Folk-Lore of West and Mid-Wales

by Jonathan Ceredig Davies

And entertainment kindly bland.”

The above rhyme appeared in “Adventures of Twm Shon Catty.” There are a good many such verses composed for, or at such occasion, still extant in the Welsh language.

The party without and the party within feigned to abuse one another in such rhymes for an hour, more sometimes, till their wit was exhausted, but the whole performance was nothing but innocent fun, and the doors are opened in the end, and the bridegroom’s party are admitted into the house; but even then the trouble is not always over, for it was the custom for the bride to hide herself, when search would be made for her everywhere under the tables, beds, behind the doors and every corner in the house, and at last found, perhaps, under the disguise of a young man smoking his pipe, or of a “granny” knitting in the corner.

Whoever discovered the bride received a pint of beer and a cake as a prize in some places. All these things were done for fun or amusement, but I heard of one young woman at least, who was hiding in real earnest, and could not be found.

An old farmer near Carmarthen, Griffiths, of Rhenallt, who is 96 years of age, informed me about five years ago, that he once heard his father mention of a man called “Dafydd y Llether,” a butcher near Alltwalis, who was disappointed in this manner. This happened about 100 years ago. This butcher was engaged to be married to a farmer’s daughter who lived in the parish of Llanllwni, about eight miles off, and had made all preparations for the wedding. When the wedding morning dawned, Dafydd and his neighbours and friends, about one hundred in number, mounted their horses at Alltwalis, and galloped away full speed to Llanllwni, and having arrived at the house of the young bride’s parents, search was made for her everywhere, but she was nowhere to be found. At last the young man and his friends had to return home without finding her in great disappointment! The young woman’s parents had prevailed upon her not to marry the young man, “because” added the old man to me “he was too much of a jolly boy.” So they had contrived between them to hide her where she could not be found on the wedding morning.

But, to proceed with our account of the old wedding customs, it was the practice after finding the hidden bride, and partaking of a little refreshments, for the wedding party to mount their horses, and they were joined by the bridegroom and his friends, and made their way towards the church. The young woman was mounted on a fine and swift horse; but often she had to be content to be mounted behind her father, or a brother or a friend; and when the latter was the case, she had to sit on crupper without any pillion, and holding fast to the man. Then the whole cavalcade would gallop off to church. But during the procession the bride was seized suddenly by one of her relatives or friends, stolen away and borne off to a distance. However, this feigned attempt to run away with her was done only in sport. Then a chase ensued, when the bridegroom and his friends drove after her like madmen till they caught her and took her to church. The driving was so furious on such occasions that legs and arms were sometimes broken. Mr. D. Jones in his interesting Welsh book on the History of the Parish of Llangeler, says that in the year 1844, at the wedding of Dinah, daughter of the Rev. Thomas Jones, Saron, one James Evans, the groom of the late Colonel Lewes, drove so furiously that his horse struck against a wall with the result that both the animal and its rider were killed on the spot, near Llangeler Church! In consequence of such a melancholy event the Horse Wedding was discontinued in that part of the country, through the influence of the Vicar, the Rev. John Griffiths, who preached against the practice from II. Kings, chap. IX. verse 20 ... “And the driving is like the driving of Jehu the son of Nimshi; for he driveth furiously.”

The following account of a Horse Wedding appeared in “The Folk Lore of North Wales” by the late Rev. Elias Owen, F.S.A., whose informant was the Rev. Canon Griffith Jones, who witnessed the wedding, which took place at Tregaron, Cardiganshire. We are told that “The friends of both the young people were on horseback, and according to custom they presented themselves at the house of the young woman, the one to escort her to the church, and the other to hinder her from going there. The friends of the young man were called “Gwyr shegouts.” When the young lady was mounted, she was surrounded by the “gwyr shegouts,” and the cavalcade started. All went on peaceably until a lane was reached, down which the lady bolted, and here the struggle commenced, for her friends dashed between her and her husband’s friends and endeavoured to force them back, and thus assist her to escape. The parties, Mr. Jones said, rode furiously and madly, and the struggle presented a cavalry charge, and it was not without much apparent danger that the opposition was overcome, and the lady ultimately forced to proceed to the church, where her future husband was anxiously awaiting her arrival.”

The Lord Bishop of Huron, a native of Cardiganshire, writing to me from Canada, November 17th., 1909, says:—“I remember a wedding once when all the guests were on horse-back and there was a hunt for the bride. There could be no wedding till the bride was caught, and, Oh the wild gallop over hill and dale till she was taken captive and led to the altar! The last wedding of that kind to which I refer took place about 45 years ago. The daughter of Mr. Morgan (I think) of Maestir, near Lampeter, or his intended wife being the bride. A very severe accident happened to the bride and that ended the custom in that neighbourhood.”

Although such things as I have already said were done for sport, yet I have heard of a few cases in which the bride was borne away in earnest, and disappeared willingly in company of an old lover of hers, to the intense astonishment and disappointment of the bridegroom, who happened to be her parents’ choice, and not her own. In this case, the custom of a feigned attempt to run away with the bride had in some respects served its original purpose; for, undoubtedly, the origin of the custom of hiding, running away with, and capturing the bride could be traced back to those barbarous times when marriage by capture was a common practice. Thus in the Mabinogion, we find that when a King named Kilydd, after being for some time a widower, wanted to marry again, one of his counsellors said to him, “I know a wife that will suit thee well, and she is the wife of King Dogel.” And they resolved to go and seek her; and they slew the King and brought away his wife. When his son also named Kilhwch wanted a wife, he went to demand her from her father Yspaddaden Pencawr, the Giant, and obtained her at last after many adventures, and the help of Arthur and his men. It is probable that when the Celtic Tribes had settled in Britain that they often obtained a wife by capturing her from the Aborigines.

This calls to mind the strategy of Romulus to secure wives for his soldiers by directing them at a given signal to seize Sabine maidens and run off with them whilst the men were busy in looking at the games.