Scottish Reminiscences), "Neillduolion Cymreig, yn cael eu hegluro gan Ystoriau." English or Welsh. Prize, £5 5s.-Mr Owen Owen said he and Mr Lloyd Williams were agreed that the only competitor, Gwalchmai, was worthy of the prize. (Hear, hear.) He had written seventy foolscap pages, but they considered it might have been cut down with advantage to thirty-five pages. The material, however, had certain value, and, recognising the difficulty of producing in one language anecdotes or tales which were characteristic of another nation, they thought Gwalchmai worthy of the prize. The winner was Mr W. J. Wallis Jones of Aberystwyth College. Deuddeg o Englynion (twelve stanzas, Welsh): "Caer Ogyrfan." Restricted to North Wales, and fifteen miles round Oswestry (Cyfyngedig i Ogledd Cymru, a 15 milldir o Groesoswallt.) Prize, given by the Hon. Mrs T. M. Bulkeley Owen, £2 2s-Only two competitors. This prize was divided between "Gildas" (Mr D. E. Davies Dewi Glan Ffrydlas, Gerlan, Bethesda), and "Dy. falydd" (Mr Robert Owen Hughes, Elfyn, Festiniog). SECOND MEETING. PRINCIPAL RHYS ON POWYSLAND. voice but the harsh music of her own cataracts. The result was that the Rheidol reached the sa three weeks before the others, and we have to this day a couplet which alludes to that great event in the following words the Hafren a Gwy yn hyfryd eu gwedd, I am sorry to say that is all I have ever heard of that epic of the rivers. Clearly it comes from the Aberystwyth side, and there was probably more of it; for the shepherd who, standing on Plinlimmon, could rise to the contemplation of the waters setting out for the first time for the ocean, must have been a born poet. Under favourable circumstances he might perhaps have competed with Hugh Miller for the uncrowned laureatesh.p of geology; but as it was he was fated to reman in the obscurity of many "a mute inglorious Milton," born on the other side of the mountains The portion of Powys that extends to the top of Plinlimmon is named, as you all know, Arwystli. which has been sometimes regarded as so-called after a man named Arwystli. That may be correct, but nothing is really known of any such The afternoon meeting began soon after 2 p.m. possibly person connected with that part of Wales, and Cadvan, in laudatory terms, called upon the namely, that it was conquered from an earlier another explanation is preferable, President of the meeting, Dr John Rhys, Principal people, and held under hostages by the Powysian of Jesus College, Oxford, to give his address. Principal Rhys, who was received with loud victor: at any rate the word seems derived from cheers, said:-Ladies and gentlemen, I Welsh gwystl, "a hostage," a word which propose to talk a little bit in a random sort of way about you may know in German as geissel; and the Irish have reduced it to giall, of the same meanPowys. This is the eisteddfod of Powys, and one naturally asks what is Powys. To that the answering. In fact, one of the earliest conquests made has been given long, long ago in a poem which I have read in the Red Book of Hergest, the chief treasure of the Welsh College at Oxford, and it is this, "Powys, Paradwys Cymru," that is to say, Powys is the Paradise of Wales and the Welsh, and to vouch for the continued correctness of the answer, we have the whole weight of the authority of the County Council of Montgomeryshire. Well, I have not had the advantage of being bred and born in this Paradise of Wales, but among the Gentiles just outside it. From Plinlimmon and Eisteddfa Gurig we occasionally used to cast wistful eyes on this Paradise; and in days long ago my ancestors, doubtless, knew this country well, as they thought it their duty, from time to time, to interfere to prevent the farmers of Powys from overstocking their land. (Laughter.) In their visits down here they must have often seen those two fine rivers, the Severn and the Wye, but for reasons of their own, or their ancestors before them, they gave the palm to their Own river, the Rheidol, and there is a story which explains that. One fine summer morning three wells of water burst forth on Plinlimmon to run a race, not to Liverpool or Bir mingham-(laughter)-or any other thirsting home of the Philistine, but to the sea, the blue sea. So down, down they sped, over the slopes of the mountain; but the Severn and the Wye were so charmed with this Paradise of Wales that they dawdled, listening to the warbling of the birds of Powys, while the Rheidol, more in earnest, like some of the people on her banks, listened to no by the Celts in Ireland was known by the corres ponding name of Airgialla or Oirghialla, which has been Anglicized Oriel; it embraced at one time the country now represented by the cartes of Louth, Armagh, Monaghan, and parts of Tyrone. This conquest is supposed to have taken place in the earlier half of the fourth century, and to have displaced the ancient Scotti, who, in consequence, as I take it, appear for the first time in the history of Roman Britain, joining in an attack which the Picts made on the province in the year 360. Who knows but that long before the Goidels began subjugating a country which they in their own language called Airgialla, the men of Powys of still earlier days were conquering the upper valleys of the Severn and the Wye, and giving the slopes of this side of Plinlimmon the same name in their own way of pronouncing it This was our Arwystli, and the name still exists not only for antiquaries and the county authorities, but for the shepherds of the Cardiganshire slopes of Plinlimmon. They call one of the summits of Plinlimmon Arwystli. We reckon two chief summits of Plinlimmon, Pumlumon Fawr.or Great Plinlimmon, which we place in Cardiganshire; and the other, the Montgomeryshire top. we call Pumlumon 'Rwsli, or the Plinlimmen of Arwvstli. I notice, however, that the ordinary books on geography give the highest point of Plinlimmon as belonging to Montgomeryshire: but they may be very correct as to Central Africa and as inaccurate near home as the guide book, which, in poetic terms, difference of race. But, if there is any difference describes the Dee meandering into the sea of race, have we still any traces of it? I will not near Bangor in Carnarvonshire. (Laughter.) I appeal to the bards or musicians: they will tell have suggested that the earlier men of Powys me that they can sing better in the north than in gave its name to Arwystli to commemorate their the south. That remains to be proved. The conquest of that part of the country, but it is right question is hard to answer like many others; but to say that the later men of Powys allowed it to if the Ordovices, who were probably Celts of the be wrested from them by the men of Gwynedd, Brythonic branch, cleared out an earlier popula whose southern boundary may at one time have tion, or mixed to any great extent with the been the Mawddach. At what date these aborigines, the people of Powys might be expected Venedotians pushed their way south, for instance, to be to this day more purely Aryan than those to to the Dovey at Glan Gwynedd,above Machynlleth, the north and to the south of them. The pure and claimed Maen Gwynedd as their landmark on Aryan type is usually conjectured to have been the Berwyn, I cannot say; possibly all that goes characterised by light hair, blue eyes, and a very back to the time of Maelgwn in the 6th century; respectable stature. We have no statistics to while the conquest of Arwystli by Gwynedd seems show us whether the men of Powys are taller and to belong to a far later time, and forms the ex- have lighter hair and bluer eyes than other planation of the ecclesiastical map to this day, Welshmen. (Laughter.) If, however, they are which shows Arwystli as part of the See of Ban- bigger men, one would, on the whole, expect that gor, which is par excellence the Diocese of Bangor. they would require more food than a smaller race I am inclined to think that the early men of Powys (laughter)—and this leads me to touch on a were the Celtic people of the Ordovices, the name tradition which used to be current in North handed down by Roman historians, who showed Cardiganshire, that there was a sort of Paradise or them to have been in possession of the country Land of Cockayne and good living, somewhere in comprising not only most of Mid-Wales, but also Powys, and near the borders of England. In that a large extent of the adjacent tract of what is now favoured country, the people had, it was reckoned England. In fact, these ancient Ordo- believed, at least one meal a day more than vices were probably the people who brought the in the rest of the Principality. (Laughter.) So when Welsh language-an early form of that language, the Land Commission was sitting in those parts I of course-into the west of this island, that is to anxiously watched to see if any of those lucky say, into a district where Goidelic, or a language Powysians would come forward and tell us all akin to Irish, was the dominant one till then. From about their mode of life; and I was not wholly Powys we may suppose Brythonic influence disappointed. We had some account of the extra and Brythonic speech to have spread north and meal, but one had to be cautious what questions one south. But it took a long time to silence the lan- asked; for I had learned from experience that the guage of the Goidels, and the ancient inscriptions Welsh farmer was never very willing to describe of the country make it probable that a language his food and drink. (Laughter.) His tongue, like Irish was to be heard in parts of the north and however, used to be a little loosened if he was of the south of Wales, and in Devon and Cornwall asked to describe his neighbour's fare; but I never as late as the seventh century. There is a great got an opportunity of asking a little question scarcity of ancient inscriptions of the post-Roman which I had in my mind, and I do not mind type in Powys, and it has been suggested to me that mentioning it to you, why the dinner begins in a the men of Powys, though good at the spear and certain district in Powys with the pudding, which the sword, must have been more illiterate than elsewhere more generally comes towards the end those of the Goidelic districts. I am not inclined of the meal. (Laughter.) Of course I have the to believe it, and I have an idea that post-Roman prosaic answer that it was an invention of the inscriptions are rarer here owing to some differ hard-hearted farmer to prevent his servants and ence in the burial customs of the country in early labourers eating too much meat. (Laughter.) But times; for most of the inscriptions to be expected I heard also a far different explanation, namely, would relate to the dead. Thus while one race that the people of a certain parish in Powys had buried in tumuli or barrows, another race may once been in the habit of having their pudding like have marked their important dead by setting up a everybody else, towards the close of their dinner, stone near their burial places. It is natural to sup. but that a strong man among them happening to pose that those who set up stones may have die before reaching the pudding, they were so learnt from the Romans to have those stones struck with the pity that he had not been able to eninscribed, while there was less inducement injoy the pudding before departing this life, that they the case of huge mounds of earth to set up a vowed for the future one and all to eat their pudtombstone of any kind. In this connection I have ding first. (Laughter.) The only serious criticism always one question to ask the men of Powys: on this answer is that it looks as if invented in Does anyone know of any cromlechs in Powys? Cardiganshire at a time when as yet the nature of Beyond the Mawddach there are plenty, as there puddings was not well understood in that are also plenty in parts of South Wales; and benighted county; but a wrong theory cannot I have noticed а cromlech on the affect the fact of the precedence given to pudding boundary of one of the farms of Jesus in Powys. (Laughter and cheers.) Next to the College as far north in Herefordshire as question of race in this part of the country, the the parish of Dorstone in the Golden Valley. history of the dialects of Welsh still existing in If not, this also may possibly prove to represent a Powys is a very difficult one, but as I have talked difference of burial rites arising from a deep-seated on that subject elsewhere not very long ago, I will VOL. IV. New Series [being Vol. 13th from the beginning.] 46 not try such a tangled subject now. There is another very difficult question connected with Powys, and that is, what were the boundaries of Powys from time to time, and nearly allied with that is the question what the name may mean. Powys is usually talked of as two parts, Powys Fadog and Powys Wenwynwyn, that is to say Madog's Powys and Gwenwynwyn's Powys. What does Madog's Powys, for instance, mean? It seems to me that it means Madog's Restingplace, Madog's seat or settlement: this is the inference I draw from the words related to the vocable Powys, such for instance as Pouisma Deui, the name of a place mentioned in the Book of Llandaff, which was later Powysta Dewi, David's Resting Place. Powisfa, however, is shortened into pwysfa and it enters into the compound gorphwysfa "a resting place," as for instance in Pen Gorphwysfa, which is the book Welsh for what Englishmen call the Pass of Llanberis, and the natives Pen y Pass. The verbal noun in the former is gorphwys, " to rest," from a longer form gorphowys, of the same meaning, and unrelated to pwys, "weight," but possibly connected with the Latin pausa, +6 a cessation or stopping," and the Greek pauō, "I make to rest, cause to stop." So it would seem as though Powys must have meant the seat or resting-place of somebody-I should provisionally say the seat or settlement of the Ordovices. Arwystli as one of the western portions of Powys has been already mentioned; let us now come to where we are. This Oswestry, the key of Wales, or Croes Oswallt, as we call it in Welsh, was a part of Powys,and it is still, though reckoned a part of England, more Welsh, I am told, than some of the towns within the Principality itself. So, very rightly, Oswestry continues part and parcel of a Welsh diocese, St. Asaph. For a moment, however, let us pay a flying visit to the Maelors, namely, Maelor Gymraeg and Maelor Saesneg, the annals of which have been collected with great skill by Mrs Bulkeley-Owen-(cheers)-and, to some extent, incorporated in the evidence she was good enough to give before the Land Commission. But I wish just to direct your attention to a somewhat different question connected with Maelor. Maelor has had its eminent men, and among them we may probably reckon a Gruffudd Maelor, whom history mentions as lord of the two Maelors in the twelfth century. I am, however, not going to study his history, but merely to take his name as an illustration of a point I have in view. The name Gruffudd Maelor means according to Welsh syntax Gruffudd of Maelor; that is to say, Maelor, though it is & noun in the genitive case, falls in readily with our common notion of a surname; and there are reasons for thinking that in some such a fashion the name Maelor found its way into English as Maleore, the surname of a man with whom I should like Welshmen to become better acquainted than they usually seem to be. Now, the man I allude to lived in the 15th century, and he is found called in Latin Mailorius, or rather Thomas Mailorius, which has been made in English into Thomas Malory. The evidence of this name, which literally means Thomas of Maelor, connects the bearer of it with one of your two Maelors, and that is not all, for Leland tells us that he was a Welshman, and he links his name with Maelor. Whether Thomas Malory had left Wales or not I cannot say, but we are told that the name Malory is found connected with estates in Yorkshire in the 16th century, and with estates in Leicestershire in the 17th and 18th. In any case, we claim Malory as a Welshman, whether he ended his days in Wales or in England, and in spite of his having produced one of the most charming works in the English language. I need hardly say that I allude to Malory's Morte D'Arthur," which consists in the main of an extensive collection of the Romances about Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table, translated by Malory from French into a most quaint and enjoyable English version of the Arthurian legend. It is needless to say that nobody's education in English literature is complete who has not read Malory's story, and who has not been held some time or other spell-bound by its Celtic enchantment and glamour. (Cheers.) Perhaps a future Eisteddfod may do something to make Welshmen more familiar with Malory's name, and perhaps those who have access to the family papers and pedigrees of the gentry of Maelor and neighbouring districts may yet discover more of the history of Malory and his descendants. The biography of Malory is at present impossible, but we have his work, and we may say of it, in the language of the poet, that it is "a joy for ever." To a Welshman it must always seem most natural that the translation of the romances about the hero of our race should have been undertaken by a Welshman, and we find no difficulty in understanding why Malory undertook the task. As to the romances that is too large a question for me to enter on here. Lest you should, however, think that in my references to the story of Arthur I am wandering further and further from Oswestry I will now shew you that it is not so. In a very primitive form of that story as stated in the Welsh triads, we are told that Arthur had not one wife called Gwenhwyfar, or Guinevere, but three wives bearing that name in succession. This is probably a part of the myth which has attached itself to the name of Arthur as a real man; it is rather like some things in Irish legend, and it was altogether of so primitive an order that it could not enter into the story without spoiling the plot, and, as a matter of fact, it appears nowhere except in the Triads. Now, of the three Gwenhwyfars,one is called daughter of Ogurvan the Giant, and you know how the Romances describe Gwenhwyfar going astray in the latter part of her married life But the Welsh tradition, as represented by the following couplet, is still harder on her. It run thus "Gwenhwyfar, ferch Ogyrfan Gawr, Drwg yn fechan, gwaeth yn fawr." "Guinevere, Giant Ogurvan's daughter, Naughty young, more naughty later." Personally, I am inclined to discount the traditions of the Ancients against women, just as I notice that they hardly ever seem to have given vogue to any saying which has come down to us as a proverb favourable to the fair sex. (Cheers.) That, however, is not what I wished to call attention to, but to the designation of the lady as the daughter of Giant Ogurvan. Then comes the question who Ogurvan was, and that you can probably answer Deheubarth. Now I hope that you will consider better than I. For he appears to have been an old I have chattered enough, especially as I have Oswestry man, as the Welsh name for Old Oswes- called your attention back to an Old Oswestry try seems to have been Caer Ogyrfan or Ogurvan's worthy, Ogurvan, the giant, father-in-law to Fort. Yesterday I had the pleasure of examining Arthur, and owner for a time of the celebrated that eminence with its extensive trenches and Round Table; but some Oswestry Christian will, other traces of ancient fortification. I tried then perhaps, say that he does not feel quite comto imagine that I saw the Giant's lovely daughter fortable as to his kinship with the old giant, and and her maids gracing the scene. I have, how that I might say a word of some other great man ever, too little imagination for the task, but some associated with Oswestry. of you visiting the weird spot in the air of the am most willing and happy to do so. I was yes(Cheers.) Well, I evening might be more successful. The subject terday shown a most picturesque old house in deserves to be handled by a genius, and I venture Oswestry, and as I heard it called the Llwyd to suggest it to our bards and musicians who com- Mansion, my curiosity was at once roused, and plain of a scarcity of suitable themes for their I found that it belonged in ages gone by to the creative powers. (Cheers.) And if one is found with a genius for the treatment of ancient Lloyds of Llanvorda. Of that family came a magic and mysticism, his talents might have some great man, a very great man, to wit Edward scope in dealing with the character of Gwen-Llwyd (cheers) who was born in the year 1660, hwyfar's father, the Giant Ogurvan, whom the and died in 1709, when he was buried, it is said, Book of Taliessin treats as the originator of in the Welsh aisle of St. Michael's at Oxford; letters and writing, and as the owner of a mys- that is to say in the burial place then reserved terious cauldron, out of which emerge three for Jesus College. For Edward Llwyd was unmuses. But I find the story brought down so to doubtedly one of the greatest men educated at the say to a later time by your esteemed towns- Welsh College. I feel an interest in the memory man, Mr Parry-Jones, and I will read you a of Edward Llwyd, not only on account of his passage from his story of Oswestry Castle. "The connection with the Welsh College, but because Norman garrison in Shrewsbury was besieged. he was in many respects the greatest Celtic philWilliam marched to its relief and swept the ologist the world has ever seen. It is not too Welsh border. The French chronicler tells that much to say that had Celtic philology walked in when William was on his march near the Welsh the ways of Edward Llwyd, and not of ruch ren border he came to a ruined city, of which Mr as Dr Pughe and Col. Vallancy, it would by this Wright says, 'I am inclined to think that it may time have reached a far higher ground than it be Old Oswestry,' where he hears a marvellous has, and native scholars would have left no room story of the giant Geomagog, whose for the meteoric appearance of Zeuss or of the spirit still ruled the city, and how Payn Peverel, other Germans who have succeeded him in the the proud and courageous knight,' cousin of the same field of study. Edward Llwyd was very King, with his 'shiel shining with gold, on which various in his acquirements, but I have mostly was a cross of azure indented,' took fifteen come on his footsteps in Ce tic philknights with him in the midst of a tempest of ology and Celtic archæology. It matters thunder and lightning, and fought the fiend, who not what it is, I find that Edward Llwyd carried a great club, and was guarding a treasure has been before me: I inquire into the old inof oxen, cows, swans, peacocks, horses, and all scriptions of North Wales Llwyd was aware of other animals made of fine gold, and there was the only Ogam stone there. I go on tae same scit a golden bull which told the events which were of errand to the extreme south-west of Ireland, to come.' Whether the treasure still remains Llwyd had penetrated there before me, and he buried in Old Oswestry the chronicler fails to tell." proves the first in modern times to have called Yesterday I had the honour to open your splendid attention to Irish Ogam stones. I must stop, exhibition, and I could not help thinking how though I could go on for half a day dilating on very nice it would have been to have some of the genius of Edward Llwyd and its achievements those golden cattle to show-(laughter)-and es- in the field of Celtic philology. But before dispecially the gold bull prophet. We might have missing the memory of your illustrious Oswestry sent him to the Prime Minister, who, I am sure, man, let me draw a very brief moral: it is this, is very anxious to know what is going to happen. you Oswestry people must adorn your town with (Laughter.) I see, however, that I must stop: a noble statue of Edward Llwyd. (Cheers.) For I merely allude to that fairy world of Ogurvan's my own part I can only say that I feel interested to prepare you so to say for the Eisteddfod mys- as Principal of Jesus College, as Professor of teries by getting you into the proper mesmeric Celtic, and as a Welshman. So I venture to temper, for the bards and the musicians to oper- promise that no trivial cause will prevent me ate on you. That reminds me that music is from being present at the unveiling of a statue well represented in this district; let us hope that to Edward Llwyd. (Loud cheers.) in the near future the vocalists of Powys will be able, like the warriors of ancient Powys, to go forth conquering North and South on the Eisteddfod platform, and not resting content to leave that fascinating field in the possession of their more Goidelic neighbours in Gwynedd and uneasy The awards were then proceeded with, amongst which were the following: Essay, "Border place-names, as illustrative of local history." "Enwau lleoedd ar y terfynau, fel y maent yn egluro hanesiaeth_leol." English or Welsh. Prize, given by Mrs J. Parry-Jones, Beechfield, £3 3s.-Archdeacon Thomas, in giving the audience rising to its feet, and the Oswestry Hwylus wyr fu'n hawlio sedd-arbenig, Yw'r dyn clir a dan y cledd. A chadair harddach wedyn A fo'n ol i Eifion Wyn.-"Dyfed." The chairing song, "The Bells of Aberdovey," was sung by Miss Hannah Jones, R.A.M. At this stage the President made an appeal on behalf of the Llewelyn National Memorial Fund. Mr J. Parry-Jones, in proposing a hearty vote of thanks to Principal Rhys, said he did so with great pleasure as chairman of the Literary Committee. They were indebted to all their Presidents, but as to the other gentlemen they were all neighbours, and were not doing more than was their duty. It was a great honour that a gentleman of the position of Principal Rhys, with such manifold duties to attend to, should visit what some people called that small and obscure corner of North Salop. He (the speaker) did not think it was so-(laughter and applause)-and be was glad to see Mrs Bulkeley-Owen agreed with him. (Applause.) He was glad to hear Principal Rhys allude to the past of Öswestry and the Bor derland, of which so many present were in total ignorance. If Eisteddfodau were to do any good at all they must draw the attention of the people of the neighbourhood to the antiquarian objects of The chief event of the afternoon was the chairing interest, to the men who had lived in olden dayɛ. of the bard, and, as usual, it proved full of enthu-and it was on this account, and also because of siasm and interest. Dyfed read the adjudication:- his presence, that he was glad to have the honour Chair prize, "Esgyniad y Cymro" ("The advance of proposing the vote of thanks. (Loud applause.) of Wales'). Pryddest heb fod dros 600 o linellau (poem not to exceed 600 lines). Oak chair and £10 10s. Prize given by Commercial Travellers. The adjudicators were Llawdden and Dyfed, and they reported that they had received six pryddests on this subject, signed, "Bleddyn ap Brython," "Un o hil Gomer," "Ellian," "Blaen y Wawr," "Un yn Dringo," and "Y Galon Gydlais." After noticing each competitor in detail, the adjudicators awarded the prize to "Y Galon Gydlais," whose pryddest was thoughtfully written in simple and effective style. There was much freshness in the poem, and he treated his subject in good idiomatic Welsh, and his composition was pervaded with the spirit of the national Welsh awakening. There were some lines which might be revised with advantage, and some of them could be expressed in a better way. Looking at the composition as a whole they had no doubt that it excelled all the other competitors, in as much as it was stronger, deeper, and more Welsh in style, and entered with feeling into the subject. They had great pleasure in awarding the prize. The successful bard was the Rev E. Williams, (Eifion Wyn) of Portmadoc, who was escorted to the platform by Dyfed and the Rev. J. Idrisyn Jones, The President, in responding, thanked Mr Parry-Jones for his kind remarks, but wished he had been more moderate. (Laughter.) They had had some brilliant men from that part of the county at Oxford, and he hoped to see more in the future. He was pleased to be there, and had promised to come again when they unveiled the statue of Edward Llwyd. (Laughter and loud applause.) At the evening concert a new work (which has been highly praised by musical authorities) by Dr Reynolds (formerly organist of Oswestry church) and Sullivan's Golden Legend were produced before a very large gathering. FRIDAY. THE GORSEDD. THE EISTEDDFOD. The president was Mr Stanley Leighton, M.P., who was heartily received, and delivered a short address. The following were among the awards : |