“It’s nobbut a frog,” said the Yorkshire navvies. “It’s Cynon himself,” retorted the Welshmen. “Look how he gapes and rubs his face. You may see by that he has been in prison.”
After that, whenever a Taffy was observed to yawn, “Ah, ha!” said his mates; “clearly you have but recently come out of prison.”
Lake Vyrnwy is nearly four miles long, and is fed not only by the river that gives its name to the reservoir, but also by many torrents that dance down the mountain-sides, forming pretty waterfalls. The work of impounding this sheet of water was commenced in 1881, and the water was stopped by closing the valves on November 28th, 1888. It has all the appearance of a natural lake, except from the lower end, where shows the magnificent dam, 161 feet high, but with 60 feet below of foundation.
Llanfyllin is the nearest station to Lake Vyrnwy. Near this is Llanfihangel yn Nghwnfa, where was born and lived one of the sweetest hymn-composers of Wales, Anne Griffiths. She first saw light at Dolwar Fechan, a farmhouse in this parish, in 1776, and was the youngest daughter of Mr. John Thomas, a farmer. She received such education as was to be obtained in a country school at that period, and acquired a smattering of English, some arithmetic, and a knowledge of reading and writing Welsh. She grew up to be a fresh-faced, comely, dark-eyed, and dark-haired young woman, and was fond of dancing and other innocent pleasures.
When aged about twenty she joined the Calvinistic Methodist sect, and thenceforth her life was distinguished for its devotional character and deep piety. In October, 1804, she married a Thomas Griffiths, of Cefn-du, Guilsfield, who came to live with her at Dolwar. In July, 1808, she gave birth to a child, that lived but a fortnight, and she survived it but another fortnight, dying at the age of thirty.
“Thus living and dying in the seclusion and obscurity of a lonely mountain farmhouse, Anne Griffiths composed some of the sweetest and most precious hymns in the Welsh language, if not, indeed, in any language. They are not numerous—all that have been preserved being only about seventy-five verses—and they are too often marred by faults of composition and the transgression of the simplest rules of prosody, yet many of them are so rich in poetic fancy, sublime imagery, holy sentiment, and seraphic fervour, that they can never be forgotten so long as hymns are sung in the Welsh language. Mothers teach their babes to lisp them, and many a pious Christian has been heard faintly to whisper them in the hour of death.”[6]
None of them were published during her life, and, indeed, it did not occur to her that they would ever appear in print, or would be esteemed beyond the circle of her own most intimate friends. She committed very few of them to writing, but she recited them to Ruth Hughes, a farm-servant with her, who treasured them in her memory; and they were taken down from Ruth’s repetition some time after the death of Anne Griffiths. They were first published at Bala in 1806. They have recently been translated into English, but they do not bear rendering out of the Welsh in which they were composed.
In the churchyard of Welshpool is a stone—the Maen Llog. It is shapeless, and is said formerly to have stood in the abbey of Strata Marcella, and on it the abbots were installed. After the Dissolution it was brought to S. Mary’s Church, and those who had to do penance were required to stand on it in a white sheet with a candle in one hand. During the Commonwealth the Puritan Vavasour Powell turned it out of the church, as an object of superstition; but in the graveyard it continued to be regarded with some respect, and was in request as a Wishing Stone. Those very ardently desiring something mounted it, and turning thrice sunways framed their wish; and so, before quitting Welshpool, I took care to mount it, turned the right way about, and wished prosperity to this cheerful little town and to its Powysland Club.