The Daily Times.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1860-08-06 00:00:00

THE EISTEDDFOD;

THE WELSH,—THEIR MANNERS AND
CUSTOMS.
In addition. to the following, a correspondent
has undertaken to supply us with a daily report
of the proceedings of the Eisteddfod, which
commences to-morrow, at the ancient Castle of
Denbigh. These contributions, we doubt not, will
prove highly interesting to all, more especially to
our Welsh fellow-townsmen.
Wrong breeds hatred, hatred disgust, disgust neglect.
The offender always'despises those whom he has injured.
The conqueror treats the conquered with disdain. Of
this fact history supplies proof. For hundreds of years
after the conquest of countries deadly feuds have existed
between the invader and the aborigine resulting chiefly
from the hatred of the former. Although Britain has
been subjected to Saxon rule for a period of hundreds of
years, the Welsh are at this moment looked down upon
as something beneath the English. It is of no use dis-
guising the fact. In India, what caused the late reaction
on the part of the natives but the licentiousness of the
British ? The conduct of the English towards the Welsh
is even more striking ; for in this case there is no dif-
ference in the colour ; very little in the manners and
customs; none in the intellectual capacities of the two
peoples. But there is this distinction : Wales has a
language of its own, a literature of its own ; but so deep
rooted is prejudice at the present moment in the minds
of Englishmen, that they look upon the first as a rude
tongue inapplicable to science—too confused as a medium
of communication. The literature has been denomina-
ted trash, except by men who have examined it for
themselves. Of these Thirlwall, the Bishop of St.
David's, who acquired the tongue after three months'
study, is a striking instance. His opinion is well
known, and, therefore, need not be repeated. We
should like the reader to dismiss prejudice , whilst
reading the following remarks, and if he 'cannot
believe us, let him examine the subject for himself, and
find out the truth. Of the language itself we shall
speak hereafter. The literature will come under our
notice; but for the present we will confine ourselves to
the country and its inhabitants. Surrounded nearly by
the sea—indented by bays the most lovely—drained by
rivers famed for their scenery—interspersed by mountains
combining the rugged, the grand, and the magnificent
with the beautiful, -the lovely and the exquisite—Wales
is a resort of the tourist, and the home of the des-
cendants of the Ancient Britons, y derWYCWAn, Otis.
wallawn, Caradawc, Cadwritadr, Taliesin, Aneurin,
Llywarch sen, Myrddin Wyllt, Gildas, Ifor ab Alan,
Rodri Molwynawc, Hywel Dda, Cyhelin, Myrddin,
leuan Gwynedd, Rhys ab Gruffydd, Llywellyn ab
lorwerth, Giraldus Cambrensis, Dafydd ab
Lly-
wellyn, Galgacus, Rhydderch Hael, Dwain ab Gruff-
ydd, Talhaiarn, Owain Glyndwr, Boadicea, lor-
werth, and many others, far too numerous to men-
tion, who, incited by the songs of the bards, cheered by
the`music of theiYelsh harp, fought the Romans, the
Picts, the Scots, and the Saxons, and •maintained their
• independence in their mountain fastnesses for hundreds of
years. The Welsh inherit a large amount of the spirit
of independence, the love of home, of liberty, and of
poetry which- characterised their forefathers. Brave,
open, generous and noble, they are very sensible to
insult, quick in revenge, extremely fond of their country;
their language and nationalty, and perhaps a little sus-
picious of strang9ll. " Cas gwr no char y wlad a'i ,
niaco "---"Despised is the man that does not love the
country that nurtures him "—is a favourite maxim of
theirs, upon which they act most stringently. The Welsh-
man that denies his country, is denied by his country
•in return. The Welsh are anything but deceitful ; they
hate oppression and licentiousness. Rude they cer-
tainly appear to an English eye ; and for this
they have to thank the British Government,
who have neglected their intellectual welfare
entirely. Whilst England and; Ireland: alleunded in
Queen's Colleges and good schools, Wales, until very
recently, had none, except those which the inhabitants
erected from their small incomes. At this moment
National Schools are few and far between in the better
districts : in the-poorest, out of the way places, there
are none. Still, the amount of intelligence per-
vading the country is really surprising, and has
been- supplied by native literature, written almost
entirely in verse. Verse has thus made the Welsh
a nation of versifiers ; hence the sentence "Every Welsh-
man is a poet," which to a certain extent is perfectly
correct. Nor could it be otherwise, since the character
of a
,country stamp§ the character of a people.. Virgil,
Michael Angelo, Raffael, and all the Italian poets
and artists only reflected the beauty and grandeur of
Italian hills and vallies, and Italian skies. It is
questionable whether the works of Homer could
have been written by other than a Grecian, or a man
nurtured in Greece. In the same manner the character
of Wales, its diversity of hill and dale has made it a
nation of poets. We are not speaking exclusively of
the Welsh of the present day. The bards were the
mightiest opponents of the Romans. The Saxons failed
to subjugate the country until they annihilated the bards
inhabiting Anglesea. Such was the power of the lyre
in those days, that it alone enabled a comparatively
rude people to combat, almost successfully, Rome, the
most enlightened and powerful nation on the earth.
Cesar has
testified to the truth of this assertion with
something approaching veneration.
The Welsh are a simple people. Their simplicity is,
indeed, proverbial. We have heard of " brave English-
men,"
" crafty Scotchmen ;" bqt there is no nation, of
which we are aware, that has been'deneminated "honest
and simple" but the Welsh. What is more, they de-
serve the appellation. Who that has resided for any
length of time in Wales has not enjoyed the simple and
genial hospitality on the hearths of the'peasants—has
not listened rapturously to their simple melodies—has
not been charmed by the sincerity of their devotions—
and has not admired the purity of their lives ?• The
absence of crime in the country was commented upon
this summer by a judge of assize in a very flattering
manner. We allude to Baron Bramwell's 'remarks at
Carmarthen a week or two ago. On his circuit in three
western counties he had to deal, in all, with only three
or four p_,„riaoners, some of whorl were not natives. This
testimony, coming from the lips of a man like Baron
Bramwell, whose name is rather odious to the Welsh, is
valuable. The costume of the country bears also the
sign of simplicity. No doubt, the towering hat
which the women wear has been smiled at over and over
again, but what head-dress displays the rosy cheeks of a
pretty female to better advantage. Then the red and
black bedgown, loose in front, and tied in the fop} of a
triangle at the back; the petticoat; the flannel shawl of-
brilliant crimson, which struck such .terror into the
French soldiers at Fishguard, in the eighteenth century;
the blue cloth mantle, which is the mountaineer's
umbrella ; the narrow ribbon for the hair, and the
frilled white cap—all manufactured at the wearer's fire-
side—are ,charming in the .xtrome Sae the
witnessed a Welsh marriage' The manner in which a
• •
young couple is established in the world is interesting,
and tends td• Show thebrotherly love with which the,
peasants are bound together. A few weeks previous to
a marriage circulars are issued announcing the marriage
feast, at which the payment of " pwythan" is invited.
A pwythan is a sum of money lent to those about to
enter the bonds of Ijymen, on 9calcl4inor that it be
returned on the marriage morning of the donor. The
feast takes place at the bride's house, and pwythan to
the amount of £lOO, 4200, or even 4300 are received.
On this there is no interest to 'be paid, and the
borrowers have, in many cases, twenty, thirty, and
even a lifetime to refund the principal. The
Sketches in Wales, which are now so numerous, repre-
sent correctly the marriage festivities. Twenty or thirty
pairs of sweethearts accompany the bride and bride-
groom to the church, on horses in most cases, on foot
in some. In many instances une horse carries a pair.
the man rides in front, the woman behind-7d la fhe
Family of Wakefield. The ceremony over, rustic
joviality ensues. But the most striking feature of the
proceedings remains to be told. 411 expect to pay for
the feast. • Indeed, he who expected to have the Mar-
riage dinner gratis would be considered no friend. •
There is a peculiarity also about the mode in which
the dead are treated. The village choir invariably visit
the house of mourning, and there sing hymns and
anthems over the body. The funeral is at all times
public, and the last kind offices are witnessed by hun-
dreds in all cases, in some by thousands. The funeral
procession is formed at the house. The males walk two
or three abreast in front ; the females follow in a similar
order, whilst the coffin is carried on a bier by the fiiendi
of the deceased between. Ilynsns are sung o.t the road
to the churchyard, and the angst kaolin& solemnity
marks the proceedings,
•
The greater portion of the Welsh live iu small
thatched roofed houses, surrounded by gardens and earn
their living in the fields, by mining, and by manufacturing.
In the agricultural districts the peasants are ;very poor,
in the mining comfortable, in the manufacturing they
live luxuriously. Their habits are simple, and in their
dealings they are honest. Their statue of education is
low, owing to the want of schools and their poverty.
the children in the poorest, districts never go to schOol.
in the mining and manufacturing districts child labour

is valuable, and the little things are drafted to the
mines and the works when_they•should be learning
their alphabet. The result of this is that they grow up
in ignorance. They retain the superstitious of their
progenitors ; their limbs are deformed,.and their stature
cramped. Who has not noticed the crookedness of the
collier's legs, and the deformity Of the furnaceman's
back and shoulders? The mothers of families have
their hands full of work in all seasons ; she has
the family to attend, the house to keep clean, a
pigsty full of pigs to feed; fowls, ducks, and geese to
loak after; and now and then a cow or two to milk.
The daughters work upon the neighbouring farms, in
the iron works and the tin works ; and they are expected
to do a little, in addition to their daily labour, at those
places. As a nation, the Welsh are a nation of Dis-
senters. The Church of England is not held in high
estimation; whilst the Dissenting, especially the Me-
thodist, chapels are filled Sunday after Sunday. They
are moral in the extreme. Such is their abhorrence of
fiction, that they offer the greatest resistance to novel
readers. Indeed novel-reading is looked upon in some
neighbourhoods as a positive crime; because it is argued
that it fills the mind with ephemeral visions, which nei-
ther improve the understanding nor heighten the wit ;
and, as it is fiction (untruth), acts derogatory to religion
and morals. This is rather remarkable, considering
their passion for poetry; but we hold it to be an aver-
sion to a term more from ignorance of its real significa-
tion than from hostility to light reading, which, after
all, is, or should be, a portraiture of manners and
customs.