Transcribed from the 1861 “The London Quarterly Review,” (American Edition) pages 20 to 33, by David Price, email ccx074@pglaf.org The Welsh and their Literature by George Borrow taken from the “The London Quarterly Review”, 1861, pages 20–33. * * * * * NEW YORK: PUBLISHED BY LEONARD SCOTT & CO., 79 FULTON STREET, CORNER OF GOLD STREET. * * * * * 1861. * * * * * Art. II.—_The Sleeping Bard_; _or Visions of the World_, _Death_, _and Hell_. By Elis Wyn. Translated from the Cambrian British by George Borrow. London, 1860. The Welsh style themselves Cymry or Cumry, a word which, in their language, means a number of people associated together. {20} They were the second mass of population which moved from Asia into Europe. They followed and pushed forward the Gael or Gauls; were themselves impelled onward by the Slowaks or Sclavonians, who were themselves hunted, goaded, and pestered by a wild, waspish race of people, whom, for want of a better name, we will call Tatars or Tartars. The Cymry have left their name behind them in various regions far eastward of the one where they now sojourn. The most easterly countries which still bear their name, or modifications thereof, are Cambia, ‘which is two dayes journey from the head of the great river Bruapo,’ and the Cryme or Crimea. In those parts, and ‘where Constantinople now is,’ they tarried a considerable time, and increased and multiplied marvellously: and it was whilst tarrying in those regions, which they called collectively Gwlad yr Haf, or the summer country, that an extraordinary man was born amongst them, who was called by Greeks and Romans, hundreds of years after his death, Hesus, but whom the Cymry called, and still do call, Hu or Hee, with the surname of Cadarn, or the Mighty. This Hu or Hesus taught his countrymen the use of the plough, and to a certain extent civilized them. Finding eventually that the summer country was becoming over-populated, he placed himself at the head of a vast multitude and set off towards the west. Hu and his people fought or negotiated their way through various countries possessed by the Gael, till they came to the shore of the sea which separates the great isle of the west from the continent. Hearing that it was only thinly peopled they determined to pass over to it; and put their determination into execution, crossing ‘the hazy sea,’ at present termed the German Ocean, in boats made of wicker work and skins, similar to but larger than the coracles which the Cymry always carried with them in their long expeditions.