Wild Wales: Its People, Language and Scenery

ls-Iolo Goch-The Abbey-Twm o'

isted almost entirely of English visitors, like ourselves. There were two officiating clergymen, father and son. They both sat in a kind of oblong pulpit on the s

t a sound. I had heard them in the morning, but without paying much attention to them, but as I now sat in the umbrageous arbour, I was particularly struck with them. Oh how sweetly their voice mingled with the low rush of the river, at the bottom of the perllan. I

edd i Ll

do bells call people so sweetly to

ous, and was composed principally of poor people. The service and sermon were now in Welsh, the sermon was preached by the younge

ery anxious to see the old place. I too was anxious enough to see it, less from love of ruins and ancient architecture, than from knowi

Sycharth, for some years before the great Welsh insurrection, and whom he survived, dying at an extreme old age beneath his own roof-tree at Coed y Pantwn. He composed pieces of great excellence on various subjects; but the most remarkable of his compositions are decidedly certain ones connected with Owen Glendower. A

e precincts of the old edifice, that I felt so anxious to see it

e been raised over the body of an ancient British chieftain of that name, who perished in battle against the Saxons, about the middle of the tenth century. In the Papist times the abbey was a place of great pseudo-sanctity, wealth and consequence. The territory belonging to it was v

once been the church, having previously to pass throu

d us and invited us to sit down. We entered into conversation with her, and asked her name, which she said was Evans. I spoke some Welsh to her, which pleased her. She said that Welsh people at the present day were so full of fine airs that they were above speaking the old language-but that such was not the case formerly, and that she had known a Mrs Price, who was housekeeper to the Countess of Mornington, who lived in London up

rait of Twm o'r Nant, generally

atticed window was behind him, on his left hand; a shelf with plates, and trenchers behind him, on his right

yw llawn

lanwodd

of Twm o'r Nant?"

orn in a dingle, at a place called Pen Porchell, in the vale of Clwyd-which, by the bye, was on the estate which once belonged to Iolo Goch, the poet I was speaking to you about just now. Tom was a carter by trade, but once kept a toll-bar in South Wales, which, ho

more about Tom o'r Nant than I

ludes, had a great run, and he got a great deal of money by them, but I should say th

d lady; "they are Welsh, I know, but

thus transl

head the Mus

head the worl

daughter of a friend of hers who was lately dead, and put some printed lines in a frame into my hand. They were an Elegy to Mary, and were very beautiful, I rea

a bell at the gate a woman would come to us, who was in the habit of showing the place. We then got u

well is tha

ide, which in the time of the popes

re a jug and tumbler, the jug filled with the water of the holy well; we drank some of the dwr santaidd, which

ect of our coming she admitted us, and after locking the gate conducted us into the church. It was roofless, and had nothing remarkable about it, save the western window, which we had see

ndeed I never hear

isted his cause wonderfully by the fiery odes, in whi

l, I am sorry to say tha

Welsh?"

" she

r hear of Th

e; "I have frequen

very place where he is buried, whilst that of one certainly not his superio

e in the old measures and language which few people now understand, whilst

y it is s

s the ruins she conducted us to a cottage in which she lived; it stood behind the ruins by a fish-pond, in a beautiful and romantic place enough; she said that in the winter she went away, but to what place she did not say. She asked us whether we came walking, and on our telling her that we did, she said that she would point out to us a near way home. She then pointed to a p