CAMBRIAN NOTES.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 18468, 21 May 1928, Page 3

CAMBRIAN NOTES.

lOLO MORGANWG. 1010 , Morganwg, born Edward Williams, the son of a stonemason of Pennon, in Glamorganshire, in the year 1745, died one hundred years ago; but lately he has been metaphorically brought back to life and given a popularity which might be envied by many, and all because learned persons cast a doubt on what he had had to say concerning the gorsedd. Some said he was an impostor, a forger and a fraud; others maintained he possessed knowledge unknown to most; others thought him little better than a harmless idiot, subject to somnambulism; and so the battle raged. It seems a shame not to let the simple, kindly soul rest in peace in his grave at Flemington instead of wrangling about him. We should cherish his memory, for very few would have done what he did to gain knowledge. It is so much better to believe than to doubt, and nothing is too marvelous to be true. Science to-day is proving that many things seemingly impossible are part of a wonderful scheme in the universe. As 1010 himself said, “Only the Bards and the Druids know,” and there are many who believe that the Ancient Britons are the survivors of the Tribes of Israel, who took with them their knowledge and their language to “the uttermost parts of the earth.” Be that as it may, 1010 Morganwg had one absorbing passion: that of collecting historical traditions, copying MSS. and possessing himself of original Welsh documents, lie fervently believed that Druidism was the patriarchal religion of the Old Testament, further sublimated by a semblance to .Christianity in its pacific spirit. All we know about the Druids at the present day is from the writings f f Caesar, Strabo and Diodorus. They may have been prejudiced, but 1010 thought them malignant slanderers; certainly translations of the rites and ceremonies make unpleasant reading. Still, he believed Welsh Bards knew the truth. He also firmly believed that America was discovered by Madoc ab Owain Griffydd long before Christopher Colombus arrived there, and he was only prevented by an attack of rheumatism from going there to hunt up proofs that a Welsh-speaking colony would be found among the American Indians. Who knows? He may have been right. There is a venerable Welsh scholar in the Cambrian Society who is positive that Welsh is .spoken in some parts of Brittany, and many travellers have told us the same. Most of the old MS. collections in the monasteries were destroyed by fire since 1010 first read them, and only his records exist to-day. Why should people doubt when original documents have disappeared? A copy may be a perfectly veracious proof. It is hard that iconoclasts like Sir John Morris Jones should try to belie the efforts of a man who sought for the truth. Many others of the present day use their gifts to destroy rather than to create. They, doubt everything and believe nothing. The Welsh will always believe in the real antiquity of the gorsedd. If it existed only in the imagination of an itinerant stonemason, what a brain he must have had to have imagined something which at all great Eisteddfods is seen as a solemn ritual carried out with picturesque pageantry’. The Welsh

believe 1010 to have been a profound antiquarian, whose knowledge, of the customs, manners and history of Wales was second to none, and that he was a poet of no mean order, a sculptor more than a mere mason, a writer of distinction and a man to whom Wales owes a great debt. He may perhaps . have been an eccentric person, and one given to fads, still, they are found in every age—never were there more fads and_fancies, “ isms ” and cranks than at Ae present time. Old 1010 was a strict vegetarian, 100 years ago. He was so far ahead of his day and generation as to be an out and out “ greenleafer’ x and ate dried grass instead of the. more succulent lettuce, with such unpleasant results -that he/returned to beef and Welsh mutton. 1010 attributed his early education to his mother and from her he inherited his love of music, song and poetry-. She taught him in the time he could spare from learning his father’s trade. When she died he left home because his father reproved him for paying too much attention to books instead of minding the house l —and farmyard. He had been warned before, and promised to do so, but when his father returned from a neighbouring “ job,” he found him absorbed in his studies while the pigs, geese, fowls, and ducks were disporting themselves all over the house in their search for food; a calf had possession of the kitchen and a donkey was taking its ease in the “ best parlour.” lie was twenty-two then and he took himself to London and worked more or less at his trade. In 1781 he married, and to keep his young family had to stick to stone-cutting, but as soon as his sons were old enough, he set up a little shop at Cowbridge for them to manage and started off back to his beloved Wales, rambling along highways and byways with a horse as his sole companion, lie did not need the horse but cheerfully paid the turnpike tolls for the sake of its company. The faithful animal followed him wherever he went. An old print shows him to have been a little old man, with, long grey- hair, flowing over the high collar of his coat,,which cocked his hat up at the back at a rakish angle. He looks quietly intelligent. shrewd and sensitive, with irregular features, deep lines, grey eyes and a very excitable temperament. He used to wear a long blue coat, with brass buttons, and corcluroy r breeches, and buckles on his shoes, and over his shoulder he always carried two wallets, or “kit-bags,” one in front and one behind, for his “library-,” reading as he walked along spectacles on nose and a pencil for making notes, ever in his hand. In the other hand he carried a tall staff, which, however, he did not use as a walking stick, but held aloft “to expand the pectoral muscles” for the relief of a pulmonary malady (probably asthma), inherent in his constitution,” to use his own words. Beneath the humble exterior of the old waydarer was a mind rich in ancient and modern lore, forever dwelling on the antiquities, the genius and the history of Wales; bent on acquiring knowledge, not ofily of his own country*, but of the world at large and doting on obscure literature, British, Norman, or Runic, taking also the classics of Greece and Rome and the poetry* of all lands.

SOCIAL. Air and Mrs F. W. Jones left Christchurch last Wednesday night, amid a wonderful demonstration of goodwill and, affection, confetti, coloured streamers and kisses galore. Many friends, members of the International Harvester Company and staff, and members of . the Cambrian Society—Mr C. E. Jones, president, Miss Alice Jones, Miss Lewis-Davies? Mrs M. E. Jones, Mr P. L. Davies, Mr and Mrs J. A. Parry. Mr Thomas Williams, Mr Filer, Mr T. D. Williams, Mr Hugh Williams and Dyfed and many others—were at the station to see them off. DIAMOND JUBILEE PROCESSION. The Cambrian Society will be represented in the city’s Diamond Jubilee procession on May 28. as requested. It is almost the jubilee of the society. The committee meets to-night to complete arrangements Miss Lewis-Davies, who has just joined the Cambrian Society-, returned to Grey-mouth on Saturday, after spending a holiday,in Christchurch. During her stay members of the society took her to see some of the sights of the city’’, and Mr C. E. Jones, the president, showed her over the Babies’ Home at Sumner, in which she was greatly interested. At the time of the, Greymouth Jubilee Miss Lewis-Davies arranged a display representing Wales, which gained a prize in the procession. Miss Lewis-pavies speaks Welsh and it is to be hoped she will spend another , holiday here.