stronghold opposite Mona or Anglesey. “Caer,” the fortress, the
station, where in Welsh legend, Elen, the great Welsh road-maker, was
sought and won by the Emperor Maximus,--history this, or tradition,
which makes the thirteenth century and its Edwards and its castles
seem but as the children of yesterday. I thought of the description
of the old city in the “Dream of Maxen Wledig,” the dream of Maximus,
the tyrant, in the “Mabinogion,” one of the classics of the world and
_the_ classic of Welsh literature. In that dream what did that Roman
Emperor see but what we now saw? “Valleys he saw, and steeps, and rocks
of wondrous height, and rugged precipices, never yet saw he the like.
And thence he beheld an island in the sea facing this rugged land. And
between him and this land was a country of which the plain was as large
as the sea, the mountain as vast as the wood. And from the mountain he
saw a river that flowed through the land and fell into the sea. And at
the mouth of the river he beheld a castle, the fairest that man ever
saw, and the gate of the castle was open, and he went into the castle.”
Probably “Helen of the Roads” is the legendary form which the power of
Rome has taken in Wales. On either side of the mountains two roads run
their straight course from south to north, roads that were marked by
camps in strategic places and by Roman houses of stone in the sunshiny
reaches of the hillsides. Rome is still everywhere in Wales: the way
it thinks in politics, its speech, its literature,--and nowhere more
beautifully than in the “Dream of Maxen Wledig.” The Britons were
in the sorry plight of having to choose between enemies; and of the
two, Roman or heathen invader, the Romans were the more friendly and
beneficent, for the wild birds of the heathen carried only fire on
their wings, and alighted on the ripe grain to burn it, but the Romans
maintained order and conferred power. There in this most ancient city
of Segontium are still the walls of the Roman town as well as the more
recent walls of the castle town, and a remain which suggests a Roman
hypocaust; there coins and other fragments of this ancient empire are
constantly being found. There the body of the father of Constantine,
the first Christian Emperor, was discovered in the reign of Edward I.
And Edward, brutal and practical though he was, had it interred with
pomp and honour in the church.
The very size and strength of Carnarvon Castle as it still stands
shows how important strategically Edward thought the town. That Roman
stronghold which was there before the present castle must have been
beautiful, too, if in the legend of “Maxen Wledig” we have recollection
of what it was like. Both in the dream and with the messengers whom
the Emperor sent, they traversed the land until they came to Snowdon.
“Behold,” said the messengers, “the rugged land that our master saw.”
And then they went forward until they saw Anglesey, and Aber Sain, and
a castle at the mouth of the river. “And in the castle he saw a fair
hall, of which the roof seemed to be all gold, the walls of the hall
seemed to be entirely of glittering precious gems, the doors all seemed
to be of gold. Golden seats he saw in the hall, and silver tables. And
on a seat opposite to him he beheld two auburn-haired youths playing at
chess. He saw a silver board for the chess, and golden pieces thereon.
The garments of the youths were of jet black satin, and chaplets of
ruddy gold bound their hair, whereon were sparkling jewels of great
price, rubies and gems, alternating with imperial stones.… And beside a
pillar in the hall he saw a hoary-headed man, in a chair of ivory, with
the figures of two eagles in ruddy gold thereon. Bracelets of gold were
upon his arms, many rings were on his hands and a gold torque about his
neck; and his hair was bound with a golden diadem. He was of powerful
aspect. A chessboard of gold was before him, and a rod of gold, and a
steel file in his hand. And he was carving out chessmen. And he saw a
maiden sitting before him in a chair of ruddy gold. Not more easy than
to gaze upon the sun when brightest, was it to look upon her by reason
of her beauty. A vest of white silk was upon the maiden, with clasps of
ruddy gold at the breast, and a surcoat of gold tissue upon her, and a
frontlet of ruddy gold upon her head, and rubies and gems were in the
frontlet, alternating with pearls and imperial stones. And a girdle
of ruddy gold was around her. She was the fairest sight that man ever
beheld.” What more beautiful in any castle to be, in any modern royal
pageant of to-day or to-morrow, could there be than this Helen of Wales
of whom the Emperor dreamed and whom he sought and found? Unlike the
other Grecian Helen, she left, not records of war and strife behind
to attest her beauty, but serviceable roads over many of which we may
still travel to-day.
With the exception of Alnwick, Carnarvon Castle is the finest in Great
Britain. It is a wonderful creation of man, a thing of strength and
beauty, of might and grace; its decorated castellated architecture,
facing two ways towards the sea, giving it a visionary appearance
of charm wholly lacking in the bulky massiveness of Conway and
Harlech,--magic casements, these, as I said before,--
“opening on the foam
Of perilous seas, in faery lands forlorn.”
Its thirteen towers, pentagonal, hexagonal, octagonal, perfect in
their slender grace from walls ten feet thick. About one hundred and
fifty years ago, Pennant wrote: “This town is justly the boast of
North Wales, for the beauty of situation, goodness of the buildings,
regularity of the plan, and, above all, the grandeur of the castle, the
most magnificent badge of our subjection.”
It was in the Eagle Tower in which Edward II, the first Prince of
Wales,--though why they should forget their own valiant Gruffyd ap
Llewelyn is more than the writer can see,--is supposed to have been
born. The ivy clings now everywhere upon its castellated summits.
Probably the famous tower was so called because of the bird carved upon
its walls. “Within a little dark room of this tower,” says Pennant,
“not twelve feet long, nor eight in breadth, was born Edward II; so
little, in those days, did a royal consort consult either pomp or
conveniency.” Alas, the Prince was not born in that little tower as
records well show! The Welsh refused to acknowledge the English king
unless he would dwell in Wales. This was impossible; so their demands
were modified to the requirement that the prince placed over them must
be of their own nation and language and of an unblamable life. Queen
Eleanor was about to be confined, and, although it was midwinter and
harsh weather, the king sent for her and she was brought to Carnarvon
where the first English Prince of Wales was born. As soon as Edward
heard that the child was born he called the Welsh nobility together at
Rhuddlan, ostensibly to consult about the public good and safety of
all Wales. Once there, he told them that in case he had to leave the
country he would appoint in his place a prince who would fulfil the
conditions they had given, provided they would obey him, naming one who
had been “born in Wales, could speak no English, and whose life and
conversation nobody could stain,” and then named his own son just born
in Carnarvon. In his seventeenth year, 1301, this Prince of Wales was
formally invested, even as in 1911 another Prince of Wales was endued,
“with a chaplet of gold round his head, a golden ring on his finger,
and a silver sceptre in his hand.” The title is never inherited, but is
conferred by special creation and investiture.
[Illustration: THE TOWER OF DOLBADARN ON LLANBERIS LAKE]
Unfortunate for romantic tradition is it that Edward II built the
Eagle Tower and was not born in it. But these are the facts of
the case, and the people of Carnarvon know them perfectly well.
Undoubtedly, however, this prince was born in the town. One feels
indignant sometimes, perhaps often, in Wales at the value set upon
celebrity, the celebrity which “pays”; at Denbigh the proud claiming of
Stanley, the explorer, where the poor lad was knocked about and abused
worse than some cur of the streets; the exploitation of Dr. Johnson,
who happened to be with Mrs. Piozzi in the vicinity of Denbigh for a
few days; and then this English Prince of Wales whom the Welsh insist
upon having born in the tower which he himself built! Ah, well,--
“Why should not gallant Taffy
Have his relics and his bones,
Llewelyns and Cadwallos,
And Griffyevanjones?”
And we must just be willing to let this cherished Eagle Tower be an
indispensable Welsh bone--or relic of contention.
The gateway of Carnarvon Castle is very impressive, of great size and
strength, as are most of these North Wales castles, but, as is not
the case with most of them, with romantic grace added. Vines clamber
up it and over it, cracks etch the portions of the walls which are
bare. Above the gateway, in its niche high out of reach of destructive
enemies, is the figure of Edward II; and to the right and to the left
graceful turrets rise above the walls. Low on the face of the gateway
tower are slits for defence, above them at a safe altitude are windows
with part of the tracery still intact. This entrance was besieged by
Glendower in the fifteenth century and by a Parliamentary army in the
seventeenth. Bitter battles were fought about the old gate and in the
town beyond. One day at Carnarvon, when the peasant folk were holding a
fair, one Madoc, who claimed to be the son of Llewelyn, burst into the
market square, stormed the castle, and left the town a smouldering ruin.
But distant, far, far distant are those ancient days of primitive
strife. And as I turned off my Snowdon road to enter by this castle
gateway I had still in mind the peaceful, prosperous town through which
I had come and the ships on the sea beyond and the shining island
shore of Mona, mother of Wales. We paid our entrance fee and, as I was
doing that, my eye caught sight of an old table there under the arch,
littered with books for sale. I looked at the shimmering green grass
beyond in the castle courtyard down upon which the sun was flooding. We
were in no haste. I wanted to dally, and dally I did by the bookstall,
my hand falling upon a first edition of Goldsmith’s “Bee”, to be sold
at sixpence! We paid for it, and I could hear my friend saying, “Do you
suppose it really is a first edition?”
My fingers between the leaves of this book, I turned to and opened
“A City Night-Peace,” reading, “There may come a time when this
temporary solitude may be made continual, and the city itself, like its
inhabitants, fade away, and leave a desert in its room.” Then we went
through into the sunshine in the courtyard beyond, the book clasped
tightly in my hand, and the hours passed as in a dream. There was the
touch of time made visible, there was life carried forward even in
the busy chirping of the birds upon the vine-covered walls, there was
sunshine as it had been in those olden but not more golden days than
this, there was the sound of voices, voices beloved so long, long ago,
and speaking again; there was joy, and sorrow, living again for me and
in me; there once more was all that eager, ardent, daily commonplace of
human lives, that daily friendliness of little things which makes life
so worth the living. I felt it in all about us, woven into everything,
the cheerful noise of birds, the voices from beyond the castle walls,
the sunshine, the colour; and more and more the spirit of the place
took possession of me.
Again as in a dream within a dream we passed through the castle
gateway out into the town with its simple old houses, its little shops
with their signboards and gay windows, its inns and lodgings, past the
Welsh children playing in the streets and their elders going gravely
to and fro about their business, and the sleek horses and whirling
motors, up the hill past Llanbeblig Church, the churchyard Watts-Dunton
has used as part of the setting of his story “Aylwin,” and on to the
country road which, with thirteen miles’ walking, would bring us
home--to our Welsh home at the foot of Snowdon, Eryri, the home of
eagles. Behind us, as we turned, the ships had become but white moths
on a vast sea, Anglesey was growing dimmer, the cows pastured on the
plain about the old town were but specks, the coast-line was merging
into the water. But still the castle dominated everything, and I
thought of Dr. Samuel Johnson’s delight in that vast pile and his naïve
record in the Cambrian journal: “I did not think there had been such
buildings; it surpassed my ideas.”
VII
_The Eisteddfod_
It was the first morning of my first Welsh National Eisteddfod, and I
sat by the window working, and glancing away from my work to a hillside
up which led narrow steps to the summits above, among which were hidden
away some half a dozen tiny villages. Colwyn Bay, where the Eisteddfod
was to be held, was--as the crow does _not_ fly--about forty miles
distant. It was a glorious morning of sunshine in which gleamed the
river, glossy beeches and pines, and little whitewashed Welsh cottages.
As I looked, there began to emerge from the steps a stream of people;
down and down they flowed, bright in their pretty dresses or shining
in their black Sunday-best broadcloth. All those mountain hamlets up
above, reached by roads passable only for mountain ponies, were sending
their men, women, and children to the Welsh festival of song and poetry.
Talking and excited about who would be chaired as bard, who would
be crowned, what female choir would win in the choral contests, what
male choir, and discussing a thousand little competitions, even to a
set of insertions for sheets, shams, and towels, we were borne on the
train from Bettws-y-Coed swiftly through the Vale of Conway, beside the
river, past Caerhûn, the once ancient city of Canovium, past Conway
Castle, with its harp-shaped walls still encircling the town, and so to
Colwyn Bay.
Then all these enthusiastic people who had climbed down a hill to
take the train, climbed up another to see the first Gorsedd ceremony.
As we passed, from one of the cottages was heard the voice of a woman
screaming in great excitement, “Mrs. Jones, Mrs. Jones, come to the
front door quickly. There’s some people going by; they’re dressed in
blue and white. Dear me, Mrs. Jones, they’re MEN!” The procession,
fully aware that Mrs. Jones, and all the little Joneses and all the
big and middling Joneses, too, had come, went on gravely up, up, up
the hill to “Y Fanerig” (the Flagstaff), where stood the “Maen Llog
of the Gorsedd” and its encircling stones. The paths were steep, and
even bards and druids are subject to _embonpoint_. Old Eos Dar, who can
sing penillion with never a pause for breath, lost his “wind,” and the
“Bearer of the Great Sword of the Gorsedd” was no more to be found. A
boy scout, perhaps thinking of Scott’s minstrel, who said,--
“The way was long, the wind was cold,
The minstrel was infirm and old,”
was despatched downhill after him, and found him and the sword, arm in
arm, lagging comfortably behind. Druidical deportment is astonishingly
human at times. But the hilltop achieved and wind recovered, the
bards soberly made their way into the druidical circle of stones that
surround the great Gorsedd stone. Nowhere, as the Archdruid remarked,
had the Bardic Brotherhood been brought nearer heaven.
From the summit, north, east, south, west, the soft valleys, the
towering mountains, the secluded villages, the shining rivers, and the
great sea were visible. And there on this hilltop the bards, druids,
and ovates dressed in blue and white and green robes, celebrated rites
only less old than the Eye of Light itself. After the sounding of the
trumpet (“Corn Gwlad”), the Gorsedd prayer was recited in Welsh,--
“Grant, O God, Thy Protection;
And in Protection, Strength;
And in Strength, Understanding;
And in Understanding, Knowledge;
And in Knowledge, the Knowledge of Justice;
And in the Knowledge of Justice, the Love of it;
And in that Love, the Love of all Existence;
And in the Love of all Existence, the Love of God.
God and all Goodness.”
Then the Archdruid, Dyfed, standing upon the Gorsedd stone and facing
the east, unsheathed the great sword, crying out thrice, “Aoes
Heddwch?” (Is it peace?) and the bards and ovates replied “Heddwch!”
(Peace.)
There are some scholars who question the “identity of the Bardic
Gorsedd with the druidic system.” The Welsh Gorsedd, this side of the
controversial point, is forty centuries old, and in all conscience
that is old enough. Diodorus, the Cicilian, wrote, “There are, among
the Gauls, makers of verses, whom they name bards. There are also
certain philosophers and theologists, exceedingly esteemed, whom they
call Druids.” Strabo, the geographer, says, “Amongst the whole of the
Gauls three classes are especially held in distinguished honour--the
bards, the prophets, and the druids. The bards are singers and poets,
the prophets are sacrificers and philosophers, but the druids, besides
physiology, practised ethical philosophy.” As far back as we can
look in the life of the Cymru, poetry, song, and theology have been
inextricably woven together. The Gorsedd was then, formally, for the
Welsh people what it still is informally: a popular university, a law
court, a parliament. The modern Gorsedd, with its twelve stones, is
supposed to represent the signs of the zodiac through which the sun
passes, with a central stone, called the “Maen Llog,” in the position
of the sacrificial fire in the druidical temple. A close reverence for
nature, a certain pantheism in the cult of the druids, shows itself in
various ways,--in the belief that the oak tree was the home of the god
of lightning, that mistletoe, which usually grows upon the oak, was
a mark of divine favour. The most prominent symbol of the Gorsedd is
the “Broad Arrow” or “mystic mark,” supposed to represent the rays of
light which the druids worshipped. Even the colours of the robes of the
druids, ovates, and bards are full of characteristic worship of nature;
the druids in white symbolical of the purity of truth and light, the
ovates in green like the life and growth of nature, the bards in blue,
the hue of the sky and in token of the loftiness of their calling.
Up there on the hilltop, with its vast panorama of hill and valley,
sea and sky, time became as nothing. The Gorsedd became again the
democratic Witenagemot of the Welsh, and there still were represented
the mountain shepherd, the pale collier, the lusty townsman, the gentle
knight, the expounder of law, the teacher and the priest. But if upon
the hill time was as nothing, down below in the gigantic Eisteddfod
pavilion some ten thousand people were waiting. “Gallant little Wales,”
which has certainly awakened from its long sleep, was past the period
of rubbing its eyes. It was shouting and calling for the Eisteddfod
ceremonies to begin, perhaps as the folk in Caerwys had called
impatiently in the days of the twelfth century, or again in that old
town in the days of Elizabeth, the last that memorable Eisteddfod when
a commission was appointed by Elizabeth herself to check the bad habits
of a crowd of lazy illiterate bards who went about the country begging.
That great Eisteddfodic pavilion, where the people were waiting
good-naturedly but impatiently, is primarily a place of music. Even as
in the world, so in Wales music comes first in the hearts of mankind
and poetry second. And it may be, since music is more social and
democratic, that the popular preference is as it should be. The human
element in all that happens at a Welsh Eisteddfod is robust and teeming
with enthusiasm. It is true that prize-taking socks, shawls, pillow
shams, and such homely articles no longer hang in festoons above the
platform as they did some twenty or thirty years ago. Now the walls
are gaily decorated with banners bearing thousands of spiteful-looking
dragons, and pennants inscribed with the names of scores of famous
Welshmen, and with such mottoes as “Y Gwir yn Erbyn y Byd” (the truth
against the world), “Gwlad y Mabinogion” (the land of the Mabinogion),
“Calon wrth Galon” (heart with heart), and others.
After the procession of dignitaries was seated upon the platform, a
worried-looking bard began to call out prizes for every conceivably
useful thing under the sun, among them a clock tower which he seemed
to be in need of himself as a rostrum for his throat-splitting yells.
During these announcements the choirs were filing in, a pretty child
with a ’cello much larger than herself was taking off her hat and coat,
a stiff, self-conscious young man was bustling about with an air of
importance, and in the front, just below the platform, sat newspaper
reporters, from all over the United Kingdom, busy at their work. Among
them were the gray, the young, the weary, the dusty, the smart, the
shabby, and one who wore a wig, but made up in roses in his buttonhole
for what he lacked in hair. There were occasional cheers as some
local prima donna entered the choir seats, and many jokes from the
anxious-looking master of ceremonies.
At last the first choir was assembled, and a little lady, somebody’s
good mother, mounted upon a chair. The choir began to sing,--
“Come, sisters, come,
Where light and shadows mingle,
And elves and fairies dance and sing,
Upon the meadow land.”
[Illustration: LLANBERIS
_From an old print_]
The little lady never worked harder, her baton, her hands, her head,
her lips, her eyes were all busy. Was it the Celtic spirit that made
those elves and fairies _seem_ to dance upon the meadows or did they
really dance? The next choir was composed of younger women, among them
many a beauty-loving face, alas! too pale and telling of the hard
life of the hills or of the harder life of some mining-town. Of the
third choir the leader was a merry little man, scarcely as high as the
leader’s stand, with a wild look in his twinkling eyes as he waved a
baton and the choir began,--
“Far beneath the stars we lie,
Far from gaze of mortal eye,
Far beneath the ocean swell,
Here we merry mermaids dwell.”
He believed not only in his choir, but also in those mermaidens, and
so did the little lad, not much bigger than Hofmann when he first began
to tour, who played the accompaniment. When that choir went out, a
fourth came in, still inviting the sisters to come. At last the sisters
not only came, but also decided to stay, and another choir lured the
sailor successfully to his doom, and all was over, for even in choir
tragedies there must be an end to the song. The gallant little mother
had won the first prize. It takes the mothers to win prizes, and the
audience thought so, too. The crowd yelled and stamped with delight.
When one asks one’s self whether Surrey, for example, or such a state
as Massachusetts in America, could be brought to send its people from
every farm, every valley, every hilltop, to a festival thousands
strong, day after day for a whole week, one realizes how tremendous a
thing this Welsh national enthusiasm is. Educationally nothing could be
a greater movement for Wales. To the Welsh the beauty of worship, of
music, of poetry are inseparable. Only so can this passion for beauty,
which brings multitudes together to take part in all that is noblest
and best in Welsh life, be explained. Only so can you understand why
some young collier, pale and work-worn, sings with his whole soul and
shakes with the song within him even as a bird shakes with the notes
that are too great for its body. These Welsh sing as if music were all
the world to them, and in it they forget the world. Behind the passion
of their song lies a devout religious conviction, and their song
sweeps up in praise and petition to an Almighty God, who listens to
Shelley’s “Ode to the West Wind” as well as to some great hymn. To hear
ten thousand Welsh people singing “Land of my Fathers,” each taking
naturally one of the four parts and all singing in perfect harmony, is
to have one of the great experiences of life. To hear Shelley’s “Ode”
set to Elgar’s music and sung by several choirs, to hear that wild,
far-travelling wind sweep along in a tumult of harmonies, to know that
every heart there was as a lyre even to the least breath of that wind,
to hear that last cry,--
“Oh, wind,
If winter comes, can spring be far behind?”--