Celtic Literature | Page 6

the marsh, where
the same Mael-gwyn, a British prince of real history, a bold and
licentious chief, the original, it is said, of Arthur's Lancelot, shut
himself up in the church to avoid the Yellow Plague, and peeped out
through a hole in the door, and saw the monster and died. Behind
among the woods, is Gloddaeth, THE PLACE OF FEASTING, where
the bards were entertained; and farther away, up the valley of the
Conway towards Llanrwst, is the Lake of Ceirio-nydd and Taliesin's
grave. Or, again, looking seawards and Anglesey-wards you have
Pen-mon, Seiriol's isle and priory, where Mael-gwyn lies buried; you
have the SANDS OF LAMENTATION and Llys Helig, HEILIG'S
MANSION, a mansion under the waves, a sea-buried palace and realm.
Hac ibat Simois; hic est Sigeia tellus.
As I walked up and down, looking at the waves as they washed this
Sigeian land which has never had its Homer, and listening with
curiosity to the strange, unfamiliar speech of its old possessors' obscure
descendants,--bathing people, vegetable-sellers, and donkey- boys, who
were all about me, suddenly I heard, through the stream of unknown
Welsh, words, not English, indeed, but still familiar. They came from a
French nursery-maid, with some children. Profoundly ignorant of her
relationship, this Gaulish Celt moved among her British cousins,
speaking her polite neo-Latin tongue, and full of compassionate
contempt, probably, for the Welsh barbarians and their jargon. What a
revolution was here! How had the star of this daughter of Gomer waxed,
while the star of these Cymry, his sons, had waned! What a difference
of fortune in the two, since the days when, speaking the same language,
they left their common dwelling-place in the heart of Asia; since the
Cimmerians of the Euxine came in upon their western kinsmen, the
sons of the giant Galates; since the sisters, Gaul and Britain, cut the
mistletoe in their forests, and saw the coming of Caesar! Blanc, rouge,
rocher champ, eglise, seigneur,--these words, by which the

Gallo-Roman Celt now names white, and red, and rock, and field, and
church, and lord, are no part of the speech of his true ancestors, they are
words he has learnt; but since he learned them they have had a
worldwide success, and we all teach them to our children, and armies
speaking them have domineered in every city of that Germany by
which the British Celt was broken, and in the train of these armies,
Saxon auxiliaries, a humbled contingent, have been fain to follow; the
poor Welshman still says, in the genuine tongue of his ancestors, {4}
gwyn, goch, craig, maes, llan, arglwydd; but his land is a province, and
his history petty, and his Saxon subduers scout his speech as an
obstacle to civilisation; and the echo of all its kindred in other lands is
growing every day fainter and more feeble; gone in Cornwall, going in
Brittany and the Scotch Highlands, going, too, in Ireland; and there,
above all, the badge of the beaten race, the property of the vanquished.
But the Celtic genius was just then preparing, in Llandudno, to have its
hour of revival. Workmen were busy in putting up a large tent- like
wooden building, which attracted the eye of every newcomer, and
which my little boys believed (their wish, no doubt, being father to
their belief,) to be a circus. It turned out, however, to be no circus for
Castor and Pollux, but a temple for Apollo and the Muses. It was the
place where the Eisteddfod, or Bardic Congress of Wales, was about to
be held; a meeting which has for its object (I quote the words of its
promoters) 'the diffusion of useful knowledge, the eliciting of native
talent, and the cherishing of love of home and honourable fame by the
cultivation of poetry, music, and art.' My little boys were disappointed;
but I, whose circus days are over, I, who have a professional interest in
poetry, and who, also, hating all one-sidedness and oppression, wish
nothing better than that the Celtic genius should be able to show itself
to the world and to make its voice heard, was delighted. I took my
ticket, and waited impatiently for the day of opening. The day came, an
unfortunate one; storms of wind, clouds of dust, an angry, dirty sea.
The Saxons who arrived by the Liverpool steamers looked miserable;
even the Welsh who arrived by land,--whether they were discomposed
by the bad morning, or by the monstrous and crushing tax which the
London and North-Western Railway Company levies on all whom it
transports across those four miles of marshy peninsula between
Conway and Llandudno,-- did not look happy. First we went to the

Gorsedd, or preliminary congress for conferring the degree of bard. The
Gorsedd was held in the open air, at the