poets, which was by no means the fact, as they stantly misled by those whose duty it was to were rather to be considered in the light of pub- enlighten and instruct him, it should not excite lic instructors, historians, ambassadors, and surprise, however it may excite pity, that superheralds. But as it was customary to deliver stitious tales, dignified by those who are weak their maxims through the medium of verse, enough to believe in them by the imposing name poetry consequently, became an indispensable of "Legends," should so generally have been qualification, and poet and bard at length be- prevalent. Most of those now current in Wales, came synonymous terms. may be safely referred to the times of the Bardism consisted of three distinct orders-monks, and many of the remarkable customs Burrd, Derwydd, and Ofzdd-the Bards, Druids, still observed by the peasantry are evidently of and Ovates, whose duties were perfectly distinct, Druidical origin.

66

but the limits of this paper preclude a detail of] Of those traditions which appear to be dethem. The primitive and principal objects of rived from Catholic times, is the Canwyll this venerable institution appear to have been Corph," or the "Corpse Candle," which was, the reformation of morals and the revision of doubtless, one of the many inventions of the customs; the promotion of charity and benevo- monks. This absurd superstition is said to be lence; the preservation of peace and tranquility; confined to the diocese of St. David, and the cirand the celebration of all that is good and ex- cumstance which is supposed by the credulous cellent. A strict adherence to truth was deemed to have given rise to it, may be thus concisely of such essential importance, that the bards in related. St. David, desirous of being favourably their compositions, were never known to have remembered in his old see after his translation recourse to the meretricious aid of fiction; and to heaven entreated that his flock might receive as truth is the soul of history, their writings some special mark of divine favour. His prayer should be considered invaluable historical docu- was granted, and he obtained a promise that no ments. To the public records, which were en- one should die without having previously receitrusted to their custody, they made constant ad- ved an intimation of his approaching dissolution. ditions, by faithfully narrating all memorable oc- This was to be a light, which should proceed currences: they were employed to negociate im- from the habitation of the individual, whose portant treaties, and specially appointed to regu- death was thus foretold, to the churchyard, and late armorial bearings and register pedigrees; a by the very same road along which the funeral practice of the utmost utility, and even highly was afterwards to pass. Of the existence of this necessary in a community in which surnames supernatural signal the generality of the peasanwere not generally adopted until a very late pe-try, and even many inhabitants of towns, are riod. fully persuaded-they also suppose, that the However justly the bards may be entitled to light is vivid or faint according to the age of the our gratitude, as having been the most effica-person forewarned; and if the candle should cious instruments in the dissemination of civili-deviate from the path that conducts to the zation and learning, they have a still stronger church, they imagine the corpse will do the claim to our veneration, since they were also the same.

depositories of truth. In this latter respect they Another of the superstitions, called the " Teu may be advantageously contrasted with most la," is a phantasmagoric representation of a other learned corporations, which, with the view funeral; apparently of the same nature as the of attaining and securing an undue influence, second sight of the Scotch.* The peasantry have commonly misled and deceived those who (and, strange to say, not only the peasantry,) looked up to them for instruction. When it is will seriously affirm, that if they did not move recollected how little reliance can be placed on out of the road when they meet with this the generality of historical records, it is highly mournful procession, they would inevitably be gratifying to reflect that implicit faith may be overwhelmed by the pressure of the aerial reposed in all those that have been transmitted crowd. They also state-and it is as easy to down by the bards during many centuries. state one thing as another-that the spirits they The Druids having been at length supplanted behold are always those of persons with whom by the Catholic priesthood, the same system of they are perfectly well acquainted, whom they deception was by degrees introduced into the distinctly recognize, and as distinctly hear chantprincipality as had been successfully practised ing hymns!

by their brethren in other countries, and the The "Plygain," which means the "morning same exclusive privileges were claimed and en- twilight," takes place on Christmas morning, an joyed for they were alike intent on checking the hour or two after midnight, when prayers are diffusion of knowledge and obstructing the light read in the churches, and service is performed of truth-the most effectual method of keeping in the places of worship belonging to the dissentheir fellow-creatures in a statute of subjection. ters, where the people remain singing hymns till It has been already remarked, that the more an-break of day. They carry with them candles cient the tradition the greater is the quantum of of various colours and those that remain when faith usually reposed in it-the Jews still con- the service is over are the perquisite of the tinue to expect their Messiah, as the Welsh, for clerk. This custom it is hardly requisite to obmany centuries, indulged in the hope of re-appear- serve is also a relic of popery,

ance of the renowned Prince Arthur. Since

The "Ychain Bonawy, or Banos," the "oxen groom to the number of a hundred, repair to his of the summit of the mountains," another won-house on horseback, where they are regaled derful tale that is pretty generally credited, is with bread and cheese and ale, and make their supposed to be derived from the mythology of presents, or repay those that have been made the Druids. They are reported to have per- by their host at their weddings, which is called formed certain wonderful feats of strength, such" paying Pwython." From among these visitors, as pulling enormous mountains asunder with ten, or sometimes twenty, of the best mounted, little difficulty, and transferring them from place are selected to go and demand the bride in marto place with equal ease. These formidable ani- riage. The woman although nothing loath, mals are occasionally heard to bellow with ter-feigns reluctance, and affects coyness; but after rific force by true believers. much altercation, which is usually carried on The "Cwn Annwn," "dogs of hell," or, as they in verse, the deputies are admitted, and invited are sometimes denominated, with more propri- by the father to partake of cold refreshments. ety, "Cnn Wybir," "dogs of the sky," are a During the continuance of the dispute, the girl very extraordinary pack, as they are occasion-makes grievous moans and lamentations, counally heard hunting in the air by those whose terfeits tears, and pretends to tear her hair. At sense of hearing is particularly acute, although length, bewailing her cruel destiny, she conit has never been ascertained of what game sents to yield, and is mounted behind one of her they are in pursuit. They are said to be par- relatives on the best horse in the stud. They ticularly noisy previous to the dissolution of then proceed to church, and as a quarrel is geneany wicked person, and are described by some rally the result of these poetical contentions, it as of a clear shining, white, with red ears; is settled on the way by bruising and cudgelling. others, however, maintain that they are jet black, Fresh pranks are now played, and the friends of ears and all, which triffling difference would the bride gallop away with her as if they really lead to the supposition that they are of the true wished to carry her off. Accidents, consechamelion breed, and may also occasionally be quently, frequently occur, and she sometimes refound of a blue or green hue; indeed, as that ceives serious injury. creature feeds on the very element in which On the conclusion of the marriage ceremony, these dogs hunt, it is not at all unlikely that they the bride and bridegroom are accompanied to are of the same genus. their residence by their friends, who are regaled

66

The customs observed previously to and on with cold meat, but pay for what they drink.the celebration of marriage, are clearly relics of On the first Sunday, the new-married couple reDruidism. A week, or more, before the wedding main at home, and receive “Goodwill and pwyday, a person called the "Gwahodder," "the in-thon," that is to say congratulations and previter or bidder," is sent round to all the acquain-sents, this day being termed " Neithior." On Montances of those about to be united, with an invi-day morning, as the cellar is usually by that time tation to the wedding, which is called a bidding.* at a low ebb, the cheese and butter are sold, by This messenger, who carries a long pole, the which means, and the gifts that are received, more end of which is decorated with ribands, delivers than £50 are sometimes collected. The following the invitation, partly in verse, to each family, Sunday they are attended to church by some of and also states the helps and benevolence ex- their friends, and thus the affair is terminated. pected from all who may be present at the cere- The ceremonies observed by the middle and mony. He then enumerates the preparations lower classes at their funerals, in most parts of made to entertain the guests, such as a good sup- the principality, are undoubtedly of popish ply of provisions and music. If the party are in origin. Candles are lighted every night, and easy circumstances, they send by the Gwahod- one of the family sits up with the body. On the der circular letters of invitation, in English. As evening previous to the interment, a crowd of the marriage is always celebrated on Saturday, persons repair to the habitation of the deceased, among that class by whom these customs are and having gazed on the remains with a sigh, observed, on the Friday the " Ystafell," or the proceed to lend their assistance in demolishing "furniture of the woman," is carried to her an immense cake, which is placed in a room future home, and usually consists of a substan- below. Cold meat and ale are also provided for tial oak-chest, a feather-bed, bed-clothes, and those of the lowest rank. The minister of the other household furniture-the man providing a parish (but now more commonly a dissenting bedstead, a table, dresser, and chairs. Presents preacher) then unites in prayer with those asare received during the evening in money, butter, sembled, and this is usually continued till nine and cheese, at the residences both of the man o'clock, when the company retire. This night and the woman. This ancient British custom is is called " Ongles."

with spice and sugar. When it is thought that (Edward and Margaret Edwards,) desire that the body has been sufficiently exhibited, the cof-all gifts of the above nature, due to them, may fin is closed. This is the signal for the com- be returned on the above day, and will be thankmencement of marvellous narrations, for as it is ful, with her brothers-in-law and sisters, for all nailed down, one of the bystanders assures his additional favours conferred.

companions, who always lend a willing ear, that he had heard exactly such a noise some time before, and felt certain that a death would soon occur. Other superstitious tales of the same nature are then related, and listened to with earnest attention.

From the Metropolitan.

A DEATH-BED SCENE AMONG THE
MOUNTAINS.

BY MRS. GODWIN.

"Ah! little think the gay, licentious proud,
Whom pleasure, power, and affluence surround;
They, who their thoughtless hours in giddy mirth
And wanton, often cruel, riot waste;

Ah! little think they while they dance along
How many feel, this very moment, death,
And all the sad variety of pain."

THOMSON.

The bier is borne by four of the nearest relatives, who appear to be proud of this mark of distinction. The clergyman, having also played his part at table, stations himself in front of the coffin: as it is elevated, the assembled company sing hymns, and continue chanting until it has been removed from the house, when the minister mounts his horse and proceeds to the church.— The singing is repeated whenever the procession passes through a town or village, or even by a house, and when it reaches the gate of the cemetery, the clergyman, arrayed in his surplice, "ONE half the world know not how the other places himself at its head, the singing is re- half live." This might with equal truth be said sumed, and the bier, being carried into the church, of the closing scene of life's drama: one half the is placed near the altar, all the relatives of the world know not how the other half die. We deceased kneeling around, until it is removed to hear of the ravages of a pestilence, we read in be deposited in the grave. The will, if any has public journals the daily bills of mortality, anbeen made, is then read, after which the mourn-nouncing the number of its victims; but the list ers retire, with the exception of the more inti- only affects us in proportion as it awakens apmate connexions of the deceased, who generally prehensions of danger to ourselves. The idea stay to partake of tea and cwrw.* of individual suffering, especially if it occur Such are the customs still prevalent amongst principally among the lower classes, seldom prethe descendants from the earliest inhabitants on sents itself. Death in the chambers of the great, record, in this island.

FORM OF A BIDDING.

W. L. S.

October 20, 1832.

prostrating his prey on the bed of down, swathed in fine linen, carefully curtained by purple and gold, watched by assiduous nurses, surrounded by weeping friends, and snatched from all the luxuries and flattering hopes of life-this calls forth our sympathy, and we pathetically beAs we intend entering the matrimonial state, wail the hard lot of the child of affluence, bewe are encouraged by our friends to make a cause he must obey the destiny cor mon to his BIDDING on the occasion, on Wednesday, the 7th species. But Death in the squalid abodes of poof November next, the young man, at his father's verty, stretching on the comfortless pallet the inhouse, called Ynysan, in the parish of Cayo, and firm and the destitute; Death in all his naked young woman, at her father's house, called ghastliness, undisguised by any of those arts by Glan-yr-afon-ddu,† in the parish of Talley; at which the wealthy seek to veil his terrors-from either of which places the favour of your good such a picture we turn disgusted away, and inand agreeable company is most humbly solicited, stead of endeavouring to diminish its horrors, and whatever donation you may be pleased to strive to forget that they exist.

the

poor by a repetition of the galling sentence, vitude as young oxen are habituated to the "Ye were born to work, we to play." For the yoke. And what is the reward of this life of toil children of the rich, ingenuity invents a thou- and dependence? what is the solace of their age? sand toys and diversions; they are literally sur-A scanty pittance, grudgingly dealt out to them feited with a foretaste of the good things in store by the overseer of the parish, or an asylum in the for them, their birthright. Of the children of workhouse, subject to the power of its superinthe poor we only think as of a race of hardy, but tendent, often an imperious and unfeeling taskinferior beings, destined to furnish us with do- master, whose iron sway embitters the remnant mestics; drudgery from the cradle to the grave of their lives.

is their inheritance; to anything like independ- We speak with horror of the prevalence of ence or recreation they have no pretensions, and caste in our Indian settlements, and send out if occasionally granted them, ought to be regard- missionaries to preach to the besotted natives ed as a gracious boon. They must be hoodwinked,* lest they should learn to see: trained to ser

against abominations that outrage the loveliest ordinances of nature; and in this we do well; but we should do far better if we opened our eyes to abuses and unnatural distinctions at home, al* I have heard it argued, especially by the fair sex, that most as contrary to common sense and to the the daughters of the poor ought not to be taught to read spirit of true Christianity, as the institutes of and write, because it unfits them for servitude. In other Brahminical law. Miserable earth-worms that words, a ray of light might penetrate their minds, showing we are! Less than mites in the stupendous them the folly and injustice of their mistresses, and their scale of existence: doomed to decrepitude, own right to be treated like rational beings. A female disease, death, and loathsome corruption and acquaintance once complained to me of the ingratitude of only rescued from instant oblivion by qualities her servant, who was actually going to marry and leave wholly independent of birth, rank, or worldly her! And what was the debt of gratitude this monster of estate, what right have we to treat any one of disloyalty owed her mistress? For the enormous stipend our fellow-worms with arrogance or contempt ? of ten pounds per annum, and some of her mistress's cast. With what an eye of indignant pity must the off ribbons; she toiled from six o'clock in the morning un- all-wise, the omnipotent Creator of worlds innutil eleven, frequently twelve, at night, for she was one of merable, look down upon our ephemeral greatthose most luckless of God's creatures, a servant of all ness? Divinely hath Wordsworth sungwork, in London; for this she drudged all day in a cellar, and lay all night in a garret. One example more I will cite of arbitrary authority, trivial in itself, but betraying the same spirit; I record it principally because my fair readers shall not accuse me of partiality, for the offender in question was of the nobler sex; an old Bengalee colonel, with a mind jaundiced as his complexion, who had returned from the east to enjoy his rupees, his liver complaint, and his prejudices, in a country that possessed not a single If we sympathise little in the ordinary purcharm for him. Seated one day over his Madeira and suits of the poor, independent of their influence champagne, the sounds, the moderate sounds of mirth and upon our own comforts, still less do we trouhilarity ascended froin his kitchen even to his aristocratic ble ourselves about them when sickness or sor

ears.

"Know that pride

Howe'er disguised in its own majesty,
Is littleness; that he who feels contempt
For any living thing, hath faculties.

Which he hath never used, that thought with him
Is in its infancy."

The wretches had, then, the insolence to laugh and row disables them from ministering to our pleabe merry in a state of servitude! Ringing the bell furi-sures. Decked out by the hand of fashion in ously, he commanded silence on pain of their all being in- the most costly attire, we roll along the highstantly turned out of doors. The natural consequence of ways in our elegant and luxurious equipages; this is, our servants, finding themselves valued only as beasts but give not a thought to the meanly clad pedesof burden for the quantum of work they are able to per- trian, whether he be footsore and weary, faintform, feel no interest in those they serve. The engage- ing beneath the summer sun, or pinched by the ment entered into is on both sides strictly mercenary, one winter's cold; it is a matter of indifference to party striving to extort as much labour as possible for the US, who are the élite of our species, the royal stipulated hire, the other turning to as profitable account as bees of the hive, fed on daintier aliment. may be, the time spent in so irksome a bondage. In nine give sumptuous feasts-is it to the hungry, starvcases out of ten we are ourselves instrumental in making ing wretches, unto whom the crumbs that fall the bad servants against whom we so clamorously complain. from our prodigal tables would be the salvation When our domestics are sick, the law provides that we shall of life?* O no! but to those diseased from renot turn them out of doors; but how do we too often fulfil

We

*Since writing the above, the following paragraph, in a newspaper just sent me, has met my eye.

its humane intentions? I heard a lady deplore the tedious illness of her servant, not on the score of the patient's protracted sufferings, but of the inconvenience to which it sub- DEATH FROM STARVATION AND COLD-Thursday an jected herself; estimating the disadvantages by the nuin- inquest was held at the Feathers, Dean Street, Westminber of days lost to her of the girl's services. But this is ster, on the body of a young man, name unknown. Ile trifling to what might be brought forward. I could tell resided at one time in Old Pye Street, and tried to pick up a tale of horror where life was the sacrifice, and if I am si-a livelihood by cutting pieces of turf in the fields and lent, it is not from lenity towards the offenders, which, in selling them for sky-larks. The frozen state of the ground such a case, would be, a culpable weakness; but because I interrupted this employment, and he sold the shirt off his fear their crime is one that would not fall under the chas-back to buy a loaf. The next day he complained of chillitisement of the law. ness and trembling of the heart. On Sunday he crawled

pletion-those who, upon the omission of a them however a little more meekly; instead of sauce, or the slightest dérèglement in the order insane notions of their own exclusive prerogaof the courses, would rise from partaking of our tives and inherent superiority, let them cultivate hospitality to make us the laughing stock of our sentiments of extensive philanthropy, and that friends; who would hear of our lodgment in "charity which vaunteth not itself, neither is the King's Bench without so much as interrupt- puffed up," and without which they are ing for a moment the routine of their selfish "sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal,” vain gratifications. and unprofitable in the sight of Heaven.

as