Yr Hen Iaith part 62: Crafting a Mirror for Welsh Identity: Drych y Prif Oesoedd

Jerry Hunter

In 1716, a clergyman from Cardiganshire, Theophilus Evans, published Drych y Prif Oesoedd. The title translates as ‘A Mirror of the Earliest Centuries’.

It relates the early history of the Welsh – or Ancient Britons – from the very beginning up through the wars with the invading Anglo-Saxons.

The second part of the book presents a history of Welsh religion. The title chosen for this ambitious work is a metaphor; Theophilus Evans suggests that the early history of the Welsh is Drych, ‘a Mirror’ in they can see themselves.

Defeat

As is made clear at the start of the book’s first chapter, the historiographical narrative related by Evans is inflected by sorrow, misfortune and defeat:

Testun gwylofain ydyw adrodd helbulon a gorthrymderau’r Cymru, ym mhob Oes a gwlâd er pan gymyscwyd y Iaith yn Nhŵr Babel: Mi allaf ddywedyd yn hŷ eu bod yn fwy anffodiog o ran eu meddiannau daearol nag un genhedl tan Haul.

‘A subject of sorrow is relating the tribulations and oppressions of the Welsh, in every Age and country since the Language was confused in the Tower of Babel. I can say confidently that they have been more unfortunate in terms of their earthly possessions than any other nation beneath the Sun.’

This text belongs to a long lineage of literary historiography which structures Welsh history around loss.

The sixth-century Latin work ascribed to the monk Gildas, De Excidio et Conquestu Britanniae (‘On the Ruin and Conquest of Britain’) describes the afflictions suffered by the Ancient Britons as punishment for sin.

The medieval Brut y Brenhinedd (‘History of the Kings’) ends with the loss of (most of) the Island of Britain to the Anglo-Saxons. Its sequel, Brut y Tywysogion (‘History of the Princes’) ends with the death of Llywelyn ap Gruffudd and the conquest of Wales in 1282.

Welsh writers have always been inspired to meditate on loss. The failed devolution referendum in 1979 generated some fantastic Welsh poetry.

While the successful 1997 referendum was celebrated with verse, none of it is as powerful as those bardic meditations on defeat.

Note that Theophilus Evans takes a narrative from the Old Testament as his starting point. Referring to the account found in Genesis 11.1-9 of how humanity’s one unifying language became a confusion or ‘babel of languages’, he equates the origin of the Welsh ‘nation’ (cenedl) with the origin of the Welsh ‘language’ (iaith).

Welsh identity

Before the end of the book’s first paragraph, readers are given a powerful articulation of the way in which the language had been the means of preserving Welsh identity through the ages:

Ond ni allwn ymffrostio yn hyn etto, er ein gorchfygu gan y Rhufeiniaid a’r Saeson, yr ŷm yn cadw ein hiaith ddechreuol os nid yn berffaith-gwbl, etto’n burach nag un genhedl yn y bŷd. Eu Hiaith a gadwant, eu Tir a gollant, ebe’r Myrddin.

‘Yet we can yet boast in this, for despite our defeat by the Romans and the English, we have kept our original language if not completely perfect, at least purer than any other nation in the world. They will keep their Language, they will lose their Land, said Myrddin.’

 This oft-cited line of prophecy – sometimes attributed in manuscripts to Taliesin and at other times to Myrddin – enjoyed considerable currency from the fifteenth century down to the twentieth.

These eight words present a compact analysis of the relationship between early Welsh history and Welsh identity through the ages, suggesting that, although they are a conquered people who have lost their lands, it is the survival of the Welsh language which has preserved them as a people and, indeed, a nation.

Evans published a substantially reworked and expanded version of the Drych in 1740, and it is this work which became a classic.

It was reprinted many times and had a profound impact on the way in which many generations of Welsh people viewed their own history, thus helping to shape perceptions of Welsh identity.

Milestone

It was also an important literary milestone; in an age before the genesis of the Welsh-language novel, Drych y Prif Oesoedd provided Welsh readers with lively and engaging narrative prose.

In some sections of the book Evans wanders into long and involved evaluations of various kinds of evidence.

However, it was his talent for crafting readable, exciting – and, at times, humorous – narrative which made the 1740 Drych such a popular book.

Although a clergyman overtly concerned with the state of religion in Wales, Theophilus Evans obviously enjoyed writing about warfare, often revelling in bloody detail. His description of the way in which the Britons met Caesar’s sea-born invasion is typical in its grotesque elaborations:

. . . am y glewion Frutaniaid, rhai a safasont ar bennau y creigydd, rhai a ddescynasant i’r traeth, eraill a aethont hyd eu tin-beisiau i’r môr, a phawb yn ergydio eu saethau cyn amled at y gelynion, nes oedd gwaed y lladdedigion yn ffrydio megis pistyll yma ac accw dros ystlysau’r llongau i’r môr.

‘as for the brave Britons, some stood on top of rocks, some descended to the beach, others went up to their trousers in the sea, and everyone firing their arrows so frequently at the enemies that the blood of those killed was streaming like waterfalls here and there over the sides of the ships into the sea.’

Theophilus Evans allows the reader to savour the way in which Caesar is defeated,  writing that the Roman leader had expected ‘kinder treatment’ (‘hawddgarach triniad’), and that ‘he now looked upon the situation fairly miserably’ (‘edrychodd ynawr yn lled ddiflas ar y matter’).

The defeat is seen from the invader’s viewpoint, the reader invited to imagine Caesar taking stock of a panorama of failure:

. . .weled ei wyr wedi digalonni, rhai yn ei regu ef am eu tynnu i’r fath ddinistr; rhai yn hanner-marw yn ochain ac yn griddfan ynghrafangau angau, eraill yn gorwedd yn gelaneddau meirw yn ymdrabaeddu yn eu gwaed.

‘seeing his men disheartened, some cursing him for bringing them to such destruction, some half dead, groaning and moaning in death’s claws, others lying there as dead corpses wallowing in their blood.’

This narrative of the unsuccessful Roman invasion concludes with Evans noting that  the sea was ‘blushing with the blood of those killed’ (agos yn wridog gan waed y lladdedigion), and that ‘the bodies of the dead and the wounded were as thicking lying at the sea’s edge as sheep in a pen’ (a chyrph y meirw a’r clwyfus cyn dewed yn gorwedd ar fin y môr, a defaid mewn corlan). Caesar and his remaining soldiers flee back to their ships for safey, ‘as you see a swarm of bees rushing to the hive before a storm’ (fel y gwelwch chwi Haid o Wenyn yn taro i’r Cwch o flaen Tymhestyl).

The history of the Welsh may be presented as one of sorrow and defeat, but it is also studded with victories narrated so as to stoke the pride of readers in the feats of the ancestors.

Blood-thirsty savages

The wars with the ancestors of the English are described in detail as well, and Evans depicts the invaders as blood-thirsty savages:

. . .rhuthro a wnaethant ar y trigolion, megis cynnifer o gigyddion anhrugarog yn ymbesci ar waed, heb arbed na dyn na dynes, na bonheddig na gwreng, nac hen nac iefangc. Nid oedd o gylch glan Tafwysc, Kent a Llundain a’r wlad oddiamgylch hyd at Rydychen (ac ni chyrhaeddodd crafangau plant y felldith ddim llawer pellach) ddim ond yr wbwb gwyllt, ac oernad, ac ymdrabaeddu mewn gwaed, a drychau tosturus y meirw.

‘they rushed upon the inhabitants, like so many merciless butchers glutting themselves on blood, sparing neither man nor woman, noble or commoner, old or young. There was nothing within the region of the Thames, Kent, London and the country surrounding Oxford (for the claws of the children of malediction did not reach much further) except wild disorder, lamenting, wallowing in blood, and the dead’s pitiful aspects.’

It’s worth stressing an obvious fact: an Anglican cleric, Theophilus Evans served the Church of England. (It was only in the early 20^th century that the Anglican Church in Wales became known as ‘The Church in Wales’, Yr Eglwys yng Nghymru).

‘Children of the curse’

Yet, while devoted to the Church of England, he was eager to portray the ancestors of the English as ‘plant y felltith’, ‘the children of malediction’ or ‘children of the curse’.

The invading English are portrayed throughout as a ‘curse’ suffered by the Welsh and their ancestors.

We can only conclude that this aspect of his work also appealed to Welsh people in the period; he was giving his readers what they wanted.

While this concludes Series 2, we’ll be back! Yr Hen Iaith’s team – producer Richard Martin and presenters Richard Wyn Jones and Jerry Hunter – are taking a break in order to create a special series of Yr Hen Iaith for students studying Welsh at A Level.

While there won’t be accompanying pieces for that special short series here in Nation.Cymru, those following the podcast can tune in (you don’t have to be doing your A levels to do so!); the first episodes will be released this week.

After that special series is concluded and the team has had a breather, they’ll be back with Series 3 of Yr Hen Iaith, beginning where we leave off here, in the year 1740.

And Jerry Hunter will again provide companion pieces in English here in Nation.Cymru.

Further Reading:

Garfield H. Hughes (ed.), Theophilus Evans, Drych y Prif Oesoedd (1716 [reprint, 1961]).

David Thomas (ed.), Theophilus Evans, Drych y Prif Oesoedd (1740 [adargraffiad, 1960]).

Dafydd Glyn Jones, Agoriad yr Oes: erthyglau ar lên, hanes a gwleidyddiaeth Cymru (2001).

[1] Drych y Prif Oesoedd (1716), 17-18.

[2] Drych y Prif Oesoedd (1740), 30.