TWM SHON CATTI
A singular character, half mythical, and his exploits almost wholly so, is Twm Shon Catti; a prankish creature whom, nevertheless, the people of Carmarthenshire and Cardiganshire will not willingly let die.
Twm, it need hardly be said, was a Welshman. His name, duly translated from Cymraeg into English, means "Tom John Kate," i.e. "Tom, the son of Kate." Who was his other parent remains a matter of uncertainty, but he is thought to have been a local magnate, Sir John Wynne of Gwydir. Kate, his mother, was a country girl, of Tregaron, and Twm himself was born apparently about the third quarter of the seventeenth century; that is to say, if the half sprite and half human being of the legends can be said to belong to any easily-ascertained span of years. Some of his exploits certainly seem to belong to a later period.
But however that may be, he is yet the hero of a very wide countryside, in which any peasant is still able to give a very fair biography of him to the passing stranger, and is also quite competent to show him Twm's cave, in Dinas Hill, or "Llidiard-y-Ffin," overlooking the river Towy, near Ystrad Ffin. Composed in equal parts of Will-o'-Wisp, Dick Turpin (the idealised Turpin of legend, not the cowardly brute of cold-drawn fact), and Robin Hood, his career is one of marvels. Horse-thief, highwayman at one time and out-witter of highwaymen at another, special providence to the deserving, and scourge of the wicked, he always comes successfully out of encounters and difficulties. If for that peculiarity alone, he might reasonably be held mythical.
Starting in life as a farmer's boy, he afterwards found a place in the service of the local lord of the manor, in which his Puck-like pranks were first developed. As the secret of his birth was more or less an open one, these escapades were not often visited with the punishment another would almost certainly have incurred; and, besides, he was generally looked upon as a "natural": as one, that is to say, who is not more than half-witted. Thus, when he would steal the parson's horse in Llandovery and sell it to a squire some twenty miles off, he proved the truth of that old law which says one man may with impunity steal a horse, while another may not safely even look over the fence.
It all depends upon the man. In Twm's case, such an exploit was not the criminal business that would have brought an ordinary man to the gallows, but merely an escapade serving, like Prince Hal and Poins' fooling of Falstaff with the men in buckram, as "argument for a week, laughter for a month, and a good jest for ever."
At the rather uncertain period in which Twm flourished there also flourished a highwayman in the locality, who, from his daring and savage disposition, was known as "Dio the Devil." This terrific person had carried off the young and beautiful wife of Sir John Devereux, lord of Ystrad Ffin, and Twm was successful in rescuing her. The obvious reward for this service was, bearing Twm's almost gentle origin in mind, to receive him in his house on equal terms: or, as some accounts have it, he entered the service of Sir John as jester. But whether he went as such, or not, he certainly acted the part very thoroughly, and kept the establishment always well entertained.
Twm was a perfect centaur of a horseman, and Sir John Devereux was almost as good in the saddle. Twm's custom was to back himself in heavy wagers to perform extraordinary feats of horsemanship, and then proceed, by hair-raising doings, to win the bets. Not only the physical, but the mental agility of these things took strangers at an utterly dumbfoundered disadvantage; but the most astonishing of all was the one now to be related. An English guest who was staying with Sir John happened also to be a remarkable horseman, and had the advantage his Welsh host had not, of owning a thoroughbred. The talk ran high one day on the subject of horses and equitation, and the whimsical Twm promptly wagered twenty pounds he would put his horse to a jump where the Englishman dare not follow. Conversant with the not very fine specimens of horses to be found in his host's stable, the Englishman with contempt accepted the bet, quite easy in his mind that he must win.
A "numerous and distinguished company," as a modern chronicler of fashionable doings might say, assembled on the mountain-side on the appointed day, to see the challenger take this as yet unknown leap, and the stranger follow if he dared. They knew their Twm well enough to be quite convinced he had some mad project in view, to discomfit the Englishman; and what Welshman was there who would not have travelled far, and at much discomfort, to witness the humiliation of the "Saxon."