WALES. 55 



famous bard — a circular mound, anciently surrounded by two circles of stones. 

 If any one sleep upon this grave he will arise either a poet or a madman. It was 

 to this mound that the bards wended their steps in search of inspiration when 

 desirous of composing trihannau, or "triads." Owing to their symbolism, the 

 meaning of these triads often escaped the profane, but some of them deserve to be 

 remembered for all time. " Three things there are," one of them tells us, " which 

 were contemporaneous from the beginning — Man, Liberty, Light."* 



The TVelsh, notwithstanding the extension of roads and railways, of manufac- 

 turing industry and commerce, have kept alive their national traditions and their 

 language. The principality of Wales has ceased to exist as an independent country 

 since the middle of the thirteenth century ; nevertheless the Welsh, who call 

 themselves " Cymry " — that is, "they that have a common fatherland "f — look 

 upon themselves as a separate people, and have often attempted to throw off the 

 yoke of the English kings. Like the Bretons of France, their kinsmen by race and 

 language, they seized the opportunities afforded by the civil wars in which the 

 nation, to which they had been attached by force, found itself involved. Thus 

 in the seventeenth century they were ardent Royalists, hoping thereby to establish 

 indirectly their claim to national independence. During the seven years the war 

 lasted the Welsh remained faithful to King Charles, whose cause they had 

 embraced as if it were their own, and Cromwell found himself obliged to storm 

 several of their strongholds. But this was the last struggle, and the public peace 

 has not since been disturbed, unless, perhaps, during the so-called Rebecca riots 

 in 1843, when bodies of men, disguised as women ("Rebecca and her Daughters"), 

 overran the country, and made war upon turnpike toll collectors. Since 1746 

 the "principality" of Wales has formed politically a portion of England. In 

 matters of religion, however, there exist certain contrasts between the Welsh and 

 English ; but these are the very reverse of what may be observed in France, where 

 the Bretons are far more zealous adherents of the old faith than the French. The 

 Welsh, being addicted to mysticism, as enthusiastic as they are choleric, passionately 

 fond of controversy, and impatient of rules laid down by strangers, naturally rejected 

 the episcopal rites adhered to by a majority in England. Most of them are 

 Dissenters ; Calvinistic Methodists, Baptists, and Congregationalists being most 

 numerously represented. Î About the middle of the eighteenth century, when 

 Whitefield, the famous preacher, passed through the valleys of Wales, religious 

 fervour revived throughout the principality, and in the smallest hamlet might be 

 heard hymns, prayers, and vehement religious discourses. The Welsh Dissent- 

 ing bodies have even anticipated their English brethren in several religious 

 movements. It was they who established the oldest Bible Society and the 

 first Sunday schools. They maintain a mission in Brittany for the purpose of 

 converting their kinsmen separated from them by the ocean. Still, in spite of 

 all this religious zeal, the Welsh are inferior to the English as regards general 



* Pictct, " IMystferes des Bardes, Cyfrinach Beirdd Ynys Prydain." 

 t H. Gaidoz, Revue des Deux- Mondes, May 1st, 1876. 



X There are in the principality 1,145 churches of the Establishment, and about 3,000 chapels of 

 Dissenters, and in the vast majority of these latter the services are conducted in Welsh. 



