CHAPTER XXVI
Ceiniog Mawr—Pentre Voelas—The Old Conway—Stupendous Pass—The Gwedir Family—Capel Curig—The Two Children—Bread—Wonderful Echo—Tremendous Walker.
I walked on briskly over a flat uninteresting country, and in about an hour’s time came in front of a large stone house. It stood near the road, on the left-hand side, with a pond and pleasant trees before it, and a number of corn-stacks behind. It had something the appearance of an inn, but displayed no sign. As I was standing looking at it, a man with the look of a labourer, and with a dog by his side, came out of the house and advanced towards me.
“What is the name of this place?” said I to him in English as he drew nigh.
“Sir,” said the man, “the name of the house is Ceiniog Mawr.”
“Is it an inn?” said I.
“Not now, sir; but some years ago it was an inn, and a very large one at which coaches used to stop; at present, it is occupied by an amaethwr—that is a farmer, sir.”
“Ceiniog Mawr means a great penny,” said I, “why is it called by that name?”
“I have heard, sir, that before it was an inn it was a very considerable place, namely, a royal mint at which pennies were made, and on that account it was called Ceiniog Mawr.”
I was subsequently told that the name of this place was Cernioge Mawr. If such be the real name the legend about the mint falls to the ground, Cernioge having nothing to do with pence. Cern in Welsh means a jaw. Perhaps the true name of the house is Corniawg, which interpreted is a place with plenty of turrets or chimneys. A mile or two further the ground began to rise, and I came to a small village at the entrance of which was a water-wheel—near the village was a gentleman’s seat almost surrounded by groves. After I had passed through the village, seeing a woman seated by the roadside knitting, I asked her in English its name. Finding she had no Saesneg I repeated the question in Welsh, whereupon she told me that it was called Pentre Voelas.
“And whom does the ‘Plas’ belong to yonder amongst the groves?” said I.
“It belongs to Mr. Wynn, sir, and so does the village and a great deal of the land about here. A very good gentleman is Mr. Wynn, sir; he is very kind to his tenants and a very good lady is Mrs. Wynn, sir; in the winter she gives much soup to the poor.”
After leaving the village of Pentre Voelas I soon found myself in a wild hilly region. I crossed a bridge over a river which brawling and tumbling amidst rocks shaped its course to the north-east. As I proceeded the country became more and more wild; there were dingles and hollows in abundance, and fantastic-looking hills some of which were bare and others clad with trees of various kinds. Came to a little well in a cavity dug in a high bank on the left-hand side of the road, and fenced by rude stone work on either side; the well was about ten inches in diameter, and as many deep. Water oozing from the bank upon a slanting tile fastened into the earth fell into it. After damming up the end of the tile with my hand and drinking some delicious water I passed on and presently arrived at a cottage just inside the door of which sat a good-looking middle-aged woman engaged in knitting, the general occupation of Welsh females.
“Good-day,” said I to her in Welsh. “Fine weather.”
“In truth, sir, it is fine weather for the harvest.”
“Are you alone in the house?”
“I am, sir, my husband has gone to his labour.”
“Two, sir; but they are out at service.”
“What is the name of this place?”
“Pant Paddock, sir.”
“Do you get your water from the little well yonder?”
“We do, sir, and good water it is.”
“I have drunk of it.”
“Much good may what you have drunk do you, sir!”
“What is the name of the river near here?”
“It is called the Conway, sir.”
“Dear me; is that river the Conway?”
“You have heard of it, sir?”
“Heard of it! it is one of the famous rivers of the world. The poets are very fond of it—one of the great poets of my country calls it the old Conway.”
“Is one river older than another, sir?”
“That’s a shrewd question. Can you read?”
“I can, sir.”
“Have you any books?”
“I have the Bible, sir.”
“Will you show it me?”
“Willingly, sir.”
Then getting up she took a book from a shelf and handed it to me at the same time begging me to enter the house and sit down. I declined and she again took her seat and resumed her occupation. On opening the book the first words which met my eye were “Gad i mi fyned trwy dy dir!” Let me go through your country. Numbers xx. 22.
“I may say these words,” said I, pointing to the passage, “Let me go through your country.”
“No one will hinder you, sir, for you seem a civil gentleman.”
“No one has hindered me hitherto. Wherever I have been in Wales I have experienced nothing but kindness and hospitality, and when I return to my own country I will say so.”
“What country is yours, sir?”
“England. Did you not know that by my tongue?”
“I did not, sir. I knew by your tongue that you were not from our parts—but I did not know that you were an Englishman. I took you for a Cumro of the south country.”
Returning the kind woman her book, and bidding her farewell I departed, and proceeded some miles through a truly magnificent country of wood, rock, and mountain. At length I came down to a steep mountain gorge down which the road ran nearly due north, the Conway to the left running with great noise parallel with the road, amongst broken rocks, which chafed it into foam. I was now amidst stupendous hills, whose paps, peaks, and pinnacles seemed to rise to the very heaven. An immense mountain on the right side of the road particularly struck my attention, and on inquiring of a man breaking stones by the roadside I learned that it was called Dinas Mawr or the large citadel, perhaps from a fort having been built upon it to defend the pass in the old British times. Coming to the bottom of the pass I crossed over by an ancient bridge and passing through a small town found myself in a beautiful valley with majestic hills, on either side. This was the Dyffryn Conway, the celebrated Vale of Conway, to which in the summer time fashionable gentry from all parts of Britain resort for shade and relaxation. When about midway down the valley I turned to the west up one of the grandest passes in the world, having two immense door-posts of rock at the entrance, the northern one probably rising to the altitude of nine hundred feet. On the southern side of this pass near the entrance were neat dwellings for the accommodation of visitors with cool apartments on the ground-floor with large windows, looking towards the precipitous side of the mighty northern hill; within them I observed tables, and books, and young men, probably English collegians, seated at study.
After I had proceeded some way up the pass down which a small river ran, a woman who was standing on the right-hand side of the way, seemingly on the look-out, begged me in broken English to step aside and look at the fall.
“You mean a waterfall, I suppose?” said I.
“Yes, sir.”
“And how do you call it?” said I.
“The Fall of the Swallow, sir.”
“Rhaiadr y Wennol, sir.”
“And what is the name of the river?” said I.
“We call the river the Lygwy, sir.”
I told the woman I would go, whereupon she conducted me through a gate on the right-hand side and down a path, overhung with trees to a rock projecting into the river. The Fall of the Swallow is not a majestic single fall, but a succession of small ones. First there are a number of little foaming torrents, bursting through rocks about twenty yards above the promontory, on which I stood. Then come two beautiful rows of white water, dashing into a pool a little way above the promontory; then there is a swirl of water round its corner into a pool below on its right, black as death and seemingly of great depth; then a rush through a very narrow outlet into another pool, from which the water clamours away down the glen. Such is the Rhaiadr y Wennol, or Swallow Fall; called so from the rapidity with which the waters rush and skip along.
On asking the woman on whose property the fall was, she informed me that it was on the property of the Gwedir family. The name of Gwedir brought to my mind the History of the Gwedir Family, a rare and curious book which I had read in my boyhood and which was written by the representative of that family, a certain Sir John Wynne, about the beginning of the seventeenth century. It gives an account of the fortunes of the family from its earliest rise: but more particularly after it had emigrated, in order to avoid bad neighbours, from a fair and fertile district into rugged Snowdonia, where it found anything but the repose it came in quest of. The book which is written in bold graphic English flings considerable light on the state of society in Wales, in the time of the Tudors, a truly deplorable state, as the book is full of accounts of feuds, petty but desperate skirmishes, and revengeful murders. To many of the domestic sagas, or histories of ancient Icelandic families, from the character of the events which it describes and also from the manner in which it describes them, the History of the Gwedir Family, by Sir John Wynne, bears a striking resemblance.
After giving the woman sixpence I left the fall, and proceeded on my way. I presently crossed a bridge under which ran the river of the fall, and was soon in a wide valley on each side of which were lofty hills dotted with wood, and at the top of which stood a mighty mountain, bare and precipitous with two paps like those of Pindus opposite Janina, but somewhat sharper. It was a region of fairy beauty and of wild grandeur. Meeting an old bleared-eyed farmer I inquired the name of the mountain and learned that it was called Moel Siabod or Shabod. Shortly after leaving him, I turned from the road to inspect a monticle which appeared to me to have something of the appearance of a burial heap. It stood in a green meadow by the river which ran down the valley on the left. Whether it was a grave hill or a natural monticle, I will not say; but standing in the fair meadow, the rivulet murmuring beside it, and the old mountain looking down upon it, I thought it looked a very meet resting-place for an old Celtic king.
Turning round the northern side of the mighty Siabod I soon reached the village of Capel Curig, standing in a valley between two hills, the easternmost of which is the aforesaid Moel Siabod. Having walked now twenty miles in a broiling day I thought it high time to take some refreshment, and inquired the way to the inn. The inn, or rather the hotel, for it was a very magnificent edifice, stood at the entrance of a pass leading to Snowdon, on the southern side of the valley in a totally different direction from the road leading to Bangor, to which place I was bound. There I dined in a grand saloon amidst a great deal of fashionable company, who, probably conceiving from my heated and dusty appearance that I was some poor fellow travelling on foot from motives of economy, surveyed me with looks of the most supercilious disdain, which, however, neither deprived me of my appetite nor operated uncomfortably on my feelings.
My dinner finished, I paid my bill and having sauntered a little about the hotel garden, which is situated on the border of a small lake and from which through the vista of the pass Snowdon may be seen towering in majesty at the distance of about six miles, I started for Bangor, which is fourteen miles from Capel Curig.
The road to Bangor from Capel Curig is almost due west. An hour’s walking brought me to a bleak moor, extending for a long way amidst wild sterile hills.
The first of a chain on the left was a huge lumpy hill with a precipice towards the road probably three hundred feet high. When I had come nearly parallel with the commencement of this precipice, I saw on the left-hand side of the road two children looking over a low wall behind which at a little distance stood a wretched hovel. On coming up I stopped and looked at them: they were a boy and a girl; the first about twelve, the latter a year or two younger; both wretchedly dressed and looking very sickly.
“Have you any English?” said I, addressing the boy in Welsh.
“Dim gair,” said the boy; “not a word; there is no Saesneg near here.”
“What is the name of this place?”
“The name of our house is Helyg.”
“And what is the name of that hill?” said I, pointing to the hill of the precipice.
“Allt y Gôg—the high place of the cuckoo.”
“Have you a father and mother?”
“We have.”
“Are they in the house?”
“They have gone to Capel Curig.”
“And they left you alone?”
“They did. With the cat and the trin-wire.”
“Do your father and mother make wire-work?”
“They do. They live by making it.”
“What is the wire-work for?”
“It is for hedges to fence the fields with.”
“Do you help your father and mother?”
“We do; as far as we can.”
“You both look unwell.”
“We have lately had the cryd” (ague).
“Is there much cryd about here?”
“Plenty.”
“Do you live well?”
“When we have bread we live well.”
“If I give you a penny will you bring me some water?”
“We will; whether you give us the penny or not. Come, sister, let us go and fetch the gentleman water.”
They ran into the house and presently returned, the girl bearing a pan of water. After I had drunk I gave each of the children a penny, and received in return from each a diolch or thanks.
“Can either of you read?”
“Neither one nor the other.”
“Can your father and mother read?”
“My father cannot, my mother can a little.”
“Are there any books in the house?”
“There are not.”
“No Bible?”
“There is no book at all.”
“Do you go to church?”
“We do not.”
“To chapel?”
“In fine weather.”
“Are you happy?”
“When there is bread in the house and no cryd we are all happy.”
“Farewell to you, children.”
“Farewell to you, gentleman!” exclaimed both.
“I have learnt something,” said I, “of Welsh cottage life and feeling from that poor sickly child.”
I had passed the first and second of the hills which stood on the left, and a huge long mountain on the right which confronted both when a young man came down from a gulley on my left hand, and proceeded in the same direction as myself. He was dressed in a blue coat and corduroy trowsers and appeared to be of a condition a little above that of a labourer. He shook his head and scowled when I spoke to him in English, but smiled on my speaking Welsh and said: “Ah, you speak Cumraeg: I thought no Sais could speak Cumraeg.” I asked him if he was going far.
“About four miles,” he replied.
“On the Bangor road?”
“Yes,” said he; “down the Bangor road.”
I learned that he was a carpenter, and that he had been up the gully to see an acquaintance—perhaps a sweetheart. We passed a lake on our right which he told me was called Llyn Ogwen, and that it abounded with fish. He was very amusing and expressed great delight at having found an Englishman who could speak Welsh. “It will be a thing to talk of,” said he, “for the rest of my life.” He entered two or three cottages by the side of the road, and each time he came out I heard him say: “I am with a Sais, who can speak Cumraeg.” At length we came to a gloomy-looking valley trending due north; down this valley the road ran having an enormous wall of rocks on its right and a precipitous hollow on the left, beyond which was a wall equally high as the other one. When we had proceeded some way down the road my guide said: “You shall now hear a wonderful echo,” and shouting, “taw, taw,” the rocks replied in a manner something like the baying of hounds. “Hark to the dogs!” exclaimed my companion. “This pass is called Nant yr ieuanc gwn, the pass of the young dogs, because when one shouts it answers with a noise resembling the crying of hounds.”
The sun was setting when we came to a small village at the bottom of the pass. I asked my companion its name. “Ty yn y maes,” he replied, adding as he stopped before a small cottage that he was going no farther, as he dwelt there.
“Is there a public-house here?” said I.
“There is,” he replied, “you will find one a little farther up on the right hand.”
“Come, and take some ale,” said I.
“No,” said he.
“Why not?” I demanded.
“I am a teetotaller,” he replied.
“Indeed,” said I, and having shaken him by the hand, thanked him for his company, and bidding him farewell, went on. He was the first person I had ever met of the fraternity to which he belonged, who did not endeavour to make a parade of his abstinence and self-denial.
After drinking some tolerably good ale in the public-house I again started. As I left the village a clock struck eight. The evening was delightfully cool; but it soon became nearly dark. I passed under high rocks, by houses and by groves, in which nightingales were singing, to listen to whose entrancing melody I more than once stopped. On coming to a town, lighted up and thronged with people, I asked one of a group of young fellows its name.
“Bethesda,” he replied.
“A scriptural name,” said I.
“Is it?” said he; “well, if its name is scriptural the manners of its people are by no means so.”
A little way beyond the town a man came out of a cottage and walked beside me. He had a basket in his hand. I quickened my pace; but he was a tremendous walker, and kept up with me. On we went side by side for more than a mile without speaking a word. At length, putting out my legs in genuine Barclay fashion, I got before him about ten yards, then turning round laughed and spoke to him in English. He too laughed and spoke, but in Welsh. We now went on like brothers, conversing, but always walking at great speed. I learned from him that he was a market gardener living at Bangor, and that Bangor, was three miles off. On the stars shining out we began to talk about them.
Pointing to Charles’s wain I said, “A good star for travellers.”
Whereupon pointing to the North star, he said:
“I forwyr da iawn—a good star for mariners.”
We passed a large house on our left.
“Who lives there?” said I.
“Mr. Smith,” he replied. “It is called Plas Newydd; milltir genom etto—we have yet another mile.”
In ten minutes we were at Bangor. I asked him where the Albion Hotel was.
“I will show it you,” said he, and so he did.
As we came under it I heard the voice of my wife, for she, standing on a balcony and distinguishing me by the lamplight, called out. I shook hands with the kind six-mile-an-hour market gardener, and going into the inn found my wife and daughter, who rejoiced to see me. We presently had tea.
CHAPTER XXVII
Bangor—Edmund Price—The Bridges—Bookselling—Future Pope—Wild Irish—Southey.
Bangor is seated on the spurs of certain high hills near the Menai, a strait separating Mona or Anglesey from Caernarvonshire. It was once a place of Druidical worship, of which fact, even without the testimony of history and tradition, the name which signifies “upper circle” would be sufficient evidence. On the decay of Druidism a town sprang up on the site and in the neighbourhood of the “upper circle,” in which in the sixth century a convent or university was founded by Deiniol, who eventually became Bishop of Bangor. This Deiniol was the son of Deiniol Vawr, a zealous Christian prince who founded the convent of Bangor Is Coed, or Bangor beneath the wood, in Flintshire, which was destroyed and its inmates almost to a man put to the sword by Ethelbert a Saxon king, and his barbarian followers at the instigation of the monk Austin, who hated the brethren because they refused to acknowledge the authority of the Pope, whose delegate he was in Britain. There were in all three Bangors; the one at Is Coed, another in Powis, and this Caernarvonshire Bangor, which was generally termed Bangor Vawr or Bangor the great. The two first Bangors have fallen into utter decay, but Bangor Vawr is still a bishop’s see, boasts of a small but venerable cathedral, and contains a population of above eight thousand souls.
Two very remarkable men have at different periods conferred a kind of lustre upon Bangor by residing in it, Taliesin in the old, and Edmund Price in comparatively modern time. Both of them were poets. Taliesin flourished about the end of the fifth century, and for the sublimity of his verses was for many centuries called by his countrymen the Bardic King. Amongst his pieces is one generally termed “The Prophecy of Taliesin,” which announced long before it happened the entire subjugation of Britain by the Saxons, and which is perhaps one of the most stirring pieces of poetry ever produced. Edmund Price flourished during the time of Elizabeth. He was archdeacon of Merionethshire, but occasionally resided at Bangor for the benefit of his health. Besides being one of the best Welsh poets of his age he was a man of extraordinary learning, possessing a thorough knowledge of no less than eight languages.
The greater part of his compositions, however clever and elegant, are, it must be confessed, such as do little credit to the pen of an ecclesiastic, being bitter poignant satires, which were the cause of much pain and misery to individuals; one of his works, however, is not only of a kind quite consistent with his sacred calling, but has been a source of considerable blessing. To him the Cambrian Church is indebted for the version of the Psalms, which for the last two centuries it has been in the habit of using. Previous to the version of the Archdeacon a translation of the Psalms had been made into Welsh by William Middleton, an officer in the naval service of Queen Elizabeth, in the four-and-twenty alliterative measures of the ancient bards. It was elegant and even faithful, but far beyond the comprehension of people in general, and consequently by no means fitted for the use of churches, though intended for that purpose by the author, a sincere Christian, though a warrior. Avoiding the error into which his predecessor had fallen, the Archdeacon made use of a measure intelligible to people of every degree, in which alliteration is not observed, and which is called by the Welsh y mesur cyffredin, or the common measure. His opinion of the four-and-twenty measures the Archdeacon has given to the world in four cowydd lines to the following effect:
“I’ve read the master-pieces great
Of languages no less than eight,
But ne’er have found a woof of song
So strict as that of Cambria’s tongue.”
After breakfast on the morning subsequent to my arrival, Henrietta and I roamed about the town, and then proceeded to view the bridges which lead over the strait to Anglesey. One, for common traffic, is a most beautiful suspension bridge completed in 1820, the result of the mental and manual labours of the ingenious Telford; the other is a tubular railroad bridge, a wonderful structure, no doubt, but anything but graceful. We remained for some time on the first bridge, admiring the scenery, and were not a little delighted, as we stood leaning over the principal arch, to see a proud vessel pass beneath us at full sail.
Satiated with gazing we passed into Anglesey, and making our way to the tubular bridge, which is to the west of the suspension one, entered one of its passages and returned to the mainland.
The air was exceedingly hot and sultry, and on coming to a stone bench, beneath a shady wall, we both sat down, panting, on one end of it; as we were resting ourselves, a shabby-looking man with a bundle of books came and seated himself at the other end, placing his bundle beside him; then taking out from his pocket a dirty red handkerchief, he wiped his face, which was bathed in perspiration, and ejaculated: “By Jasus, it is blazing hot!”
“Very hot, my friend,” said I; “have you travelled far to-day?”
“I have not, your hanner; I have been just walking about the dirty town trying to sell my books.”
“Have you been successful?”
“I have not, your hanner; only three pence have I taken this blessed day.”
“What do your books treat of?”
“Why that is more than I can tell your hanner; my trade is to sell the books not to read them. Would your hanner like to look at them?”
“O dear no,” said I; “I have long been tired of books; I have had enough of them.”
“I dare say, your hanner; from the state of your hanner’s eyes I should say as much; they look so weak—picking up learning has ruined your hanner’s sight.”
“May I ask,” said I, “from what country you are?”
“Sure your hanner may; and it is a civil answer you will get from Michael Sullivan. It is from ould Ireland I am, from Castlebar in the county Mayo.”
“And how came you into Wales?”
“From the hope of bettering my condition, your hanner, and a foolish hope it was.”
“You have not bettered your condition, then?”
“I have not, your hanner; for I suffer quite as much hunger and thirst as ever I did in ould Ireland.”
“Did you sell books in Ireland?”
“I did nat, your hanner; I made buttons and clothes—that is I pieced them. I was several trades in ould Ireland, your hanner; but none of them answering, I came over here.”
“Where you commenced bookselling?” said I.
“I did nat; your hanner. I first sold laces, and then I sold loocifers, and then something else; I have followed several trades in Wales, your hanner; at last I got into the bookselling trade, in which I now am.”
“And it answers, I suppose, as badly as the others?”
“Just as badly, your hanner; divil a bit better.”
“I suppose you never beg?”
“Your hanner may say that; I was always too proud to beg. It is begging I laves to the wife I have.”
“Then you have a wife?”
“I have, your hanner; and a daughter, too; and a good wife and daughter they are. What would become of me without them I do not know.”
“Have you been long in Wales?”
“Not very long, your hanner; only about twenty years.”
“Do you travel much about?”
“All over North Wales, your hanner; to say nothing of the southern country.”
“I suppose you speak Welsh?”
“Not a word, your hanner. The Welsh speak their language so fast, that divil a word could I ever contrive to pick up.”
“Do you speak Irish?”
“I do, your hanner; that is when people spake to me in it.”
I spoke to him in Irish; after a little discourse he said in English:
“I see your hanner is a Munster man. Ah! all the learned men comes from Munster. Father Toban comes from Munster.”
“I have heard of him once or twice before,” said I.
“I dare say your hanner has. Everyone has heard of Father Toban; the greatest scholar in the world, who they say stands a better chance of being made Pope, some day or other, than any saggart in Ireland.”
“Will you take sixpence?”
“I will, your hanner; if your hanner offers it; but I never beg; I leave that kind of work to my wife and daughter, as I said before.”
After giving him the sixpence, which he received with a lazy “thank your hanner,” I got up, and followed by my daughter returned to the town.
Henrietta went to the inn, and I again strolled about the town. As I was standing in the middle of one of the busiest streets I suddenly heard a loud and dissonant gabbling, and glancing around beheld a number of wild-looking people, male and female. Wild looked the men, yet wilder the women. The men were very lightly clad, and were all barefooted and bareheaded; they carried stout sticks in their hands. The women were barefooted too, but had for the most part headdresses; their garments consisted of blue cloaks and striped gingham gowns. All the females had common tin articles in their hands which they offered for sale with violent gestures to the people in the streets, as they walked along, occasionally darting into the shops, from which, however, they were almost invariably speedily ejected by the startled proprietors, with looks of disgust and almost horror. Two ragged, red-haired lads led a gaunt pony, drawing a creaking cart, stored with the same kind of articles of tin, which the women bore. Poorly clad, dusty and soiled as they were, they all walked with a free, independent, and almost graceful carriage.
“Are those people from Ireland?” said I to a decent-looking man, seemingly a mechanic, who stood near me, and was also looking at them, but with anything but admiration.
“I am sorry to say they are, sir,” said the man, who from his accent was evidently an Irishman, “for they are a disgrace to their country.”
I did not exactly think so. I thought that in many respects they were fine specimens of humanity.
“Every one of those wild fellows,” said I to myself, “is worth a dozen of the poor mean-spirited book-tramper I have lately been discoursing with.”
In the afternoon I again passed over into Anglesey, but this time not by the bridge but by the ferry on the north-east of Bangor, intending to go to Beaumaris, about two or three miles distant: an excellent road, on the left side of which is a high bank fringed with dwarf oaks, and on the right the Menai strait, leads to it. Beaumaris is at present a watering-place. On one side of it, close upon the sea stands the ruins of an immense castle, once a Norman stronghold, but built on the site of a palace belonging to the ancient kings of North Wales, and a favourite residence of the celebrated Owain Gwynedd, the father of the yet more celebrated Madoc, the original discoverer of America. I proceeded at once to the castle, and clambering to the top of one of the turrets, looked upon Beaumaris Bay, and the noble rocky coast of the mainland to the south-east beyond it, the most remarkable object of which is the gigantic Penman Mawr, which interpreted is “the great head-stone,” the termination of a range of craggy hills descending from the Snowdon mountains.
“What a bay!” said I, “for beauty it is superior to the far-famed one of Naples. A proper place for the keels to start from, which unguided by the compass found their way over the mighty and mysterious Western Ocean.”
I repeated all the Bardic lines I could remember connected with Madoc’s expedition, and likewise many from the Madoc of Southey, not the least of Britain’s four great latter poets, decidedly her best prose writer, and probably the purest and most noble character to which she has ever given birth; and then, after a long, lingering look, descended from my altitude, and returned, not by the ferry, but by the suspension bridge to the mainland.
CHAPTER XXVIII
Robert Lleiaf—Prophetic Englyn—The Second Sight—Duncan Campbell—Nial’s Saga—Family of Nial—Gunnar—The Avenger.
“Av i dir Môn, cr dwr Menai,
Tros y traeth, ond aros trai.”“I will go to the land of Mona, notwithstanding the water of the Menai, across the sand, without waiting for the ebb.”
So sang a bard about two hundred and forty years ago, who styled himself Robert Lleiaf, or the least of the Roberts. The meaning of the couplet has always been considered to be and doubtless is, that a time would come when a bridge would be built across the Menai, over which one might pass with safety and comfort, without waiting till the ebb was sufficiently low to permit people to pass over the traeth, or sand, which, from ages the most remote, had been used as the means of communication between the mainland and the Isle of Mona or Anglesey. Grounding their hopes upon that couplet, people were continually expecting to see a bridge across the Menai: more than two hundred years, however, elapsed before the expectation was fulfilled by the mighty Telford flinging over the strait an iron suspension bridge, which, for grace and beauty, has perhaps no rival in Europe.
The couplet is a remarkable one. In the time of its author there was nobody in Britain capable of building a bridge, which could have stood against the tremendous surges which occasionally vex the Menai; yet the couplet gives intimation that a bridge over the Menai there would be, which clearly argues a remarkable foresight in the author, a feeling that a time would at length arrive when the power of science would be so far advanced, that men would be able to bridge over the terrible strait. The length of time which intervened between the composition of the couplet and the fulfilment of the promise, shows that a bridge over the Menai was no pont y meibion, no children’s bridge, nor a work for common men. O, surely Lleiaf was a man of great foresight!
A man of great foresight, but nothing more; he foretold a bridge over the Menai, when no one could have built one, a bridge over which people could pass, aye, and carts and horses; we will allow him the credit of foretelling such a bridge; and when Telford’s bridge was flung over the Menai, Lleiaf’s couplet was verified. But since Telford’s another bridge has been built over the Menai, which enables things to pass which the bard certainly never dreamt of. He never hinted at a bridge over which thundering trains would dash, if required, at the rate of fifty miles an hour; he never hinted at steam travelling, or a railroad bridge, and the second bridge over the Menai is one.
That Lleiaf was a man of remarkable foresight cannot be denied, but there are no grounds which entitle him to be considered a possessor of the second sight. He foretold a bridge, but not a railroad bridge; had he foretold a railroad bridge, or hinted at the marvels of steam, his claim to the second sight would have been incontestable.
What a triumph for Wales; what a triumph for bardism, if Lleiaf had ever written an englyn, or couplet, in which not a bridge for common traffic, but a railroad bridge over the Menai was hinted at, and steam travelling distinctly foretold! Well, though Lleiaf did not write it, there exists in the Welsh language an englyn, almost as old as Lleiaf’s time, in which steam travelling in Wales and Anglesey is foretold, and in which, though the railroad bridge over the Menai is not exactly mentioned, it may be considered to be included; so that Wales and bardism have equal reason to be proud. This is the englyn alluded to:—
“Codais, ymolchais yn Môn, cyn naw awr
Ciniewa ’n Nghaer Lleon,
Pryd gosber yn y Werddon,
Prydnawn wrth dan mawn yn Môn.”
The above englyn was printed in the Greal, 1792, p. 316; the language shows it to be a production of about the middle of the seventeenth century. The following is nearly a literal translation:—
“I got up in Mona as soon as ’twas light,
At nine in old Chester my breakfast I took;
In Ireland I dined, and in Mona, ere night,
By the turf fire sat, in my own ingle nook.”
Now, as sure as the couplet by Robert Lleiaf foretells that a bridge would eventually be built over the strait, by which people would pass, and traffic be carried on, so surely does the above englyn foreshadow the speed by which people would travel by steam, a speed by which distance is already all but annihilated. At present it is easy enough to get up at dawn at Holyhead, the point of Anglesey the most distant from Chester, and to breakfast at that old town by nine; and though the feat has never yet been accomplished, it would be quite possible, provided proper preparations were made, to start from Holyhead at daybreak, breakfast at Chester at nine, or before, dine in Ireland at two, and get back again to Holyhead ere the sun of the longest day has set. And as surely as the couplet about the bridge argues great foresight in the man that wrote it, so surely does the englyn prove that its author must have been possessed of the faculty of second sight, as nobody without it could, in the middle of the seventeenth century, when the powers of steam were unknown, have written anything in which travelling by steam is so distinctly alluded to.
Truly some old bard of the seventeenth century must in a vision of the second sight have seen the railroad bridge across the Menai, the Chester train dashing across it at high railroad speed, and a figure exactly like his own seated comfortably in a third-class carriage.
And now a few words on the second sight; a few calm, quiet words, in which there is not the slightest wish to display either eccentricity or book-learning.
The second sight is a power of seeing events before they happen, or of seeing events which are happening far beyond the reach of the common sight, or between which and the common sight barriers intervene, which it cannot pierce. The number of those who possess this gift or power is limited, and perhaps no person ever possessed it in a perfect degree: some more frequently see coming events, or what is happening at a distance, than others; some see things dimly, others with great distinctness. The events seen are sometimes of great importance, sometimes highly nonsensical and trivial; sometimes they relate to the person who sees them, sometimes to other people. This is all that can be said with anything like certainty with respect to the nature of the second sight, a faculty for which there is no accounting, which, were it better developed, might be termed the sixth sense.
The second sight is confined to no particular country, and has at all times existed. Particular nations have obtained a celebrity for it for a time, which they have afterwards lost, the celebrity being transferred to other nations, who were previously not noted for the faculty. The Jews were at one time particularly celebrated for the possession of the second sight; they are no longer so. The power was at one time very common amongst the Icelanders and the inhabitants of the Hebrides, but it is so no longer. Many and extraordinary instances of the second sight have lately occurred in that part of England generally termed East Anglia, where in former times the power of the second sight seldom manifested itself.
There are various books in existence in which the second sight is treated of or mentioned. Amongst others there is one called Martin’s Visit to the Hebrides, published in the year 1700, which is indeed the book from which most writers in English, who have treated of the second sight, have derived their information. The author gives various anecdotes of the second sight, which he had picked up during his visits to those remote islands, which until the publication of his tour were almost unknown to the world. It will not be amiss to observe here that the term second sight is of Lowland Scotch origin, and first made its appearance in print in Martin’s book. The Gaelic term for the faculty is taibhsearachd, the literal meaning of which is what is connected with a spectral appearance, the root of the word being taibhse, a spectral appearance or vision.
Then there is the history of Duncan Campbell. The father of this person was a native of Shetland, who being shipwrecked on the coast of Swedish Lapland, and hospitably received by the natives, married a woman of the country, by whom he had Duncan, who was born deaf and dumb. On the death of his mother the child was removed by his father to Scotland, where he was educated and taught the use of the finger alphabet, by means of which people are enabled to hold discourse with each other, without moving the lips or tongue. The alphabet was originally invented in Scotland, and at the present day is much in use there, not only amongst dumb people, but many others, who employ it as a silent means of communication. Nothing is more usual than to see passengers in a common conveyance in Scotland discoursing with their fingers. Duncan at an early period gave indications of possessing the second sight. After various adventures he came to London, where for many years he practised as a fortune-teller, pretending to answer all questions, whether relating to the past or the future, by means of the second sight. There can be no doubt that this man was to a certain extent an impostor; no person exists having a thorough knowledge either of the past or future by means of the second sight, which only visits particular people by fits and starts, and which is quite independent of individual will; but it is equally certain that he disclosed things which no person could have been acquainted with without visitations of the second sight. His papers fell into the hands of Defoe, who wrought them up in his own peculiar manner, and gave them to the world under the title of the Life of Mr. Duncan Campbell, the deaf and dumb gentleman; with an appendix containing many anecdotes of the second sight from Martin’s tour.
But by far the most remarkable book in existence, connected with the second sight, is one in the ancient Norse language entitled Nial’s Saga. [169] It was written in Iceland about the year 1200, and contains the history of a certain Nial and his family, and likewise notices of various other people. This Nial was what was called a spámadr, that is, a spaeman or a person capable of foretelling events. He was originally a heathen—when, however, Christianity was introduced into Iceland, he was amongst the first to embrace it, and persuaded his family and various people of his acquaintance to do the same, declaring that a new faith was necessary, the old religion of Odin, Thor and Frey being quite unsuited to the times. The book is no romance, but a domestic history compiled from tradition about two hundred years after the events which it narrates had taken place. Of its style, which is wonderfully terse, the following translated account of Nial and his family will perhaps convey some idea:—
“There was a man called Nial who was the son of Thorgeir Gelling, the son of Thorolf. The mother of Nial was called Asgerdr; she was the daughter of Ar, the Silent, the Lord of a district in Norway. She had come over to Iceland and settled down on land to the west of Markarfliot, between Oldustein and Selialandsmul. Holtathorir was her son, father of Thorleif Krak, from whom the Skogverjars are come, and likewise of Thorgrim the big and Skorargeir. Nial dwelt at Bergthorshvâl in Landey, but had another house at Thorolfell. Nial was very rich in property and handsome to look at, but had no beard. He was so great a lawyer that it was impossible to find his equal; he was very wise, and had the gift of foretelling events; he was good at counsel, and of a good disposition, and whatever counsel he gave people was for their best; he was gentle and humane, and got every man out of trouble who came to him in his need. His wife was called Bergthora; she was the daughter of Skarphethin. She was a bold-spirited woman who feared nobody, and was rather rough of temper. They had six children, three daughters and three sons, all of whom will be frequently mentioned in this saga.”
In the history many instances are given of Nial’s skill in giving good advice and his power of seeing events before they happened. Nial lived in Iceland during most singular times, in which though there were laws provided for every possible case, no man could have redress for any injury unless he took it himself or his friends took it for him, simply because there were no ministers of justice supported by the State, authorized and empowered to carry the sentence of the law into effect. For example, if a man were slain his death would remain unpunished unless he had a son or a brother, or some other relation to slay the slayer, or to force him to pay “bod,” that is, amends in money, to be determined by the position of the man who was slain. Provided the man who was slain had relations, his death was generally avenged, as it was considered the height of infamy in Iceland to permit one’s relations to be murdered, without slaying their murderers, or obtaining bod from them. The right, however, permitted to relations of taking with their own hands the lives of those who had slain their friends, produced incalculable mischiefs; for if the original slayer had friends, they, in the event of his being slain in retaliation for what he had done, made it a point of honour to avenge his death, so that by the lex talionis feuds were perpetuated. Nial was a great benefactor to his countrymen, by arranging matters between people at variance, in which he was much helped by his knowledge of the law, and by giving wholesome advice to people in precarious situations, in which he was frequently helped by the power which he possessed of the second sight. On several occasions, he settled the disputes, in which his friend Gunnar was involved, a noble, generous character, and the champion of Iceland, but who had a host of foes, envious of his renown; and it was not his fault if Gunnar was eventually slain, for if the advice which he gave had been followed the champion would have died an old man; and if his own sons had followed his advice, and not been over fond of taking vengeance on people who had wronged them, they would have escaped a horrible death in which he himself was involved, as he had always foreseen he should be.
“Dost thou know by what death thou thyself will die?” said Gunnar to Nial, after the latter had been warning him that if he followed a certain course he would die by a violent death.
“I do,” said Nial.
“What is it?” said Gunnar.
“What people would think the least probable,” replied Nial.
He meant that he should die by fire. The kind generous Nial, who tried to get everybody out of difficulty, perished by fire. His sons by their violent conduct had incensed numerous people against them. The house in which they lived with their father was beset at night by an armed party, who, unable to break into it owing to the desperate resistance which they met with from the sons of Nial, Skarphethin, Helgi and Grimmr and a comrade of theirs called Kari, [172a] set it in a blaze, in which perished Nial the lawyer and man of the second sight, his wife, Bergthora, and two of their sons, the third, Helgi, having been previously slain, and Kari, who was destined to be the avenger of the ill-fated family, having made his escape, after performing deeds of heroism, which for centuries after were the themes of song and tale in the ice-bound isle.