Divine Service—Llangollen Bells—Iolo Goch—The Abbey—Twm o’r Nant—Holy
Well—Thomas Edwards.
Sunday arrived—a Sunday of unclouded sunshine. We attended Divine
service at church in the morning. The congregation was very numerous,
but to all appearance consisted 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 southern side of the church,
at a little distance below the altar. The service was in English, and
the elder gentleman preached; there was good singing and chanting.
After dinner I sat in an arbour in the perllan thinking of many things,
amongst others, spiritual. Whilst thus engaged the sound of the church
bells calling people to afternoon service, came upon my ears. I listened
and thought I had never heard bells with so sweet 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. O,
how sweetly their voice mingled with the low rush of the river, at the
bottom of the perllan. I subsequently found that the bells of Llangollen
were celebrated for their sweetness. Their merit indeed has even been
admitted by an enemy; for a poet of the Calvinistic-Methodist persuasion,
one who calls himself Einion Du, in a very beautiful ode, commencing
with—
“Tangnefedd i Llangollen,”
says that in no part of the world do bells call people so sweetly to
church as those of Llangollen town.
In the evening, at about half-past six, I attended service again, but
without my family. This time the congregation was not numerous, and was
composed principally of poor people. The service and sermon were now in
Welsh, the sermon was preached by the younger gentleman, and was on the
building of the second temple, and, as far as I understood it, appeared
to me to be exceedingly good.
On the Monday evening myself and family took a walk to the abbey. My
wife and daughter, who are fond of architecture and ruins, were very
anxious to see the old place. I too was anxious enough to see it, less
from love of ruins and ancient architecture, than from knowing that a
certain illustrious bard was buried in its precincts, of whom perhaps a
short account will not be unacceptable to the reader.
This man, whose poetical appellation was Iolo Goch, but whose real name
was Llwyd, was of a distinguished family, and Lord of Llechryd. He was
born and generally resided at a place called Coed y Pantwn, in the upper
part of the Vale of Clwyd. He was a warm friend and partisan of Owen
Glendower, with whom he lived, at 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.
Amongst these is one in which he describes the Welsh chieftain’s mansion
at Sycharth, and his hospitable way of living at that his favourite
residence; and another in which he hails the advent of the comet, which
made its appearance in the month of March, fourteen hundred and two, as
of good augury to his darling hero.
It was from knowing that this distinguished man lay buried in the
precincts of the old edifice that I felt so anxious to see it. After
walking about two miles we perceived it on our right hand.
The abbey of the vale of the cross stands in a green meadow, in a corner
near the north-west end of the valley of Llangollen. The vale or glen,
in which the abbey stands, takes its name from a certain ancient pillar
or cross, called the pillar of Eliseg, and which is believed to have 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 very extensive, comprising, amongst other districts, the vale of
Llangollen and the mountain region to the north of it, called the
Eglwysig Rocks, which region derived its name Eglwysig, or
ecclesiastical, from the circumstance of its pertaining to the abbey of
the vale of the cross.
We first reached that part of the building which had once been the
church, having previously to pass through a farm-yard, in which was
abundance of dirt and mire.
The church fronts the west and contains the remains of a noble window,
beneath which is a gate, which we found locked. Passing on we came to
that part where the monks had lived, but which now served as a farmhouse;
an open door-way exhibited to us an ancient gloomy hall, where was some
curious old-fashioned furniture, particularly an ancient rack, in which
stood a goodly range of pewter trenchers. A respectable dame kindly
welcomed 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 upwards of forty years, and at the end of that time
prided herself upon speaking as good Welsh as she did when a girl. I
spoke to her about the abbey, and asked if she had ever heard of Iolo
Goch. She inquired who he was. I told her he was a great bard, and was
buried in the abbey. She said she had never heard of him, but that she
could show me the portrait of a great poet, and going away, presently
returned with a print in a frame.
“There,” said she, “is the portrait of Twm o’r Nant, generally called the
Welsh Shakespear.”
I looked at it. The Welsh Shakespear was represented sitting at a table
with a pen in his hand; a cottage-latticed window was behind him, on his
left hand; a shelf with plates and trenchers behind him, on his right.
His features were rude, but full of wild, strange expression; below the
picture was the following couplet:—
“Llun Gwr yw llawn gwir Awen;
Y Byd a lanwodd o’i Ben.”
“Did you ever hear of Twm o’r Nant?” said the old dame.
“I never heard of him by word of mouth,” said I; “but I know all about
him—I have read his life in Welsh, written by himself, and a curious life
it is. His name was Thomas Edwards, but he generally called himself Twm
o’r Nant, or Tom of the Dingle, because he was born 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, however, he was obliged to leave at the end of two
years, owing to the annoyance which he experienced from ghosts and
goblins, and unearthly things, particularly phantom hearses, which used
to pass through his gate at midnight without paying, when the gate was
shut.”
“Ah,” said the Dame, “you know more about Twm o’r Nant than I do; and was
he not a great poet?”
“I dare say he was,” said I, “for the pieces which he wrote, and which he
called Interludes, had a great run, and he got a great deal of money by
them, but I should say the lines beneath the portrait are more applicable
to the real Shakespear than to him.”
“What do the lines mean?” said the old lady; “they are Welsh, I know, but
they are far beyond my understanding.”
“They may be thus translated,” said I:
“God in his head the Muse instill’d,
And from his head the world he fill’d.”
“Thank you, sir,” said the old lady; “I never found any one before who
could translate them.” She then said she would show me some English
lines written on the 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 read them aloud, and when I had
finished she thanked me and said she had no doubt that if I pleased I
could put them into Welsh. She then sighed and wiped her eyes.
On our inquiring whether we could see the interior of the abbey she said
we could, and that if we rang a bell at the gate a woman would come to
us, who was in the habit of showing the place. We then got up and bade
her farewell—but she begged that we would stay and taste the dwr santaidd
of the holy well.
“What holy well is that?” said I.
“A well,” said she, “by the road’s side, which in the time of the popes
was said to perform wonderful cures.”
“Let us taste it by all means,” said I; whereupon she went out, and
presently returned with a tray on which were a jug and tumbler, the jug
filled with the water of the holy well; we drank some of the dwr
santaidd, which tasted like any other water, and then after shaking her
by the hand, we went to the gate, and rang at the bell.
Presently a woman made her appearance at the gate; she was genteelly
drest, about the middle age, rather tall, and bearing in her countenance
the traces of beauty. When we told her the object 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 seen from without. Our attendant pointed out to us
some tombs, and told us the names of certain great people whose dust they
contained. “Can you tell us where Iolo Goch lies interred?” said I.
“No,” said she; “indeed I never heard of such a person.”
“He was the bard of Owen Glendower,” said I, “and assisted his cause
wonderfully by the fiery odes, in which he incited the Welsh to rise
against the English.”
“Indeed!” said she; “well, I am sorry to say that I never heard of him.”
“Are you Welsh?” said I.
“I am,” she replied.
“Did you ever hear of Thomas Edwards?”
“O, yes,” said she; “I have frequently heard of him.”
“How odd,” said I, “that the name of a great poet should be unknown in
the very place where he is buried, whilst that of one certainly not his
superior, should be well known in that same place, though he is not
buried there.”
“Perhaps,” said she, “the reason is that the poet, whom you mentioned,
wrote in the old measures and language which few people now understand,
whilst Thomas Edwards wrote in common verse and in the language of the
present day.”
“I dare say it is so,” said I.
From the church she led us to other parts of the ruin—at first she had
spoken to us rather cross and loftily, but she now became kind and
communicative. She said that she resided near the ruins, which she was
permitted to show; that she lived alone, and wished to be alone—there was
something singular about her, and I believe that she had a history of her
own. After showing us the ruins she conducted us to a cottage in which
she lived; it stood behind the ruins by a fishpond, 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 path up a hill, telling us we must
follow it. After making her a present we bade her farewell, and passing
through a meadow crossed a brook by a rustic bridge, formed of the stem
of a tree, and ascending the hill by a path which she had pointed out, we
went through a corn field or two on its top, and at last found ourselves
on the Llangollen road, after a most beautiful walk.