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Welsh Culture & Traditions
There are many great traditions of Wales, but three stand out that make it culturally distinct from its neighbors: the Eisteddfod, the Noson Lawen and the Cymanfa Ganu. Of these, the Eisteddfod is probably the most ancient and certainly the most popular. Most towns and villages conduct an annual Eisteddfod in one way or another. It is simply a competition, but the word translates as a "Chairing," with the winner being awarded a chair upon which he is ceremoniously crowned to great acclaim. Winners of local eisteddfodau (pl) go on to compete on a county or regional level, eventually reaching the Royal National Eisteddfod of Wales (Eisteddfod Genedlaethol Cymru ) in which they compete with others from all parts of the country. The "National" is the largest folk festival in Europe: held in a different town the first week in August each year. Alternating between a venue in South Wales one year and North Wales the next, it draws vast crowds to enjoy its week-long activities.
Eisteddfod: A Cultural Competition
The idea of the Eisteddfod is very ancient. It began, as did many Welsh institutions, as a challenge from outside. This was the Norman invasion of Britain and the consequent subjugation of much of the population of Wales to Norman rule. In Wales proper, the coming of the Normans had the paradoxical effect of bringing about a brilliant new literary culture that was both Welsh and European in its outlook. There was an explosion of literary activity mainly made possible through the proliferation, throughout Wales, of monasteries and friaries, with their reverence for historical and literary traditions and their expertise in strengthening and preserving those traditions. Of great significance for Welsh culture was the revival of the bardic orders, indeed, the expansion of those orders led to the first eisteddfod, for the bards were anxious to come together in the spirit of competition. It is this era, too, that saw the blossoming of the Arthurian tradition, in which the Welsh people thought of themselves as the true British people, the heirs to Arthur and the glorious heroic age attributed to his time.
A "sitting" of bards, or poets, took place as early as 1176, when the Lord Rhys convened the people of Wales to Cardigan (Aberteifi). Rhys (Rhys ap Grufffudd) had been appointed justice of South Wales by Henry II, and his rights to the territories he controlled were recognized by the king. The purpose of this meeting, apart from demonstrating the position of preeminence held by Lord Rhys among the Welsh princes, was to regulate the business of the bardic orders. Metrical rules were set up, and licenses were given to those who had completed their apprenticeship. The event is described by an anonymous writer in the historical document, "Brut y Tywysogion": At Christmas in that year the Lord Rhys ap Gruffudd
held court in splendour at Cardigan, in the castle.
And he set two kinds of contests there; one between
bards and poets, another between harpists and crowders
and pipers and various classes of music-craft.
And he had two chairs set for the victors.
Other noteworthy eisteddfodau were held at Carmarthen in 1451, and at Caerwys in 1523 and 1567, when further rules were drawn up and licenses granted. After Caerwys, with the gradual break-up or anglicization of some of the great families of Wales and the loss of their patronage, the tradition of the early Eisteddfod, for all practical purposes, became extinct, and it was only thanks to the vivid imagination of an 18th century London Welshman that it survived and flourished anew.
There is a Welsh expression that translates as "The best Welshmen live outside of Wales," and it is noticeable that most advocates of Welsh nationhood in the late 18th century lived in London. It was there that the visionary Edward Williams, better known to posterity by his bardic title Iolo Morganwg, in a stirring speech to the London Welsh Society, gave his spellbound listeners a sense of what it meant to belong to the ancient Celtic race and what they could do to ensure that the ancient Welsh traditions became better known and handed down to posterity. In 1792, a dramatic address by another London Welshman, Sir William Jones had announced the discovery of North America three hundred years before Columbus by Prince Madoc. Jones spoke of the so-called Welsh Indians, descendants of Madoc's explorers, whom he praised as "a free and distinct people, who have preserved their liberty, language, and some trace of their religion to this very day." Though Jones' discoveries were later discounted, the myth of the founding of America by Madoc and a group of fellow Welsh explorers has persisted; it plays a great part in much Welsh literature written subsequent to the late 18th century. It was Jones, too, working in India, who discovered the link between the Celtic languages and Sanskrit, in which the sacred writings of India were written, and this connection gave to the Welsh language a long and proud ancestry of which the nation could be rightly proud.
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