I came home to a pile of things today. Well, honestly I come home all the time to piles of things that need doing, and that is why two whole rooms in my house are off limits to the public, since these are the places where the piles dwell, and well, I wouldn't want to lose a guest beneath the masses of ditritis, since, like tectonic plates, they can shift without warning. I keep hoping that they will not grow to consume a third, but I digress. One of the things I'm busy doing is ripping songs from my CD collection to my iPod, and today I had a small pile of CDs which I had lent to the Welsh Society for our booth at the Celebration of Celts back in May. They were sitting, waiting patiently to be ripped for weeks (an odd thing, both to anthropomorphize compact disks, and to imagine their waiting to be, of all things, ripped, but I digress again...) One of the tracks I ripped is an ancient song of symbolic love, the object of veneration and adoration being yr Ehedydd, the Lark. I think the symbolism is clear enough. Some attribute this song to the death of Owain Glyndŵr, but I think it's meaning much broader.
Marwnad yr Ehedydd
(Death of the Lark)
Mi glywais fod yr 'hedydd,
Wedi marw ar y mynydd;
Pe gwyddwn i mai gwir y geiriau,
Awn a gyrr o wŷr ac arfau,
I gyrchu corff yr 'hedydd adre.
(I heard that the Lark,
Has died on the mountain;
If I knew these words were true,
I would go with a group of men and arms,
To fetch the Lark's body home.)
Mi glywais fod yr hebog
Eto'n fynych uwch y fawnog,
A bod ei galon a'i adenydd
Wrth fynd heibio i gorff yr 'hedydd
Yn curo'n llwfr fel calon llofrudd.
(I heard that the hawk
Still frequent above the peatbog,
Has his heart and his wings aflutter
Ready to go after the body of the Lark
Beating cowardly like a murderer's heart.)
Mi a glywais fod cornchwiglan
Yn ei ddychryn i ffwrdd o'r siglan
Ac na chaiff, er dianc rhagddi,
Wedi rhusio o dan y drysni,
Ond aderyn y bawn i'w boeni.
(I heard that a loud horn
Can frighten him from the bog
And he won't get the body, but run away,
Hidden away beneath the thicket
But such a bird I would bring to suffer pain.)
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o0akknC3TFQ&feature=related
performance of yr ehedydd
thanks - sarah, n.wales
I came across this old blog of yours while learning the song. I think it's worth pointing out that only the first verse is traditional (from the Hen Benillion, and published as a song in the Welsh Folk Song Society Journal in 1914). The other verses you include are the usual ones heard now, but were written by Cynan and published in 1959. Another set of verses was written by Myrddin ap Dafydd for the Folk Group Plethyn in 1970, and he quotes a friend as describing Cynan's extension as "blydi rybish" in an article in Canu Gwerin in 2004, because it goes on about lapwings and fairies rather than Owain Glyndwr.
I find it amazing that Peter and I came across this very old blog less than one month apart. I was looking for the lyrics to Edward H. Dafis's "Hedydd". Thanks for the post.
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