Gallant Little Wales: Sketches of its people, places and customs

by Unknown

to listen again to those choirs late in the evening on the station platform with the sea dim and vast and muting the song to its own greater music, is to have felt in the Welsh spirit what no tongue can describe,—it is to understand the meaning of the word “hwyl,” that untranslatable word of a passionate emotionalism.

All that went on behind the scenes the audience could not know. They saw only those considered by the adjudicators fit to survive. They did not see the six blind people, for even the blind have their place in this great festival, who entered the little school-room off Abergele Road to take the preliminary tests, the girl who played “The Harmonious Blacksmith,” and, shaking from excitement and holding on to her guide, was led away unsuccessful. They did not see the lad who played “Men of Harlech” crudely, his anxious ageing, work-worn mother sitting beside him, holding his stick and nodding her head in approval. All they heard were a selected two who were considered by the judges fit to play, a man both blind and deaf who performed a scherzo of Brahms and a Carnarvon sea-captain, now blind, who played on the violin. The quiet of the one-time sea-captain’s face laid against the violin, the peace and pleasure in the lines about the sightless eyes, would have repaid the whole audience—even if the violinist had not been an exceptionally good player—for listening.

One of the inspiring and amusing events of the week was the discovery of a marvellous contralto. A young girl, shabbily dressed and ill at ease, came out to sing. Everything was being pressed forward towards the crowning of the bard, one of the great events of the Eisteddfod. People were impatient, and somewhat noisy. But as the girl began to sing they quieted down, then they listened with wonder, and in a minute you could have heard a pin drop in that throng of ten thousand. Before she had finished singing, “Jesu, Lover of my Soul,” the audience knew that it had listened to one of the great singers of the world. When she had finished her song and unclasped her hands, she became again nothing more than an awkward, silly, giggling child whom Llew Tegid had to hold by the arm.

The audience shouted, “What’s her name?”

“Maggie Jones,” he replied; “that begins well.”

“Where does she come from?” demanded the crowd.

“Police station,” answered Llew Tegid lugubriously.

The audience roared with laughter and demanded the name of the town. Maggie Jones is the daughter of Police Superintendent Jones of Pwllheli. Perhaps in the years to come the world will hear her name again.

There are children at these Eisteddfodau whose little feet can scarce reach the pedals of a harp. Even the robins singing up in the high pavilion roof who had joined in the music from time to time, trilling joyously to Handel’s “Oh, had I Jubal’s Lyre,” twittered with surprise that anything so small could play anything so large. But no one of the thousands there, even the children, grew tired for an instant, unless it was these same robins, who were weary at times because of the cheerless character of some of the sacred music sung in competition and themselves started up singing blithely and gladly as God meant that birds and men should sing. The robins twittered madly when some sturdy little Welshman stepped into the penillion singing, accompanied by the harp, no more to be daunted than a child stepping into rope skipping. When the grown-ups had finished, two little children came forward and sang their songs, North Wales style.

The afternoon was growing later and later; it was high time for the name of the bard of the crown poem to be announced. At last, with due pomp, the name of the young bard was announced. Every one looked to see where he might be sitting. He was found sitting modestly in the rear of the big pavilion, and there were shouts of “Dyma fo!” (here he is). Two bards came down and escorted him to the platform, where all the druids, ovates, and bards were awaiting him. The band, the trumpeter, the harp, and the sword now all performed their service, the sun slanting down through the western windows on to this bardic pageant. The sparrows flew in and out of the sunlight, unafraid of the dragons that waved about them and the bands that played beneath them, and the great sword held sheathed over the young bard’s head. The sword was bared three times and sheathed again as all shouted “Heddwch!” The bard was crowned and the whole audience rose to the Welsh national song.