Wild Wales: The People, Language, & Scenery. Borrow George
was good enough, but I had eaten better; and here it will not be amiss to say, that the best salmon in the world is caught in the Suir, a river that flows past the beautiful town of Clonmel in Ireland. As for the leg of mutton, it was truly wonderful; nothing so good had I ever tasted in the shape of a leg of mutton. The leg of mutton of Wales beats the leg of mutton of any other country, and I had never tasted a Welsh leg of mutton before. Certainly I shall never forget the first Welsh leg of mutton which I tasted, rich but delicate, replete with juices derived from the aromatic herbs of the noble Berwyn, cooked to a turn, and weighing just four pounds.
“O its savoury smell was great,
Such as might well tempt, I trow,
One that’s dead to lift his brow.”
Let any one who wishes to eat leg of mutton in perfection go to Wales, but mind you to eat leg of mutton only. Welsh leg of mutton is superlative; but with the exception of the leg, the mutton of Wales is decidedly inferior to that of many other parts of Britain.
Here, perhaps, as I have told the reader what we ate for dinner, it will be as well to tell him what we drank at dinner. Let him know, then, that with our salmon we drank water, and with our mutton ale, even ale of Llangollen; but not the best ale of Llangollen; it was very fair; but I subsequently drank far better Llangollen ale than that which I drank at our first dinner in our cottage at Llangollen.
In the evening I went across the bridge and strolled along in a south-east direction. Just as I had cleared the suburb a man joined me from a cottage, on the top of a high bank, whom I recognized as the mower with whom I had held discourse in the morning. He saluted me and asked me if I were taking a walk. I told him I was, whereupon he said that if I were not too proud to wish to be seen walking with a poor man like himself, he should wish to join me. I told him I should be glad of his company, and that I was not ashamed to be seen walking with any person, however poor, who conducted himself with propriety. He replied that I must be very different from my countrymen in general, who were ashamed to be seen walking with any people who were not, at least, as well-dressed as themselves. I said that my country-folk in general had a great many admirable qualities, but at the same time a great many foibles, foremost amongst which last was a crazy admiration for what they called gentility, which made them sycophantic to their superiors in station, and extremely insolent to those whom they considered below them. He said that I had spoken his very thoughts, and then asked me whether I wished to be taken the most agreeable walk near Llangollen.
On my replying by all means, he led me along the road to the south-east. A pleasant road it proved: on our right at some distance was the mighty Berwyn; close on our left the hill called Pen y Coed. I asked him what was beyond the Berwyn?
“A very wild country, indeed,” he replied, “consisting of wood, rock, and river; in fact, an anialwch.”
He then asked if I knew the meaning of anialwch.
“A wilderness,” I replied, “you will find the word in the Welsh Bible.”
“Very true, sir,” said he, “it was there I met it, but I did not know the meaning of it, till it was explained to me by one of our teachers.”
On my inquiring of what religion he was, he told me he was a Calvinistic Methodist.
We passed an ancient building which stood on our right. I turned round to look at it. Its back was to the road: at its eastern end was a fine arched window like the oriel window of a church.
“That building,” said my companion, “is called Pengwern Hall. It was once a convent of nuns; a little time ago a farm-house, but is now used as a barn, and a place of stowage. Till lately it belonged to the Mostyn family, but they disposed of it, with the farm on which it stood, together with several other farms, to certain people from Liverpool, who now live yonder,” pointing to a house a little way farther on. I still looked at the edifice.
“You seem to admire the old building,” said my companion.
“I was not admiring it,” said I; “I was thinking of the difference between its present and former state. Formerly it was a place devoted to gorgeous idolatry and obscene lust; now it is a quiet old barn in which hay and straw are placed, and broken tumbrils stowed away: surely the hand of God is visible here?”
“It is so, sir,” said the man in a respectful tone, “and so it is in another place in this neighbourhood. About three miles from here, in the north-west part of the valley, is an old edifice. It is now a farm-house, but was once a splendid abbey, and was called – ”
“The abbey of the vale of the cross,” said I; “I have read a deal about it. Iolo Goch, the bard of your celebrated hero, Owen Glendower, was buried somewhere in its precincts.”
We went on: my companion took me over a stile behind the house which he had pointed out, and along a path through hazel coppices. After a little time I inquired whether there were any Papists in Llangollen.
“No,” said he, “there is not one of that family at Llangollen, but I believe there are some in Flintshire, at a place called Holywell, where there is a pool or fountain, the waters of which it is said they worship.”
“And so they do,” said I, “true to the old Indian superstition, of which their religion is nothing but a modification. The Indians and sepoys worship stocks and stones, and the river Ganges, and our Papists worship stocks and stones, holy wells and fountains.”
He put some questions to me about the origin of nuns and friars. I told him they originated in India, and made him laugh heartily by showing him the original identity of nuns and nautch-girls, begging priests and begging Brahmins. We passed by a small house with an enormous yew-tree before it; I asked him who lived there.
“No one,” he replied, “it is to let. It was originally a cottage, but the proprietors have furbished it up a little, and call it yew-tree villa.”
“I suppose they would let it cheap,” said I.
“By no means,” he replied, “they ask eighty pounds a year for it.”
“What could have induced them to set such a rent upon it?” I demanded.
“The yew-tree, sir, which is said to be the largest in Wales. They hope that some of the grand gentry will take the house for the romance of the yew-tree, but somehow or other nobody has taken it, though it has been to let for three seasons.”
We soon came to a road leading east and west.
“This way,” said he, pointing in the direction of the west, “leads back to Llangollen, the other to Offa’s Dyke and England.”
We turned to the west. He inquired if I had ever heard before of Offa’s Dyke.
“O yes,” said I, “it was built by an old Saxon king called Offa, against the incursions of the Welsh.”
“There was a time,” said my companion, “when it was customary for the English to cut off the ears of every Welshman who was found to the east of the dyke, and for the Welsh to hang every Englishman whom they found to the west of it. Let us be thankful that we are now more humane to each other. We are now on the north side of Pen y Coed. Do you know the meaning of Pen y Coed, sir?”
“Pen y Coed,” said I, “means the head of the wood. I suppose that in the old time the mountain looked over some extensive forest, even as the nunnery of Pengwern looked originally over an alder-swamp, for Pengwern means the head of the alder-swamp.”
“So it does, sir; I shouldn’t wonder if you could tell me the real meaning of a word, about which I have thought a good deal, and about which I was puzzling my head last night as I lay in bed.”
“What may it be?” said I.
“Carn-lleidyr,” he replied: “now, sir, do you know the meaning of that word?”
“I think I do,” said I.
“What may it be, sir?”
“First let me hear what you conceive its meaning to be,” said I.
“Why, sir, I should say that Carn-lleidyr is an out-and-out thief – one worse than