Wild Wales: Its People, Language and Scenery

George Henry Borrow

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pubOne.info present you this wonderfully illustrated edition. This edition of Wild Wales has been carefully collated with the first edition, in order to ensure that the spelling of proper names shall be precisely as Borrow left it, and the running headings on the right-hand pages as nearly as possible those which Borrow himself wrote.

Informations

• Publié par: Pub One Info
• Date de parution: 27 septembre 2010
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9782819928164
• Langue: English

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WILD WALES
ITS PEOPLE, LANGUAGE
AND SCENERY
BY GEORGE BORROW
“Their Lord they shall praise,
Their language they shall keep,
Their land they shall lose,
Except Wild Wales. ”
Taliesin: Destiny of the Britons
LONDON
JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE STREET
1907
First Edition
1862
Second Edition
1865
Third Edition
1888
Fourth Edition
1896
Fifth (Definitive) Edition
6/-
March , 1901
Reprinted
Thin Paper
July , 1905
Reprinted
6/-
Sept. , 1907
Reprinted
2/6 net.
Sept. , 1907
NOTE
This edition of Wild Wales has been carefullycollated with the first edition, in order to ensure that thespelling of proper names shall be precisely as Borrow left it, andthe running headings on the right-hand pages as nearly as possiblethose which Borrow himself wrote.
January 1901.
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
All the Plates in this volumes are from drawingsby Mr. A. S. Hartrick [0]
Above Capel Curig on the road to Bangor( Photogravure )
Frontispiece
Llangollen and Dinas Bran
to face page 32
The Wilds of Snowdown
200
In Anglessey. Redwharf Bay (Treath Coch), and theCountry of Gronwy Owen
212
The Wondrous Valley of Gelert
312
Cascade on the Moor between Festiniog and Balla
328
Balla Lake in the Fifties, showing the Aran Mountainand Cader Idris. ( Drawn from an old print )
346
Chirk (Castell y Waen)
366
Twilight after a Storm. Dinas Mawddwy
494
Eastern Street, Machynlleth, showing part of OwenGlendower’s Parliament House
512
The Devil’s Bridge
558
The Remains of Strata Florida Abbey from theChurchyard
596
“Pump Saint”
632
Map of Wales showing Borrow’s Route
to face page 1
INTRODUCTORY
Wales is a country interesting in many respects, anddeserving of more attention than it has hitherto met with. Thoughnot very extensive, it is one of the most picturesque countries inthe world, a country in which Nature displays herself in herwildest, boldest, and occasionally loveliest forms. Theinhabitants, who speak an ancient and peculiar language, do notcall this region Wales, nor themselves Welsh. They call themselvesCymry or Cumry, and their country Cymru, or the land of the Cumry.Wales or Wallia, however, is the true, proper, and without doubtoriginal name, as it relates not to any particular race, which atpresent inhabits it, or may have sojourned in it at any long bygoneperiod, but to the country itself. Wales signifies a land ofmountains, of vales, of dingles, chasms, and springs. It isconnected with the Cumbric bal, a protuberance, a springing forth;with the Celtic beul or beal, a mouth; with the old English welle,a fountain; with the original name of Italy, still called by theGermans Welschland; with Balkan and Vulcan, both of which signify acasting out, an eruption; with Welint or Wayland, the name of theAnglo-Saxon god of the forge; with the Chaldee val, a forest, andthe German wald; with the English bluff, and the Sanscrit palava—startling assertions, no doubt, at least to some; which are,however, quite true, and which at some future time will beuniversally acknowledged so to be.
But it is not for its scenery alone that Wales isdeserving of being visited; scenery soon palls unless it isassociated with remarkable events, and the names of remarkable men.Perhaps there is no country in the whole world which has been thescene of events more stirring and remarkable than those recorded inthe history of Wales. What other country has been the scene of astruggle so deadly, so embittered, and protracted as that betweenthe Cumro and the Saxon? — A struggle which did not terminate atCaernarvon, when Edward Longshanks foisted his young son upon theWelsh chieftains as Prince of Wales; but was kept up till thebattle of Bosworth Field, when a prince of Cumric blood won thecrown of fair Britain, verifying the olden word which had cheeredthe hearts of the Ancient Britons for at least a thousand years,even in times of the darkest distress and gloom:—
“But after long pain
Repose we shall obtain,
When sway barbaric has purg’d us clean;
And Britons shall regain
Their crown and their domain,
And the foreign oppressor be no more seen. ”
Of remarkable men Wales has assuredly produced itsfull share. First, to speak of men of action:— there was Madoc, theson of Owain Gwynedd, who discovered America, centuries beforeColumbus was born; then there was “the irregular and wildGlendower, ” who turned rebel at the age of sixty, was crowned Kingof Wales at Machynlleth, and for fourteen years contrived to holdhis own against the whole power of England; then there was Ryce ApThomas, the best soldier of his time, whose hands placed theBritish crown on the brow of Henry the Seventh, and whom bluffHenry the Eighth delighted to call Father Preece; then there was—who? — why Harry Morgan, who led those tremendous fellows theBuccaneers across the Isthmus of Darien to the sack and burning ofPanamá.
What, a buccaneer in the list? Ay! and why not?Morgan was a scourge, it is true, but he was a scourge of God onthe cruel Spaniards of the New World, the merciless task-mastersand butchers of the Indian race: on which account God favoured andprospered him, permitting him to attain the noble age of ninety,and to die peacefully and tranquilly at Jamaica, whilst smoking hispipe in his shady arbour, with his smiling plantation ofsugar-canes full in view. How unlike the fate of Harry Morgan tothat of Lolonois, a being as daring and enterprising as theWelshman, but a monster without ruth or discrimination, terrible tofriend and foe, who perished by the hands, not of the Spaniards,but of the Indians, who tore him limb from limb, burning hismembers, yet quivering, in the fire— which very Indians Morgancontrived to make his own firm friends, and whose difficultlanguage he spoke with the same facility as English, Spanish, andhis own South Welsh.
For men of genius Wales during a long period wasparticularly celebrated. — Who has not heard of the Welsh Bards?though it is true that, beyond the borders of Wales, only a veryfew are acquainted with their songs, owing to the language, by nomeans an easy one, in which they were composed. Honour to them all!everlasting glory to the three greatest— Taliesin, Ab Gwilym andGronwy Owen: the first a professed Christian, but in reality aDruid, whose poems fling great light on the doctrines of theprimitive priesthood of Europe, which correspond remarkably withthe philosophy of the Hindus, before the time of Brahma: the secondthe grand poet of Nature, the contemporary of Chaucer, but worthhalf a dozen of the accomplished word-master, the ingeniousversifier of Norman and Italian tales: the third a learned andirreproachable minister of the Church of England, and one of thegreatest poets of the last century, who after several narrowescapes from starvation both in England and Wales, died master of apaltry school at New Brunswick, in North America, sometime aboutthe year 1780.
But Wales has something besides its wonderfulscenery, its eventful history, and its illustrious men of yore tointerest the visitor. Wales has a population, and a remarkable one.There are countries, besides Wales, abounding with noble scenery,rich in eventful histories, and which are not sparingly dotted withthe birthplaces of heroes and poets, in which at the present daythere is either no population at all, or one of a character whichis anything but attractive. Of a country in the first predicament,the Scottish Highlands afford an example: What a country is thatHighland region! What scenery! and what associations! If Wales hasits Snowdon and Cader Idris, the Highlands have their Hill of theWater Dogs, and that of the Swarthy Swine: If Wales has a history,so have the Highlands— not indeed so remarkable as that of Wales,but eventful enough: If Wales has had its heroes, its Glendower andFather Pryce, the Highlands have had their Evan Cameron and Ranaldof Moydart; If Wales has had its romantic characters, its GriffithAp Nicholas and Harry Morgan, the Highlands have had Rob Roy andthat strange fellow Donald Macleod, the man of the broadsword, theleader of the Freacadan Dhu, who at Fontenoy caused, the Lord onlyknows, how many Frenchmen’s heads to fly off their shoulders, wholived to the age of one hundred and seven, and at seventy-oneperformed gallant service on the Heights of Abraham: wrapped inwhose plaid the dying Wolfe was carried from the hill of victory. —If Wales has been a land of song, have not the Highlands also? — IfWales can boast of Ab Gwilym and Gronwy, the Highlands can boast ofOssian and MacIntyre. In many respects the two regions are equalsor nearly so; — In one respect, however, a matter of the presentday, and a very important matter too, they are anything but equals:Wales has a population— but where is that of the Highlands? —Plenty of noble scene; Plenty of delightful associations,historical, poetical, and romantic— but, but, where is thepopulation?
The population of Wales has not departed across theAtlantic, like that of the Highlands; it remains at home, and aremarkable population it is— very different from the presentinhabitants of several beautiful lands of olden fame, who havestrangely degenerated from their forefathers. Wales has not only apopulation, but a highly interesting one— hardy and frugal, yetkind and hospitable— a bit crazed, it is true, on the subject ofreligion, but still retaining plenty of old Celtic peculiarities,and still speaking Diolch i Duw! — the language of Glendower andthe Bards.
The present is a book about Wales and Welsh matters.He who does me the honour of perusing it will be conducted to manya spot not only remarkable for picturesqueness, but for having beenthe scene of some extraordinary event, or the birth-place orresidence of a hero or a man of genius; he will likewise be notunfrequently introduced to the genuine Welsh, and made acquaintedwith what they have to say about Cumro and Saxon, buying andselling, fattening hogs and poultr