy procession after one father. At Conway
-I might have counted twenty-nine if I had
-wished to, but I had no such wish. At Corwen
-we found knee-holes in both footstones and
-headstones to make comfortable the knees of
-friends while they prayed,&mdash;or meditated, as I
-confess I did, upon the hideousness of most
-sepulchral carving and inscription. There was
-one part of these records which, with even the
-best traditions behind me, could not be undertaken&mdash;the
-epitaph or similar memento. Early
-in the journey this inscription was encountered:</p>
-
-<p class="center">Heare lyeth the body of<br />
-John, ap Robert, ap Porth, ap<br />
-David, ap Griffith, ap David<br />
-Vauchan, ap Blethyn, ap<br />
-Griffith, ap Meredith,<br />
-ap Jerworth, ap Llewelyn,<br />
-ap Jerorh, ap Heilin, ap<br />
-Cowryd, ap Cadvan, ap<br />
-Alawgwa, ap Cadell, the<br />
-King of Powys, who<br />
-<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_58" id="Page_58">[58]</a></span>departed this life the<br />
-XX day of March, in the<br />
-Year of our Lord God<br />
-1642, and of<br />
-his age XCV.</p>
-
-<p>Now it was plain that this was one of the results
-of the saints’ unsaintly emphasis upon a
-family-tree. Certainly a man has a right to as
-many ancestors as he can compass. But thereafter,
-when I saw the usual clusters of “aps”
-and “Griffyevanjoneses,” I experienced a reluctant
-and fluttering sensation within accompanied
-by external haste to get elsewhere. Just one
-other epitaph, by reason of its brevity, caught
-my pencil:&mdash;</p>
-
-<div class="poetry-container">
-<div class="poetry">
-<div class="stanza">
-<div class="verse">Here lies John Shore,</div>
-<div class="verse">I say no more;</div>
-<div class="verse">Who was alive</div>
-<div class="verse">In sixty-five.</div>
-</div>
-</div>
-</div>
-
-<hr class="chap" />
-
-<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_59" id="Page_59">[59]</a></span></p>
-
-<h2 id="IV">IV<br />
-<span class="smaller"><i>Dr. Johnson’s Tour of North
-Wales</i></span></h2>
-
-<div class="poetry-container">
-<div class="poetry">
-<div class="stanza">
-<div class="verse indent9">“What should we speak of</div>
-<div class="verse">When we are as old as you? When we shall hear</div>
-<div class="verse">The rain and wind beat dark December, how</div>
-<div class="verse">In this our pinching cave, shall we discourse</div>
-<div class="verse">The freezing hours away? We have seen nothing.”</div>
-</div>
-</div>
-</div>
-
-<p>Even the motion of driving in a post-chaise
-captivated the fancy of Dr. Johnson, for he said,
-“If I had no duties, and no reference to futurity,
-I would spend my life in driving briskly in
-a post-chaise with a pretty woman; but she
-should be one who could understand me, and
-would add something to the conversation.” Mrs.
-Piozzi, who, except for that of prettiness, fulfilled
-these requirements both as a brilliant conversationalist
-and owner of a post-chaise, asked
-her beloved Doctor why he doted on a coach.
-Johnson’s reply was, that in the first place the
-company was shut in with him “and could not
-escape as out of a room,” and that in the second
-place, he could hear all the conversation in a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_60" id="Page_60">[60]</a></span>
-carriage. Any lamentations while travelling thus
-he considered proof of an empty head or tongue
-that wished to talk and had nothing about which
-to talk. “A mill that goes without grist,” he exclaimed,
-“is as good a companion as such creatures.”
-As for himself, he felt no inconvenience
-upon the road and he expected others to feel
-none. He allowed nobody to complain of rain,
-sun, or dust. And so greatly did he love this
-act of going forward that Mrs. Thrale (Mrs.
-Piozzi) said she could not tell how far he might
-be taken before he would think of refreshments.</p>
-
-<p>Yet the impression which Macaulay gave of
-Johnson’s attitude towards travelling is the one
-generally held: “Of foreign travel and of history
-he spoke with the fierce and boisterous contempt
-of ignorance. ‘What does a man learn by travelling?
-Is Beauclerk the better for travelling?
-What did Lord Claremount learn in his travels,
-except that there was a snake in one of the
-pyramids of Egypt?’” History has proved that
-Macaulay could be brilliantly inaccurate; certainly
-in this estimate of Johnson he was so. In
-still another passage Macaulay says that Dr.
-Johnson “took it for granted that everybody<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_61" id="Page_61">[61]</a></span>
-who lived in the country was either stupid or
-miserable.” The first twenty-seven years of his
-life Johnson spent in small country towns and,
-although he was sometimes miserable, because
-he was wretchedly poor, he was never stupid.</p>
-
-<p>It was the young traveller whom he censured,
-not the mature traveller or travelling in general.
-It was characteristic of him to say, “I never
-like young travellers; they go too raw to make
-any great remarks.” Indeed, so grave was his
-sense of the value of travel that he took it upon
-himself to rebuke Boswell, as Boswell records:
-“Dr. Johnson expressed a particular enthusiasm
-with respect to visiting the Wall of China. I
-catched it for the moment, and said I really believed
-I should go and see the Wall of China
-had I not children, of whom it was my duty to
-take care. ‘Sir,’ (said he), ‘by doing so you
-would do what would be of importance in raising
-your children to eminence. There would be
-a lustre reflected upon them from your spirit and
-curiosity. They would be at all times as the
-children of a man who had gone to view the
-Wall of China. I am serious, sir.’”</p>
-
-<p>In his college days Johnson may not have
-had the same reasons as the young poet Keats<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_62" id="Page_62">[62]</a></span>
-for going “wonder-ways,” but reasons he had.
-With the Doctor, perhaps even more truly than
-with Keats, curiosity was “the first passion and
-the last.” While an undergraduate he was heard
-to say, “I have a mind to see what is done in
-other places of learning. I’ll go and visit the
-universities abroad. I’ll go to France and Italy.
-I’ll go to Padua.” Twice he urged Boswell “to
-perambulate Spain,” and of their tour to the
-Hebrides everybody knows. There was talk of
-his going to Iceland, and for a time the great
-Doctor discussed travelling around the world
-with two friends.</p>
-
-<p>Of the existence of the journal of Johnson’s
-tour in North Wales even Boswell did not know.
-This journey was begun by the Thrales and
-the Doctor leaving Streatham at eleven o’clock
-on Tuesday morning of July 15, 1774. On their
-way they stopped at Litchfield at the house of
-Dr. Darwin, psychologist, poet, and grandfather
-of Charles Darwin, of whose roses Mrs. Piozzi
-wrote, “I have no roses equal to those at Litchfield,
-where on one tree I recollect counting
-eighty-four within my own reach; it grew against
-the house of Dr. Darwin.”</p>
-
-<p>After passing through several towns on their<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_63" id="Page_63">[63]</a></span>
-route to North Wales they came, a party of
-four, Mr. and Mrs. Thrale, little Queenie and
-Johnson, to Chester on July twenty-seventh.
-Of Chester the Doctor made short work. He
-was more interested in a grammar school held
-in part of the Abbey refectory than in aught
-else, and wrote particularly, “The Master seemed
-glad to see me.” Of course the Master was glad,
-for was not Johnson the greatest man of his day?
-There is not one word for the quiet beauty of
-the Dee, no mention of Cheshire cheese, and
-nothing about Chester ale, which perhaps Johnson
-found as bad as did Sion Tudor. Of their
-sojourn in Chester we get a more lively picture
-from Mrs. Thrale’s comment on the entry in
-the Doctor’s journal than from the journal itself.
-Johnson wrote, “We walked round the walls,
-which are compleat.” Mrs. Piozzi observed,
-“Of those <em>ill-fated</em> walls Dr. Johnson might
-have learned the extent from any one. He has
-since put me fairly out of countenance by saying,
-‘I have known <em>my mistress</em> fifteen years,
-and never saw her fairly out of humour but on
-Chester wall’; it was because he would keep
-Miss Thrale beyond her hour of going to bed
-to walk on the wall, where from the want of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_64" id="Page_64">[64]</a></span>
-light, I apprehended some accident to her,&mdash;perhaps
-to him.” Probably nine-year-old “Miss
-Thrale” did not mind being kept beyond her
-hour of going to bed by a stout gentleman who
-was her devoted slave!</p>
-
-<p>The next day they entered Wales, dined at
-Mold and came to Llewenni. Mrs. Thrale’s
-cousin, Robert Cotton, was living at Llewenni
-Hall, which in 1817, after having been one thousand
-years in possession of the family, was torn
-down. At Whitchurch, a few miles away, is an alabaster
-altar monument to one of the Salusbury’s
-who owned this hall, Sir John, or Syr John y
-Bodiau (“Sir John of the Thumbs”). This ancestor
-of Mrs. Piozzi was not only distinguished
-by two thumbs on either hand, but also by a
-giant’s strength. With his bare fist he is supposed
-to have slain a white lioness in the Tower
-of London. Since then white lionesses have all
-disappeared. Sir John of the Thumbs also killed
-a mythical beast in a lair below a near-by castle,
-and overthrew a famous giant. Is it any wonder
-that Mrs. Thrale, with such a forefather,
-should sometimes have painted things <i lang="fr">plus beau
-que le vérité</i>, and that, even as her ancestor was
-fond of pulling up trees by the roots when he<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_65" id="Page_65">[65]</a></span>
-had nothing better to do, his descendant should
-once in a while give truth a little tug?</p>
-
-<p>But if Mrs. Thrale had a distinguished progenitor,
-she had an even more distinguished ancestress,
-for there at Llewenni Hall lived “Mam
-Cymru,” the Mother of Wales. This Catherine
-de Berain’s first husband was a Salusbury, her
-second husband was Sir Richard Clough. The
-second daughter of the second marriage married
-Salusbury of Bachycraig, and from this marriage
-Mrs. Piozzi was descended. Later, Catherine de
-Berain became the third wife of Maurice Wynne,
-who was her third husband. It is said that on
-the way home from the funeral of her first husband,
-Wynne asked her to marry him. She had
-to refuse, however, as Sir Richard Clough had
-asked her on the way <em>to</em> the church. But she
-assured him that she was not superstitious about
-the number 3, and agreed to give Wynne the
-next opportunity. She kept her word.</p>
-
-<p>When the Welsh used to speak of a rich
-person, they did not say “rich as Crœsus” but
-“rich as a Clough.” On July thirtieth, Johnson
-and the Thrales visited a remarkable house
-built by Sir Richard, the second husband of
-“Mam Cymru.” On the thirty-first day they<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_66" id="Page_66">[66]</a></span>
-drove to the Cathedral of St. Asaph, once the
-even smaller church of Llanelwy, to which
-Giraldus Cambrensis in his tour in 1188 referred
-as “paupercula.” About that time this tiny
-cathedral was changed from wickerwork or
-wood to stone. On the same day they saw the
-Chapel of Llewenni, founded by one of the
-Salusburys, where Johnson was surprised because
-the service, read thrice on Sundays, was
-read only once in English.</p>
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;" id="illus6">
-<img src="images/i_096.jpg" width="600" height="460" alt="" />
-<p class="caption">GATEWAY OF CARNARVON CASTLE</p>
-<p class="caption"><i>From an engraving by Cuitt</i></p>
-</div>
-
-<p>He was dissatisfied not only with the order of
-Welsh services, but also with the behaviour of
-Welsh rivers. On this day he writes: “The
-rivers here are mere torrents which are suddenly
-swelled by the rain to great breadth and great
-violence, but have very little constant stream;
-such are the Clwyd and the Elwy.” About
-Welsh rivers Johnson makes a great many remarks.
-He is as scornful of them as an American
-is of the Thames. Mrs. Piozzi says that his
-“ideas of anything not positively large were
-ever mingled with contempt.” He asked of one
-of the sharp currents in North Wales, “Has
-this <em>brook</em> e’er a name?” “Why, dear Sir, this
-is the <em>River</em> Ustrad.” “Let us,” said Dr. Johnson,
-turning to his friend, “jump over it directly,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_67" id="Page_67">[67]</a></span>
-and show them how an Englishman
-should treat a Welsh river.” Johnson was always
-of opinion that when one had seen the
-ocean, cascades were but little things. He used
-to laugh at Shenstone most unmercifully for not
-caring whether there was anything good to eat
-in the streams he was so fond of. “As if,”
-says Johnson, “one could fill one’s belly with
-hearing soft murmurs, or looking at rough
-cascades!”</p>
-
-<p>It would be difficult to make a summary of
-all the objects Johnson called “mean” in North
-Wales. Among them were towns, rivers, inns,
-dinners, churches, houses, choirs. It is safe to
-say that the great Doctor could not rid himself
-altogether of English prejudices against the
-Welsh and all things Welsh. George Borrow’s
-experience on the summit of Snowdon was not
-at all unusual, except that in this instance an
-Englishman in the presence of English people
-became the champion of the Welsh. Undoubtedly
-Johnson was influenced in his contempt
-not only by his English feeling, but also by the
-fact that he was a true son of the eighteenth
-century, with all that century’s emphasis on
-power, on size, on utility.</p>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_68" id="Page_68">[68]</a></span></p>
-
-<p>Yet Johnson was not totally incapable of appreciating
-the romantic scenery of Wales. Some
-part of it, the more cultivated, he seems to have
-felt, for on the very next day there is this record:
-“The way lay through pleasant lanes,
-and overlooked a region beautifully diversified
-with trees and grass.” It mortified Mrs. Thrale
-because Mr. Thrale, a lover of landscapes, could
-not enjoy them with the great Doctor, who would
-say, “Never heed such nonsense, a blade of grass
-is always a blade of grass, whether in one country
-or another. Let us, if we <em>do</em> talk, talk about
-something; men and women are my subject of
-enquiry; let us see how these differ from those
-we have left behind.” However, Johnson was
-certainly not insensible to the beauty of nature.
-In describing his emotions at the sight
-of Iona, he wrote: “Whatever withdraws us
-from the power of our senses, whatever makes
-the past, the distant, or the future predominate
-over the present, advances us in the dignity
-of thinking beings.” In his tour in the Hebrides
-he welcomed even the inconveniences
-of travelling, such as wind and rain, when they
-meant finer scenery and more pictures for the
-mind.</p>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_69" id="Page_69">[69]</a></span></p>
-
-<p>Much on this same August second was found
-“mean,” including Mrs. Thrale’s gift to the romantic
-old clerk of the parish church of Bachycraig
-where Mrs. Thrale’s father was buried. The
-day following, on their arrival in Holywell,
-Johnson had to admit that the town was “neither
-very small nor very mean.” He was amazed
-and impressed by the yield of water from St.
-Winifred’s Well, and the number of mill wheels
-the water turned. But when they went down
-by the stream to see a prospect, Johnson adds
-very specifically that he “had no part” in it.
-He was vastly more interested in some brass and
-copper works, in <i lang="la">lapis calaminaris</i>, in pigs of
-copper, and in some ironworks where he saw
-iron half an inch thick “square-cut with shears
-worked by water,” and hammers that moved as
-quick “as by the hand.” One has a curious feeling
-that, were the Doctor suddenly translated
-to this world again, foundries would interest
-him vastly more than any natural panorama.
-In this Johnson was truly a man of his times,
-which were epoch-making because of their new
-interest in the mechanics of industry, their gigantic
-industrial impulse. Without a word for
-the singular beauties of Holywell, without reference<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_70" id="Page_70">[70]</a></span>
-to the legend of St. Winifred or mention
-of the ruins of the Abbey, he concludes his
-journal for August third: “I then saw wire
-drawn, and gave a shilling. I have enlarged
-my notion, though not being able to see the
-movements, and not having time to peep
-closely, I know less than I might.”</p>
-
-<p>Another feature of the land impressed him
-favourably, the houses of country gentlemen.
-“This country seems full of very splendid houses,”
-he notes on August fourth, after visiting a Mr.
-Lloyd’s house near Ruthin, where he had been to
-see the castle. He writes quite at length on the
-ruins of Ruthin and ends characteristically, “Only
-one tower had a chimney, so that there was [little]
-commodity of living. It was only a place of
-strength.” It was on this day that the keep of the
-castle, when he heard that Mrs. Thrale was a
-native of North Wales, told her that his wife had
-been a Welshwoman, and had desired to be
-buried at Ruthin. “So,” said the man, “I went
-with the corpse myself, because I thought it
-would be a pleasant journey, and indeed I found
-Ruthin a very beautiful place.”</p>
-
-<p>Two days later they dined at Mr. Myddleton’s,
-of Gwaenynog, the gentleman who raised<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_71" id="Page_71">[71]</a></span>
-the unwelcome monument to Johnson’s memory
-before the Doctor had had a chance to die, and
-while he still considered himself very much alive.
-This memorial is on the site at Gwaenynog
-where Johnson used to stroll up and down. It
-reads: “This spot was often dignified by the presence
-of Samuel Johnson, LL.D., whose moral
-writings, exactly conformable to the precepts
-of Christianity, gave ardour to Virtue and confidence
-to Truth.” Perhaps it is not strange that
-Johnson was not pleased with the monument.
-He wrote to Mrs. Thrale, “Mr. Myddleton’s
-attention looks like an intention to bury me
-alive. I would as willingly see my friend, however
-benevolent and hospitable, quietly inurned.
-Let him think, for the present, of some more
-acceptable memorial.”</p>
-
-<p>To the Doctor death was always an enemy
-who would, he knew, outwit him in the end, a
-terrifying presence against which he struggled.
-“But who can run the race with death?” he
-cries despairingly. This premature memorial
-must have revolted everything in him, for to
-him “the whole of life” was but keeping away
-the thoughts of death. Even a dark road troubled
-him.</p>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_72" id="Page_72">[72]</a></span></p>
-
-<p>Leaving Llewenni on August eighteenth, they
-started definitely forward on their journey. They
-passed through Abergele, “a mean little town,”
-to Bangor, where they found “a very mean
-inn.” Certainly meanness is accumulating in
-Wales! Johnson had the instinctive contempt
-for things Welsh which so many English people
-hold. But, after finding Lord Bulkely’s house
-at Bangor also “very mean,” this is the point in
-the great Doctor’s journal where the lover of
-Wales may take heart.</p>
-
-<p>There was one contrivance of the hand and
-mind of man which impressed Dr. Johnson tremendously.
-Where such works of the Creator
-as Snowdon, for example, failed, where the mystery
-of this land of legend passed him by,
-castles succeeded by virtue of their size, the
-strength of their walls, the completeness of their
-equipment. In Denbigh, Johnson had eagerly
-tried to trace the lines of that “prodigious pile”
-of a castle. So much of the comment we get in
-this neglected Welsh journal and in Johnson’s
-other writings seems to summarize itself in two
-words: size and power. He told Mrs. Piozzi to
-get a book on gardening, since she would stay
-in the country, feed the chickens, and starve<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_73" id="Page_73">[73]</a></span>
-her intellect, “and learn,” he said, “to raise the
-<em>largest</em> turnips, and to breed the <em>biggest</em> fowls.”
-It was in vain that Mrs. Piozzi told him that
-the goodness of these dishes did not depend
-upon their size.</p>
-
-<p>From Beaumaris Castle to Carnarvon there
-is a crescendo of praise, ending in the memorable
-words about Carnarvon: “To survey this
-place would take much time. I did not think
-there had been such buildings; it surpassed my
-ideas.” Of Beaumaris, Johnson wrote: “The
-Castle is a mighty pile.… This Castle corresponds
-with all the representatives of romancing
-narratives. Here is not wanting the private
-passage, the dark cavity, the deep dungeon, or
-the lofty tower. We did not discover the well.
-This is the most compleat view that I have yet
-had of an old Castle.” And then came four last
-delighted words, “It had a moat.”</p>
-
-<p>Nor was the next day, August twentieth, less
-of a success. After meeting with some friends
-they went to see the castle in Carnarvon, which
-Johnson describes as “an edifice of stupendous
-magnitude and strength; it has in it all that we
-observed at Beaumaris, and much greater dimensions,
-many of the smaller rooms floored<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_74" id="Page_74">[74]</a></span>
-with stone are entire; of the larger rooms, the
-beams and planks are all left; this is the state
-of all buildings left to time. We mounted the
-Eagle Tower by one hundred and sixty-nine
-steps, each of ten inches. We did not find the
-well; nor did I trace the moat; but moats there
-were, I believe, to all castles on the plain, which
-not only hindered access, but prevented mines.
-We saw but a very small part of the mighty
-ruin, and in all these old buildings, the subterraneous
-works are concealed by the rubbish.”</p>
-
-<p>When Johnson and the Thrales were on their
-way from Llewenni to Bangor, they passed
-through Conway. The Doctor was much exercised
-in Conway because of the plight of an
-Irish gentlewoman and her young family who
-could get no beds to sleep in, but the one feature
-in this rare old town which might have
-impressed him, its castle, he did not notice in
-the journal. Built by the same architect who
-planned Carnarvon, it has much of its grace and
-is in some respects even more beautifully placed.
-With its machicolated towers, its vast banqueting-hall,
-Queen Eleanor’s oratory, and the river
-washing at its foundations, it is still a wonderful
-old pile. On the return trip Johnson makes<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_75" id="Page_75">[75]</a></span>
-a short, practical note to the effect that the
-castle afforded them nothing new, and that if it
-was larger than that of Beaumaris, it was smaller
-than that of Carnarvon. Carnarvon was the
-largest, and the Doctor was not to be weaned
-from it any more than from the idea that Mrs.
-Thrale ought to raise the largest turnips.</p>
-
-<p>The day following this memorable inspection
-of Carnarvon Castle, they dined with Sir Thomas
-Wynne and his Lady. Johnson’s comment was
-brief,&mdash;“the dinner mean, Sir Thomas civil,
-his Lady nothing.” It would seem that Lady
-Wynne failed to recognize the greatness of her
-visitor, and, accustomed to a distinguished reception,
-the great man’s vanity was hurt. Afterwards
-he made remarks about Sir Thomas’s
-Lady, in which she was compared to “sour small
-beer” and “run tea.” Of a lady in Scotland he
-had said “that she resembled a dead nettle;
-were she alive she would sting.”</p>
-
-<p>This mean dinner and, we presume, its
-meaner hostess were but a sorry prelude to a
-melancholy journey which the party had to
-take to Mrs. Thrale’s old home at Bodvel.
-They found nothing there as in Mrs. Thrale’s
-childhood; the walk was cut down, the pond<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_76" id="Page_76">[76]</a></span>
-was dry. The near-by churches which Mrs.
-Thrale held by impropriation Johnson thought
-“mean and neglected to a degree scarcely
-imaginable. They have no pavement, and the
-earth is full of holes. The seats are rude
-benches; the altars have no rails. One of them
-has a breach in the roof. On the desk, I think,
-of each lay a folio Welsh Bible of the black
-letter, which the curate cannot easily read.”
-Over one hundred and thirty years later it was
-that I made the tour, which I have described
-for you, of these Welsh churches of early foundation.
-Mysterious, desolate, dilapidated old
-places they are; in comparison with the ugly,
-comfortable nonconformist chapels, spectacles
-for the prosperous to jeer at.</p>
-
-<p>Mrs. Piozzi tells a story which shows that
-the great Doctor brought terror to the hearts of
-the Welsh parsons. “It was impossible not to
-laugh at the patience Dr. Johnson showed, when
-a Welsh parson of mean abilities, though a good
-heart, struck with reverence at the sight of Dr.
-Johnson, whom he had heard of as the greatest
-man living, could not find any words to answer
-his enquiries concerning a motto around
-somebody’s arms which adorned a tombstone<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_77" id="Page_77">[77]</a></span>
-in Ruabon Churchyard. If I remember right,
-the words were,&mdash;</p>
-
-<div class="poetry-container">
-<div class="poetry">
-<div class="stanza">
-<div class="verse">Heb Dw, Heb Dym (Without God, without all)</div>
-<div class="verse">Dw o’ diggon (God is all sufficient).<a name="FNanchor_1_1" id="FNanchor_1_1"></a><a href="#Footnote_1_1" class="fnanchor">[1]</a></div>
-</div>
-</div>
-</div>
-
-<p>And though of not very difficult construction,
-the gentleman seemed wholly confounded, and
-unable to explain them; till Dr. Johnson, having
-picked out the meaning by little and little, said
-to the man, ‘<i lang="cy">Heb</i> is a preposition, I believe,
-Sir, is it not?’ My countryman, recovering some
-spirits upon the sudden question, cried out, ‘So
-I humbly presume, Sir,’ very comically.”</p>
-
-<p>About Bodvel they found the Methodist
-“prevalent,” which could not have been a pleasant
-circumstance to Johnson. With nonconformity
-the great Doctor had no sympathy.
-Boswell says that Johnson thought them “too
-sanguine in their accounts of their success among
-savages, and that much of what they tell is not
-to be believed. He owned that the Methodists
-had done good; had spread religious impressions
-among the vulgar part of mankind; but,
-he said, they had great bitterness against other<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_78" id="Page_78">[78]</a></span>
-Christians, and that he never could get a Methodist
-to explain in what he excelled others.”</p>
-
-<p>This unhappy day they concluded suitably
-by going to Pwllheli, “a mean old town at the
-extremity of the country,” where they bought
-something by which to remember its meanness.
-Pwllheli is still mean, but in a different way,
-for it has become a noisy watering-resort from
-which the quiet traveller longs to escape at the
-first moment to quiet Abersoch or to Llanengan
-or Aberdaron, where “trippers” cease from
-troubling and tourists are at rest.</p>
-
-<p>Nowadays, even the most breathless will grant
-Snowdon a few words of praise&mdash;praise for its
-lakes, awe for its rock-strewn valleys like the
-valley of the shadow of death. Of the two lakes,
-Llyn Beris and Llyn Padarn, which receive the
-waters on the northern slope of Snowdon, Johnson
-did not think much, for he complained that
-“the boat is always near one bank or the other.”
-As for Snowdon itself, the record is, “We
-climbed with great labour. I was breathless and
-harassed.” There is no word for all that is romantic
-or awe-inspiring, not an exclamation for
-the summit to which have mounted king, poet,
-priest, bard, wise men, through countless ages&mdash;only<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_79" id="Page_79">[79]</a></span>
-a record of Queenie’s goats, “one hundred
-and forty-nine, I think.” Mr. Thrale, Queenie’s
-father, was near-sighted and could not see the
-goats, so he had promised the child a penny for
-every one she showed him. Dr. Johnson, the
-devoted friend of Queenie, kept the account.</p>
-
-<p>On their way back to the English border
-again, they passed through Bangor, where Johnson
-must have been happy in finding that “the
-quire is mean!” On August twenty-eighth they
-were once more with hospitable Mr. Myddleton.
-Here they stayed for over a week, and the
-journal contains, among other things, a long
-note about a Mr. Griffiths. The addition of the
-name of his estate or village fails to identify him
-now; looking for a Griffiths or a Jones in Wales,
-even a particular Jones or Griffiths, is like
-looking for a needle in a haystack. Perhaps the
-present limitation to a dozen patronymics is a
-blessing for courts of law, but it is baffling for
-the curious-minded man. The historian finds
-the old Welsh John ap Robert ap David ap
-Griffith ap Meredith ap David ap Vauchan ap
-Blethyn ap Griffith ap Meredith, and so on for
-a dozen more “aps,” easier for purposes of identification.</p>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_80" id="Page_80">[80]</a></span></p>
-
-<p>On their homeward way Johnson was enthusiastic
-about Wrexham and its “large and magnificent”
-church, one of the Seven Wonders of
-Wales. On the seventh of September they
-came to Chirk Castle, but I cannot find that
-they went into this residence, a place which undoubtedly
-would have delighted Johnson more
-on account of its “commodity of living” and
-solid grandeur than because one of its heiresses
-was the unamiable Warwick Dowager who had
-married Addison. They left for Shrewsbury
-after they had viewed the little waterfall of
-Pistyll Rhaiadr, where the Doctor remarked
-only upon its height and the copiousness of its
-fall. If Johnson had been an up-to-date Cambrian
-railway tourist, he could not have entered
-and left North Wales in more approved
-style, for he came in by way of Chester and left
-by way of Shrewsbury. Safely out of Wales
-they journeyed homeward through Worcester,
-probably Birmingham, and Oxford. On September
-twenty-fourth there is this simple record:
-“We went home.”</p>
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;" id="illus7">
-<img src="images/i_112.jpg" width="600" height="390" alt="" />
-<p class="caption">A VIEW OF DENBIGH CASTLE</p>
-<p class="caption"><i>From an engraving by Boydell, 1750</i></p>
-</div>
-
-<p>It is to be remembered that on this tour
-Johnson lacked the companionship of the faithful
-Boswell. Yet the scantiness of the diary and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_81" id="Page_81">[81]</a></span>
-its critical attitude cannot be accounted for
-wholly on this ground, but were due, I think,
-far more to the fact that the Doctor was thoroughly
-English in prejudice. Tobias Smollett’s
-feeling in “Humphrey Clinker,” for example,
-is even more English and uncomplimentary. All
-through his tour of the Hebrides, though he
-denounced Scotland and all things Scottish,
-called the Scotch liars and their country naked,
-yet the Doctor had an uneasy conviction of
-their superiority. As far as Wales was concerned,
-he simply did not consider this country
-of Arthur, of bard and of poet, this country of
-an indestructible nationalism, worthy his serious
-interest. Had he lived in Shakespeare’s day his
-concern would have been much greater, his respect
-more solicitous.</p>
-
-<p>On the first visit to Mr. Myddleton the preservation
-of the Welsh language had been discussed.
-In his journal for that date Dr. Johnson
-wrote, “Myddleton is the only man, who, in
-Wales, has talked to me of literature.” He was
-visiting people who, almost universally, were
-supremely indifferent to Wales and all things
-Welsh. In other words, he was visiting the
-upper or ruling classes. It is not so many years<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_82" id="Page_82">[82]</a></span>
-ago that the children of the gentry were still
-not allowed to learn Welsh for fear their English
-accent might be spoiled. Now, happily,
-they are taught Welsh, a fact which not only
-improves the relationship between them and
-the working classes, but also is contributing
-generously to a revival of all that is best in
-Welsh song and literature. Even a prince of the
-blood royal learns Welsh and speaks it.</p>
-
-<p>Dr. Johnson was in Wales at a time when
-the intellectual interests of Welshmen were
-most flagging, that is, just before the introduction
-of the Welsh Sunday Schools which, with
-their educational rather than exclusively religious
-function, gave impulse to a period of
-modern Welsh literature. Not only in chronology
-but also in importance, the establishment
-of the Welsh Sunday School must take
-precedence of Lady Charlotte Guest’s translations
-of the “Mabinogion.” Yet what Macpherson’s
-“Ossian” did for Scotland in the seventies
-in arousing interest, Lady Guest did for Wales
-in 1838. It is possible, if one can presuppose
-the impossible, that with these translations in
-hand Dr. Johnson’s journal would have been
-very different. However, one is fearful that, fortified<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_83" id="Page_83">[83]</a></span>
-even with Lady Charlotte’s beautiful translations,
-there would have been passages in the
-authentic Welsh “Mabinogion” as angrily rejected
-by him as Macpherson’s imposture was.
-Johnson said that he never could get the meaning
-of an Erse song explained to him. He asked
-a young lady who had sung such a song what
-it was about, and she replied that it was for the
-entertainment of the company. He explained
-that it was its meaning he could not understand,
-whereupon she answered that it was a love
-song. And that was all the intelligence, Johnson
-said, that he could get.</p>
-
-<p>There was strong probability, as a Welsh
-traveller in 1682 expressed it, of Welsh being
-“English’d out of Wales, as Latin was barbarously
-Goth’d out of Italy.” From the time of
-the Great Rebellion, however, the condition of
-the Welsh language began to improve, and it
-is possible greatly to overrate the difficulties
-with which Johnson met in coming to know the
-life of the people. Impatiently he had exclaimed,
-“Let us, if we do talk, talk about something;
-men and women are my subject of enquiry; let
-us see how these differ from those we have left
-behind.” But from any evidence in his journal<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_84" id="Page_84">[84]</a></span>
-Johnson did not consider it worth his while to
-discover how much the Welsh really do differ
-from the English. The visible physical fact with
-which he was confronted was the dark-haired,
-dark-eyed, dark-complexioned Welshman of
-medium stature, very Spanish-looking, sometimes
-almost Oriental. What he heard were
-voices quite distinct from the English, quiet and
-pure in enunciation. What he must have felt&mdash;if
-he felt the Welsh as distinct, except in inferiority&mdash;was
-a race as different as the south
-is from the north, sensitive, imaginative, excitable,
-deeply impressionable to everything that is
-beautiful, as capable of the “howl” as the Irish,
-yet more critical, of an intellectual independence
-which makes Roman Catholicism unwelcome
-to the Welsh, with a shrewdness that is
-the logic of success in money-getting, a captive
-race with minds which can never be servile.
-Yet in a letter to Boswell announcing that he
-had visited five out of the six counties of North
-Wales, Dr. Johnson wrote: “Wales is so little
-different from England, that it offers nothing to
-the speculation of the traveller.” Johnson was
-capable, too, of taunting Boswell with the sterility
-of Scotland. He had a certain strain of contrariness<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_85" id="Page_85">[85]</a></span>
-in him, “tonic” some call it, which made
-him emphasize the undesirable features of a
-country or a personality. Three years after this
-journey, forgetting even his interest in castles,
-he was able to say: “Except the woods of <i>Bachycraigh</i>,
-what is there in Wales that can fill the
-hunger of ignorance, or quench the thirst of
-curiosity?”</p>
-
-<div class="footnotes">
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p><a name="Footnote_1_1" id="Footnote_1_1"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1_1"><span class="label">[1]</span></a> Heb Duw, Heb Dym (Without God, Nothing), Duw
-a’ diggon (God and plenty) would be more correct Welsh
-and a better translation.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-</div>
-
-<hr class="chap" />
-
-<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_86" id="Page_86">[86]</a></span></p>
-
-<h2 id="V">V<br />
-<span class="smaller"><i>Welsh Folk-Lore</i></span></h2>
-
-<p>Many and attractively full of poetry are the superstitions
-still living in the solitary Welsh hills.
-One day I encountered a hillside woman while
-we were looking for a hilltop church. She was in
-great distress, breathless and flapping her apron.
-Now there is a Welsh legend that bees were
-created in paradise, and her bees were running
-away. Apparently, this worldly, heartless creature
-had no intention, if an apron could prevent it,
-of allowing her bees to go back to heaven. Fairyland
-is Cambria in Wales, if you will let me
-juggle with my words in this fashion, for I do
-not know how to express it otherwise. And
-yearning for continued love and life, even with
-the bees, is the breath of the phantom and spirit
-world called “Fairyland.” Although the instinct
-of faith in the supernatural may be primitive
-and the Welsh of to-day highly civilized, yet
-supernatural belief is still ineradicated among
-the people. Their childish tales, often so hard to
-understand, are full of a haunting race life. Conviction,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_87" id="Page_87">[87]</a></span>
-for example, that fairies are the souls
-of dead mortals, mortals not good enough for
-heaven or bad enough for hell,&mdash;at least the
-thought is a gentle one, and as such not to be
-despised. And to their gentle masters the fairies
-themselves seem to have given an uncommon
-devotion. If fairies are troublesome, one can
-sometimes get rid of them by changing one’s
-residence. But not so with these Welsh fairies!
-Like the family servant for whom every one
-longs, they stick closer than a brother. Even
-going into England will not drive Welsh fairies
-away from those they love. Matthew Arnold
-should have considered this when he was studying
-the Celtic temperament, and denouncing it
-for its inconstancy, for the essence of all that is
-Celtic is the Welsh fairy.</p>
-
-<p>One is a little of the opinion of the youth,
-who, when he first saw the Lady of the Lake,
-thought she was a goose. That is what I thought
-of my first fairies, and still think of them. Yet,
-in this day and generation, it is something to
-have seen a fairy at all! It was dusk, and I had
-come through a tiny hill village, where white
-cottages were gleaming in the dark, and light
-shining on garden walls. It was so quiet that I<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_88" id="Page_88">[88]</a></span>
-could hear pine needles dropping on the ground,
-and the wind talking in the branches of the rain,
-still miles distant upon the sea. The noise of a
-tardy bumblebee, hurrying homeward in the
-dark, fairly boomed in my ears, and the sounds
-of shale rock slipping down the hillside came
-and went mysteriously. Through lighted windows
-I caught glimpses of evening comfort, of
-a bright fire glowing with peat, whose aroma
-was everywhere on the soft air, of dressers and
-tridarns, brave with countless ornaments, of a
-grandfather’s clock whose wise old face shone
-with light, of children’s heads about the supper
-table.</p>
-
-<p>But a higher hill was calling me, and an adventure
-of whose nature I had not even dreamed.
-I turned off the road by a Wesleyan chapel
-and mounted a steep path. Up, up, up I went
-around the side of a green hill, sometimes listening
-to the night stir of the birds, sometimes
-startled by a brown rabbit, leaping for cover. Out
-beyond, the mountains of Snowdonia were piled
-height on height, all washed in sepia depth
-upon a sky, moonless, but brilliant with stars.
-I hastened, for I was eager to reach the pine-crowned
-summit. Up there would be no sound<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_89" id="Page_89">[89]</a></span>
-except the wind in the trees, and once in a while
-some homely noises from the villages in the
-valley below: the sharp bark of a dog, the bleating
-of a lamb, the closing of some cottage door,
-a resonant “good-night.”</p>
-
-<p>Once on the hilltop, I lay down to rest, listening
-to the soft flight and hooting of some
-young owl, and feeling the grass cool and deep
-to my head and hands. As I lay there, eyes half
-closed, I heard some one coming up the path.
-Nearer and nearer drew uncertain footsteps and
-the tapping of a cane over loose stones. I sat up
-quickly, and there in the dark was an old woman,
-a cane in one hand, a basket in the other. Something
-cried piteously from the basket and I
-asked what it was. The old crone said that it
-was a kitten, and showed me a sack in which
-something else, tied up, squirmed and mewed.
-But she did not open the bag. After a due
-amount of greeting and curtseying, the old woman
-went on. I noticed that she kept looking
-back as she followed the path over the crown
-of the hill.</p>
-
-<p>My attention was diverted from her by the
-approach of more footsteps. It was a boy, a very
-large boy, and in his hand I could clearly see a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_90" id="Page_90">[90]</a></span>
-school-bag, ridiculously small for such a big lad,
-in which he, too, carried something. Behind him
-walked a huge dog, feathered on back and legs
-so heavily that his shaggy hair trailed on the
-ground. I heard something cry from the little
-bag, and I asked what it was. The lad replied
-in Welsh that it was a kitten. I could see him
-smiling as he stood his ground. Except in Welsh
-there was nothing further for me to do. Under
-the most favourable circumstances it is a great
-deal to do anything at all in Welsh, and with
-my heart beating rapidly and my tongue growing
-dry, I did not feel that I could do anything
-more in any language. We were silent while
-the little thing kept on “miaowing,” and this
-boy, like an ordinary boy, hitched about for a
-few moments, kicking stones from the path, and
-then went on, followed by the dog.</p>
-
-<p>Erect and uneasy, I continued to sit up. Just
-as dog and boy were out of sight I heard some
-one else stumbling up the path and a faint
-kitten-like noise. I began to be afraid of those
-kittens being carried one after one over this
-desolate hilltop. It suggested a little the enchantments
-in the “Mabinogion,” only in the
-“Mabinogion” mice and not kittens played the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_91" id="Page_91">[91]</a></span>
-leading part. I got up and fled before this experience
-should have a chance to become the
-beginning of some enchantment. But already
-I felt as if a spell were upon me, and even when
-I was quite far away from the kitteny place, I
-was still in a strange condition of excitement.
-One feels a natural dislike for any sort of hilltop
-enchantments, and I did.</p>
-
-<p>I was making considerable speed in my Welsh-soled
-boots and feeling more like an ordinary
-person, when the path took a sharp turn and I
-saw something strange in front of me. Down
-below ran the road, hard enough to be a fact,
-and lighted by the clear glow of the stars.
-If only one could always be sure of what is
-coming in this world, such a turning as I had
-taken would be like Keats’s beauty, “a joy forever.”
-But alas! close at my own right hand,
-very distinct, unmistakably clear, rose something
-my eyes had never met before: a chimney with
-no house attached to it. And on the treeless
-meadow in front of this apparition I saw the old
-woman leaning on her stick and the boy sitting
-beside his dog. Clearly the spell had worked.
-But how I struggled out from under this enchantment
-is another story.</p>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_92" id="Page_92">[92]</a></span></p>
-
-<p>The least credulous may look at fairy and
-goblin food in the woods and fields, and their
-gloves, the foxglove, growing beside the road.
-And their animals, their sheep, their horses, their
-dogs are visible on many a dim hillside. The
-Welsh speak of these little people as the fair
-folk or family&mdash;“y Tylwyth Teg.” And well
-do they deserve the name. Sometimes they are
-spoken of as the fair folk of the wood or the
-fair folk of the mine. In gowns of green, blue,
-white, and scarlet they dance on moonlit nights.
-If they like you they will bestow blessings on
-you, and are frequently called “mothers’ blessings”
-because mothers are glad to have such
-little ones. But if one speaks unkindly of them,
-one will get into trouble. And here, whether one
-be talking of fairies or of mortals, who cannot
-always avenge themselves as readily as fairies, is
-a lesson worth remembering.</p>
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;" id="illus8">
-<img src="images/i_126.jpg" width="600" height="260" alt="" />
-<p class="caption">RUTHIN CASTLE</p>
-<p class="caption"><i>From an engraving by Buck, 1742</i></p>
-</div>
-
-<p>Elves, according to the Welsh,&mdash;I have seen
-only a picture of one drawn by a Welsh miner,&mdash;also
-live on goblin food and wear foxgloves
-when they have any particularly hard work to
-do. The Queen of the Elves is none other than
-the Shakespearean fairy spoken of by Mercutio,
-who comes</p>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_93" id="Page_93">[93]</a></span></p>
-
-<div class="poetry-container">
-<div class="poetry">
-<div class="stanza">
-<div class="verse">“In shape no bigger than an agate stone</div>
-<div class="verse">On the forefinger of an alderman.”</div>
-</div>
-</div>
-</div>
-
-<p>No one who has <em>not</em> seen a fairy can have any
-idea how difficult it is to draw the line between
-history and story. The difficulties of the folklorist
-are as nothing,&mdash;for his is the scientific
-spirit,&mdash;compared with the trouble the real
-fairy hunter has in the open. Nowadays, of
-course, no one believes everything or possibly
-anything he is told. But in times past mankind
-seems to have been gifted with a more intimate
-faith in and knowledge of some things than we
-have to-day. For example, people used to know
-Satan better and were more afraid of him. An
-honest Welsh farmer saw him lying across the
-road with his head on one wall and his tail on
-the other. The Devil was moaning horribly,
-which in this uncomfortable position would not
-be strange for any one.</p>
-
-<p>In criticism of Welsh fairies there is one thing
-to be said. They not only have a rather practical-joking
-sort of humour, but they also have
-very little sense of equity. A man may do his
-best for them, and then they repay him in the
-end by a trick. A Welsh piper was coming
-home in the gray of the evening, and had to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_94" id="Page_94">[94]</a></span>
-cross a little running stream, from which he saw
-only the shadowed hillside and heard only the
-voice of the wind. But when he had travelled
-beyond the hill, music became audible, and,
-turning, instead of the knoll he had been looking
-at, there was a great castle with lights blazing
-and music playing and the sound of dancing
-feet. He went back and was caught in the procession
-coming out from its doors and taken in
-to pipe to them. He piped for a day or so, but
-he was anxious to return to his people, and the
-fairies seemed to understand. They said they
-would let him go if he would play a favourite
-tune. He played his best, they danced fast and
-furiously. And at last he was set free on the
-dark hillside, with only the voice of the wind for
-company. He went home hastily, but when he
-entered his father’s house no one knew him.
-An old man awoke from a doze by the fire,
-and said that he had heard, when a boy, of a
-piper who had gone away on a quiet evening
-and never come back again. That was over a
-hundred years ago.</p>
-
-<p>Perhaps there is no reason why the fairies, as
-well as poor mortals, should not be allowed a
-natural and happy alternation between badness<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_95" id="Page_95">[95]</a></span>
-and goodness. Metaphorically speaking, they
-are not the only creatures who steal money and
-butter and cheese, and who whisk away helpless,
-unbaptized infants. Doubtless a New England
-Mather&mdash;those early New England Mathers
-were hard on babies&mdash;would say that an
-infant who remained unbaptized long enough to
-be discovered by a fairy deserved to be stolen.
-Such an idea could have flourished only in
-New England. As if it were not bad enough
-to face the-survival-of-the-fittest test in this life
-without carrying it over into heaven! I, for one,
-am not disposed to find fault with the fairies
-when, as happened in Beddgelert, they led a man
-into beautiful lodgings. To know what a temptation
-a beautiful apartment might become, one
-must have lived, as I have, in that little mountain-cupped
-village. When the man awoke in
-the morning after a peaceful night’s rest, he was
-sleeping on a swamp with a clump of rushes
-for his pillow. If he had been a nervous, sleepless,
-modern man, instead of finding fault as he
-did, he would have been grateful for the night’s
-sound rest and forthwith tried the swamp again.
-After this there would have been a “Swamp
-Cure for Insomnia.”</p>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_96" id="Page_96">[96]</a></span></p>
-
-<p>There are ghosts, too, in Wales, but they are
-rather spiritless creatures, much easier to catch
-and not so tricksy as the fairies. Nor do they
-select prickly furze and stony hilltops as their
-hiding-places. But on the whole they are difficult
-to subdue, especially the farm ghosts.
-While the servants are busy making the butter,
-the ghost or spirit frequently throws something
-unclean into the milk or sends the pans spinning
-around like mad. In one farm the farmer
-offered a reward of five pounds to any one who
-would lay their particularly lively spirit. Several
-people tried it, including an aged priest in
-whose face the impertinent ghost waved a woman’s
-bonnet. Finally, the Established Church
-being unable to cope with this sprightly situation,
-an Independent minister from Llanarmon
-coaxed the ghost into the barn. There the spirit,
-still unsubdued, turned into a lion, a mastiff,
-and other ferocious beasts, but in no incarnation
-could it do any harm to the Independent Griffiths.
-It became discouraged, and the minister
-persuaded the poor thing to appear in the form
-of a fly. Perhaps in this incarnation the wretched
-thing still had hopes of revenge. However, the
-intrepid Griffiths was too much for it, and it<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_97" id="Page_97">[97]</a></span>
-was captured in a tobacco box and borne off,
-never to trouble the farmer any more.</p>
-
-<p>The death portents in Cambria reveal all the
-strangeness and lawlessness of the Celtic imagination.
-No one who does not know the Welsh
-hills, who has not been on them day after day,
-can feel the significance of these death portents.
-One must have travelled on the top and edge of
-the Welsh mountain world to understand,&mdash;have
-looked out upon a sea of hills gray and barren
-in their utter colourlessness, and down upon
-valleys like the valley of the shadow of death.
-There abyss and altitude are alike full of terrors,
-of mist before which mind and step falter,
-of an Unknown which presses home in bodily
-anguish, which distorts the vision and strikes
-upon the ear with the outcry of bewildered
-souls. It is not strange, then, that the Welsh
-have the most horrible of banshees. It is known
-as the Gwrach y Rhybin, the old hag of the mist;
-and a Cyhyraeth which moans dolefully in the
-night but is never seen; and a Tolaeth which
-groans or sings or saws, or tramps with its feet,
-and is also unseen. And there are, besides, the
-“Dogs of Hell” and the “Dogs of the Sky”
-and the “Corpse Candle” and the “Goblin<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_98" id="Page_98">[98]</a></span>
-Funeral,”&mdash;all of them portents of death. Several
-years ago I came very near seeing one of
-these portentous dogs. I was on a treeless upland
-pasture, rich with ruby like a deep agate,
-with lavender, flecked with emerald-green as
-musk is freaked with brown; purple, pink, and
-opalescent in the sunshine that came and went.
-There were black sheep and white in that pasture,
-I remember, and some little lambs that
-straddled with surprise. One rose, stretching and
-curling its tail with the delicious energy of waking
-from sleep. I looked down what seemed like
-a particoloured gulf of greensward into valleys
-where men and cattle had become dots in size,
-and up to more fern and heather and altitudes
-where the curlew cried. It was as I looked up
-that I saw an impressively large black dog that
-went through an impossibly small sheep-hole in
-a sheep-wall. But a wisp of mist came over
-the Welsh mountain-side, and one never makes
-an effort to see that sort of thing or to run after
-it. Hunting rollicking elves and lightfoot fairies
-is quite a different matter!</p>
-
-<p>One of the most beautiful legends in the Iolo
-Manuscripts is the story of one of these death
-portents. There was a lord rich in houses and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_99" id="Page_99">[99]</a></span>
-land and gold. Every luxury of life was his for
-the asking. One night he heard a voice cry out
-distinctly three times, “The greatest and richest
-man of this parish shall perish to-night.” He
-was aware that there was no other man so great
-or rich as he, and he sent for the physician and
-prepared to die. But the night passed and day
-came and he still lived. At sunrise he heard the
-bell tolling and knew that some one must have
-died, and he sent to enquire who it was. It was
-an old blind beggar who had asked for charity
-at the lord’s gate and been refused. Then this
-great lord saw that the voice had come as a
-warning to him, that his riches were as nothing
-in comparison with the treasure and wealth
-which the blind man had in the kingdom of
-heaven. He accepted the warning and relieved
-all who were poor or in need. When he died,
-angels were heard to sing him a welcome, and
-after his death he was buried, as he had asked
-to be, in the blind beggar’s grave.</p>
-
-<p>Of hags and witches there used to be far too
-many in Wales. Shakespeare tells all one needs
-to know of them. For some reasons, hidden to
-us, he had peculiarly intimate and extensive
-information concerning Celtic folk-lore. Macbeth,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_100" id="Page_100">[100]</a></span>
-speaking of witches, says, “I have learned
-by the perfectest report, they have more in them
-than mortal knowledge. When I burned in desire
-to question them further, they made themselves
-air, into which they vanished.” These
-witches did not hesitate to throw even portions
-of human beings into seething cauldrons:&mdash;</p>
-
-<div class="poetry-container">
-<div class="poetry">
-<div class="stanza">
-<div class="verse">“Round about the cauldron go;</div>
-<div class="verse">In the poisoned entrails throw.”</div>
-</div>
-</div>
-</div>
-
-<p>They threw in other things, too, as the third
-witch tells us,&mdash;</p>
-
-<div class="poetry-container">
-<div class="poetry">
-<div class="stanza">
-<div class="verse">“Scale of dragon, tooth of wolf,</div>
-<div class="verse">Witches’ mummy, maw and gulf</div>
-<div class="verse">Of the ravin’d salt-sea shark,</div>
-<div class="verse">Root of hemlock digged i’ the dark,</div>
-<div class="verse">Liver of blaspheming Jew,</div>
-<div class="verse">Gall of goat, and slips of yew</div>
-<div class="verse">Silver’d in the moon’s eclipse,</div>
-<div class="verse">Nose of Turk, and Tartar’s lips.”</div>
-</div>
-</div>
-</div>
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;" id="illus9">
-<img src="images/i_136.jpg" width="600" height="390" alt="" />
-<p class="caption">THE COMPLEAT ANGLER IN WALES</p>
-</div>
-
-<p>In Wales the knowledge which witches possessed
-they did not use for the good of others,
-but for their hurt; they tormented children and
-animals, they plagued the hard-working and industrious,
-and upset the Welsh household. In
-Cambria there are witches unlike any I have<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_101" id="Page_101">[101]</a></span>
-ever heard of, witches that will cause cows to
-sit down like cats before the fire. No wonder
-the Welsh farmer keeps his Bible handy in the
-kitchen chest, and runs for it post-haste, to read
-his seated cow a chapter and unwitch her! No
-wonder that with such witches conjurors are
-needed,&mdash;if for no other reason, then to unseat
-the cows; and that country folk pluck the snapdragon
-to protect themselves from these hags!
-No wonder the peasants cross their doors, even
-to this day in isolated districts, to shield themselves,
-and that they keep horseshoes and
-churchyard earth to preserve their cottages from
-spells!</p>
-
-<p>No matter how he fumbled the English fairies,
-Shakespeare never made any mistake with the
-Welsh. He understood what “mab” meant,&mdash;that
-it meant a little thing,&mdash;just as “mabcath”
-in Welsh means a kitten, or “mabinogi,”
-the singular of “mabinogion,” means a
-tale told to the little ones. No one who has not
-seen a fairy can have any idea how difficult it is
-to draw the line between history and story. That
-some of the fairies seen on the way home from
-fairs and from patriotic Eisteddfodau&mdash;Welsh
-national festivals of poetry and song&mdash;are due<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_102" id="Page_102">[102]</a></span>
-to ale, cannot be disputed. It is commonly said
-that the Methodists are driving the fairies out
-of Cambria. These nonconformists are usually
-teetotallers. However, the real fairy is still in
-Wales, and if you do not believe me, all I can
-say is, that you must go to Wales and prove
-that I am wrong. But perhaps it would be well
-before you take the journey to look at your
-foot, for if you find you have not a foot that
-water runs under, it is best for you not to go.
-So runs the ancient proverb, and without that
-lucky foot no fairy shall you see.</p>
-
-<p>There is only one thing that can possibly
-counteract the lack of a requisite instep for those
-who desire to see fairies, and that is eating a
-good deal of cheese. I do not know why this is,
-but I do know that as far back as one can go,
-much further back than Giraldus Cambrensis
-or even Taliessin or the archest of the archdruids,
-Welsh rarebit and roasted cheese have
-been the very bread of Cymric diet. There is a
-story in John Rastell’s “Hundred Mery Talys,”
-printed in the sixteenth century, which shows
-that before Shakespeare came to elucidate the
-Welsh fairy, this question of cheese and the
-Welsh had been duly considered: “I fynde<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_103" id="Page_103">[103]</a></span>
-wrytten amonge olde gestes, howe God mayde
-Saynt Peter porter of heuen, and that God of
-hys goodnes, sone after his passyon, suffered
-many men to come to the kyngdome of Heuen
-with small deseruynge; at whych tyme there
-was in heuen a great companye of Welchmen,
-whyche with crakynge and babelynge troubled
-all the other. Wherefore God sayde to saynte
-Peter that he was wery of them, and that he
-wold fayne haue them out of heuen. To whome
-Saynte Peter sayd: Good Lorde, I warrente
-you, that shall be done. Wherefore Saynt Peter
-wente out of heuen gates and cried with a loud
-voice <i lang="cy">Cause bobe</i> (caws pob), that is as moche
-to saye as rosted chese, whiche thynge the
-Welchemen herynge, ranne out of heuen a great
-pace. And when Saynt Peter saw them all out,
-he suddenly wente into Heuen, and locked the
-dore, and so sparred all the Welchmen out.”</p>
-
-<p>Undoubtedly among everything Welsh, even
-in literature, cheese is the “Open Sesame.” It
-is encountered in “Mabinogion” romance and
-beauty, which is the same thing as to say cheese
-among the Welsh! Is there any other folk-lore
-in the history of the world in which cheese plays
-so important a rôle? It might in German folk-lore,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_104" id="Page_104">[104]</a></span>
-but the fact is that it does not. Bread, milk,
-the juice of the grape, but cheese? No, that is
-lifted into the realm of imagination and of a
-world-classic only in Cambria. Again Shakespeare
-showed his surprisingly accurate knowledge
-of the Celt when Falstaff exclaims,
-“Heaven defend me from that Welsh Fairy,
-lest he transform me to a piece of cheese!”</p>
-
-<hr class="chap" />
-
-<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_105" id="Page_105">[105]</a></span></p>
-
-<h2 id="VI">VI<br />
-<span class="smaller"><i>The City of the Prince of Wales</i></span></h2>
-
-<p>From the heart of Snowdon, some thirteen miles
-or more, on roads gray with altitudes of rock,
-green with shining hillside pastures dotted with
-white sheep, and crossed by rushing streams,
-we walked down to Carnarvon. From the rocky
-heights behind it, this city of the Prince of
-Wales&mdash;the great castle pile, the castle walls
-enclosing the roofs of many buildings&mdash;extends
-to the edge of the sea, where the boom
-of a sailing-vessel swinging around might easily
-touch the castle wall. And beyond are the
-ships, the Island of Anglesey, Mona, beloved
-in all Welsh hearts, peaceful and fertile, with
-the clouds above.</p>
-
-<p>It was tranquil, luxuriant, established, unshaken
-by anything that Time had been able
-to do. There still were the walls strong to defend;
-the ships from the sea, and cottage chimneys
-symbol of many an ingle nook, of quiet
-firesides, of homely comforts, of beloved household
-faces, of young joy and ancient peace.</p>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_106" id="Page_106">[106]</a></span></p>
-
-<p>“Caer Seint yn Arfon!” “Caer ar Fon,”
-Carnarvon, meaning the stronghold opposite
-Mona or Anglesey. “Caer,” the fortress, the
-station, where in Welsh legend, Elen, the great
-Welsh road-maker, was sought and won by the
-Emperor Maximus,&mdash;history this, or tradition,
-which makes the thirteenth century and its
-Edwards and its castles seem but as the children
-of yesterday. I thought of the description of the
-old city in the “Dream of Maxen Wledig,” the
-dream of Maximus, the tyrant, in the “Mabinogion,”
-one of the classics of the world and <em>the</em>
-classic of Welsh literature. In that dream what
-did that Roman Emperor see but what we now
-saw? “Valleys he saw, and steeps, and rocks
-of wondrous height, and rugged precipices,
-never yet saw he the like. And thence he beheld
-an island in the sea facing this rugged land.
-And between him and this land was a country
-of which the plain was as large as the sea, the
-mountain as vast as the wood. And from the
-mountain he saw a river that flowed through
-the land and fell into the sea. And at the mouth
-of the river he beheld a castle, the fairest that
-man ever saw, and the gate of the castle was
-open, and he went into the castle.”</p>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_107" id="Page_107">[107]</a></span></p>
-
-<p>Probably “Helen of the Roads” is the legendary
-form which the power of Rome has taken
-in Wales. On either side of the mountains
-two roads run their straight course from south
-to north, roads that were marked by camps in
-strategic places and by Roman houses of stone
-in the sunshiny reaches of the hillsides. Rome
-is still everywhere in Wales: the way it thinks
-in politics, its speech, its literature,&mdash;and nowhere
-more beautifully than in the “Dream of
-Maxen Wledig.” The Britons were in the sorry
-plight of having to choose between enemies;
-and of the two, Roman or heathen invader, the
-Romans were the more friendly and beneficent,
-for the wild birds of the heathen carried only
-fire on their wings, and alighted on the ripe
-grain to burn it, but the Romans maintained
-order and conferred power. There in this most
-ancient city of Segontium are still the walls of
-the Roman town as well as the more recent
-walls of the castle town, and a remain which
-suggests a Roman hypocaust; there coins and
-other fragments of this ancient empire are constantly
-being found. There the body of the
-father of Constantine, the first Christian Emperor,
-was discovered in the reign of Edward I. And<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_108" id="Page_108">[108]</a></span>
-Edward, brutal and practical though he was,
-had it interred with pomp and honour in the
-church.</p>
-
-<p>The very size and strength of Carnarvon
-Castle as it still stands shows how important
-strategically Edward thought the town. That
-Roman stronghold which was there before the
-present castle must have been beautiful, too, if
-in the legend of “Maxen Wledig” we have
-recollection of what it was like. Both in the
-dream and with the messengers whom the Emperor
-sent, they traversed the land until they
-came to Snowdon. “Behold,” said the messengers,
-“the rugged land that our master saw.”
-And then they went forward until they saw
-Anglesey, and Aber Sain, and a castle at the
-mouth of the river. “And in the castle he saw
-a fair hall, of which the roof seemed to be all
-gold, the walls of the hall seemed to be entirely
-of glittering precious gems, the doors all seemed
-to be of gold. Golden seats he saw in the hall,
-and silver tables. And on a seat opposite to him
-he beheld two auburn-haired youths playing at
-chess. He saw a silver board for the chess, and
-golden pieces thereon. The garments of the
-youths were of jet black satin, and chaplets of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_109" id="Page_109">[109]</a></span>
-ruddy gold bound their hair, whereon were
-sparkling jewels of great price, rubies and gems,
-alternating with imperial stones.… And beside
-a pillar in the hall he saw a hoary-headed
-man, in a chair of ivory, with the figures of two
-eagles in ruddy gold thereon. Bracelets of gold
-were upon his arms, many rings were on his
-hands and a gold torque about his neck; and
-his hair was bound with a golden diadem. He
-was of powerful aspect. A chessboard of gold
-was before him, and a rod of gold, and a steel
-file in his hand. And he was carving out chessmen.
-And he saw a maiden sitting before him
-in a chair of ruddy gold. Not more easy than
-to gaze upon the sun when brightest, was it to
-look upon her by reason of her beauty. A vest
-of white silk was upon the maiden, with clasps
-of ruddy gold at the breast, and a surcoat of
-gold tissue upon her, and a frontlet of ruddy
-gold upon her head, and rubies and gems were
-in the frontlet, alternating with pearls and imperial
-stones. And a girdle of ruddy gold was
-around her. She was the fairest sight that man
-ever beheld.” What more beautiful in any
-castle to be, in any modern royal pageant of
-to-day or to-morrow, could there be than this<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_110" id="Page_110">[110]</a></span>
-Helen of Wales of whom the Emperor dreamed
-and whom he sought and found? Unlike the
-other Grecian Helen, she left, not records of
-war and strife behind to attest her beauty, but
-serviceable roads over many of which we may
-still travel to-day.</p>
-
-<p>With the exception of Alnwick, Carnarvon
-Castle is the finest in Great Britain. It is a wonderful
-creation of man, a thing of strength and
-beauty, of might and grace; its decorated castellated
-architecture, facing two ways towards the
-sea, giving it a visionary appearance of charm
-wholly lacking in the bulky massiveness of Conway
-and Harlech,&mdash;magic casements, these, as
-I said before,&mdash;</p>
-
-<div class="poetry-container">
-<div class="poetry">
-<div class="stanza">
-<div class="verse indent9">“opening on the foam</div>
-<div class="verse">Of perilous seas, in faery lands forlorn.”</div>
-</div>
-</div>
-</div>
-
-<p>Its thirteen towers, pentagonal, hexagonal, octagonal,
-perfect in their slender grace from walls
-ten feet thick. About one hundred and fifty
-years ago, Pennant wrote: “This town is justly
-the boast of North Wales, for the beauty of
-situation, goodness of the buildings, regularity
-of the plan, and, above all, the grandeur of the
-castle, the most magnificent badge of our subjection.”</p>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_111" id="Page_111">[111]</a></span></p>
-
-<p>It was in the Eagle Tower in which Edward
-II, the first Prince of Wales,&mdash;though why they
-should forget their own valiant Gruffyd ap
-Llewelyn is more than the writer can see,&mdash;is
-supposed to have been born. The ivy clings
-now everywhere upon its castellated summits.
-Probably the famous tower was so called because
-of the bird carved upon its walls. “Within
-a little dark room of this tower,” says Pennant,
-“not twelve feet long, nor eight in breadth, was
-born Edward II; so little, in those days, did a
-royal consort consult either pomp or conveniency.”
-Alas, the Prince was not born in that
-little tower as records well show! The Welsh
-refused to acknowledge the English king unless
-he would dwell in Wales. This was impossible;
-so their demands were modified to the requirement
-that the prince placed over them must be
-of their own nation and language and of an unblamable
-life. Queen Eleanor was about to be
-confined, and, although it was midwinter and
-harsh weather, the king sent for her and she was
-brought to Carnarvon where the first English
-Prince of Wales was born. As soon as Edward
-heard that the child was born he called the
-Welsh nobility together at Rhuddlan, ostensibly<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_112" id="Page_112">[112]</a></span>
-to consult about the public good and safety of
-all Wales. Once there, he told them that in
-case he had to leave the country he would appoint
-in his place a prince who would fulfil the
-conditions they had given, provided they would
-obey him, naming one who had been “born in
-Wales, could speak no English, and whose life
-and conversation nobody could stain,” and then
-named his own son just born in Carnarvon. In
-his seventeenth year, 1301, this Prince of Wales
-was formally invested, even as in 1911 another
-Prince of Wales was endued, “with a chaplet
-of gold round his head, a golden ring on his
-finger, and a silver sceptre in his hand.” The
-title is never inherited, but is conferred by special
-creation and investiture.</p>
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;" id="illus10">
-<img src="images/i_150.jpg" width="600" height="400" alt="" />
-<p class="caption">THE TOWER OF DOLBADARN ON LLANBERIS LAKE</p>
-</div>
-
-<p>Unfortunate for romantic tradition is it that
-Edward II built the Eagle Tower and was not
-born in it. But these are the facts of the case,
-and the people of Carnarvon know them perfectly
-well. Undoubtedly, however, this prince
-was born in the town. One feels indignant sometimes,
-perhaps often, in Wales at the value set
-upon celebrity, the celebrity which “pays”; at
-Denbigh the proud claiming of Stanley, the explorer,
-where the poor lad was knocked about<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_113" id="Page_113">[113]</a></span>
-and abused worse than some cur of the streets;
-the exploitation of Dr. Johnson, who happened
-to be with Mrs. Piozzi in the vicinity of Denbigh
-for a few days; and then this English
-Prince of Wales whom the Welsh insist upon
-having born in the tower which he himself built!
-Ah, well,&mdash;</p>
-
-<div class="poetry-container">
-<div class="poetry">
-<div class="stanza">
-<div class="verse">“Why should not gallant Taffy</div>
-<div class="verse indent1">Have his relics and his bones,</div>
-<div class="verse">Llewelyns and Cadwallos,</div>
-<div class="verse indent1">And Griffyevanjones?”</div>
-</div>
-</div>
-</div>
-
-<p>And we must just be willing to let this cherished
-Eagle Tower be an indispensable Welsh
-bone&mdash;or relic of contention.</p>
-
-<p>The gateway of Carnarvon Castle is very impressive,
-of great size and strength, as are most
-of these North Wales castles, but, as is not the
-case with most of them, with romantic grace
-added. Vines clamber up it and over it, cracks
-etch the portions of the walls which are bare.
-Above the gateway, in its niche high out of
-reach of destructive enemies, is the figure of
-Edward II; and to the right and to the left
-graceful turrets rise above the walls. Low on
-the face of the gateway tower are slits for defence,
-above them at a safe altitude are windows<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_114" id="Page_114">[114]</a></span>
-with part of the tracery still intact. This entrance
-was besieged by Glendower in the fifteenth
-century and by a Parliamentary army
-in the seventeenth. Bitter battles were fought
-about the old gate and in the town beyond. One
-day at Carnarvon, when the peasant folk were
-holding a fair, one Madoc, who claimed to be
-the son of Llewelyn, burst into the market
-square, stormed the castle, and left the town a
-smouldering ruin.</p>
-
-<p>But distant, far, far distant are those ancient
-days of primitive strife. And as I turned off my
-Snowdon road to enter by this castle gateway I
-had still in mind the peaceful, prosperous town
-through which I had come and the ships on the
-sea beyond and the shining island shore of
-Mona, mother of Wales. We paid our entrance
-fee and, as I was doing that, my eye caught
-sight of an old table there under the arch, littered
-with books for sale. I looked at the shimmering
-green grass beyond in the castle courtyard
-down upon which the sun was flooding.
-We were in no haste. I wanted to dally, and
-dally I did by the bookstall, my hand falling
-upon a first edition of Goldsmith’s “Bee”, to be
-sold at sixpence! We paid for it, and I could<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_115" id="Page_115">[115]</a></span>
-hear my friend saying, “Do you suppose it
-really is a first edition?”</p>
-
-<p>My fingers between the leaves of this book,
-I turned to and opened “A City Night-Peace,”
-reading, “There may come a time when this
-temporary solitude may be made continual, and
-the city itself, like its inhabitants, fade away,
-and leave a desert in its room.” Then we went
-through into the sunshine in the courtyard beyond,
-the book clasped tightly in my hand, and
-the hours passed as in a dream. There was the
-touch of time made visible, there was life carried
-forward even in the busy chirping of the
-birds upon the vine-covered walls, there was
-sunshine as it had been in those olden but not
-more golden days than this, there was the sound
-of voices, voices beloved so long, long ago, and
-speaking again; there was joy, and sorrow, living
-again for me and in me; there once more was all
-that eager, ardent, daily commonplace of human
-lives, that daily friendliness of little things which
-makes life so worth the living. I felt it in all about
-us, woven into everything, the cheerful noise of
-birds, the voices from beyond the castle walls,
-the sunshine, the colour; and more and more the
-spirit of the place took possession of me.</p>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_116" id="Page_116">[116]</a></span></p>
-
-<p>Again as in a dream within a dream we passed
-through the castle gateway out into the town
-with its simple old houses, its little shops with
-their signboards and gay windows, its inns and
-lodgings, past the Welsh children playing in
-the streets and their elders going gravely to and
-fro about their business, and the sleek horses and
-whirling motors, up the hill past Llanbeblig
-Church, the churchyard Watts-Dunton has used
-as part of the setting of his story “Aylwin,” and
-on to the country road which, with thirteen
-miles’ walking, would bring us home&mdash;to our
-Welsh home at the foot of Snowdon, Eryri, the
-home of eagles. Behind us, as we turned, the
-ships had become but white moths on a vast
-sea, Anglesey was growing dimmer, the cows
-pastured on the plain about the old town were
-but specks, the coast-line was merging into the
-water. But still the castle dominated everything,
-and I thought of Dr. Samuel Johnson’s
-delight in that vast pile and his naïve record in
-the Cambrian journal: “I did not think there
-had been such buildings; it surpassed my ideas.”</p>
-
-<hr class="chap" />
-
-<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_117" id="Page_117">[117]</a></span></p>
-
-<h2 id="VII">VII<br />
-<span class="smaller"><i>The Eisteddfod</i></span></h2>
-
-<p>It was the first morning of my first Welsh
-National Eisteddfod, and I sat by the window
-working, and glancing away from my work to
-a hillside up which led narrow steps to the summits
-above, among which were hidden away some
-half a dozen tiny villages. Colwyn Bay, where
-the Eisteddfod was to be held, was&mdash;as the crow
-does <em>not</em> fly&mdash;about forty miles distant. It was a
-glorious morning of sunshine in which gleamed
-the river, glossy beeches and pines, and little
-whitewashed Welsh cottages. As I looked, there
-began to emerge from the steps a stream of people;
-down and down they flowed, bright in their
-pretty dresses or shining in their black Sunday-best
-broadcloth. All those mountain hamlets up
-above, reached by roads passable only for mountain
-ponies, were sending their men, women, and
-children to the Welsh festival of song and poetry.</p>
-
-<p>Talking and excited about who would be
-chaired as bard, who would be crowned, what
-female choir would win in the choral contests, what<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_118" id="Page_118">[118]</a></span>
-male choir, and discussing a thousand little competitions,
-even to a set of insertions for sheets,
-shams, and towels, we were borne on the train
-from Bettws-y-Coed swiftly through the Vale of
-Conway, beside the river, past Caerhûn, the once
-ancient city of Canovium, past Conway Castle,
-with its harp-shaped walls still encircling the town,
-and so to Colwyn Bay.</p>
-
-<p>Then all these enthusiastic people who had
-climbed down a hill to take the train, climbed
-up another to see the first Gorsedd ceremony.
-As we passed, from one of the cottages was heard
-the voice of a woman screaming in great excitement,
-“Mrs. Jones, Mrs. Jones, come to the
-front door quickly. There’s some people going
-by; they’re dressed in blue and white. Dear
-me, Mrs. Jones, they’re <span class="smcapuc">MEN</span>!” The procession,
-fully aware that Mrs. Jones, and all the little
-Joneses and all the big and middling Joneses,
-too, had come, went on gravely up, up, up the
-hill to “Y Fanerig” (the Flagstaff), where stood
-the “Maen Llog of the Gorsedd” and its encircling
-stones. The paths were steep, and even
-bards and druids are subject to <i lang="fr">embonpoint</i>. Old
-Eos Dar, who can sing penillion with never a
-pause for breath, lost his “wind,” and the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_119" id="Page_119">[119]</a></span>
-“Bearer of the Great Sword of the Gorsedd”
-was no more to be found. A boy scout, perhaps
-thinking of Scott’s minstrel, who said,&mdash;</p>
-
-<div class="poetry-container">
-<div class="poetry">
-<div class="stanza">
-<div class="verse">“The way was long, the wind was cold,</div>
-<div class="verse">The minstrel was infirm and old,”</div>
-</div>
-</div>
-</div>
-
-<p class="noindent">was despatched downhill after him, and found
-him and the sword, arm in arm, lagging comfortably
-behind. Druidical deportment is astonishingly
-human at times. But the hilltop achieved
-and wind recovered, the bards soberly made
-their way into the druidical circle of stones that
-surround the great Gorsedd stone. Nowhere, as
-the Archdruid remarked, had the Bardic Brotherhood
-been brought nearer heaven.</p>
-
-<p>From the summit, north, east, south, west,
-the soft valleys, the towering mountains, the
-secluded villages, the shining rivers, and the
-great sea were visible. And there on this hilltop
-the bards, druids, and ovates dressed in blue
-and white and green robes, celebrated rites only
-less old than the Eye of Light itself. After the
-sounding of the trumpet (“Corn Gwlad”), the
-Gorsedd prayer was recited in Welsh,&mdash;</p>
-
-<div class="poetry-container">
-<div class="poetry">
-<div class="stanza">
-<div class="verse">“Grant, O God, Thy Protection;</div>
-<div class="verse">And in Protection, Strength;</div><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_120" id="Page_120">[120]</a></span>
-<div class="verse">And in Strength, Understanding;</div>
-<div class="verse">And in Understanding, Knowledge;</div>
-<div class="verse">And in Knowledge, the Knowledge of Justice;</div>
-<div class="verse">And in the Knowledge of Justice, the Love of it;</div>
-<div class="verse">And in that Love, the Love of all Existence;</div>
-<div class="verse">And in the Love of all Existence, the Love of God.</div>
-<div class="verse indent4">God and all Goodness.”</div>
-</div>
-</div>
-</div>
-
-<p>Then the Archdruid, Dyfed, standing upon the
-Gorsedd stone and facing the east, unsheathed
-the great sword, crying out thrice, “Aoes Heddwch?”
-(Is it peace?) and the bards and ovates
-replied “Heddwch!” (Peace.)</p>
-
-<p>There are some scholars who question the
-“identity of the Bardic Gorsedd with the druidic
-system.” The Welsh Gorsedd, this side of the
-controversial point, is forty centuries old, and
-in all conscience that is old enough. Diodorus,
-the Cicilian, wrote, “There are, among the
-Gauls, makers of verses, whom they name bards.
-There are also certain philosophers and theologists,
-exceedingly esteemed, whom they call
-Druids.” Strabo, the geographer, says, “Amongst
-the whole of the Gauls three classes are especially
-held in distinguished honour&mdash;the bards,
-the prophets, and the druids. The bards are
-singers and poets, the prophets are sacrificers<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_121" id="Page_121">[121]</a></span>
-and philosophers, but the druids, besides physiology,
-practised ethical philosophy.” As far
-back as we can look in the life of the Cymru,
-poetry, song, and theology have been inextricably
-woven together. The Gorsedd was then,
-formally, for the Welsh people what it still is
-informally: a popular university, a law court, a
-parliament. The modern Gorsedd, with its twelve
-stones, is supposed to represent the signs of the
-zodiac through which the sun passes, with a
-central stone, called the “Maen Llog,” in the
-position of the sacrificial fire in the druidical
-temple. A close reverence for nature, a certain
-pantheism in the cult of the druids, shows itself
-in various ways,&mdash;in the belief that the oak
-tree was the home of the god of lightning, that
-mistletoe, which usually grows upon the oak,
-was a mark of divine favour. The most prominent
-symbol of the Gorsedd is the “Broad
-Arrow” or “mystic mark,” supposed to represent
-the rays of light which the druids worshipped.
-Even the colours of the robes of the
-druids, ovates, and bards are full of characteristic
-worship of nature; the druids in white symbolical
-of the purity of truth and light, the
-ovates in green like the life and growth of nature,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_122" id="Page_122">[122]</a></span>
-the bards in blue, the hue of the sky and
-in token of the loftiness of their calling.</p>
-
-<p>Up there on the hilltop, with its vast panorama
-of hill and valley, sea and sky, time became
-as nothing. The Gorsedd became again the democratic
-Witenagemot of the Welsh, and there
-still were represented the mountain shepherd,
-the pale collier, the lusty townsman, the gentle
-knight, the expounder of law, the teacher and
-the priest. But if upon the hill time was as nothing,
-down below in the gigantic Eisteddfod
-pavilion some ten thousand people were waiting.
-“Gallant little Wales,” which has certainly
-awakened from its long sleep, was past the
-period of rubbing its eyes. It was shouting and
-calling for the Eisteddfod ceremonies to begin,
-perhaps as the folk in Caerwys had called impatiently
-in the days of the twelfth century, or
-again in that old town in the days of Elizabeth,
-the last that memorable Eisteddfod when a commission
-was appointed by Elizabeth herself to
-check the bad habits of a crowd of lazy illiterate
-bards who went about the country begging.</p>
-
-<p>That great Eisteddfodic pavilion, where the
-people were waiting good-naturedly but impatiently,
-is primarily a place of music. Even as<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_123" id="Page_123">[123]</a></span>
-in the world, so in Wales music comes first in
-the hearts of mankind and poetry second. And
-it may be, since music is more social and democratic,
-that the popular preference is as it should
-be. The human element in all that happens at
-a Welsh Eisteddfod is robust and teeming with
-enthusiasm. It is true that prize-taking socks,
-shawls, pillow shams, and such homely articles
-no longer hang in festoons above the platform as
-they did some twenty or thirty years ago. Now
-the walls are gaily decorated with banners bearing
-thousands of spiteful-looking dragons, and
-pennants inscribed with the names of scores of
-famous Welshmen, and with such mottoes as
-“Y Gwir yn Erbyn y Byd” (the truth against
-the world), “Gwlad y Mabinogion” (the land of
-the Mabinogion), “Calon wrth Galon” (heart
-with heart), and others.</p>
-
-<p>After the procession of dignitaries was seated
-upon the platform, a worried-looking bard began
-to call out prizes for every conceivably useful
-thing under the sun, among them a clock
-tower which he seemed to be in need of himself
-as a rostrum for his throat-splitting yells. During
-these announcements the choirs were filing in,
-a pretty child with a ’cello much larger than<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_124" id="Page_124">[124]</a></span>
-herself was taking off her hat and coat, a stiff,
-self-conscious young man was bustling about
-with an air of importance, and in the front,
-just below the platform, sat newspaper reporters,
-from all over the United Kingdom, busy
-at their work. Among them were the gray, the
-young, the weary, the dusty, the smart, the
-shabby, and one who wore a wig, but made up
-in roses in his buttonhole for what he lacked in
-hair. There were occasional cheers as some local
-prima donna entered the choir seats, and many
-jokes from the anxious-looking master of ceremonies.</p>
-
-<p>At last the first choir was assembled, and a
-little lady, somebody’s good mother, mounted
-upon a chair. The choir began to sing,&mdash;</p>
-
-<div class="poetry-container">
-<div class="poetry">
-<div class="stanza">
-<div class="verse">“Come, sisters, come,</div>
-<div class="verse">Where light and shadows mingle,</div>
-<div class="verse">And elves and fairies dance and sing,</div>
-<div class="verse">Upon the meadow land.”</div>
-</div>
-</div>
-</div>
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;" id="illus11">
-<img src="images/i_164.jpg" width="600" height="400" alt="" />
-<p class="caption">LLANBERIS</p>
-<p class="caption"><i>From an old print</i></p>
-</div>
-
-<p>The little lady never worked harder, her baton,
-her hands, her head, her lips, her eyes were all
-busy. Was it the Celtic spirit that made those
-elves and fairies <em>seem</em> to dance upon the meadows
-or did they really dance? The next choir was<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_125" id="Page_125">[125]</a></span>
-composed of younger women, among them
-many a beauty-loving face, alas! too pale and
-telling of the hard life of the hills or of the
-harder life of some mining-town. Of the third
-choir the leader was a merry little man, scarcely
-as high as the leader’s stand, with a wild look in
-his twinkling eyes as he waved a baton and the
-choir began,&mdash;</p>
-
-<div class="poetry-container">
-<div class="poetry">
-<div class="stanza">
-<div class="verse">“Far beneath the stars we lie,</div>
-<div class="verse">Far from gaze of mortal eye,</div>
-<div class="verse">Far beneath the ocean swell,</div>
-<div class="verse">Here we merry mermaids dwell.”</div>
-</div>
-</div>
-</div>
-
-<p>He believed not only in his choir, but also in those
-mermaidens, and so did the little lad, not much
-bigger than Hofmann when he first began to tour,
-who played the accompaniment. When that
-choir went out, a fourth came in, still inviting
-the sisters to come. At last the sisters not only
-came, but also decided to stay, and another choir
-lured the sailor successfully to his doom, and all
-was over, for even in choir tragedies there must
-be an end to the song. The gallant little mother
-had won the first prize. It takes the mothers to
-win prizes, and the audience thought so, too.
-The crowd yelled and stamped with delight.</p>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_126" id="Page_126">[126]</a></span></p>
-
-<p>When one asks one’s self whether Surrey, for
-example, or such a state as Massachusetts in
-America, could be brought to send its people from
-every farm, every valley, every hilltop, to a festival
-thousands strong, day after day for a whole week,
-one realizes how tremendous a thing this Welsh
-national enthusiasm is. Educationally nothing
-could be a greater movement for Wales. To the
-Welsh the beauty of worship, of music, of poetry
-are inseparable. Only so can this passion for
-beauty, which brings multitudes together to take
-part in all that is noblest and best in Welsh life,
-be explained. Only so can you understand why
-some young collier, pale and work-worn, sings
-with his whole soul and shakes with the song
-within him even as a bird shakes with the notes
-that are too great for its body. These Welsh sing
-as if music were all the world to them, and in it
-they forget the world. Behind the passion of their
-song lies a devout religious conviction, and their
-song sweeps up in praise and petition to an Almighty
-God, who listens to Shelley’s “Ode to the
-West Wind” as well as to some great hymn. To
-hear ten thousand Welsh people singing “Land
-of my Fathers,” each taking naturally one of the
-four parts and all singing in perfect harmony, is<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_127" id="Page_127">[127]</a></span>
-to have one of the great experiences of life. To
-hear Shelley’s “Ode” set to Elgar’s music and
-sung by several choirs, to hear that wild, far-travelling
-wind sweep along in a tumult of harmonies,
-to know that every heart there was as a
-lyre even to the least breath of that wind, to hear
-that last cry,&mdash;</p>
-
-<div class="poetry-container">
-<div class="poetry">
-<div class="stanza">
-<div class="verse indent9">“Oh, wind,</div>
-<div class="verse">If winter comes, can spring be far behind?”&mdash;</div>
-</div>
-</div>
-</div>
-
-<p class="noindent">to listen again to those choirs late in the evening
-on the station platform with the sea dim and vast
-and muting the song to its own greater music, is
-to have felt in the Welsh spirit what no tongue
-can describe,&mdash;it is to understand the meaning
-of the word “hwyl,” that untranslatable word of
-a passionate emotionalism.</p>
-
-<p>All that went on behind the scenes the audience
-could not know. They saw only those considered
-by the adjudicators fit to survive. They
-did not see the six blind people, for even the blind
-have their place in this great festival, who entered
-the little school-room off Abergele Road to take
-the preliminary tests, the girl who played “The
-Harmonious Blacksmith,” and, shaking from excitement
-and holding on to her guide, was led<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_128" id="Page_128">[128]</a></span>
-away unsuccessful. They did not see the lad who
-played “Men of Harlech” crudely, his anxious
-ageing, work-worn mother sitting beside him,
-holding his stick and nodding her head in approval.
-All they heard were a selected two who
-were considered by the judges fit to play, a man
-both blind and deaf who performed a <i lang="it">scherzo</i> of
-Brahms and a Carnarvon sea-captain, now blind,
-who played on the violin. The quiet of the one-time
-sea-captain’s face laid against the violin, the
-peace and pleasure in the lines about the sightless
-eyes, would have repaid the whole audience&mdash;even
-if the violinist had not been an exceptionally
-good player&mdash;for listening.</p>
-
-<p>One of the inspiring and amusing events of
-the week was the discovery of a marvellous contralto.
-A young girl, shabbily dressed and ill at
-ease, came out to sing. Everything was being
-pressed forward towards the crowning of the bard,
-one of the great events of the Eisteddfod. People
-were impatient, and somewhat noisy. But as
-the girl began to sing they quieted down, then
-they listened with wonder, and in a minute you
-could have heard a pin drop in that throng of
-ten thousand. Before she had finished singing,
-“Jesu, Lover of my Soul,” the audience knew<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_129" id="Page_129">[129]</a></span>
-that it had listened to one of the great singers of
-the world. When she had finished her song and
-unclasped her hands, she became again nothing
-more than an awkward, silly, giggling child whom
-Llew Tegid had to hold by the arm.</p>
-
-<p>The audience shouted, “What’s her name?”</p>
-
-<p>“Maggie Jones,” he replied; “that begins
-well.”</p>
-
-<p>“Where does she come from?” demanded
-the crowd.</p>
-
-<p>“Police station,” answered Llew Tegid lugubriously.</p>
-
-<p>The audience roared with laughter and demanded
-the name of the town. Maggie Jones
-is the daughter of Police Superintendent Jones
-of Pwllheli. Perhaps in the years to come the
-world will hear her name again.</p>
-
-<p>There are children at these Eisteddfodau
-whose little feet can scarce reach the pedals of a
-harp. Even the robins singing up in the high
-pavilion roof who had joined in the music from
-time to time, trilling joyously to Handel’s “Oh,
-had I Jubal’s Lyre,” twittered with surprise that
-anything so small could play anything so large.
-But no one of the thousands there, even the children,
-grew tired for an instant, unless it was these<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_130" id="Page_130">[130]</a></span>
-same robins, who were weary at times because
-of the cheerless character of some of the sacred
-music sung in competition and themselves started
-up singing blithely and gladly as God meant
-that birds and men should sing. The robins
-twittered madly when some sturdy little Welshman
-stepped into the penillion singing, accompanied
-by the harp, no more to be daunted than
-a child stepping into rope skipping. When the
-grown-ups had finished, two little children came
-forward and sang their songs, North Wales style.</p>
-
-<p>The afternoon was growing later and later;
-it was high time for the name of the bard of
-the crown poem to be announced. At last, with
-due pomp, the name of the young bard was
-announced. Every one looked to see where he
-might be sitting. He was found sitting modestly
-in the rear of the big pavilion, and there were
-shouts of “Dyma fo!” (here he is). Two bards
-came down and escorted him to the platform,
-where all the druids, ovates, and bards were awaiting
-him. The band, the trumpeter, the harp, and
-the sword now all performed their service, the
-sun slanting down through the western windows
-on to this bardic pageant. The sparrows
-flew in and out of the sunlight, unafraid of the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_131" id="Page_131">[131]</a></span>
-dragons that waved about them and the bands
-that played beneath them, and the great sword
-held sheathed over the young bard’s head. The
-sword was bared three times and sheathed again
-as all shouted “Heddwch!” The bard was
-crowned and the whole audience rose to the
-Welsh national song.</p>
-
-<p>What is the meaning of this unique festival
-of poetry and song? Mr. Lloyd George, who
-had escaped from the din of battle outside, and
-the jeers of the Goths and Vandals who couldn’t
-or wouldn’t understand the Fourth Form, said,
-amidst laughter, that there was no budget to raise
-taxes for the upkeep of the Eisteddfod. Then
-he continued, “The bards are not compelled by
-law to fill up forms. There is no conscription
-to raise an army from the ranks of the people to
-defend the Eisteddfod’s empire in the heart of
-the nation. And yet, after the lapse of generations,
-the Eisteddfod is more alive than ever.
-Well, of what good is she? I will tell you one
-thing&mdash;she demonstrates what the democracy of
-Wales can do at its best. The democracy has
-kept her alive; the democracy has filled her
-chairs; the sons of the democracy compete for
-her honours. I shall never forget my visit to the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_132" id="Page_132">[132]</a></span>
-Llangollen Eisteddfod two years ago. When
-crossing the hills between Flintshire and the valley
-of the Dee, I saw their slopes darkened with
-the streams of shepherds and cottagers and their
-families going towards the town. What did they
-go to see? To see a man of their nation honoured
-for a piece of poetry.… And the people
-were as quick to appreciate the points as any
-expert of the Gorsedd, and wonderfully responsive
-to every lofty thought.” Yes, unlike any
-other gathering in the world, the Eisteddfod is
-all that. Long ago in the latter half of the eighteenth
-century Iolo Morganwg stated the objects
-of Welsh bardism,&mdash;“to reform the morals and
-customs; to secure peace; to praise (or encourage)
-all that is good or excellent.” This national
-festival is the popular university of the people,
-it is the centre of Welsh nationalism, the feast
-of Welsh brotherhood. Only listened to in this
-spirit can one understand what it means when
-an Eisteddfodic throng, after the crowning of
-the bard, rises to sing “Hen Wlad fy Nhadau,”&mdash;</p>
-
-<div class="poetry-container">
-<div class="poetry">
-<div class="stanza">
-<div class="verse">“Old land that our fathers before us held dear.”</div>
-</div>
-</div>
-</div>
-<hr class="chap" />
-
-<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_133" id="Page_133">[133]</a></span></p>
-
-<h2 id="VIII">VIII<br />
-<span class="smaller"><i>Cambrian Cottages</i></span></h2>
-
-<p>In the “Dream of Rhonabwy,” from the “Mabinogion,”
-one of the great books of the imaginative
-literature of the world, it is not a very
-pleasant picture which we get of a Welsh home.
-Yet the Welsh cottage home of to-day is a
-treasure of beauty and orderliness. Doubtless
-this picture from the “Dream of Rhonabwy,”
-in its realistic detail, making allowances for certain
-Norman influences at work upon the various
-stories of the “Mabinogion,” is a true one. The
-strength and rustiness of the colouring of the
-house of Heilyn Goch, the blackness of the old
-hall, the upright gable out of the door of which
-poured the household smoke, the floor inside
-full of puddles and slippery with the mire of
-cattle, the boughs of holly spread on the floor,
-and at one side of the hall an old hag making
-a fire, the yellow calf-skin it was a privilege
-for any one to get upon, the barley bread and
-cheese and milk which, after the people of the
-house had entered,&mdash;a ruddy, curly-headed man<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_134" id="Page_134">[134]</a></span>
-with faggots on his back, and a pale slender
-woman,&mdash;they were given to eat;&mdash;all, I say,
-forms a picture rude, coarse, strong in its primitive
-detail of twelfth-century Cymric household
-life. Something more, too, it suggests. As
-Matthew Arnold says, “The very first thing
-that strikes one, in reading the ‘Mabinogion,’
-is how evidently the mediæval story-teller is pillaging
-an antiquity of which he does not fully
-possess the secret; he is like a peasant building
-his hut on the side of Halicarnassus or Ephesus;
-he builds, but what he builds is full of materials
-of which he knows not the history, or knows by
-a glimmering tradition merely.”</p>
-
-<p>There are other pictures, too, in the “Mabinogion”
-of early Welsh household life, pictures
-which one must question because of their luxury
-and general magnificence, features evidently
-due to the strong Norman influence one finds
-at work almost throughout these stories. No
-picture could be more rich and more beautiful
-than that in the “Dream of Maxen Wledig,”
-where Helen is found by the Emperor’s messenger
-sitting in the old castle hall at Carnarvon.
-These are the tales of the splendid, barbaric
-youth of a people, filled with the vividness, the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_135" id="Page_135">[135]</a></span>
-crowding, the vitality of youth, and touched to
-an even more magnificent beauty by another
-hand which was deliberate and Norman&mdash;stories
-divinely disregardful of what might have been
-intelligible; in their mystery and wonder full of
-the life of the young. Barbaric touches, magic,
-fantastic elements, crude life, gorgeous colouring,&mdash;all
-this and thrice more than this does
-one find in the “Mabinogion.”</p>
-
-<p>At first dreaming,&mdash;for dream one must
-over the cottages of Wales if one is ever truly
-to enter them,&mdash;these homes of a more recent
-time would seem to have suffered a loss in
-vividness, in interest, so immeasurable that there
-could be no gain to balance against it. Gone
-are the mystery and the semblance of splendour;
-the sense of adventure and the strong,
-wild life of these earlier centuries are forever
-vanished. Yes, gone they are, and gone they
-were before ever a <i lang="fr">rédacteur</i> took down one
-of the tales of the “Mabinogion” from report
-that was already becoming but tradition. Purposely
-did I select the “Dream of Rhonabwy,”
-for not only in closeness to human reality, but
-also in architectural detail, do I believe it to be
-an exact picture of early Welsh home life. After<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_136" id="Page_136">[136]</a></span>
-the sordid picture of the hall, the description of
-the rainstorm comes but as a reinforcing touch
-of truthfulness: “And there arose a storm of
-wind and rain, so that it was hardly possible to
-go forth with safety. And being weary with
-their journey, they laid themselves down and
-sought sleep. And when they looked at the
-couch, it seemed to be made but of a little
-coarse straw … with the stems of boughs
-sticking therethrough, for the cattle had eaten
-all the straw that was placed at the head and at
-the foot. And upon it was stretched an old russet-coloured
-rug, threadbare and ragged; and a
-coarse sheet, full of slits, was upon the rug, and
-an ill-stuffed pillow, and a worn-out cover upon
-the sheet. And after much suffering from …
-the discomfort of their couch, a heavy sleep fell
-on Rhonabwy’s companion. But Rhonabwy,
-not being able either to sleep or to rest, thought
-he should suffer less if he went to lie upon the
-yellow calf-skin that was stretched out on the
-floor. And there he slept.” Undoubtedly here
-even the slit sheet is a touch of Norman elegance.</p>
-
-<p>In the “Dream of Rhonabwy,” not in the far
-more beautiful “Dream of Maxen Wledig,”
-with its elaborate interior descriptions, do we<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_137" id="Page_137">[137]</a></span>
-find something like prototype for the Welsh
-cottage of to-day: the fire made against the gable
-end, even as it is now in the cottages, the sleeping
-accommodations at the opposite ends. This
-is the arrangement still of the vast majority of
-the cottages. Originally probably there were no
-windows other than, it may be, little slits&mdash;“wind-eyes”
-they were called with that relevant
-quaintness characteristic of early speech&mdash;such
-as we see to this day in old Welsh barns. In
-the “Mabinogion” story of Geraint, with its
-white stag, its divergent sense of the forest and
-of a bustling town life and the beautiful Gwenhwyvar,
-there is reference to glass windows:
-“And one morning in the summer time they
-were upon their couch, and Geraint lay upon the
-edge of it. And Enid was without sleep in the
-apartment, which had windows of glass. And
-the sun shone upon the couch. And the clothes
-had slipped from off his arms and his breast,
-and he was asleep. Then she gazed upon the
-marvellous beauty of his appearance, and she
-said, ‘Alas, and I am the cause that these arms
-and this breast have lost their glory and the war-like
-fame which they once so richly enjoyed.’”
-Are any lines in Tennyson’s “Enid” taken from<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_138" id="Page_138">[138]</a></span>
-this “Mabinogion” tale, that story upon which
-Tennyson’s widest popularity was founded,
-more vivid than this beautiful romantic touch?
-Undoubtedly these glass windows which revealed
-the manly beauty of Geraint in overthrow
-were glass lattices. They could not have
-been very common, and considerably later they
-were followed by wooden lattices in general use
-in the Welsh cottage, and still occasionally to
-be found to-day. I have found them several
-times in the dairy-rooms of old cottages in North
-Wales. Norman influence was at work in this
-story of the late twelfth or early thirteenth century
-from the “Mabinogion.” Sometime in the
-fourteenth or fifteenth century it was that the
-lattice window of the cottage came in, nor did
-it go out of use until the end of the seventeenth
-century. The window was a double frame&mdash;just
-as it is most frequently now&mdash;filled with woven
-diamond lattice. Within were wooden shutters
-opening inwards. A distant view or sketch of
-the leaded panes of to-day or of the diamond
-lattice of a long ago yesterday reveals no difference
-between the two, so closely has the type
-of window been kept, as, for example, the little,
-old-style windows of Beddgelert and Carnarvon.</p>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_139" id="Page_139">[139]</a></span></p>
-
-<p>And the beauty out upon which these old
-windows look is ever the same&mdash;Eryri, Eagle’s
-Eyrie, is this land of North Wales. Peak, precipice,
-lake, rushing stream, valley, forest lie
-always before one, sometimes shrouded for a
-while by the mist, again pricked out in indescribable
-altitude of mountain or whiteness of
-falling water before eyes that cannot fail to wonder
-at their beauty. In the fourteenth book of
-the “Prelude,” Wordsworth writes of the ascent
-which he and his Welsh friend made of Snowdon
-from Beddgelert at dawn, and we may, if
-we have not been in that mountain-cupped
-heart of Wales to hear it for ourselves, hear with
-Wordsworth the mounting</p>
-
-<div class="poetry-container">
-<div class="poetry">
-<div class="stanza">
-<div class="verse indent2">“roar of waters, torrents, streams,</div>
-<div class="verse">Innumerable, roaring with one voice!”</div>
-</div>
-</div>
-</div>
-
-<p class="noindent">And with the poet, too, behold an</p>
-
-<div class="poetry-container">
-<div class="poetry">
-<div class="stanza">
-<div class="verse">“Emblem of a mind</div>
-<div class="verse">That feeds upon infinity.”</div>
-</div>
-</div>
-</div>
-
-<p class="noindent">The majestic beauty of these little Alps of
-Wales seems but to emphasize the cheerfulness
-and cosiness of the life man has made for himself.
-Indeed, nowhere are valleys greener, more
-sheltering, more homelike, more cosey. And<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_140" id="Page_140">[140]</a></span>
-the cottages, with their ascending spirals of peat
-smoke, the sweet fragrance of their homely life,
-speak a language of welcome no one can mistake.
-Gone are the old barbaric days, with their
-rough, strong life, their adventure; gone are the
-days of chivalry, with their bright pageant, their
-luxury, their courtly ways. Here we may turn
-a stone of those mediæval days, there touch a
-fretted memorial of still earlier times, even before
-Arthur had come to wake the world to a new
-romance and a new and selfless endeavour. Lessened,
-cheaper may this humble cottage heritage
-of the present seem than those times which have
-gone their “journey of all days” into the past. But
-not so does this sweet homeliness seem to me.
-Life is gentler, life is better, perhaps even kindlier
-within them by the bright hearth where, for
-the asking, any one may sit welcomed and at
-ease. Their purple roofs are but modest regal
-seal upon the happiness within. One feels
-singularly close to that great mother of us
-all in these tiny Welsh cottages, near to what
-is essential, what is real. Mortals who have
-not been dissevered from their proper feeling
-for houses will realize that these little homes
-have sprung, as it were, from the soil, that the
-cord binding them to the earth has never
-been cut.</p>
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;" id="illus12">
-<img src="images/i_182.jpg" width="600" height="400" alt="" />
-<p class="caption">BEAUMARIS</p>
-<p class="caption"><i>From a proof before letters by Turner</i></p>
-</div>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_141" id="Page_141">[141]</a></span></p>
-
-<p>The “Cyttiau Gwyddelod” or circular huts
-were the earliest forms of dwellings of which
-there are still remains. One finds them in various
-places on the meadows lying between and
-in front of Pen-y-Pass and Pen-y-Gwyrd where
-Charles Kingsley loved to stop. There are many
-other places, too, one not far out of Barmouth
-where Tennyson stayed and where some of the
-stanzas from “In Memoriam” were written;
-and some near Bettws-y-Coed, one of whose
-valleys, the Lledr, Ruskin called the most beautiful
-in the world. The little circular rings of
-foundation stones are curiously disappointing,
-scarcely worth the seeing, except that, in touching
-them, it may be one presses a hand’s
-breadth nearer to a vanished past. These circular
-huts lasted through a Roman-British period,
-and looked, probably, much like a wigwam,
-with a circular foundation wall of stone, wood,
-or wattle, from four to six feet high, capped with
-woven boughs of thatch, and within, a floor
-diameter from twelve to twenty-four feet. Gradually
-the circular hut gave place to the rectangular,
-at first with slight improvement in comfort,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_142" id="Page_142">[142]</a></span>
-as I think the picture of “Rhonabwy” suggests.
-There was still no chimney or ingle and the
-smoke poured out of the open doorway. Yet in
-the arrangement described in “Rhonabwy” we
-have embryonically the arrangement of to-day.
-The subdivision of the interior space was still
-to come.</p>
-
-<p>The earliest examples extant of the rectangular
-type are of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries.
-Up till three years ago, when it was destroyed
-to make room for an extension of the
-Calvinistic Methodist Chapel, such a little cottage
-there still was in Beddgelert, Ty Ucha. Such
-a cot there still is in Bettws-y-Coed, Dol y
-Waenydd; also Tyddyn Cynal, near Aber Conway,
-as well as Old Plas, Llanfair Fechan, to give
-but a few examples which any lover of Welsh
-life may consult for himself. These little cottages
-are to be distinguished by their roof principals,
-which start from the floor, heavy curved pieces
-of oak meeting at the ridge in the roof. No doubt
-the earliest churches were built in this fashion
-and the cottages were copied from them. The
-churches of old foundation which survive, however,
-are, as I have said in the chapter on the little
-churches of Wales, in the style the Latin monks<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_143" id="Page_143">[143]</a></span>
-dictated and Llewelyn the Great introduced into
-Wales,&mdash;twelfth-century churches such as those
-at Llanrhychwyn, Gyffin, and Caerhûn. Beyond
-question, Welsh cottages represent a native influence
-which antedates that of the oldest churches
-now extant in Wales.</p>
-
-<p>In the Welsh women who sit by the ingle fire
-of this cottage life one feels an age-old continuity
-of home, of the heart of things, of association, of
-service, of beauty; the pale slender woman of the
-“Dream of Rhonabwy” who entered the hall
-with the ruddy man; the maiden with “yellow
-curling hair” whom, in the “Lady of the Fountain,”
-Owain sees through an aperture in the
-gate, a row of houses on either side of the maiden;
-and others who kindle fires and perform the
-household tasks, who accoutre the knights, who
-embroider with gold upon yellow satin. Much
-of the colour of that mediæval world is a thing
-of the past, but not its women: they are essentially
-the same, though of a democratic to-day,
-simple as Enid in her worn habiliments when
-Arthur asked her what expedition this was and
-she replied, “I know not, lord, save that it behoves
-me to journey by the same road that he
-journeys.” The woman of to-day knows now<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_144" id="Page_144">[144]</a></span>
-what that journey of her mate is, and still she goes
-with him, not driven before him, but by his side.</p>
-
-<p>It was on the road that, as I studied these
-little cottages from week to week, I encountered
-the Welshwoman of both an olden romance
-and a present world of fact. Very humble little
-pilgrimages were these of mine, not made without
-their diverse experiences of joy and fatigue.
-Sometimes it was a little lane I travelled on
-foot, off the highroad and through the heart of
-a farmland, the hedges eight feet high with
-honeysuckle and heaven-deep with fragrance;
-again I dropped down a hill, heather and foxglove
-making a royal display in bare places,
-and in the distance the bells of Llanycil ringing;
-or I climbed a hill on the way to Llangynog,
-a ridge which seemed the top and the edge
-of the world, treeless upland pastures like deep
-agate rich with ruby, lavender, brown and
-freaked with emerald green, purple and pink,
-and all opalescent with sunshine, dotted with
-black sheep and white sheep and little lambs,
-some straddling with surprise as they rose stretching
-and curling their tails with the delicious
-energy of awakening. Or, like Moses, I came
-down from Nebo, only it was a Welsh Nebo<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_145" id="Page_145">[145]</a></span>
-and my hands were full of peppermints bought
-for twopence, and children, rosy-cheeked youngsters
-in a frenzy of joy, were running about me.
-Into strange places may even a cottage gleam
-lead. Once it took me to that most primitive
-of all shelters, a cromlech, where gorse made
-sunshine on the hill and heather made a glory,
-and in a near-by oat-field pansies bloomed, and,
-above, a crown of pines sung in the ever-blowing
-winds. Or the gleam led me beside some tiny
-stream, almost invisible, that found its way like
-a thread downhill.</p>
-
-<div class="poetry-container">
-<div class="poetry">
-<div class="stanza">
-<div class="verse">“Down from the mountain</div>
-<div class="verse">And over the level,</div>
-<div class="verse">And streaming and shining on</div>
-<div class="verse">Silent river,</div>
-<div class="verse">Silvery willow,</div>
-<div class="verse">Pasture and plowland,</div>
-<div class="verse">Innocent maidens,</div>
-<div class="verse">Garrulous children,</div>
-<div class="verse">Homestead and harvest,</div>
-<div class="verse">Reaper and gleaner,</div>
-<div class="verse">And rough-ruddy faces</div>
-<div class="verse">Of lowly labour</div>
-<div class="verse">I followed the gleam.”</div>
-</div>
-</div>
-</div>
-
-<p>A gleam that led me on and on was this<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_146" id="Page_146">[146]</a></span>
-bright-shining, fragrant, humble cottage life of
-Wales, with its much-needed assurance, amidst
-the sorrows of our present times, that some magic
-of a life still full of faith is lived among these
-solitary hillsides, among busy towns and in sheltered
-Welsh valleys. Into human difficulties,
-too, did my gleam lead me, as gleams have a
-way of doing. My first adventure was to find a
-cottage called “Buarthau” (pronounced <i>Bee-ar-thai</i>).
-I knew that it was on the hillside beyond
-Hendra Farm outside of Dolwyddelan, at the
-head of that valley, the Lledr, which Ruskin
-has called the most beautiful in the world. A
-child who spoke very little English summoned
-her mother, a pale, slender woman with a baby
-in her arms, to point out the cottage to me.
-The little girl led me and we climbed the steep
-hillside. Beside it were wild roses, cool in pink
-and green; beyond us was a magnificent view
-of Siabod, Snowdon, Aran, and Moel Hebog,
-becoming with every upward-mounting step
-more grand. The old roof of the sixteenth or
-seventeenth century which I had come to see
-was partly destroyed, the large curved principals
-which came almost to the ground had been
-well rubbed and gnawed by the teeth of kine.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_147" id="Page_147">[147]</a></span>
-Under a tree near a little cottage we ate our
-luncheon, a tree which accommodatingly turned
-itself into a harp. Then we came down, across
-the Lledr River, and turned and entered the
-village where the heart of the place is St. Gwyddelan’s
-Church, built about 1500 <span class="smcapuc">A.D.</span>, with a
-rood screen removed from some earlier church,
-a knocker to claim sanctuary still upon the
-door, and warm hay piled high and spread in
-the sun over the old graves.</p>
-
-<p>There was another day when I was in search
-of an old house still habitable, but of the same
-date of building as Buarthau. From Bettws-y-Coed
-I followed slowly up a long hill, from
-which I looked down into an ever-deepening
-valley, where lay the road leading up past the
-Conway and the Lledr to Dolwyddelan. After
-I passed Pentrevoelas, I picked up a little fellow
-carrying a school-bag. We passed a big
-empty graveyard place where five new graves
-were crowded against the wall,&mdash;the living
-were planning well for the jostling of the dead
-who were to come,&mdash;then I put the little fellow
-down by the chapel where his mother lived.
-The road to Giler grew more and more difficult.
-At last I came to a beautiful old house with a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_148" id="Page_148">[148]</a></span>
-fortified gate and high surrounding walls. Outside
-the walls, mother and daughter, farmer and
-farm hands, were all milking the cows. They
-courteously led me through the ancient gateway,
-a friendly place within, for not only did the cats
-run to meet us, but also the pigs. I ascended the
-outside steps of the fortified gateway into a room
-where was the Pryce coat of arms and the date
-1623 upon the walls. Then we went into the
-farmhouse through an old doorway that would
-be the joy of any antiquary who might behold
-it. Even this was fortified. Within, the oak
-panelling, the oak partitions, the seats around
-the walls, the deep, small-paned, narrow windows,
-the kitchen, the storeroom, the dairy, the
-mill&mdash;all were as they had been four hundred
-years ago&mdash;a little the worse for wear, but still
-staunch, still comely, still generous and hospitable.
-One fireplace I stood before was twelve
-feet long and four or five feet deep. On the
-way home I saw a flock of lapwings in the
-meadow. I passed the chapel corner where
-the little fellow was; I saw two rabbits rubbing
-noses in the field; and then, facing toward the
-sun, which was setting over Siabod and the
-Ogwen Valley, I followed home.</p>
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;" id="illus13">
-<img src="images/i_192.jpg" width="600" height="400" alt="" />
-<p class="caption">A WELSH WATERFALL NEAR PENMAEN-MAWR</p>
-<p class="caption"><i>From an engraving by Boydell, 1750</i></p>
-</div>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_149" id="Page_149">[149]</a></span></p>
-
-<p>These Welsh cottages and granges are like a
-well-made person or a well-made life: they have
-nothing to conceal. They reveal their construction,
-and their beauty inheres in this revelation
-of what they really are. Instead of being all
-daubed over with plaster and smeared with unattractive
-paper, their joists and beams, their
-panelled oak partitions, the ingle-heart of the
-house, the warm, brown oaken dressers and tridarn,
-the grandfather clock and settles, the three-legged
-tables and three-legged chairs form a
-picture of simple harmony, which at its best it
-would be hard to rival either in dignity or
-homely beauty. I am not referring to the Welsh
-lodging-house which is all many an Englishman
-or American knows in Wales. The floor of the
-cottage may be but of beaten clay, neatly whitewashed
-around the edge. This, however, is surely
-a more attractive floor covering than many which
-cost, even before they leave the carpet factory,
-a good deal more. Beautiful rooms are these
-where, from the lustre-ware, the pewter, the copper
-and brass and latticed windows, many a lesson
-is still to be learned by some of us who
-think it impossible that we should be able to
-take anything from so humble a place. In these<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_150" id="Page_150">[150]</a></span>
-Welsh cottages life has continued more or less
-unchanged in a beautiful simplicity. It is not
-merely the simplicity imposed by poverty,&mdash;although
-that does exist to a depressing extent
-in Wales,&mdash;it is rather their sense of fitness,
-their love of what is beautiful, that innate instinct
-of theirs, not only for the right word, but
-also for the right beauty of a room, even of a
-kitchen. When they would imitate under the
-pressure of modern fussiness and vulgarities,
-something still holds them back. The lodging-house
-in Wales represents a concession to
-modernity, their mistaken and delicate tribute to
-the visitor. It is the Welsh farmhouse kitchen
-in all its dignity of use and beauty which represents
-the true life of the Cymri, the ineradicable
-æsthetic fineness of Gwalia. In Wales,
-and at a time when the world pays it but
-scant respect, poetry dwells everywhere and is
-at home. The grimiest coal centre, the dustiest
-slate quarry eating into the very bowels of the
-earth and the skin of the people, cannot drive
-poetry and music away from Wales. They
-dwell by the doorway of the whitewashed cottage
-in that group of oaks, or under that sheltering
-sycamore and the cottage roof of flowering<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_151" id="Page_151">[151]</a></span>
-thatch, in the water-split stains of the slates
-upon the roofs, in the gleam of the doorsill over
-which one steps. Here in these Welsh cottages
-is simplicity as compelling, because more human
-and not less unself-conscious, as that of the
-palace.</p>
-
-<p>Practically every characteristic possessed by
-the Welsh makes for love of home. Their very
-shyness drives them through the house door to
-the fireside, before all that is best can be revealed.
-Sensitive, full of feeling, gay and melancholy
-by turns, they are like their own hills, now
-sombre and now bright. It is temperament that
-makes the music of the Welsh cottage, its picturesqueness,
-its romance. Without the Cymric
-temperament there could have been no Welsh
-revivals, no invincible Lloyd George, no Eisteddfodau.
-The delicacy of the woman, who is
-always the home-maker, inheres in the Celt. He
-feels the significance of the home with such
-yearning and such passion that it is almost incomprehensible
-to his fellows of coarser fibre.
-It was that feminine love of home which made
-Celtic chivalry what it was. And I dare to say
-that it is still that element which makes the
-humble Welsh cottage what it is to-day.</p>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_152" id="Page_152">[152]</a></span></p>
-
-<p>Those qualities which caused the Cymri to
-reverence their bards and esteem learning are
-the qualities at work in their lives now. The
-passionate admiration which in olden times
-made them follow a leader like Llewelyn the
-Great or a lost cause, is what makes them shout
-by the tens of thousands for Lloyd George to-day
-and a winning cause. Their low, quiet
-voices, their gentle ways, their spiritual intensity,
-all throw a glamour about the lives they
-lead. One does not expect to find a sage in yon
-little cottage where the village bread is baked.
-Yet he is there, his books two deep on every
-shelf of his little room, his lamp burning far
-into the night. Nor does one expect to find a
-Welsh Jenny Lind in this cot whose brass doorsill
-we have just left; but, busy about her work,
-a voice the world might well run to listen to
-follows us down these Welsh upland meadows.
-And behind that counter, over which we buy
-sweets for the children, is an historian and antiquary;
-in yon post-office a bard,&mdash;even the
-very farmer spends his leisure not as other farmers
-do; and nothing is as many, in their commonplaceness,
-their German <i lang="de">Gemeinheit</i>, expect
-and demand that it shall be.</p>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_153" id="Page_153">[153]</a></span></p>
-
-<p>It is a far cry, some may think, from the
-“Mabinogion,” one of the possessions of all the
-world, to a little Welsh cottage. No, it is not
-a far cry; it is a history, interrupted here and
-there by haunting words, broken by words not
-to be recovered, but still a history from those
-first (?) “cyttiau gwyddelod,” with their rude
-music of harp and their tales read from a revolving
-wooden book, down to this cot whose
-shelter we have sought in a valley or upland
-meadow, even as Wordsworth some one hundred
-years ago or Shelley sought such shelter at
-the base of Snowdon. It is a far cry, some may
-think, from that smoke curling out of the gable
-end of the hall in the “Dream of Rhonabwy”
-to this ingle by which we have sat. No, it is a
-development, a continuance marked only by
-the steps of man’s desire to strengthen and make
-more perfect his home here, forgetting that
-Chaucer has told us in his poem “Truth”;</p>
-
-<div class="poetry-container">
-<div class="poetry">
-<div class="stanza">
-<div class="verse">“Her nis non hom, her nis but wildernesse:</div>
-<div class="verse">Forth, pilgrim, forth! Forth, beste, out of thy stal!”</div>
-</div>
-</div>
-</div>
-
-<p>For the gray of a gray day outside, here by this
-hearth is the rose of fire, the tongue of flame by
-which we warm ourselves, the fluttering of those<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_154" id="Page_154">[154]</a></span>
-dreams beneath which we hide ourselves as
-under a sheltering wing. The passionate heart
-of a passionately sensitive people is this hearth
-and flame of a Welsh cottage. To have lived
-by it is to have lost the need to hear those tonic
-words of Matthew Arnold, for here, indeed, the
-Celt may still, in his dreams, his love, his song,
-react against the despotism of fact. And outside
-is a world of magic, sometimes hostile but more
-often friendly, a world of beauty and of enchantment.
-From the “Dream of Rhonabwy,” its
-women, its homes, its organized life, its beauty,
-down to the castle and cottage in Carnarvon or
-Conway, it is but one history, however many
-stages that history may have passed through;
-and until the traveller or the alien in Wales
-realizes this fact, he passes blindfold through its
-valleys and over its mountains and in and out
-of its cottage doors.</p>
-
-<hr class="chap" />
-
-<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_155" id="Page_155">[155]</a></span></p>
-
-<h2 id="IX">IX<br />
-<span class="smaller">Castles and Abbeys in North Wales</span></h2>
-
-<div class="poetry-container">
-<div class="poetry">
-<div class="stanza">
-<div class="verse">Old Time … gentlest among the Thralls</div>
-<div class="verse">Of Destiny, upon these wounds hath laid</div>
-<div class="verse">His lenient touches, soft as light that falls,</div>
-<div class="verse">From the wan Moon, upon the towers and walls,</div>
-<div class="verse">Light deepening the profoundest sleep of shade</div>
-</div><div class="stanza">
-<div class="verse"><span class="smcap">Wordsworth</span>, “Ruins of a Castle in North Wales.”</div>
-</div>
-</div>
-</div>
-
-<p>The more one lives in Wales the more one
-recognizes the need for nonconformity. The
-Established Church has frequently conformed
-too much, certainly to the bars found in all public
-inns, and probably to the “jorum” measure
-set by castle life and even by the abbey life that
-is now no more. No doubt, if there were less
-poverty, there might be less drinking; on the
-other hand, if there were less drinking, there
-would certainly be less poverty. Even now, as
-I write in the most respectable old inn in Denbigh,&mdash;the
-place where all the gentry go,&mdash;for
-an inn sign I am looking out on three liquor
-kegs crossed one above another with a bunch
-of grapes pendant.</p>
-
-<p>But the hill on which this quaint, small, prosperous<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_156" id="Page_156">[156]</a></span>
-town of Denbigh is built does the best
-it can by its steepness to keep the people in
-good condition. In Welsh Denbigh Castle is
-called “Castell Caledfryn-yn-Rhos,” the “Castle
-of the Craggy Hill in Rhos.” From the “bottom,”
-as the natives call the foot of the town
-and hill,&mdash;they are identical,&mdash;it is a sheer
-climb to the top where the castle is situated,
-and in that climb one has traversed the entire
-village. Close by the castle is the Church of
-St. Hilary, more or less falling to pieces now,
-where once masses were said for the soul of
-Henry de Lacy. Within the castle enclosure, in
-a tiny cottage, John Henry Rowlands, or Stanley,
-the African explorer, was born. Very eager
-is Denbigh to claim this distinguished man, and
-but little can you get them to say about the
-brutal treatment which drove him away from
-home and made him a wanderer upon the face
-of the earth. Denbigh claims Twm o’r Nant
-also,&mdash;he is buried at the bottom of the town
-in Whitchurch,&mdash;but not content with claiming
-him, they canonize him with the absurd
-name of “Welsh Shakespeare.” Born in 1739,
-he developed, without any educational advantages
-whatsoever, remarkable skill in the writing<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_157" id="Page_157">[157]</a></span>
-of interludes, which for many years he himself
-played up and down the country, and by
-which, because he championed the cause of the
-people “against the evils of the day,” he got
-the ear of his popular audiences. Denbigh claims
-Dr. Samuel Johnson, too, and exaggerates his
-brief visit to Middleton at Gwaenynog. They
-have even photographed one cottage and called
-it Johnson’s.</p>
-
-<p>A few miles west from Denbigh, at Rhuddlan,
-they have made the most of their history,
-but it is not recent; rather it is standardized and
-dignified by an antiquity which antedates even
-the ivy-covered ruins of the castle. There starlings
-flutter in and out,&mdash;perhaps a descendant
-of that starling which Branwen had taught to
-speak and who carried across the sea to Carnarvon,
-to her brother, Bendigeid Vran, the tale of
-her sufferings. There, too, are the fireplaces of an
-ample hospitality which is no more. I thought
-of the promise Edward had made in Rhuddlan
-that he would give the people a prince born
-in Wales and who could speak no English. I
-thought of that battle between Saxon and Welsh,
-in 769, on Morfa (marsh) Rhuddlan, which, before
-our eyes, stretched gently and mysteriously<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_158" id="Page_158">[158]</a></span>
-away to the sea, and of the song that had
-commemorated it and of the defeat of the
-Cymru:&mdash;</p>
-
-<div class="poetry-container">
-<div class="poetry">
-<div class="stanza">
-<div class="verse">“Calm the sun sets o’er the hills of Carnarvon,</div>
-<div class="verse">Deep fall the shadows on valley and lea,</div>
-<div class="verse">Scarce a breath ripples the breast of old ocean,</div>
-<div class="verse">Faint on the ear falls the roll of the sea.”</div>
-</div>
-</div>
-</div>
-
-<p class="noindent">Also in the old song is heard again the din of
-weapons, the hissing of arrows, and the cries of
-those who fought and those who fell. Even in its
-English translation it is still a stirring old song.</p>
-
-<p>On the coast, a few miles north of Rhuddlan,
-is one of the most famous castles in British history,
-Flint Castle; but a dolorous, sorrowful old
-place it is now, set down in the midst of belching
-smokestacks and a sooty modern life that
-cares nothing for it. At Flint the dismantling
-of Richard II was performed. Froissart, the
-chronicler, speaking of Richard’s departure from
-Flint Castle in the custody of the Duke of Lancaster,
-tells us a strange story. King Richard
-had a beautiful greyhound who loved him beyond
-measure. As the Duke and the King were
-conversing in the court of the castle, the greyhound
-was loosed and immediately ran to the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_159" id="Page_159">[159]</a></span>
-Duke, paying him all the attentions he had always
-given to the King. The Duke asked what
-was the meaning of this fondness. “Cousin,”
-replied the King, “it means a great deal for you
-and very little for me.”</p>
-
-<p>Above Flint, on the River Dee, is Hawarden
-Castle, the new residence and the old ruin made
-famous to us in recent years by the fact that
-William Ewart Gladstone lived there. And there,
-centuries ago, Llewelyn, the great Welsh prince,
-first saw his Eleanor. The people in this vicinity
-are called “Harden Jews.” In this connection
-an interesting story from legendary history
-is told. It was in the year 946 that Cynan ap
-Ellis ap Anarawd was king of North Wales and
-a Christian church stood there. In this church
-was a roodloft surmounted by a figure of the
-Virgin bearing a holy cross in her hands. The
-summer had been hot and dry and the people
-began to pray for rain. Lady Trawst, wife of
-Sytsylt, governor of the castle, was one of those
-who prayed most often to the image. One day
-while she was on her knees the cross fell and
-killed her. The weather continued hot and the
-indignant people decided to bring the rood to
-trial for the murder of Lady Trawst. This was<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_160" id="Page_160">[160]</a></span>
-done and the Virgin and cross sentenced to be
-hanged, but Spar of Mancot, one of the jury,
-thought drowning would be better. Finally the
-judgment was partially amended and the image
-was laid upon the beach and the tide did the
-rest. It was carried up to the walls of Chester,
-and the citizens of that town, ancient even in
-946, reverently took it up and buried it, setting
-above it a monument with this inscription upon
-it:&mdash;</p>
-
-<div class="poetry-container">
-<div class="poetry">
-<div class="stanza">
-<div class="verse">“The Jews their God did crucify,</div>
-<div class="verse">The Hardeners theirs did drown,</div>
-<div class="verse">Because their wants she’d not supply,</div>
-<div class="verse">And lies under this cold stone.”</div>
-</div>
-</div>
-</div>
-
-<p class="noindent">And from this time forth the river, which had
-been called the Usk, was called Rood Die or
-Dee.</p>
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;" id="illus14">
-<img src="images/i_206.jpg" width="600" height="425" alt="" />
-<p class="caption">BEDDGELERT, A VALLEY-SHELTERED HOME</p>
-<p class="caption"><i>From an old print</i></p>
-</div>
-
-<p>It is not possible to re-create that olden castle
-life in Wales. A fragment here and a fragment
-there one finds, and when the broken life has
-been put together again, as in the “Mabinogion,”
-the Norman influence is more than a varnish to
-its ancient surface,&mdash;it is often colour, with
-occasionally an entirely new figure painted in.
-Glimpses of the palace life do we get, of the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_161" id="Page_161">[161]</a></span>
-sleeping-rooms and halls and chambers, of beautiful
-buildings, of youths and pages, of vestures
-of silk and gold and yellow robes of shining
-satin. Pictures of maidens, too, there are, who
-live for us still as if they had not vanished from
-within walls which Time has partially destroyed.
-One maiden there was who was made from the
-blossoms of the oak and of the broom and of
-the yellow meadow sweet, and whom they called
-Blodeuwedd or Flower-face. Another, not Blodwen,
-but Olwen, she who was clothed in a “robe
-of flame-coloured silk … more yellow was her
-head than the flower of the broom, and her skin
-was whiter than the foam of the wave, and fairer
-were her hands and her fingers than the blossoms
-of the wood anemone amidst the spray of
-the meadow fountain.… Four white trefoils
-sprung up wherever she trod. And therefore was
-she called Olwen.” Pictures, too, there are in
-the “Mabinogion” and elsewhere of the castles
-in which these maidens embroidered, sitting in
-golden chairs and clad in yellow satin. One description
-there is in “The Lady of the Fountain,”
-which is a vivid picture of a Welsh castle:
-“And at length it chanced that I came to the
-fairest valley in the world, wherein were trees of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_162" id="Page_162">[162]</a></span>
-equal growth; and a river ran through the valley,
-and a path was by the side of the river. And
-I followed the path until midday, and I continued
-my journey along the remainder of the valley
-until the evening: and at the extremity of a
-plain I came to a large and lustrous castle, at the
-foot of which was a torrent.” The fair valley, the
-path by the riverside, the lustrous castle, the torrent&mdash;all
-are still a part of the life of Wales to-day.
-Again, for the mere opening of a book, we
-may see knights in their encounters as of old:
-the horse that pricks forward, the furious blows
-upon the faces of the shields, the broken armour
-and bursting girths, and then the battle on foot,
-their arms striking sparks, and blood and sweat
-filling their eyes. Nowhere in all literature is
-there a more beautiful picture of a horse than in
-Kilhwch and Olwen: “And the youth pricked
-forth upon a steed with head dappled gray, of
-four winters old, firm of limb, with shell-formed
-hoofs, having a bridle of linked gold on his head,
-and upon him a saddle of costly gold. And in
-the youth’s hand were two spears of silver, sharp,
-well-tempered, headed with steel, three ells in
-length, of an edge to wound the wind, and cause
-blood to flow, and swifter than the fall of the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_163" id="Page_163">[163]</a></span>
-dewdrop from the blade of reed-grass upon the
-earth when the dew of June is at the heaviest. A
-gold-hilted sword was upon his thigh, the blade of
-which was of gold, bearing a cross of inlaid gold of
-the hue of the lightning of heaven; his war-horn
-was of ivory. Before him were two brindled,
-white-breasted greyhounds, having strong collars
-of rubies about their necks, reaching from the
-shoulder to the ear. And the one that was on
-the left side bounded across to the right side,
-and the one on the right to the left, and like
-two sea-swallows sported around him. And his
-courser cast up four sods with his four hoofs,
-like four swallows in the air, about his head,
-now above, now below. About him was a four-cornered
-cloth of purple, and an apple of gold
-was at each corner, and every one of the apples
-was of the value of an hundred kine. And there
-was precious gold of the value of three hundred
-kine upon his shoes, and upon his stirrups, from
-his knee to the tip of his toe. And the blade of
-grass bent not beneath him, so light was his
-courser’s tread as he journeyed towards the gate
-of Arthur’s Palace.”</p>
-
-<p>Charming pictures of friendship there are, too,
-lived within castle and abbey; and descriptions<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_164" id="Page_164">[164]</a></span>
-of the love of birds and journeys taken upon
-sea and land; and harsh and barbaric touches to
-remind us of a past still more ancient and of a
-cruelty still more primitive. Possible flashes do
-we get of the humour of this olden life: the refreshing
-gentleman in Branwen, the daughter of
-Llyr, whom no house could ever contain; Bendigeid
-Vran, the brother of Branwen, that good
-brother who sat upon the rock of Harlech looking
-over the sea, and all unconsciously welcoming
-those who were to break the heart of the
-sister he loved. Poetry and wisdom also there
-are in this ancient life: the Coranians, who, however
-low words might be spoken, if the wind
-met that speech, it was made known to them;
-and Arthur granting a boon in words which are
-a poem in themselves,&mdash;“as far as the wind
-dries, and the rain moistens, and the sun revolves,
-and the sea encircles, and the earth extends.”
-“There is no remedy for that which is
-past, be it as it may,” said Luned. And in the
-“Mabinogion,” as in every life, there was one
-door which when those who were bearing the
-head of Bendigeid Vran to London opened and
-looked through, “they were as conscious of all
-the evils they had ever sustained, and of all the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_165" id="Page_165">[165]</a></span>
-friends and companions they had lost, and of all
-the misery that had befallen them, as if it had
-all happened in that very spot.”</p>
-
-<p>South from Flint and south from Hawarden,
-yet near the windings of the river Dee, is Castle
-Dinas Bran, “Crow Castle,” as the English call
-it, mistakenly turning “Bran,” a word whose
-actual meaning is unknown, into “Crow.”
-Scarcely a stone of this very famous and ancient
-old castle situated on a high hill is left intact.
-The very rubble of its walls is exposed. Of the
-castle there is not enough left to repay any one
-for a visit, except a lover of desolation. Here, in
-another land, are walls like those of Balclutha, and
-desolate are they. Here the fox looks out of the
-window and the rank grass waves about its head,
-and here on the wind the song of mourning lifts
-itself bewailing the days that are gone. Yet from
-the valley below, with its quaint old town of
-Llangollen, its wonderful Abbey of Valle Crucis,
-and the shimmering of the running waters of
-the river Dee, the present is a reassuring one.
-Smoke curls up cheerfully from scores of household
-chimneys. The sun shines down upon the
-abbey walls, upon the chapter house, still intact,
-and upon the broken walls of the church itself.</p>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_166" id="Page_166">[166]</a></span></p>
-
-<div class="poetry-container">
-<div class="poetry">
-<div class="stanza">
-<div class="verse">“Ivy’d Valle Crucis; time decay’d</div>
-<div class="verse">Dim on the brink of Deva’s wandering floods,</div>
-<div class="verse">Your ivy’d arch glittering through the tangled shade,</div>
-<div class="verse">Your gray hills towering o’er your night of woods;</div>
-<div class="verse">Deep in the vale recesses as you stand,</div>
-<div class="verse">And, desolately great.”</div>
-</div>
-</div>
-</div>
-
-<p>Inseparable from and a part of the spiritual beauty
-of this scene is the thought of the old blind rector,
-who is now custodian of the abbey and who
-still speaks lovingly of the beauty of the things
-he can no longer see. He has been there twenty-nine
-years, and through many of those years he
-has been going blind. Yet he told us cheerfully
-that he was greatly encouraged by our interest.
-“I never destroy anything that is old,” he said;
-“I stick to the old.” As we stood there talking,
-the lovely little white English daisies looking
-up from the grass at us, the venerable old man
-told us something of his work. He was much
-discouraged because people were not interested,
-and even as he leaned on his stick, doubtless
-hoping for other visitors, his ear-sight quickened
-by the eye-sight he had lost, people were passing
-by outside walking toward the Pillar of
-Eliseg and a wooded vale beyond.</p>
-
-<p>In Llangollen, the village near the abbey, lived<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_167" id="Page_167">[167]</a></span>
-and died the ladies of Llangollen, two dear,
-quaint, sentimental souls, with personalities sufficiently
-marked and fearless so that they were
-unafraid to be themselves. Louisa Costello, in
-her account of a Welsh tour, gives them rather
-sharp treatment. She says that they were foolish,
-condescending, proud, vain, and pompous, yet
-she admits that they were charitable and considerate
-of their neighbours. Of their friendship
-she has nothing good to say. In a word, they
-were a couple of eccentric sentimentalists and
-both frightfully ugly. With the larger charity
-of the man, Wordsworth, who paid them a visit
-and wrote them a sonnet, described their appearance
-in the following words, “So oddly was
-one of these ladies attired that we took her, at a
-little distance, for a Roman Catholic priest, with
-a crucifix and relics hung at his neck. They
-were without caps, their hair, bushy and white
-as snow, which contributed to the mistake.” In
-the sonnet addressed to them there are, among
-others, two lines of pure tribute:&mdash;</p>
-
-<div class="poetry-container">
-<div class="poetry">
-<div class="stanza">
-<div class="verse">“The Vale of Friendship, let this spot</div>
-<div class="verse">Be named; there, faithful to a low roofed Cot,</div>
-<div class="verse">On Deva’s banks, ye have abode so long;</div><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_168" id="Page_168">[168]</a></span>
-<div class="verse">Sisters in love, a love allowed to climb,</div>
-<div class="verse">Even on this earth, above the reach of Time.”</div>
-</div>
-</div>
-</div>
-
-<p class="noindent">Lady Eleanor Butler was the daughter of the
-Earl of Ormond. She was born in Dublin and
-was both wealthy and beautiful. The Honourable
-Miss Ponsonby, a member of an ancient family,
-was an early friend of Lady Eleanor. She, too,
-was born in Dublin, and both lost their parents
-at the same time. They loved independence and
-did not love their suitors. Many things drew
-them together and, as Wordsworth aptly phrases
-it, they retired into notice in the Vale of Llangollen.
-Now they lie buried there, their faithful
-servant, Mrs. Mary Carryll, lying in an equal
-grave beside them.</p>
-
-<p>In this neighbourhood are many castles,
-among them Chirk the property of Lord Howard
-de Walden, and Ruthin Castle which is not
-very interesting. About northwest from Llangollen
-lies the old town of Conway, with its castle
-and its rare old Plas Mawr. Suetonius says
-that the chief motive assigned by the Romans
-for the invasion of Britain was that they might
-obtain possession of the Conway pearl fisheries.
-One of the Conway pearls, now no longer much
-thought of, was placed in the regal crown and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_169" id="Page_169">[169]</a></span>
-presented by Sir R. Wynne to Richard II. The
-picturesqueness of Conway streets is greater than
-that of any other North Walian town. Little
-gable ends look out and down upon the streets
-like curious eyes. The houses are irregular and
-there are odd turns and twistings of the streets;
-cobblestones and old flagstones and an occasional
-black-and-white house; and everywhere
-glimpses through castle gate or over castle wall.
-The exterior of the castle is still singularly perfect;
-only one part of it seems to be falling, that
-nearest the river and looking out upon the sea.
-Overlooking the town, upon the river, is Queen
-Eleanor’s oratory:&mdash;</p>
-
-<div class="poetry-container">
-<div class="poetry">
-<div class="stanza">
-<div class="verse">“In her oryall then she was</div>
-<div class="verse">Closyd well with royall glas:</div>
-<div class="verse">Fulfullyd it was with ymagery,</div>
-<div class="verse">Every windowe by and by,</div>
-<div class="verse">On each side had ther a gynne</div>
-<div class="verse">Sperde with manie a dyvers pynne.”</div>
-</div>
-</div>
-</div>
-
-<p class="noindent">It matters not now whether this was a place of
-prayer or place in which the Queen arrayed herself.
-Pennant, when he made his famous “Tour
-in Wales,” described Conway as castle of matchless
-magnificence, and a matchlessly magnificent
-Castle it still is.</p>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_170" id="Page_170">[170]</a></span></p>
-
-<p>It takes but a single effort of the imagination
-to see again the life within that ancient harp-shaped
-town as it must have been even so recently
-as seventy-five years ago: the varying
-colours of the peasants’ dresses, their large market-baskets
-and umbrellas, their bright handkerchiefs,
-the tall North Walian beaver hats and
-frilled caps peeping out beneath, the bright
-cheeks and even brighter pink cotton jackets
-worn by the girls. Healthy, well-made peasants
-those, neat of garb and gay of heart, good-looking,
-both men and women. Again the old market-place,
-beyond Plas Mawr and the church,
-rings with their laughter and their lively barter,
-and the clatter of their ponies’ hoofs; again the
-soft voices of the women are heard and the
-heavier voices of the men; again they mount
-their horses, sometimes double, and ride away
-out of the lively town to the silent hills beyond,
-through Gyffin, where the colours in the old barrel
-vault of the church must have been even
-brighter than they are now; perhaps they go as
-far as some hillside like that on which Llangelynin
-still keeps its gray sanctuary. Again down
-upon the old town settles a double silence. The
-day’s work is done; twilight has come, and over<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_171" id="Page_171">[171]</a></span>
-all reigns a stillness which is as that of a Welsh
-Sabbath.</p>
-
-<p>Through the Vale of Conway, past Trevriw
-and Llanrwst with its Gwyder Castle, past beautiful
-Bettws-y-Coed and Capel Curig, and on
-to the Pass of Llanberis, a walk of unrivalled
-beauty, there appears at last, as one travels down
-to Pen-y-Pass (the head of the pass), the single
-tower of the ruined castle of Dolbadarn. A
-Welsh triad says there are three primary requisites
-for poetry: an eye that can see nature, a
-heart that can feel nature, and a resolution that
-dares follow nature. No one can come down from
-this road over the towering summits of Snowdon
-to the little green valley in which Dolbadarn
-lies without, for the time, becoming a
-poet, even to the resolution that dares follow
-the spiritual counsels which come from sky and
-mountain and rushing stream and the very rocks
-that fill this valley. “Nature has here,” says
-Camden, “reared huge groups of mountains, as
-if she intended to bind the island fast to the
-bowels of the earth, and make a safe retreat for
-Britons in the time of war. For here are so
-many crags and rocks, so many wooded valleys,
-rendered impassable by so many lakes, that the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_172" id="Page_172">[172]</a></span>
-lightest troops, much less an army, could never
-find their way among them. These mountains
-may be truly called the British Alps; for, besides
-that they are the highest in the whole
-island, they are, like the Alps, bespread with
-broken crags on every side, all surrounding one
-which, towering in the centre, far above the
-rest, lifts its head so loftily, as if it meant not
-only to threaten, but to thrust it into the sky.”</p>
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;" id="illus15">
-<img src="images/i_220.jpg" width="600" height="425" alt="" />
-<p class="caption">THE SUMMIT OF SNOWDON</p>
-<p class="caption"><i>From an old print</i></p>
-</div>
-
-<p>The better one comes to know the castles of
-North Wales, the more is one impressed with
-the extraordinary ability shown in fortifying
-every access into the country. Dolbadarn itself
-is ancient; whether it dates from before or after
-the Roman Conquest is doubtful; it was with
-the thought of Llanberis Pass in mind that Tennyson
-wrote his “Golden Year”; it was there
-that he heard</p>
-
-<div class="poetry-container">
-<div class="poetry">
-<div class="stanza">
-<div class="verse indent4">“the great echo flap</div>
-<div class="verse">And buffet round the hill from bluff to bluff.”</div>
-</div>
-</div>
-</div>
-
-<p class="noindent">Here in this castle Owen Goch was imprisoned
-by his brother Llewelyn. To this prisoner a
-bard, Howel Voel ap Griffi ap Pwyll Gwyddel,
-composed his Welsh awdl, or ode, called “The
-Captive of Dolbadarn.” The feeling in this<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_173" id="Page_173">[173]</a></span>
-poem is still quick even after all the changes of
-the centuries and even with all the loss from
-translation:&mdash;</p>
-
-<div class="poetry-container">
-<div class="poetry">
-<div class="stanza">
-<div class="verse">“His palace gates no more unclose,</div>
-<div class="verse indent1">No harp is heard within his hall,</div>
-<div class="verse">His friends are vassals to his foes,</div>
-<div class="verse indent1">Grief and despair have vanquished all.</div>
-<div class="verse">He, the defender,&mdash;he, the good and just,&mdash;</div>
-<div class="verse">Is gone; his name, his honour, in the dust!</div>
-</div><div class="stanza">
-<div class="verse">“He prized but treasures to bestow,</div>
-<div class="verse indent1">He cherish’d state but to be free;</div>
-<div class="verse">None from his walls unsped might go,</div>
-<div class="verse indent1">To all he gave, but most to me!</div>
-</div><div class="stanza">
-<div class="verse">“Ruddy his cheeks as morning’s light,</div>
-<div class="verse indent1">His ready lance was firm and bright,</div>
-<div class="verse">The crimson stains that on it glow</div>
-<div class="verse indent1">Tell of the Saxon’s overthrow.</div>
-</div><div class="stanza">
-<div class="verse">“Shame, that a prince like this should lie</div>
-<div class="verse indent1">An outcast, in captivity.</div>
-<div class="verse">And oh! what years of ceaseless shame,</div>
-<div class="verse indent1">Should cloud the Lord of Snowdon’s name!”</div>
-</div>
-</div>
-</div>
-
-<p class="noindent">Professor O. M. Edwards, in his book called
-“Wales,” describes Dolbadarn as the last home
-of Welsh independence.</p>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_174" id="Page_174">[174]</a></span></p>
-
-<p>Hundreds of years before the sad, peace-loving
-life of Llewelyn had played its great part in
-Welsh history, in the valley that runs from the
-head of the pass along the low margin of beautiful
-Gwynant Lake, by a little river that talks
-gayly in all weathers but most gayly in the
-stormiest, past Llyn (lake) Dinas to Beddgelert,&mdash;in
-this valley is situated on Dinas Emrys
-some fragments and traces of one of the oldest
-and most important strongholds in Great Britain.
-This was the fort of Merlin who “called
-up spirits from the vasty deep.” There is melancholy
-and romantic interest to be found on the
-summit of Dinas Emrys, tracing what still remains.
-Something there is, perhaps enough for
-the archæologist to re-create all that has been
-lost. On this same road, some thirteen miles
-beyond, lies Carnarvon Castle, of whose history
-and beauty I have written in “The City of the
-Prince of Wales.”</p>
-
-<p>In the “Mabinogion” there are wild-wood
-touches showing aspects of the life the Cymru
-had lived. The redactor of the old story of Branwen
-says: “Then they went on to Harlech …
-and there came three birds and began singing
-unto them a certain song, and all the songs<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_175" id="Page_175">[175]</a></span>
-they had ever heard were unpleasant compared
-thereto; and the birds seemed to them to be at
-a great distance from them over the sea, yet they
-appeared as distinct as if they were close by.”
-And again, “In Harlech you will be feasting
-seven years, the birds of Rhiannon singing unto
-you the while.” Just as the “Dream of Maxen
-Wledig” is in a sense the story of Carnarvon
-Castle, so is this tale of Branwen, the “fair-bosomed,”
-full of pictures and suggestions of
-Harlech Castle, Bendigeid Vran (the blessed)
-sitting on a rock and looking out to sea,&mdash;across
-that enchanted bay, on the other side of
-which lies Criccieth Castle, while the King of
-Ireland, Matholwch, his ships flying pennants
-of satin, comes wooing the sister of Branwen. A
-strange story this which has come out of that
-old castle stronghold, its royal Irish lover, its
-good Bendigeid Vran, its beautiful Branwen,
-the tame starlings and the singing-birds of Rhiannon,
-and that cry of Branwen, “Alas, woe is
-me that I was ever born”; and after that cry,
-the heart that broke and was buried in the four-sided
-grave on the banks of the Alaw.</p>
-
-<p>Harlech Castle was probably originally built
-about the middle of the sixth century by a British<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_176" id="Page_176">[176]</a></span>
-prince. Edward I constructed the present
-castle on the ruins of the former one. It was
-finished in the thirteenth century and became
-the seat of many conflicts between Owen
-Glendwr and the English. Thither heroic Margaret
-of Anjou fled, following the battle of
-Northampton. It was the last of the castles to
-hold out for Charles. The whole life of this
-stronghold has been heroic, stupendous in size,
-gallant in its human figures, impressive in its
-human sorrows, indomitable in its human courage.
-Here, and in the other castles of North
-Wales, many of those strange prophecies of
-Taliessin have been fulfilled or in part fulfilled,
-something at least of</p>
-
-<div class="poetry-container">
-<div class="poetry">
-<div class="stanza">
-<div class="verse">“All the angels’ words</div>
-<div class="verse">As to peace and war.”</div>
-</div>
-</div>
-</div>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_177" id="Page_177">[177]</a></span></p>
-
-<p class="titlepage">THE END</p>
-
-<hr class="chap" />
-
-<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_178" id="Page_178">[178]</a></span></p>
-
-<p class="center larger"><i>Appendix</i></p>
-
-<hr class="chap" />
-
-<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_179" id="Page_179">[179]</a></span></p>
-
-<h2 id="APPENDIX">APPENDIX<br />
-<span class="smaller"><i>Suggestions for Some Tours</i><a name="FNanchor_2_2" id="FNanchor_2_2"></a><a href="#Footnote_2_2" class="fnanchor">[2]</a></span></h2>
-
-<p>At the junction of the Llugwy and Conway valleys,
-embowered in trees, cut by rushing streams, surrounded
-by mountains, among them Siabod, the Glyders,
-and some of the lesser hills of Snowdonia, is
-Bettws-y-Coed, one of the most beautiful and, be it
-said, the most comfortable villages in all North Wales.
-There are good inns, good lodgings, excellent train-service,
-coaches,&mdash;all that mankind in a holiday humour
-can desire. This little “chapel in the woods”
-is a place rich in beautiful legend, near the sea, in the
-midst of mountains, for the sportsman blessed with
-good fishing and good hunting. Artists go there, and
-where artists go, others can afford to follow. The
-Lledr Valley, which meets the Conway just outside
-of Bettws, Ruskin called the most beautiful valley in
-the world. At Bettws-y-Coed, I think, are as fine
-headquarters as any in North Wales for a series of
-tours. The Waterloo Hotel, the Royal Oak, the
-Gwydir are all good hotels, well run, sanitary, and
-with excellent food. In Bettws, too, there is a first-rate<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_180" id="Page_180">[180]</a></span>
-garage from which you can get good cars at any
-time.</p>
-
-<p>Repeated experience of life in North Wales in its
-most isolated, tiny hamlets, where the tourist had never
-been before and where it was impossible to secure
-lodging; experience in the small towns like Conway
-and Carnarvon, full of association, quiet and yet prosperous;
-and experience in the larger centres of Welsh
-life, have given me a perspective which is, perhaps,
-uncommon. The great advantage of Bettws is that
-you can not only get everywhere from that delightful
-place, but that you can also be most comfortable at a
-reasonable rate.</p>
-
-<p>If you are touring in an automobile you will find
-each one of the tours which I suggest food merely for
-a day of comfortable delight. If you are walking, or
-driving, these tours can be broken up and shortened
-or extended indefinitely.</p>
-
-<hr class="tb" />
-
-<p>For the <span class="smcap">First Day</span> go up the Vale of Conway,
-stopping at Trefriw. On your way to Trefriw, you
-will pass through Llanrwst, which, dear old market-town
-that it is, will for liveliness on a market-day
-suggest Piccadilly rather than a little Welsh town.
-There from miles around&mdash;and if you wish to see a
-Welsh market you cannot do better than to go to
-Llanrwst, for during centuries it has had a great reputation
-as a place of barter&mdash;there from miles around,
-the Welsh peasants gather, and there you will see<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_181" id="Page_181">[181]</a></span>
-Welsh household articles which you could not find in
-any shop. There is much in Llanrwst worth taking
-a glimpse at, the old bridge built by Inigo Jones
-which would be enough to send a well-regulated motor
-car to the madhouse, but from the artist point of view
-is still useful; the little cottage by the bridge, Gwydir
-Castle just beyond the cottage, not a tumble-down
-castle either, but resplendent with gorgeously carved
-furniture and Spanish-leather-covered walls and relics
-too many and too old to enumerate.</p>
-
-<p>But on to Trefriw and from Trefriw climb the
-hill on foot,&mdash;it is only a short hill,&mdash;to see Llanrhychwyn
-Church, a double-aisled church of the most
-primitive simplicity, where Prince Llewelyn used in
-tumultuous days to worship. One aisle is considerably
-older than the other, dating, as its architecture,
-the details of its rafters, the windows and doors show,
-perhaps back as far as the eighth century, surely the
-ninth. And now to Conway, stopping by the way at
-Caerhûn for just a glimpse of the old church there and
-a long enough time to realize that you are standing on
-the foundations of what was once the ancient Roman
-city of Canovium. Do not stay there so long that you
-will not have time to turn on a road just about a mile
-and a half outside of Conway that leads up the hill to
-Llangelynin Church, also one of the oldest foundations
-in all Great Britain, a poor, stricken, old place
-tended by a woman scarcely strong enough to creep
-around, apart from any village or any cottages, remote,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_182" id="Page_182">[182]</a></span>
-pathetic in its semi-decay, and containing still the old
-pulpit, some of the old glass, and a leper’s window
-through which lepers used in the Middle Ages to receive
-the sacrament and to listen to the services.</p>
-
-<p>And now you are almost within the harp-shaped
-castle walls of Conway itself&mdash;old Conway with its
-cobbled streets, its beautiful Plas Mawr, its ancient
-hostelries, its massive castle with the oratory of Queen
-Eleanor still looking out upon the sea, and&mdash;treasure
-not to be despised&mdash;near the castle the tiniest cottage
-in all Great Britain. There are good hotels in Conway
-where an excellent luncheon or dinner may be
-found, and if there is time for sight-seeing, perhaps
-the best thing to do would be to buy one of Abel
-Heywood’s penny guides, for in these penny guides is
-found a wealth of reliable information. Enough, this,
-for one day’s joy, and I have discovered for you what
-no guide-book would do&mdash;two, and perhaps three, of
-the sweetest old churches of primitive Wales.</p>
-
-<hr class="tb" />
-
-<p>Leaving Bettws-y-Coed on the <span class="smcap">Second Day</span>, you
-will go through Capel Curig, stopping on the way for
-a glimpse of the Swallow Falls. Now, down through
-the valley past Llyn Ogwen, from which you can
-visit, if you wish, the Devil’s Kitchen or Twll Ddu,
-the “black hole,” as the Welsh call it, where, every
-year, foolish young collegians lose their lives in scaling
-the walls. In its lack of verdure, in its stupendous
-rocky mountain summits, in its gigantic boulders of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_183" id="Page_183">[183]</a></span>
-stone thrown hither and yon, this valley is a veritable
-valley of the shadow of death, gray, desolate, rock-strewn.
-You will pass through Bethesda on your way
-to Bangor, seeing, as you go along, hillsides covered
-with rubbish from slate quarries. And now to Bangor,
-where Dr. Samuel Johnson over one hundred years
-ago found the inn, together with a great deal else in
-Wales, “very mean.” Although the good Doctor was
-tremendously interested in his food, despite the very
-meanness of the inns, he found Bangor, its Beaumaris
-Castle, and its cathedral, interesting. But they have
-changed the “meanness” of their inns now, for this
-Welsh town has become a university town and you
-will find good food and good inns.</p>
-
-<p>Only a few miles beyond is Carnarvon,&mdash;that old
-town which North Walians claim as the most interesting
-of all their towns,&mdash;and Carnarvon Castle, in
-the words of Pennant, “the most magnificent badge of
-our subjection to the English.” There in Carnarvon
-the investitures of the Princes of Wales have taken
-place. Carnarvon Castle is, with the exception of
-Alnwick, the finest of all Great Britain and possessed
-of the romantic grace&mdash;its casements looking out upon
-the sea and the dim romantic shores of Anglesey and
-its towers back upon the rocky sides of Snowdon&mdash;of
-any European castle. Within the walls of this
-castle, begun by Edward I and completed by his son,
-the first English Prince of Wales, and within the walls
-of the town,&mdash;for Carnarvon is a city of the early<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_184" id="Page_184">[184]</a></span>
-Middle Ages founded upon the ancient city of the
-Romans called Segontium,&mdash;many hours, even days,
-might be spent.</p>
-
-<p>Homewards now to Bettws through Llanberis, up
-the long, beautifully graded road to Pen-y-Pass (which
-means simply the head of the pass), where you will
-find an inn for mountaineers in whose attractive dining-room
-you can have delicious tea and a view unrivalled
-in all North Wales. From Pen-y-Pass one of the easiest
-ascents of Snowdon can be made, and, with Bettws as
-a centre, it would be a very simple thing to run down
-to Pen-y-Pass for an ascent. You are within a few
-miles of Bettws now and will reach there in time for
-supper or dinner at seven o’clock.</p>
-
-<hr class="tb" />
-
-<p>On the <span class="smcap">Third Day</span> go through Capel Curig again,
-turning at Pen-y-Gwryd,&mdash;where Charles Kingsley,
-the novelist, and Tom Hood spent so many happy
-days and where there is an excellent inn,&mdash;to go to
-Beddgelert. You will run down one of the most beautiful
-roads in Great Britain, wide, smooth, with all Snowdonia
-at your right-hand side, and on the left, mountains
-that roll away towards the jagged summit of
-Cynicht; down past beautiful Lake Gwynant; past
-beautiful country places; past Dinas Lake where a
-remarkable creature of mythological times is supposed
-to have lived&mdash;fairy tale seems to have made a sort of
-crocodile out of what was probably a beaver;&mdash;past
-Dinas Emrys, on which there are still remains of a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_185" id="Page_185">[185]</a></span>
-Roman stronghold and where the magician Merlin
-Ambrosius worked many a spell and Arthur has often
-been; still on, past Aran, a mountain only less high
-than Snowdon, from whose side leaps a little waterfall;
-along a road with a turbulent Welsh river on one
-side and fawn-like, mottled beach trees on the other;
-now on to the outskirts of the village, where one begins
-to see signboards announcing lodgings, and finally,
-into the village of Beddgelert, set sheltered and surrounded
-in its cup of mountains, and where, if you
-have a heart for legend, you may see a dog’s grave
-and believe the beautiful old tale; and where, if you
-have an eye for beauty, you may have your eyes filled&mdash;eat
-your cake, indeed, and take some of it away
-with you;&mdash;and where, if you have a mind to rest,
-you may stay on indefinitely, finding each day more
-peaceful and more lovely than the last in that little
-mountain-cupped village, with the sound of its running
-rivers and its tumbling mountain streams and the day-long
-cawing of its rooks. If you want a welcome from
-some one who loves Americans and who will do all
-that she can for them, you could not do better than
-go to Mrs. Howell Griffith Powell, who will give you
-excellent simple food and, if it is a cold day or you
-happen merely to want it as an added pleasure, an
-open fire. There are good hotels there, too, the Royal
-Goat Hotel and the Prince Llewelyn.</p>
-
-<p>Then in the afternoon you will go on down through
-Aberglaslyn Pass. Perhaps you will stand on the old<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_186" id="Page_186">[186]</a></span>
-bridge for a few minutes and read or listen to the story
-of how the Devil&mdash;always a singularly active figure in
-Wales and the Welsh imagination&mdash;tried to get an
-unjust toll for the building of that bridge and was outwitted.
-The Welsh mind&mdash;and the revival is a point
-in proof&mdash;takes a singular delight in outwitting the
-Devil. Now, on to Tremadoc, where on the right-hand
-side of the road you will see the house in which
-Shelley, the poet, lived for a year with poor unhappy
-Harriet. From Portmadoc you can take a short détour
-to Harlech and its castle, a tremendous old pile of a
-fortress, scarcely beautiful, but very impressive as it
-stands upon its vast rock looking out over the sea and
-the mountains, and down over the little cottages sheltered
-at its foot. As you look across the sea, you are
-gazing upon the land where King Mark is supposed
-to have had his palace and upon Criccieth, where you
-may still see an old stub of a castle. Perhaps you will
-be even more interested to know that Lloyd George
-has his summer home in Criccieth, and that not far
-from Harlech, Bernard Shaw has spent a good deal of
-his time preparing his next delightfully wicked laugh
-at the expense of himself and mankind. Just opposite
-Harlech Castle is a good inn where one can get an
-ample dinner or luncheon or tea; and a car or one’s
-walking-traps may be left.</p>
-
-<p>Retracing a few miles from Harlech, follow the
-road through the beautiful Vale of Maentwrog. It was
-in the Vale of Maentwrog that Lord Lyttleton said,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_187" id="Page_187">[187]</a></span>
-“One might with the woman one loves pass an age
-in this vale and think it but a day.” Up through this
-wonderful vale you will see a tiny narrow-gauge railway
-making its way. Sharp is the contrast between
-the country at Festiniog, from which one looks down
-upon the Vale of Maentwrog, and the country about
-Blaenau Festiniog, which is the next town beyond.
-Blaenau Festiniog&mdash;high up on the mountain side,
-with the peaks of gray rock summits towering high
-above the village and rocks everywhere coming down
-to the backs of the houses, miles of slate rubbish within
-sight of every street in the village&mdash;has for its proud
-boast the fact that it contains the largest slate quarries
-in the world. Here are quarried the beautiful
-blue slates of which Wales is proud, and which, alas,
-the cheaper French slates have been driving out of
-the market. It is well worth the trouble to climb the
-quarry steps up the Oakeley Quarry. Then on through
-the Lledr Valley, with every turn of the road near the
-Lledr River, through plantations of pines, past little
-houses, down this beautifully graded road until the
-Lledr River joins the Conway, past the Fairy Glen,
-and so home once more to Bettws.</p>
-
-<hr class="tb" />
-
-<p>A <span class="smcap">Fourth Day</span> should be spent in a more fertile
-part of the country following the Cerrig-y-Druidion
-road through to Corwen. A few miles farther on,
-along the river Dee, one comes to Llangollen, a sweet
-old town, where lived those two dear, high-spirited,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_188" id="Page_188">[188]</a></span>
-quaint old ladies of Llangollen; where there are excellent
-inns in a fertile valley, good shops, a town
-Welsh to its finger tips, and an old abbey called Valle
-Crucis. One hears so much of Tintern Abbey on its
-southern English river, yet there is something about
-Valle Crucis which I think is no less lovely. More of
-a ruin it is, and in some ways more of a treasure. On
-the whole, it has fallen into greater dilapidation, but
-there are parts of it from which one can read much
-of a life that is past. There is a charming old chapter
-house almost intact; a delightful old fishpond from
-which the monks, who had an eye for what was good
-to eat, took their carp; and there are such graceful
-Norman chimneys and fireplaces as I do not remember
-having seen any place else; and there, too, the old
-blind rector shows one the things which he cannot
-see any more, saying over and over as he guides one
-around, “I never destroy anything that is old.” The
-restoration of this abbey is his work, his life, and before
-his sight went he had put into print such records
-of its past life that he had identified himself with its
-history for all time to come. Americans he loves, too,
-and you will give as well as get pleasure.</p>
-
-<hr class="tb" />
-
-<p>In conclusion, a few general suggestions. You
-would find it amply worth your while to motor over
-to Bala, or, if you are not motoring, to take the train
-over there. The lake is beautiful, accommodations
-are good, and one can, from Bala as a centre, make<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_189" id="Page_189">[189]</a></span>
-several short and most interesting trips:&mdash;one to
-Dolgelly, where Tennyson spent so many of his vacations;
-another up to the quaint little town of Ruthin
-in which Dr. Johnson and Mrs. Piozzi (Mrs. Thrale)
-spent some little time and of which Mrs. Piozzi tells
-the charming story which I have repeated elsewhere.
-She was discussing with the caretaker of one of the
-little churches in the possession of the Thrale family
-her plans for her journey and mentioned that she was
-going to Ruthin. “Ruthin, mum,” he said, “my wife
-came from Ruthin, and when she died I made up my
-mind I’d go with the body to Ruthin, for I thought
-I would find it a pleasant journey, and indeed, mum,
-I found it a very pleasant journey.”</p>
-
-<div class="footnotes">
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p><a name="Footnote_2_2" id="Footnote_2_2"></a><a href="#FNanchor_2_2"><span class="label">[2]</span></a> Buy anywhere you happen to be in Wales, <cite>The Gossiping
-Guide to Wales</cite>; its maps, big and small, and its text
-answer all questions. Price, one shilling.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-</div>
-
-<p class="titlepage">The Riverside Press<br />
-CAMBRIDGE . MASSACHUSETTS<br />
-U . S . A</p>
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-<pre>
-
-
-
-
-
-End of Project Gutenberg's Gallant Little Wales, by Jeannette Augustus Marks
-
-*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK GALLANT LITTLE WALES ***
-
-***** This file should be named 53248-h.htm or 53248-h.zip *****
-This and all associated files of various formats will be found in:
-        http://www.gutenberg.org/5/3/2/4/53248/
-
-Produced by MWS and the Online Distributed Proofreading
-Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from
-images generously made available by The Internet
-Archive/American Libraries.)
-
-
-Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will
-be renamed.
-
-Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright
-law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works,
-so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United
-States without permission and without paying copyright
-royalties. Special rules, set forth in the General Terms of Use part
-of this license, apply to copying and distributing Project
-Gutenberg-tm electronic works to protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm
-concept and trademark. Project Gutenberg is a registered trademark,
-and may not be used if you charge for the eBooks, unless you receive
-specific permission. If you do not charge anything for copies of this
-eBook, complying with the rules is very easy. You may use this eBook
-for nearly any purpose such as creation of derivative works, reports,
-performances and research. They may be modified and printed and given
-away--you may do practically ANYTHING in the United States with eBooks
-not protected by U.S. copyright law. Redistribution is subject to the
-trademark license, especially commercial redistribution.
-
-START: FULL LICENSE
-
-THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE
-PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK
-
-To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free
-distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work
-(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase "Project
-Gutenberg"), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full
-Project Gutenberg-tm License available with this file or online at
-www.gutenberg.org/license.
-
-Section 1. General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project
-Gutenberg-tm electronic works
-
-1.A. By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm
-electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to
-and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property
-(trademark/copyright) agreement. If you do not agree to abide by all
-the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or
-destroy all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your
-possession. If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a
-Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound
-by the terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the
-person or entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph
-1.E.8.
-
-1.B. "Project Gutenberg" is a registered trademark. It may only be
-used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who
-agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement. There are a few
-things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works
-even without complying with the full terms of this agreement. See
-paragraph 1.C below. There are a lot of things you can do with Project
-Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this
-agreement and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm
-electronic works. See paragraph 1.E below.
-
-1.C. The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation ("the
-Foundation" or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection
-of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works. Nearly all the individual
-works in the collection are in the public domain in the United
-States. If an individual work is unprotected by copyright law in the
-United States and you are located in the United States, we do not
-claim a right to prevent you from copying, distributing, performing,
-displaying or creating derivative works based on the work as long as
-all references to Project Gutenberg are removed. Of course, we hope
-that you will support the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting
-free access to electronic works by freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm
-works in compliance with the terms of this agreement for keeping the
-Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with the work. You can easily
-comply with the terms of this agreement by keeping this work in the
-same format with its attached full Project Gutenberg-tm License when
-you share it without charge with others.
-
-1.D. The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern
-what you can do with this work. Copyright laws in most countries are
-in a constant state of change. If you are outside the United States,
-check the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this
-agreement before downloading, copying, displaying, performing,
-distributing or creating derivative works based on this work or any
-other Project Gutenberg-tm work. The Foundation makes no
-representations concerning the copyright status of any work in any
-country outside the United States.
-
-1.E. Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg:
-
-1.E.1. The following sentence, with active links to, or other
-immediate access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear
-prominently whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work
-on which the phrase "Project Gutenberg" appears, or with which the
-phrase "Project Gutenberg" is associated) is accessed, displayed,
-performed, viewed, copied or distributed:
-
-  This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and
-  most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no
-  restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it
-  under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this
-  eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the
-  United States, you'll have to check the laws of the country where you
-  are located before using this ebook.
-
-1.E.2. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is
-derived from texts not protected by U.S. copyright law (does not
-contain a notice indicating that it is posted with permission of the
-copyright holder), the work can be copied and distributed to anyone in
-the United States without paying any fees or charges. If you are
-redistributing or providing access to a work with the phrase "Project
-Gutenberg" associated with or appearing on the work, you must comply
-either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 or
-obtain permission for the use of the work and the Project Gutenberg-tm
-trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or 1.E.9.
-
-1.E.3. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted
-with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution
-must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any
-additional terms imposed by the copyright holder. Additional terms
-will be linked to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works
-posted with the permission of the copyright holder found at the
-beginning of this work.
-
-1.E.4. Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm
-License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this
-work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm.
-
-1.E.5. Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this
-electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without
-prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with
-active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project
-Gutenberg-tm License.
-
-1.E.6. You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary,
-compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including
-any word processing or hypertext form. However, if you provide access
-to or distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format
-other than "Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other format used in the official
-version posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm web site
-(www.gutenberg.org), you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense
-to the user, provide a copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means
-of obtaining a copy upon request, of the work in its original "Plain
-Vanilla ASCII" or other form. Any alternate format must include the
-full Project Gutenberg-tm License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1.
-
-1.E.7. Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying,
-performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works
-unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9.
-
-1.E.8. You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing
-access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works
-provided that
-
-* You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from
-  the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method
-  you already use to calculate your applicable taxes. The fee is owed
-  to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he has
-  agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the Project
-  Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation. Royalty payments must be paid
-  within 60 days following each date on which you prepare (or are
-  legally required to prepare) your periodic tax returns. Royalty
-  payments should be clearly marked as such and sent to the Project
-  Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the address specified in
-  Section 4, "Information about donations to the Project Gutenberg
-  Literary Archive Foundation."
-
-* You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies
-  you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he
-  does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm
-  License. You must require such a user to return or destroy all
-  copies of the works possessed in a physical medium and discontinue
-  all use of and all access to other copies of Project Gutenberg-tm
-  works.
-
-* You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of
-  any money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the
-  electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days of
-  receipt of the work.
-
-* You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free
-  distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works.
-
-1.E.9. If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project
-Gutenberg-tm electronic work or group of works on different terms than
-are set forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing
-from both the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and The
-Project Gutenberg Trademark LLC, the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm
-trademark. Contact the Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below.
-
-1.F.
-
-1.F.1. Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable
-effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread
-works not protected by U.S. copyright law in creating the Project
-Gutenberg-tm collection. Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm
-electronic works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may
-contain "Defects," such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate
-or corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other
-intellectual property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or
-other medium, a computer virus, or computer codes that damage or
-cannot be read by your equipment.
-
-1.F.2. LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the "Right
-of Replacement or Refund" described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project
-Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project
-Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project
-Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all
-liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal
-fees. YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT
-LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE
-PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH 1.F.3. YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE
-TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE
-LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR
-INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH
-DAMAGE.
-
-1.F.3. LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a
-defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can
-receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a
-written explanation to the person you received the work from. If you
-received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium
-with your written explanation. The person or entity that provided you
-with the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in
-lieu of a refund. If you received the work electronically, the person
-or entity providing it to you may choose to give you a second
-opportunity to receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund. If
-the second copy is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing
-without further opportunities to fix the problem.
-
-1.F.4. Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth
-in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you 'AS-IS', WITH NO
-OTHER WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT
-LIMITED TO WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE.
-
-1.F.5. Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied
-warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of
-damages. If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement
-violates the law of the state applicable to this agreement, the
-agreement shall be interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or
-limitation permitted by the applicable state law. The invalidity or
-unenforceability of any provision of this agreement shall not void the
-remaining provisions.
-
-1.F.6. INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the
-trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone
-providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in
-accordance with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the
-production, promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm
-electronic works, harmless from all liability, costs and expenses,
-including legal fees, that arise directly or indirectly from any of
-the following which you do or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this
-or any Project Gutenberg-tm work, (b) alteration, modification, or
-additions or deletions to any Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any
-Defect you cause.
-
-Section 2. Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm
-
-Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of
-electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of
-computers including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers. It
-exists because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations
-from people in all walks of life.
-
-Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the
-assistance they need are critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm's
-goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will
-remain freely available for generations to come. In 2001, the Project
-Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure
-and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future
-generations. To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary
-Archive Foundation and how your efforts and donations can help, see
-Sections 3 and 4 and the Foundation information page at
-www.gutenberg.org Section 3. Information about the Project Gutenberg
-Literary Archive Foundation
-
-The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non profit
-501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the
-state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal
-Revenue Service. The Foundation's EIN or federal tax identification
-number is 64-6221541. Contributions to the Project Gutenberg Literary
-Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent permitted by
-U.S. federal laws and your state's laws.
-
-The Foundation's principal office is in Fairbanks, Alaska, with the
-mailing address: PO Box 750175, Fairbanks, AK 99775, but its
-volunteers and employees are scattered throughout numerous
-locations. Its business office is located at 809 North 1500 West, Salt
-Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887. Email contact links and up to
-date contact information can be found at the Foundation's web site and
-official page at www.gutenberg.org/contact
-
-For additional contact information:
-
-    Dr. Gregory B. Newby
-    Chief Executive and Director
-    gbnewby@pglaf.org
-
-Section 4. Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg
-Literary Archive Foundation
-
-Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without wide
-spread public support and donations to carry out its mission of
-increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be
-freely distributed in machine readable form accessible by the widest
-array of equipment including outdated equipment. Many small donations
-($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt
-status with the IRS.
-
-The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating
-charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United
-States. Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a
-considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up
-with these requirements. We do not solicit donations in locations
-where we have not received written confirmation of compliance. To SEND
-DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any particular
-state visit www.gutenberg.org/donate
-
-While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we
-have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition
-against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who
-approach us with offers to donate.
-
-International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make
-any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from
-outside the United States. U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff.
-
-Please check the Project Gutenberg Web pages for current donation
-methods and addresses. Donations are accepted in a number of other
-ways including checks, online payments and credit card donations. To
-donate, please visit: www.gutenberg.org/donate
-
-Section 5. General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works.
-
-Professor Michael S. Hart was the originator of the Project
-Gutenberg-tm concept of a library of electronic works that could be
-freely shared with anyone. For forty years, he produced and
-distributed Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of
-volunteer support.
-
-Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed
-editions, all of which are confirmed as not protected by copyright in
-the U.S. unless a copyright notice is included. Thus, we do not
-necessarily keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper
-edition.
-
-Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search
-facility: www.gutenberg.org
-
-This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm,
-including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary
-Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to
-subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks.
-
-
-
-</pre>
-
-</body>
-</html>
diff --git a/old/53248-h/images/cover.jpg b/old/53248-h/images/cover.jpg
deleted file mode 100644
index fb658ea..0000000
--- a/old/53248-h/images/cover.jpg
+++ /dev/null
diff --git a/old/53248-h/images/frontispiece.jpg b/old/53248-h/images/frontispiece.jpg
deleted file mode 100644
index 4c2c3cb..0000000
--- a/old/53248-h/images/frontispiece.jpg
+++ /dev/null
diff --git a/old/53248-h/images/i_004.jpg b/old/53248-h/images/i_004.jpg
deleted file mode 100644
index 747f91f..0000000
--- a/old/53248-h/images/i_004.jpg
+++ /dev/null
diff --git a/old/53248-h/images/i_005.jpg b/old/53248-h/images/i_005.jpg
deleted file mode 100644
index e893e80..0000000
--- a/old/53248-h/images/i_005.jpg
+++ /dev/null
diff --git a/old/53248-h/images/i_007.jpg b/old/53248-h/images/i_007.jpg
deleted file mode 100644
index 099ae55..0000000
--- a/old/53248-h/images/i_007.jpg
+++ /dev/null
diff --git a/old/53248-h/images/i_030.jpg b/old/53248-h/images/i_030.jpg
deleted file mode 100644
index 40efc6b..0000000
--- a/old/53248-h/images/i_030.jpg
+++ /dev/null
diff --git a/old/53248-h/images/i_046.jpg b/old/53248-h/images/i_046.jpg
deleted file mode 100644
index cb01612..0000000
--- a/old/53248-h/images/i_046.jpg
+++ /dev/null
diff --git a/old/53248-h/images/i_056.jpg b/old/53248-h/images/i_056.jpg
deleted file mode 100644
index 4ebfb55..0000000
--- a/old/53248-h/images/i_056.jpg
+++ /dev/null
diff --git a/old/53248-h/images/i_066.jpg b/old/53248-h/images/i_066.jpg
deleted file mode 100644
index 3d751bf..0000000
--- a/old/53248-h/images/i_066.jpg
+++ /dev/null
diff --git a/old/53248-h/images/i_080.jpg b/old/53248-h/images/i_080.jpg
deleted file mode 100644
index ad515de..0000000
--- a/old/53248-h/images/i_080.jpg
+++ /dev/null
diff --git a/old/53248-h/images/i_096.jpg b/old/53248-h/images/i_096.jpg
deleted file mode 100644
index 5f09063..0000000
--- a/old/53248-h/images/i_096.jpg
+++ /dev/null
diff --git a/old/53248-h/images/i_112.jpg b/old/53248-h/images/i_112.jpg
deleted file mode 100644
index 2948800..0000000
--- a/old/53248-h/images/i_112.jpg
+++ /dev/null
diff --git a/old/53248-h/images/i_126.jpg b/old/53248-h/images/i_126.jpg
deleted file mode 100644
index 4df4db7..0000000
--- a/old/53248-h/images/i_126.jpg
+++ /dev/null
diff --git a/old/53248-h/images/i_136.jpg b/old/53248-h/images/i_136.jpg
deleted file mode 100644
index 526a358..0000000
--- a/old/53248-h/images/i_136.jpg
+++ /dev/null
diff --git a/old/53248-h/images/i_150.jpg b/old/53248-h/images/i_150.jpg
deleted file mode 100644
index d2d8700..0000000
--- a/old/53248-h/images/i_150.jpg
+++ /dev/null
diff --git a/old/53248-h/images/i_164.jpg b/old/53248-h/images/i_164.jpg
deleted file mode 100644
index b84b634..0000000
--- a/old/53248-h/images/i_164.jpg
+++ /dev/null
diff --git a/old/53248-h/images/i_182.jpg b/old/53248-h/images/i_182.jpg
deleted file mode 100644
index 5bda82b..0000000
--- a/old/53248-h/images/i_182.jpg
+++ /dev/null
diff --git a/old/53248-h/images/i_192.jpg b/old/53248-h/images/i_192.jpg
deleted file mode 100644
index 308c306..0000000
--- a/old/53248-h/images/i_192.jpg
+++ /dev/null
diff --git a/old/53248-h/images/i_206.jpg b/old/53248-h/images/i_206.jpg
deleted file mode 100644
index aad8856..0000000
--- a/old/53248-h/images/i_206.jpg
+++ /dev/null
diff --git a/old/53248-h/images/i_220.jpg b/old/53248-h/images/i_220.jpg
deleted file mode 100644
index a9de436..0000000
--- a/old/53248-h/images/i_220.jpg
+++ /dev/null
diff --git a/old/53248-h/images/i_p001.jpg b/old/53248-h/images/i_p001.jpg
deleted file mode 100644
index 6206057..0000000
--- a/old/53248-h/images/i_p001.jpg
+++ /dev/null
diff --git a/old/53248-h/images/i_p007.jpg b/old/53248-h/images/i_p007.jpg
deleted file mode 100644
index 8eca0c6..0000000
--- a/old/53248-h/images/i_p007.jpg
+++ /dev/null
diff --git a/old/53248-h/images/i_p027.jpg b/old/53248-h/images/i_p027.jpg
deleted file mode 100644
index 13b25a8..0000000
--- a/old/53248-h/images/i_p027.jpg
+++ /dev/null
diff --git a/old/53248-h/images/i_p035.jpg b/old/53248-h/images/i_p035.jpg
deleted file mode 100644
index eb8bbff..0000000
--- a/old/53248-h/images/i_p035.jpg
+++ /dev/null
diff --git a/old/53248-h/images/i_p045a.jpg b/old/53248-h/images/i_p045a.jpg
deleted file mode 100644
index 250b84a..0000000
--- a/old/53248-h/images/i_p045a.jpg
+++ /dev/null
diff --git a/old/53248-h/images/i_p051.jpg b/old/53248-h/images/i_p051.jpg
deleted file mode 100644
index 627e654..0000000
--- a/old/53248-h/images/i_p051.jpg
+++ /dev/null
diff --git a/old/53248-h/images/i_p055.jpg b/old/53248-h/images/i_p055.jpg
deleted file mode 100644
index 464e475..0000000
--- a/old/53248-h/images/i_p055.jpg
+++ /dev/null
diff --git a/old/53248-h/images/i_p069.jpg b/old/53248-h/images/i_p069.jpg
deleted file mode 100644
index 2428c1c..0000000
--- a/old/53248-h/images/i_p069.jpg
+++ /dev/null
diff --git a/old/53248-h/images/i_p070.jpg b/old/53248-h/images/i_p070.jpg
deleted file mode 100644
index fa1df18..0000000
--- a/old/53248-h/images/i_p070.jpg
+++ /dev/null
diff --git a/old/53248-h/images/i_p079.jpg b/old/53248-h/images/i_p079.jpg
deleted file mode 100644
index 1c490b8..0000000
--- a/old/53248-h/images/i_p079.jpg
+++ /dev/null
diff --git a/old/53248-h/images/i_p093.jpg b/old/53248-h/images/i_p093.jpg
deleted file mode 100644
index eff254f..0000000
--- a/old/53248-h/images/i_p093.jpg
+++ /dev/null
diff --git a/old/53248-h/images/i_p107.jpg b/old/53248-h/images/i_p107.jpg
deleted file mode 100644
index 77908b9..0000000
--- a/old/53248-h/images/i_p107.jpg
+++ /dev/null
diff --git a/old/53248-h/images/i_p108.jpg b/old/53248-h/images/i_p108.jpg
deleted file mode 100644
index 376ece3..0000000
--- a/old/53248-h/images/i_p108.jpg
+++ /dev/null
diff --git a/old/53248-h/images/i_p111.jpg b/old/53248-h/images/i_p111.jpg
deleted file mode 100644
index c5df874..0000000
--- a/old/53248-h/images/i_p111.jpg
+++ /dev/null
diff --git a/old/53248-h/images/i_p119.jpg b/old/53248-h/images/i_p119.jpg
deleted file mode 100644
index 26dc815..0000000
--- a/old/53248-h/images/i_p119.jpg
+++ /dev/null
diff --git a/old/53248-h/images/i_p130.jpg b/old/53248-h/images/i_p130.jpg
deleted file mode 100644
index 60df3fe..0000000
--- a/old/53248-h/images/i_p130.jpg
+++ /dev/null
diff --git a/old/53248-h/images/i_p138.jpg b/old/53248-h/images/i_p138.jpg
deleted file mode 100644
index 231cd55..0000000
--- a/old/53248-h/images/i_p138.jpg
+++ /dev/null
diff --git a/old/53248-h/images/i_p143.jpg b/old/53248-h/images/i_p143.jpg
deleted file mode 100644
index 43126f3..0000000
--- a/old/53248-h/images/i_p143.jpg
+++ /dev/null
diff --git a/old/53248-h/images/i_p151.jpg b/old/53248-h/images/i_p151.jpg
deleted file mode 100644
index 2d5ce39..0000000
--- a/old/53248-h/images/i_p151.jpg
+++ /dev/null
diff --git a/old/53248-h/images/i_p155.jpg b/old/53248-h/images/i_p155.jpg
deleted file mode 100644
index db7ac7c..0000000
--- a/old/53248-h/images/i_p155.jpg
+++ /dev/null
diff --git a/old/53248-h/images/i_p164.jpg b/old/53248-h/images/i_p164.jpg
deleted file mode 100644
index a30de1c..0000000
--- a/old/53248-h/images/i_p164.jpg
+++ /dev/null
diff --git a/old/53248-h/images/i_p167.jpg b/old/53248-h/images/i_p167.jpg
deleted file mode 100644
index 19cd560..0000000
--- a/old/53248-h/images/i_p167.jpg
+++ /dev/null
diff --git a/old/53248-h/images/i_p172.jpg b/old/53248-h/images/i_p172.jpg
deleted file mode 100644
index 2ff67e9..0000000
--- a/old/53248-h/images/i_p172.jpg
+++ /dev/null
diff --git a/old/53248-h/images/i_p173.jpg b/old/53248-h/images/i_p173.jpg
deleted file mode 100644
index 17da6af..0000000
--- a/old/53248-h/images/i_p173.jpg
+++ /dev/null
diff --git a/old/53248-h/images/i_p174.jpg b/old/53248-h/images/i_p174.jpg
deleted file mode 100644
index d41b8d6..0000000
--- a/old/53248-h/images/i_p174.jpg
+++ /dev/null
diff --git a/old/53248-h/images/i_p179.jpg b/old/53248-h/images/i_p179.jpg
deleted file mode 100644
index b09555a..0000000
--- a/old/53248-h/images/i_p179.jpg
+++ /dev/null
diff --git a/old/53248-h/images/i_p181.jpg b/old/53248-h/images/i_p181.jpg
deleted file mode 100644
index 654ca8f..0000000
--- a/old/53248-h/images/i_p181.jpg
+++ /dev/null
diff --git a/old/53248-h/images/i_p182.jpg b/old/53248-h/images/i_p182.jpg
deleted file mode 100644
index 8afcc80..0000000
--- a/old/53248-h/images/i_p182.jpg
+++ /dev/null
diff --git a/old/53248-h/images/i_p183.jpg b/old/53248-h/images/i_p183.jpg
deleted file mode 100644
index 2619df9..0000000
--- a/old/53248-h/images/i_p183.jpg
+++ /dev/null
diff --git a/old/53248-h/images/i_p185.jpg b/old/53248-h/images/i_p185.jpg
deleted file mode 100644
index fa92907..0000000
--- a/old/53248-h/images/i_p185.jpg
+++ /dev/null
diff --git a/old/53248-h/images/i_p189.jpg b/old/53248-h/images/i_p189.jpg
deleted file mode 100644
index f72a0c5..0000000
--- a/old/53248-h/images/i_p189.jpg
+++ /dev/null
diff --git a/old/53248-h/images/i_p193.jpg b/old/53248-h/images/i_p193.jpg
deleted file mode 100644
index b3f082f..0000000
--- a/old/53248-h/images/i_p193.jpg
+++ /dev/null
diff --git a/old/53248-h/images/i_p198.jpg b/old/53248-h/images/i_p198.jpg
deleted file mode 100644
index 4574b33..0000000
--- a/old/53248-h/images/i_p198.jpg
+++ /dev/null
diff --git a/old/53248-h/images/i_p200.jpg b/old/53248-h/images/i_p200.jpg
deleted file mode 100644
index e7e7a69..0000000
--- a/old/53248-h/images/i_p200.jpg
+++ /dev/null
diff --git a/old/53248-h/images/i_p202.jpg b/old/53248-h/images/i_p202.jpg
deleted file mode 100644
index 6df6575..0000000
--- a/old/53248-h/images/i_p202.jpg
+++ /dev/null
diff --git a/old/53248-h/images/i_p207.jpg b/old/53248-h/images/i_p207.jpg
deleted file mode 100644
index 8855467..0000000
--- a/old/53248-h/images/i_p207.jpg
+++ /dev/null
diff --git a/old/53248-h/images/i_p211.jpg b/old/53248-h/images/i_p211.jpg
deleted file mode 100644
index ec4c40b..0000000
--- a/old/53248-h/images/i_p211.jpg
+++ /dev/null
diff --git a/old/53248-h/images/i_p219.jpg b/old/53248-h/images/i_p219.jpg
deleted file mode 100644
index 444ec3d..0000000
--- a/old/53248-h/images/i_p219.jpg
+++ /dev/null
diff --git a/old/53248-h/images/i_p227.jpg b/old/53248-h/images/i_p227.jpg
deleted file mode 100644
index 88b1dd4..0000000
--- a/old/53248-h/images/i_p227.jpg
+++ /dev/null
diff --git a/old/53248-h/images/i_p233.jpg b/old/53248-h/images/i_p233.jpg
deleted file mode 100644
index 6f3ed17..0000000
--- a/old/53248-h/images/i_p233.jpg
+++ /dev/null
diff --git a/old/53248-h/images/i_p241.jpg b/old/53248-h/images/i_p241.jpg
deleted file mode 100644
index d643f55..0000000
--- a/old/53248-h/images/i_p241.jpg
+++ /dev/null
diff --git a/old/53248-h/images/i_p251.jpg b/old/53248-h/images/i_p251.jpg
deleted file mode 100644
index 5cc7809..0000000
--- a/old/53248-h/images/i_p251.jpg
+++ /dev/null
diff --git a/old/53248-h/images/i_p259.jpg b/old/53248-h/images/i_p259.jpg
deleted file mode 100644
index 7e08d49..0000000
--- a/old/53248-h/images/i_p259.jpg
+++ /dev/null
diff --git a/old/53248-h/images/i_p263.jpg b/old/53248-h/images/i_p263.jpg
deleted file mode 100644
index 0a9839c..0000000
--- a/old/53248-h/images/i_p263.jpg
+++ /dev/null
diff --git a/old/53248-h/images/i_p275.jpg b/old/53248-h/images/i_p275.jpg
deleted file mode 100644
index 102a73f..0000000
--- a/old/53248-h/images/i_p275.jpg
+++ /dev/null
diff --git a/old/53248-h/images/i_p277.jpg b/old/53248-h/images/i_p277.jpg
deleted file mode 100644
index 7d6d0d7..0000000
--- a/old/53248-h/images/i_p277.jpg
+++ /dev/null
diff --git a/old/53248-h/images/i_p279.jpg b/old/53248-h/images/i_p279.jpg
deleted file mode 100644
index 5c491ff..0000000
--- a/old/53248-h/images/i_p279.jpg
+++ /dev/null
diff --git a/old/53248-h/images/i_p284.jpg b/old/53248-h/images/i_p284.jpg
deleted file mode 100644
index cd2497a..0000000
--- a/old/53248-h/images/i_p284.jpg
+++ /dev/null
diff --git a/old/53248-h/images/i_p285.jpg b/old/53248-h/images/i_p285.jpg
deleted file mode 100644
index a7baa7c..0000000
--- a/old/53248-h/images/i_p285.jpg
+++ /dev/null
diff --git a/old/53248-h/images/i_p287.jpg b/old/53248-h/images/i_p287.jpg
deleted file mode 100644
index 71f50bb..0000000
--- a/old/53248-h/images/i_p287.jpg
+++ /dev/null
diff --git a/old/53248-h/images/i_p291.jpg b/old/53248-h/images/i_p291.jpg
deleted file mode 100644
index 0fd5fe1..0000000
--- a/old/53248-h/images/i_p291.jpg
+++ /dev/null
diff --git a/old/53248-h/images/i_p299.jpg b/old/53248-h/images/i_p299.jpg
deleted file mode 100644
index e9f89f3..0000000
--- a/old/53248-h/images/i_p299.jpg
+++ /dev/null
diff --git a/old/53248-h/images/i_p303.jpg b/old/53248-h/images/i_p303.jpg
deleted file mode 100644
index c2cb519..0000000
--- a/old/53248-h/images/i_p303.jpg
+++ /dev/null
diff --git a/old/53248-h/images/i_p309.jpg b/old/53248-h/images/i_p309.jpg
deleted file mode 100644
index a500227..0000000
--- a/old/53248-h/images/i_p309.jpg
+++ /dev/null
diff --git a/old/53248-h/images/i_p325.jpg b/old/53248-h/images/i_p325.jpg
deleted file mode 100644
index 6150722..0000000
--- a/old/53248-h/images/i_p325.jpg
+++ /dev/null
diff --git a/old/53248-h/images/i_p329.jpg b/old/53248-h/images/i_p329.jpg
deleted file mode 100644
index bcd5588..0000000
--- a/old/53248-h/images/i_p329.jpg
+++ /dev/null
diff --git a/old/53248-h/images/i_p337.jpg b/old/53248-h/images/i_p337.jpg
deleted file mode 100644
index 513a5ca..0000000
--- a/old/53248-h/images/i_p337.jpg
+++ /dev/null
diff --git a/old/53248-h/images/i_p349.jpg b/old/53248-h/images/i_p349.jpg
deleted file mode 100644
index 1b208a3..0000000
--- a/old/53248-h/images/i_p349.jpg
+++ /dev/null
diff --git a/old/53248-h/images/i_p357.jpg b/old/53248-h/images/i_p357.jpg
deleted file mode 100644
index 1e519cf..0000000
--- a/old/53248-h/images/i_p357.jpg
+++ /dev/null
diff --git a/old/53248-h/images/i_p361.jpg b/old/53248-h/images/i_p361.jpg
deleted file mode 100644
index 2095c41..0000000
--- a/old/53248-h/images/i_p361.jpg
+++ /dev/null
diff --git a/old/53248-h/images/i_p389.jpg b/old/53248-h/images/i_p389.jpg
deleted file mode 100644
index 674e7df..0000000
--- a/old/53248-h/images/i_p389.jpg
+++ /dev/null
diff --git a/old/53248-h/images/i_p393.jpg b/old/53248-h/images/i_p393.jpg
deleted file mode 100644
index aa47e67..0000000
--- a/old/53248-h/images/i_p393.jpg
+++ /dev/null
diff --git a/old/53248-h/images/i_p397.jpg b/old/53248-h/images/i_p397.jpg
deleted file mode 100644
index 9559d83..0000000
--- a/old/53248-h/images/i_p397.jpg
+++ /dev/null
diff --git a/old/53248-h/images/leeks.jpg b/old/53248-h/images/leeks.jpg
deleted file mode 100644
index 1b15abc..0000000
--- a/old/53248-h/images/leeks.jpg
+++ /dev/null
diff --git a/old/53248-h/images/left_curly_bracket.jpg b/old/53248-h/images/left_curly_bracket.jpg
deleted file mode 100644
index 3a314d9..0000000
--- a/old/53248-h/images/left_curly_bracket.jpg
+++ /dev/null
diff --git a/old/53248-h/images/map-thumbnail.jpg b/old/53248-h/images/map-thumbnail.jpg
deleted file mode 100644
index 01a817d..0000000
--- a/old/53248-h/images/map-thumbnail.jpg
+++ /dev/null
diff --git a/old/53248-h/images/map.jpg b/old/53248-h/images/map.jpg
deleted file mode 100644
index 49c5fc6..0000000
--- a/old/53248-h/images/map.jpg
+++ /dev/null
diff --git a/old/53248-h/images/titlepage.jpg b/old/53248-h/images/titlepage.jpg
deleted file mode 100644
index 397cad8..0000000
--- a/old/53248-h/images/titlepage.jpg
+++ /dev/null