THE BIDDER, OR GWAHODDWR,
(Reproduced from an old picture in the “Hynafion Cymreig,” published in 1823).
He was commonly known as Stephen Wahoddwr, or Stephen the Bidder, and concerning whom the celebrated poet “Daniel Ddu o Geredigion,” wrote to the “Cambrian Briton,” in March, 1822, as follows:—
“There is an old man in this neighbourhood of the name of Stephen, employed in the vocation of ‘Gwahoddwr,’ who displayed, in my hearing, so much comic talent and humour in the recitation of his Bidding-song (which he complained, was, by repetition, become uninteresting to his auditors) as to induce me to furnish him with some kind of fresh matter. My humble composition, adapted, in language and conceptions, as far as I could make it, to common taste and capacities, this man now delivers in his rounds; and I send it you as a specimen of a Bidder’s Song, hoping that your readers will be in some measure amused by its perusal:—
“Dydd da i chwi, bobl, o’r hynaf i’r baban,
Mae Stephan Wahoddwr a chwi am ymddiddan,
Gyfeillion da mwynaidd, os felly’ch dymuniad,
Cewch genyf fy neges yn gynhes ar gariad.