Wild Wales: The People, Language, & SceneryBorrow, George
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Wild Wales: The People, Language, & Scenery
Borrow, George
Borrow, George, 1803-1881 -- Travel -- Wales; Wales -- Description and travel
“Before I was quite fourteen,” says he, “I had made another interlude;
but when my father and mother heard about it, they did all they could to
induce me to destroy it. However, I would not burn it, but gave it to
Hugh of Llangwin, a celebrated poet of the time, who took it to
Llandyrnog, where he sold it for ten shillings to the lads of the place,
who performed it the following summer; but I never got anything for my
labour, save a sup of ale from the players when I met them. This at the
heel of other things would have induced me to give up poetry, had it been
in the power of anything to do so. I made two interludes,” he continues,
“one for the people of Llanbedr, in the Vale of Clwyd, and the other for
the lads of Llanarmon in Yale, one on the subject of Naaman’s leprosy,
and the other about hypocrisy, which was a refashionment of the work of
Richard Parry of Ddiserth. When I was young I had such a rage, or
madness, for poetising, that I would make a song on almost anything I
saw—and it was a mercy that many did not kill me, or break my bones, on
account of my evil tongue. My parents often told me I should have some
mischief done me if I went on in the way in which I was going. Once on a
time, being with some companions as bad as myself, I happened to use some
very free language in a place where three lovers were with a young lass
of my neighbourhood, who lived at a place called Ty Celyn, with whom they
kept company. I said in discourse that they were the cocks of Ty Celyn.
The girl heard me, and conceived a spite against me on account of my
scurrilous language. She had a brother, who was a cruel fighter; he took
the part of his sister, and determined to chastise me. One Sunday
evening he shouted to me as I was coming from Nantgyln—our ways were the
same till we got nearly home—he had determined to give me a thrashing,
and he had with him a piece of oak stick just suited for the purpose.
After we had taunted each other for some time, as we went along, he flung
his stick on the ground, and stripped himself stark naked. I took off my
hat and my neckcloth, and took his stick in my hand; whereupon, running
to the hedge, he took a stake, and straight we set to like two furies.
After fighting for some time, our sticks were shivered to pieces and
quite short; sometimes we were upon the ground, but did not give up
fighting on that account. Many people came up and would fain have parted
us, but we would by no means let them. At last we agreed to go and pull
fresh stakes, and then we went at it again, until he could no longer
stand. The marks of this battle are upon him and me to this day. At
last, covered with a gore of blood, he was dragged home by his
neighbours. He was in a dreadful condition, and many thought he would
die. On the morrow there came an alarm that he was dead, whereupon I
escaped across the mountain to Pentré y Foelas, to the old man Sion
Dafydd, to read his old books.”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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