He was very much moved by the adventure. “I have a wonderful deal to say if I once begin; I have been everywhere,” he said to the old man at Gutter Fawr. He gave the shepherd advice about his sheep. “I am in the habit,” he said to the landlord at Pont Erwyd, “of talking about everything, being versed in all matters, do you see, or affecting to be so, which comes much to the same thing.” Even in the company of his stepdaughter—as they were not in Hyde Park—he sang in Welsh at the top of his voice. The miller’s hospitality in Mona brought tears to his eyes; so did his own verse translation of the “Ode to Sycharth,” because it made him think “how much more happy, innocent and holy I was in the days of my boyhood when I translated Iolo’s ode than I am at the present time.” He kissed the silver cup at Llanddewi Brefi and the tombstone of Huw Morus at Llan Silin. When the chair of Huw Morus was wiped and he was about to sit down in it, he uncovered and said in his best Welsh:
“‘Shade of Huw Morus, supposing your shade haunts the place which you loved so well when alive—a Saxon, one of the seed of the Coiling Serpent, has come to this place to pay that respect to true genius, the Dawn Duw, which he is ever ready to pay. He read the songs of the Nightingale of Ceiriog in the most distant part of Lloegr, when he was a brown-haired boy, and now that he is a grey-haired man he is come to say in this place that they frequently made his eyes overflow with tears of rapture.’
“I then sat down in the chair, and commenced repeating verses of Huw Morus. All which I did in the presence of
the stout old lady, the short, buxom, and bare-armed damsel, and of John Jones, the Calvinistic weaver of Llangollen, all of whom listened patiently and approvingly though the rain was pouring down upon them, and the branches of the trees and the tops of the tall nettles, agitated by the gusts from the mountain hollows, were beating in their faces, for enthusiasm is never scoffed at by the noble, simple-minded, genuine Welsh, whatever treatment it may receive from the coarse-hearted, sensual, selfish Saxon.”
Unless we count the inn at Cemmaes, where he took vengeance on the suspicious people by using his note-book in an obvious manner, “now skewing at an object, now leering at an individual,” he was only once thoroughly put out, and that was at Beth Gelert by a Scotchman: which suggests a great deal of amiability, on one side, considering that Borrow’s Welsh was book-Welsh, execrably pronounced.
He filled four books with notes, says Knapp, who has printed from them some parts which Borrow did not use, including the Orange words of “Croppies lie down,” and Borrow’s translation of “the best ghost story in the world,” by Lope de Vega. The book founded on these Welsh notes was advertised in 1857, but not published until 1862.
In the September after his Welsh holiday, 1855, Borrow took his wife and daughter to the Isle of Man, deposited them at Douglas, and travelled over the island for seven weeks, with intervals at Douglas. He took notes that make ninety-six quarto pages in Knapp’s copy. He was to have founded a book on them, entitled, “Wanderings in Quest of Manx Literature.” Knapp quotes an introduction which was written. This and the notes show him collecting in manuscript or viva voce the carvals or carols then in circulation among the Manx; and he had the good fortune to receive two volumes of them as gifts. Some he translated during his visit. He went about questioning people concerning
the carvals and a Manx poet, named George Killey. He read a Manx prayer-book to the poet’s daughter at Kirk Onchan, and asked her a score of questions. He convinced one woman that he was “of the old Manx.” Finding a Manxman who spoke French and thought it the better language, he made the statement that “Manx or something like it was spoken in France more than a thousand years before French.” He copied Runic inscriptions, and took down several fairy tales and a Manx version of the story of “Finn McCoyle” and the Scotch giant. He went to visit a descendant of the ballad hero, Mollie Charane. When he wished to know the size of some old skeletons he inquired if the bones were as large as those of modern ones. As he met people to compliment him on his Manx, so he did on his walking. Knapp speaks of a “terrible journey” over the mountain from Ramsay to Braddan and Douglas in October, but does not make any quotation relating to it. In his opinion the notes “seldom present any matter of general interest save to the islanders of Man and the student of Runic inscriptions.” Enough, however, is quoted to show that Borrow was delighted with the country and the people, finding plenty to satisfy his curiosity in languages and customs. But he was irritable, and committed to paper some sarcastic remarks about Sir John Bowring and Lord Raglan, “the secret friend” of Russia; while the advancement of an enemy and the death of a cousin caused him to reflect: “William Borrow, the wonderful inventor, dead, and Leicester Curzon . . . a colonel. Pretty justice!” In 1862, in the pages of “Once a Week,” he published two of his Manx translations, the ballads—“Brown William” and “Mollie Charane.” In August and September, 1857, Borrow was walking again in Wales, covering four hundred miles, as he told John Murray, and once, at least, between Builth and Mortimer’s Cross, making twenty-eight miles in a day. His route was through Laugharne, Saundersfoot, Tenby,
Pembroke, Milford and Milford Haven, Stainton, Johnston, Haverfordwest, St. Davids, Fishguard, Newport, Cardigan, Llechryd, Cilgerran, Cenarth, Newcastle Emlyn, Lampeter, Llanddewi Brefi, Builth, Presteign, Mortimer’s Cross, and so to Shrewsbury, and to Uppington, where Goronwy Owen was curate in the middle of the eighteenth century. Knapp transcribed part of Borrow’s journal for Messrs. T. C. Cantrill and J. Pringle, remarking that the rubbed pencil writing took him eight days to decipher. With the annotations of Messrs. Cantrill and Pringle it was printed in “Y Cymmrodor,” [{270a}] the journal of the Honourable Society of Cymmrodorion. I will quote one day’s entries, with the annotations, which are the fruit of the most patient devotion:
“Haverfordwest—little river—bridge; [{270b}] steep ascent [{270c}]—sounds of music—young fellows playing—steep descent—strange town—Castle Inn. H.W. in Welsh Hool-fordd.