SOWING IN WALES

Evening Star, Issue 22233, 10 January 1936, Page 8

SOWING IN WALES

DID WAY WITH SEED I had climbed the hill and was sitting looking down into the valley below me, conscious of two things—the deathlike stillness around me, and my complete immunity from human contacts, writes James Hanley, in the ‘ Spectator.’ Away across the mountions 1 knew there existed the desperate mass of life that symbolises the cities and towns of to-day. A March wind was blowing, but the sky was quite clear. Once a whole colony of rooks passed by cowing loudly. , Below me were the brown lands, and here and there a farmstead. Then suddenly what looked to me like a scarecrow began to move. I stood up then and focussed my attention upon it; Yes, this strange figure was walking up and down a ploughed field. I began to descend. As I drew nearer I saw it was a man, hut could. not yet make out what he was doing in this field. At last I came to the field itself and climbed the gate (an awkward job this) topped by barbed wire (unusual in Wales). 1 discovered then that he was sowing corn. . . At first glance 1 should take him for a man of 70. Later T discovered that he was 81. He was the nearest thing to a Russian moujik I have ever seen. He wore a hugs black overcoat, its collar buttoned tightly about his throat. He wore a black, beard. His nose was hooked, and set between eyes of light brown. Such penetrating eyes. Seeing me he waved his hand and called out in a voice like_ bronze, “ Borthddada ” (good morning). The picture was almost biblical. He looked like one of the old prophets. In His left hand he held a wooden bowl half-full of seed. On his head.he wore a black felt hat, much the worse for wear, the only thing that marred the prophet in him. For an old man he had marvellous teeth. But most wonderful of all was his vitality. He breathed an energy and earnestness which one rarely associates with a man 80 years old. This energy, this tensity he seemed to communicate to the atmosphere around him. I remarked how early he was on the job. Laughing, he replied that he had been up since a. quarter to 5 o’clock, had brought in the cattle for milking, set the separator, lighted the fires, made breakfast, and seen to the calf feed. Not bad, ! I thought, for a man of his age. WITHOUT MACHINES. I knew, of course, that in most parts of Wales they sow the corn by hand, as in,' the days of old, for Wales is a country most untouched by the modern spirit.' One can travel through the country completely oblivious to the fact that these are factory and ma-chine-made days. And this indifference to progress, tliis indifference to modern ideas, manifested itself for me in the person in front of me; his very demeanour was a sort of threat to such things. One felt he hated machines; one could even see him disgustedly refusing any present of a machine-made sower. . But then how* odd this figure would have looked standing behind a mechanical sower! Here was a hangover from the past. I asked him if he liked sowing by hand, to which he replied laughingly: “ But there is no other way, that is good.” I teased him about the milk separator, for I felt a two-dog power churn was much more in liis line. Ah. no. It was not any of his business, he had nothing to do with its purchase. His son had bought the milk separator. This reassured me a little. Then he began to son - . And. watching that tall, ungainly figure wrapped in its overcoat, trending down the field, I realised that he was born to sow corn, to sow it in this old, old way. The beautiful rhythm of his casting, the sway of his body, the way he held his head, the graceful swing of his arm, only served to fortify tliis realisation. One could imagine he experienced a sort of ecstasy as he trod the firm earth beneath his feet, that as he flung this corn towards it he was in essence symbolising his faith in the soil, his duty towards • the Mother Earth. With this corn he was writing bis own message upon the brown lands. He was in deep communication with the oldest mother" of all. THE PROPHET. Up and down he went, and so he came into the very middle of the field. It was as though some intoxicating essence rose from the earth itself. His movements were more graceful, and he was smiling, not at me. but at the soil beneath him. Here was the core of the movement, movement made rhvthmicnl. made poetic. I stood by the gate for a long while watching him. The rir was still as before, and only a single gull come in from the sea appeared over his head. As he turned round I saw his board blowing in the wind. Tlien his hat blew off-and the picture was complete.

Here was. the prophet sowing his seed. Hero was no deluge of mechanical sounds, only the scraping of his hands in the corn bowl. Against the light the corn had ilic appearance of golden dust as he flung it handful after handful into the hungry earth. Then I went back up the hill. For a long time 1 sat watching the old man at Ins work. He would always sow, year in, year out. That, I thought, is his destiny: to go on serving the brown lands until death. As I rose to go I stood for a moment tb take a last look. His tall figure stood out clearly against the skvline, and far to his left I noticed a single horse. Maybe. I thought, he has seen it, too, for it had just appeared on the horizon. A good sign, so they say, to see a horse outlined on a hilltop. Suddenly lie stopped. He had finished his work. He looked my wav. saw me, gave mo a wave or the hand, and then disappeared behind the hedge.