Wild Wales | Page 5

hogs and poultry,
Methodism and baptism, and the poor, persecuted Church of England.
An account of the language of Wales will be found in the last chapter.
It has many features and words in common with the Sanscrit, and many
which seem peculiar to itself, or rather to the family of languages,
generally called the Celtic, to which it belongs. Though not an original
tongue, for indeed no original tongue, or anything approximating to one,
at present exists, it is certainly of immense antiquity, indeed almost
entitled in that respect to dispute the palm with the grand tongue of
India, on which in some respects it flings nearly as much elucidation as
it itself receives in others. Amongst the words quoted in the chapter
alluded to I wish particularly to direct the reader's attention to gwr, a
man, and gwres, heat; to which may be added gwreichionen, a spark.
Does not the striking similarity between these words warrant the
supposition that the ancient Cumry entertained the idea that man and
fire were one and the same, even like the ancient Hindus, who believed
that man sprang from fire, and whose word vira, (1) which signifies a
strong man, a hero, signifies also fire?
There are of course faults and inaccuracies in the work; but I have
reason to believe that they are neither numerous nor important: I may
have occasionally given a wrong name to a hill or a brook; or may have
overstated or understated, by a furlong, the distance between one
hamlet and another; or even committed the blunder of saying that Mr
Jones Ap Jenkins lived in this or that homestead, whereas in reality Mr
Jenkins Ap Jones honoured it with his residence: I may be chargeable
with such inaccuracies; in which case I beg to express due sorrow for
them, and at the same time a hope that I have afforded information
about matters relating to Wales which more than atones for them. It
would be as well if those who exhibit eagerness to expose the faults of
a book would occasionally have the candour to say a word or two about
its merits; such a wish, however, is not likely to be gratified, unless
indeed they wisely take a hint from the following lines, translated from
a cywydd of the last of the great poets of Wales:
"All can perceive a fault, where there is one - A dirty scamp will find

one, where there's none." (2)
WILD WALES: ITS PEOPLE, LANGUAGE, AND SCENERY

CHAPTER I
Proposed Excursion - Knowledge of Welsh - Singular Groom -
Harmonious Distich - Welsh Pronunciation - Dafydd Ab Gwilym.
IN the summer of the year 1854 myself, wife, and daughter determined
upon going into Wales, to pass a few months there. We are country
people of a corner of East Anglia, and, at the time of which I am
speaking, had been residing so long on our own little estate, that we
had become tired of the objects around us, and conceived that we
should be all the better for changing the scene for a short period. We
were undetermined for some time with respect to where we should go. I
proposed Wales from the first, but my wife and daughter, who have
always had rather a hankering after what is fashionable, said they
thought it would be more advisable to go to Harrowgate, or
Leamington. On my observing that those were terrible places for
expense, they replied that, though the price of corn had of late been
shamefully low, we had a spare hundred pounds or two in our pockets,
and could afford to pay for a little insight into fashionable life. I told
them that there was nothing I so much hated as fashionable life, but that,
as I was anything but a selfish person, I would endeavour to stifle my
abhorrence of it for a time, and attend them either to Leamington or
Harrowgate. By this speech I obtained my wish, even as I knew I
should, for my wife and daughter instantly observed, that, after all, they
thought we had better go into Wales, which, though not so fashionable
as either Leamington or Harrowgate, was a very nice picturesque
country, where, they had no doubt, they should get on very well, more
especially as I was acquainted with the Welsh language.
It was my knowledge of Welsh, such as it was, that made me desirous
that we should go to Wales, where there was a chance that I might turn
it to some little account. In my boyhood I had been something of a

philologist; had picked up some Latin and Greek at school; some Irish
in Ireland, where I had been with my father, who was in the army; and
subsequently whilst an articled clerk