Welsh bards

“ When Prince Griffith ap Kynan returned from Ireland to Wales and the poet Meilir arose to sing his triumphs and good qualities, a new era in bardic history may be said to have commenced. The intellectual and religious revival that distinguished the [Pg 338] twelfth century in Western Europe was conspicuous in Wales. The bards were no longer singing merely of battles, but of nature and kindred subjects, with a delicacy that showed them to be men of taste and culture. In the twelfth, thirteenth, and fourteenth centuries, in spite of war and conquest, the age was a golden one in Welsh song. ”

“ Many of the professedly Christian Welsh bards when speaking of the Deity have called Him Hu, and ascribed to the Creator the actions of the creature. Their doing so, however, can cause us but little surprise when we reflect that the bards down to a very late period cherished a great many druidical and heathen notions, and frequently comported themselves in a manner more becoming heathens than Christian men. ”

“ Griffith ap Nicholas was a powerful chieftain of South Wales, something of a poet and a great patron of bards. Seeing with regret that there was much dissension amongst the bardic order, and that the rules of bardism were nearly forgotten, he held a bardic congress at Carmarthen, with the view of reviving bardic enthusiasm and re-establishing bardic discipline. The result of this meeting—the only one of the kind which had been held in Wales since the days of the Welsh princes—to a certain extent corresponded with his wish. ”

“ The Welsh bards tell us that the souls of men transmigrate into the bodies of those animals whose habits and characters they most resemble, till after a circuit of such penitential miseries, they are purified for the celestial presence; for man may be converted into a pig or a wolf, till at length he assumes the inoffensiveness of the dove. ”

“ The Bards of two hundred regions lament that they have now no protector. This is a certain, but a sad truth. Though the unthinking vulgar do not reflect as I do on the time when my eagle shone in his majesty. I am pierced by the lance of despair. p. 47Hard is the fate of my protector, Gwynedd [47a] is in a heavy melancholy mood, its inhabitants are oppressed because of their transgressions. Long has the bright sword, that shone like a torch, been laid aside, and the brave courage of the dauntless Achilles been stopped. The whole pleasant season of May is spent in dismal sorrow ”

“ There are in existence many unquestionably prehistoric tales and ideas which have been handed down verbally, and committed to writing for the first time only within the past few years: many more are living viva voce, and are not yet registered. The Welsh bards, like the bards of other races, were a recognised class, graduates in a particular Art, and were strictly and definitely trained in the traditional lore of their profession. ”

“ I hope you will pardon my presumption in prefixing your name to the following small collection of British poems, to which you have a just claim, as being lineally descended from those heroes they celebrate, and retain in an eminent manner the worth and generous principles of your renowned ancestors. The British Bards were received by the nobility and gentry with distinguished marks of esteem, in every part of Wales, and particularly at Gloddaith and Mostyn, where their works are still preserved in your curious libraries. ”

“ We leave it with our fame to dwell
Upon our children's breath;
Our voice in theirs through time shall swell—
The bard hath gifts of prophecy from death.
He dies; but yet the mountains stand,
Yet sweeps the torrent's tide;
And this is yet Aneurin's2 [2] land—
Winds! bear the spoiler one more tone of pride!
↑ 1 At the time of the supposed massacre of the Welsh bards by Edward the First. ↑ 2 Aneurin , one of the noblest of the Welsh bards. ”

“ The Celtic Bards.—The Breton bards made use of an instrument the name of which is variously spelled Crouth, Crowd, Chrotta, Crwth, played with a bow, with an opening in the upper part through which the performer placed the left hand in order to press the strings, the number of which varied from three to six. The crouth of the Welsh bards differed in some respects from those that were made use of by the Breton bards. With them, however, a form of the harp became the national instrument. The early history of Celtic music in Wales in [Pg 78] particular, is mingled with myth. ”

“ Parkinson; “though if you mean by the Welsh bards the singing bards of the country, it is possible we may resemble one another; only I would scorn to imitate anybody, even a bard.”
“I was not speaking of birds, but bards—Welsh poets—and it is surprising how much the turn of your genius coincides with theirs. Why, the subjects of hundreds of their compositions are the very subjects which you appear to delight in, and are the most profitable to you—beeves, horses, hawks—which they described to their owners in colours the most glowing and natural, and then begged them as presents. ”

“ The compositions attributed to the oldest Welsh bards have come down to us in MSS which date from the twelfth to the end of the fourteenth century; the best known of them are four in number, and these were edited long ago, with translations, by the late Dr W. F. Skene under the title of The Four Ancient Books of Wales. [47] It is unnecessary here to touch upon controversial questions affecting the antiquity and the genuineness of the poems contained in these MSS. Many of them are, plainly enough, not much older than the date of the compilation of the particular MS in which they are found. ”

“ The Druidical verses then probably constituted the most ancient poetry of Britain. These verses were communicated orally, and were never written down whilst bardism or druidism lasted, though the bards and druids at a very early period were acquainted with the use of letters. Whether any genuine bardic poetry has been preserved, it is impossible to say; it is the opinion, however, of Cymric scholars of reputation, that certain ancient strains which the Welsh possess, which are composed in a measure called Englyn milwr, are either druidical strains or imitations of such. ”

“ The hatred of the bards towards England was a marked feature of their time, and was so consistent that though many Welsh princes, in their jealousy, lent their swords, as we have seen, to the invader, no bards, so far as one knows, turned against their countrymen. For generations they prided themselves in being intellectually superior to the Saxon. They also saw, after the Norman conquest, the English race despised and held down by their conquerors, and a species of serfdom in use among the Saxons which had no prototype in their own country. ”

“ Nonsense! I saw at least fifty in that procession,--regular, legitimate bards,--each one having a bardic bald pate, a long white bardic beard, flowing bardic robes, bardic sandals, a bardic harp in his hand, and an ancient bardic name. There was Bard Alaw, Bard Llewellyn, Bard Ap-Tudor, Bard Llyyddmunnddggynn, (pronounce it, if you can, Reader,--I can't,) and I am afraid to say how many more, in face of the high poetical authority I have just cited and refuted. Talk of the age of poetry having passed away, when three-score and ten bards can be seen at one time in a little Welsh town! ”

“ The conditions which had given rise to this system were fast dying out, but the noblemen, who fortunately were still intensely Welsh, were loth to give up their family bards, and the bards themselves, never a too industrious class, were too glad of their freedom and easy life to turn to more profitable work. We find, therefore, that a law was passed in 1403, the fourth year of Henry IV.’s reign, prohibiting bards “and other vagrants” from exercising their profession in Gwynedd or North Wales. ”

“ Rowlands, author of Mona Antiqua restaurata, and which is published at the end of that treatise. Who can be better qualified to succeed in such an undertaking than a person that is thoroughly well versed in all the old MSS. now extant in Wales. I find that the Armoric historians, particularly Father Lobineau, quote some of their ancient Bards to confirm historical facts. This is demonstration that some of their oldest Bards are still extant ”

“ No people on earth combine so handsomely loyal freedom and the larger patriotism, or hold in purer loyalty to the union of hearts and hands in the British Empire, which the sovereign represents, as do the Welsh.
The Welsh are the oldest of the British peoples. They preserve the language of the Druids, bards, and chiefs, of primeval ages which go back and far beyond any royal line in Europe, while most of their fairy tales are pre-ancient and beyond the dating.
Why the Cymric dragon is red, is thus told, from times beyond human record. ”

“ Though hardly, if at all, less ancient than the Irish, coming down from somewhere between the eighth and the tenth centuries, they are very much more scanty in amount, hardly sufficient to do more than disprove the supposed antiquity of the earliest monuments of the language that possess a proper literary character. For long centuries past, the Welsh bards have sung in spirit-stirring strains the glories and the woes of their race ”

“ It is true that these traditions come to us in ballads attributed to Welsh bards of the 13th and 14th centuries A.D.; but, as the Rev. Mr Davies said, “that such a superstition should have been fabricated by the bards in the middle ages of Christianity, is a supposition utterly irreconcileable with probability.” And I think the improbability will be widely extended if the readers will take the trouble, after perusal, to make the references as above.
[2] I have appended a short biographical notice of Colonel G. Macdonell, which I venture to think may contain matter of public interest. ”

“ If this small collection has the good fortune to merit the attention of the public, I may, in some future time, if God permit me life and health, proceed to translate other select pieces from the same manuscript. The poems, in the original, have great merit; and if there is none in the translation of this specimen, it must be owing entirely to my inability to do the Bards justice. I am not the only person who admires them: men of the greatest sense and learning in Wales do the same. ”

“ But a far more adequate exposition of the Druidic doctrine of the soul's destinies has been presented to us through the translation of some of the preserved treasures of the old Bardic lore of Wales. The Welsh bards for hundreds of years were the sole surviving representatives of the Druids. ”

“ I am satisfied there are not many copies of the Bards of the sixth century extant, nor indeed of those from the conquest to the death of Llewelyn. But two or three ancient copies on vellom, if such can be met with, will be sufficient; for in some transcripts by good hands that I have seen, they are imperfect in some copies. This would in a great measure enable our traveller to fill up the blanks, and help him to understand what, for want of this, must remain obscure, if not altogether unintelligible. ”

“ The hero he celebrates made a brave but successless attempt to rescue it from slavery. It will not be amiss to give a short account of the inhuman massacre of the Bards made by that cruel tyrant Edward the first, which gave occasion to a very fine Ode by Mr. Gray. Sir John Wynne, of Gwydir, a descendant in a direct line from Owain Gwynedd, mentions this particular, and says he searched all the records in the Exchequer at Carnarvon, and in the Tower of London, for the antiquities of his country in general, and of his own family in particular. ”

“ It is a great pity Taliesin is so obscure, for there are many particulars in his poems that would throw great light on the history, notions, and manners of the Ancient Britons, especially of the Druids, a great part of whose learning it is certain he had imbibed. This celebrated Bard was in great favour with all the great men of his time, particularly with Maelgwn Gwynedd, the warlike and victorious king of all Britain, with Elphin his patron, whom he redeemed with his songs from the castle of Tyganwy, where he was upon some account confined by his uncle Maelgwn. ”

“ The works of Taliesin, Llywarch Hên, Aneurin Gwawdrydd, Myrddin Wyllt, Avan Verddig, who all flourished about the year 560, a considerable time after Ossian, are hardly understood by the best critics and antiquarians in Wales, though our language has not undergone more changes than the Erse. Nay, the Bards that wrote a long while after, from the time of William the Conquerer to the death of Prince Llewelyn, are not so easy to be understood ”

“ O how heavy is the Almighty’s punishment, that the crimson sword cannot be drawn! I remember how great its size was, and how wide its havoc; numerous are now the oppressed captives who languish in gnashing indignation. Our native Bards are excluded from their accustomed entertainments. How great a stop is put to generosity since a munificent hero, like Nudd, [46a] is confined in prison. The valorous hawk of Griffydd, [46b] so renowned for ravaging and destroying his enemies, is deplored by the expert Bards, who have lost their festivity and mirth in the place where mead was drunk. ”