The preachers clearly worked hard and had some trying experiences, and kept up their spirits by little jokes, which Gerald retails. They nearly came to grief in quicksands at the mouth of the river Neath. “Terrible hard country this,” said one of the monks next day in the castle at Swansea. “Some people are never satisfied,” retorted his companion; “you were complaining of its being too soft in the quicksand yesterday.” The mountains were trying to men no longer in their youth; after toiling up one the archbishop sank exhausted on a fallen tree and said to his panting companions, “Can any one enliven the company by whistling a tune?” “Which,” adds Gerald, “is not very easily done by people out of breath.” From whistling the conversation passed to nightingales, which some one said were never found in Wales. “Wise bird, the nightingale,” remarked the archbishop.
One serious difficulty they had was that none of them, not even Gerald, knew Welsh sufficiently well to preach in it, though they generally had interpreters. The archbishop, who would sometimes preach away for hours without result, felt this much more than Gerald. He declares he moved crowds to tears though they did not understand a word of what he was saying. But one may take the words of Prince Rhys’s fool as evidence (if any were needed) that ignorance of Welsh weakened the effect. “You owe a great debt, Rhys, to your kinsman the archdeacon, who has taken a hundred or so of your men to serve the Lord; if he had only spoken in Welsh, you wouldn’t have had a soul left.”
In all about three thousand took the cross; but the Crusade was delayed, zeal cooled, and it is probable that comparatively few went. The Itinerarium Regis Ricardi mentions, I think, only one exploit by a Welshman in the Third Crusade; he was an archer, and so a South Walian.
This brings me to one of the incidental notes of great value scattered about the Itinerary. Speaking of the siege of Abergavenny (1182), Gerald tells us that the men of Gwent and Glamorgan excelled all others in the use of the bow, and gives curious evidence of the strength of their shooting. Thus the arrows pierced an oak door four inches thick; they had been left there as a curiosity, and Gerald saw them with their iron points coming through on the inner side. He describes these bows as “made of elm—ugly, unfinished-looking weapons, but astonishingly stiff, large, and strong, and equally useful for long and short shooting.” Add to this that the longbow was not a characteristic English weapon till the latter part of the thirteenth century, that the first battle in which an English king made effective use of archery (at Falkirk, 1298), his infantry consisted mainly of Welshmen; and there can be little doubt that the famous longbow of England, which won the victories of Creçy and Poitiers and Agincourt, and indirectly did much to destroy feudalism and villenage, had its home in South Wales.
Gerald was also a keen observer of nature, and his knowledge of the ways of animals is extensive and peculiar. Perhaps even more marked is his love of the supernatural; he could believe anything, if it was only wonderful enough—except Geoffrey of Monmouth’s History. But I must confine myself to one story—the story of the boy in Gower who (as the root of learning is bitter) played truant and found two little men of pigmy stature, and went with them to their country under the earth, and played games with golden balls with the fairy prince. These little folk were very small—of fair complexion, and long luxuriant hair; and they had horses and dogs to suit their size. They hated nothing so much as lies; “they had no form of public worship, being lovers and reverers, it seemed, of truth.” The boy often went, till he tried to steal a golden ball, and then he could never find fairyland again. But he learnt some of the fairy language, which was like Greek. And then Gerald compares words in different languages, and notes how, for instance, the same word for salt runs through Greek and British and Irish and Latin and French and English and German, and the fairy language, which suggests a close relation between all these peoples in past ages. It is very modern; and it is not without reason that Gerald has been called “the father of comparative philology.”
In his “Description of Wales” Gerald describes the manner of life and characteristics of the people. All are trained to arms, and when the trumpet sounds the alarm, the husbandman rushes as eagerly from his plough as the courtier from his court. Agricultural work takes up little of their time, as they are still mainly in a pastoral stage, living on the produce of their herds, and eating more meat than bread. They fight and undergo hardships and willingly sacrifice their lives for their country and for liberty. They wear little defensive armour, and depend mainly on their mobility; they are not much good at a close engagement, but generally victors in a running fight, relying more on their activity than on their strength.
It was the fashion to keep open house for all comers. “Those who arrive in the morning are entertained till evening with the conversation of young women and the music of the harp; for each house has its young women and harps allotted for the purpose. In each family the art of playing on the harp is held preferable to any other learning; and no nation is so free from jealousy as the Welsh.” After a simple supper (for the people are not addicted to gluttony or drunkenness), “a bed of rushes is placed along the side of the hall, and all in common lie down to sleep with their feet towards the fire. They sleep in the thin cloak and tunic they wear by day. They receive much comfort from the natural heat of the persons lying near them; but when the underside begins to be tired with the hardness of the bed, or the upper one to suffer from the cold, they get up and go to the fire; and then returning to the couch they expose their sides alternately to the cold and to the hardness of the bed.”
Gifted with an acute and rich intellect they excel in whatever studies they pursue, notably in music. They are especially famous for their part-singing, “so that in a company of singers, which one very often meets with in Wales, you will hear as many different parts and voices as there are performers,”(!) and this gift has by long habit become natural to the nation.
“They show a greater respect than other nations to churches and ecclesiastics, to the relics of saints, bells, holy books, and the cross; and hence their churches enjoy more than common tranquillity.”
He then goes on to the other side of the picture: “for history without truth becomes undeserving of its name.” “These people are no less light in mind than in body, and by no means to be relied on. They are easily urged to undertake any action, and as easily checked from prosecuting it.... They never scruple at taking a false oath for the sake of any temporary advantage.... Above all other peoples they are given to removing their neighbours’ landmarks. Hence arise quarrels, murders, conflagrations, and frequent fratricides. It is remarkable that brothers show more affection to each other when dead than when living; for they persecute the living even unto death, but avenge the dead with all their power.”