The Comical Adventures of Twm Shon Catty Part 31

C. D.

*** The parents of the young man, and his brothers and sisters, desire that all gifts of the above nature due to them, be returned to the young man on the above day, and will be thankful for all favours granted. Also, the young woman's parents and her brothers and sisters, desire that all gifts of the above nature due to them, be returned to the young woman on the above day, and will be thankful for all favours granted.

{58} A large three-legged iron pot used for cooking.

{72} Havod un-nos, signifies _one summer night_. A poor wandering family pitching their tent on a common, building a hearth, and boiling their pot thereon, in the course of one Summer's day and night, claimed from ancient usage their right to the spot. Thus a hut so built, was gradually made into a decent cottage; the surrounding ground, from a mere yard of scant dimensions, would become a yard and a garden; and patch after patch being cribbed and inclosed, in the course of a few years a little farm was created, in the midst, or on the margin of a dreary common. These practices were often _winked_ at by the parish, in favour of a poor industrious large family, who were thus provided for, instead of becoming objects of parochial relief. If the intrusion remained unnoticed for sixty years, it became a freehold property!

{140} Anglice, Bessy Blubberlip.

{149} Translated from a very popular Welsh ballad, by John Jones, of Glangors, author of many humorous songs in the same language.

{153} Hob y deri dando signifies "away my herd to the oaken grove." Mr.

Parry, for whose Welsh Melodies the modern words were written, remarks, "There is something very quaint and characteristic in this ancient air, and it is popular in Wales."

{165} The victim of the sons of Maes-y-velin was Samuel, the son of Rhys Prichard, the celebrated author of "Canwyll y Cymry," (the Welshman's candle,) a volume of religious poems, the most popular, and said to have done the most good, of any that ever was printed in the Welsh language.

To this favourite son the pious author addressed many of his poems, exhorting and directing him, by name, to the most minute acts in his devotion. On hearing of his murder, the old man is said to have burst out in the wildest strain of prophetic phrenzy, with the following CURSE on the murderers of Maes-y-velin.

Melldith Duw a fyddo'n dilyn Pob rhyw ach o' Vaes y Felin, Am daflu blodeu plwyf Llanddyvri Ar ei ben i Deifi foddi.

The translation of which runs thus-

May G.o.d with heavy curses chase All Maes-y-velin's villain race, Since they have drown'd in Teivy's tide Llandovery's flower-Cymry's pride!

{203} In the original-

"Nid twyll twyllo twyllwr, Nid brad bradychu bradwr; Nid lladrad mi wn yn dda, Lladrada or ladratwr."

{210} Should it be asked why this trick (a similar one being related of the Friar of Gil Blas) is attributed to Twm Shon Catty, his Editor can attest that this is not the only incident of the kind that he would willingly have related if he had dared. But as this, and others, have long been on record, both in the memories of the country people, and in the Welsh Jest Books, any omission of incident or anecdote on the score of being property claimable by others, would be scouted, as a poor-spirited compromise of their rights: it being utterly out of the pale of possibility that the said good things could have belonged originally, to any other than their own redoubted Twm Shon Catty! This explanation, once for all, must answer every similar objection on the part of the English reader.

{264} Signifying "_The Poem of Affliction_." The original Welsh Poem, in recitative measure, of which the above is rather a condensed paraphrase of the late Mr. Jenkins, of Llwynygroes, Cardigans.h.i.+re.

{269} Between these rivers, before they unite, is an angular slip of lowland, being the last of Cardigans.h.i.+re; Dinas, and all the interesting height here described, are in Carmarthens.h.i.+re; while the boundary of Brecons.h.i.+re is about half a mile off. The reader, who if a Welshman, will hence recognize the etymology of Ystrad Fin, which signifies, "The vale of the boundary."