Welsh Journals

As RECORDED By THE LATE THE REVEREND DAVID JONES, Llangybi DURING the 1920'S my budding curiosity about my own part of Cardiganshire and its history was greatly and most kindly encouraged by the Reverend David Jones, who for a great number of years, until his death in 1949, was the minister of Maesyffynnon Chapel, Llangybi. Mr. Jones was a natural antiquary, cherishing every recollection and reminder of those old days that had passed away long before he and I became friends. Very naturally, his field of interest was to some extent limited to the countryside surrounding the parish where he was born and spent his life. His own recollections extended to the last quarter of the old century though they were carried back almost to its start by the reminiscences of the old folk he eagerly questioned and listened to as a boy. And of these old customs and ways of life he used often to tell me, and to please me he wrote some of them down. Only the other day I came across the little collection of his writings. As I read them again after so many years I felt quite certain that many other people would find these rural recollections just as interesting and evocative as I do. So I have set them down, exactly as Mr. Jones wrote them for me thirty-five years or more ago. GATHERING WOOL It is difficult for us in these days to realize the poverty that existed in rural Wales during the beginning and the middle of last century. A noted bard from North Wales, Dewi Wyn, has given a vivid picture of the labourer's poverty in his Ode on Charity. In tears he brings his penny, And divides the lot of one between nine.' Even as late as 1870 a labourer's wage was rarely above a shilling a day. How many of them managed to bring up their families is difficult to explain. But necessity is always the mother of invention and the poor of that period knew better than those of the present day how to earn an honest penny. It was the custom at that time for the women to go to the mountains to gather wool. A party of about half-a-dozen could be seen leaving the village of Llangybi for the highlands of Llanddewi Brefi. They carried with them sufficient provisions for a week or ten days. After a long journey they would arrive at one of the