Welsh Journals

The Rectory, Dolgelley, Monmouth. 19th November, 1943. Dear Sir, Your letter in last Wednesday's Western Mail" interested me. It was only by chance that I saw it, for I intensely dislike most newspaper correspondence. In this case I think I can help you. If your Brains Trust" friend will search the files of the Western Mail" between 1912 and 1930 (try first the years 1920-1925) he will find the origin of the rhyme Taffy was a Welshman." It was a Flemish lampoon on a grasping Walloon priest in the Low Countries (what is now called Belgium). The Teutons of the Volkerwanderung (5th and 6th centuries) used the term Welsh to denote the Latin speaking peoples of the Roman Empire. Cassell's German Dictionary, p. 784, has instances of the word Welsch as standing for the Welsh, Italian and the French. French-Switzerland, the French bean and the Savoy cabbage are all designated by the same adjective, Welsch. In addition, Italy is Welschland, and the Italian Tyrol is Welsh Tirol. You have also the names Walloon and Wallachraus (in Roumania). This widespread use of the Teutonic adjective Welsh makes a strong case for the application of the term by a Teutonic speaking Fleming to a French-speaking Walloon. The original rhyme began as follows Tayfa he was a Walschman (I can only guarantee the spelling of the proper names.) As for the date of the application of the rhyme to the Welsh of Wales. I would put it after the date of Shakespeare, for his typical Welshman was Fluellen and not Taffy. As for the origin of the prejudice against the Welsh, especially during times of war. I would attribute the last war's prejudice to the strikes in the South Wales coalfield, and this war's, to the action of the Welsh Nationalists in setting fire to the Penrhos Aerodrome and their astounding plea in defence (" It was not malice thus giving a moral twist to a legal term.) But I would go deeper. We Welsh are a nation of individualists. Our language and our past geographical situation has isolated us from Europe, and so we have always stood outside the main currents. (Look at Eire today.) In addition, that has been intensified by the fact that Welsh rural civilisation is a civilisation of scattered homesteads. You find a group of houses and a chapel.' Welsh Nonconformity is an effect and not a cause-of this love for isolation. In the greater part of England you will find rural life centred in large villages, with the squire and the parson and the schoolmaster, farmers and labourers, all together and sharing the same life. There is thus a social position that is lacking in Wales. Add to this, the fact that the average Welshman is in intellect the equal of the average Englishman of the class met above, and you have a paradox of the first class. He is mentally gifted above his station in life, but he is socially gifted considerably below his station in life. Thus, when an Englishman meets a Welshman, he is attracted by his mental gifts, and is repelled by his social, and not understanding the reason for the disparity, puts him down as vulgar, as one who has fallen from a high estate. He does not realise that in many things the Welshman is a precocious child rather than a fully developed adult. The Welshman corresponds more to the Greek type and the Englishman more to the Latin. This is the enigma that puzzles everybody, and this is the reason for it. If only the Englishman would try to forget that other races are not a copy of himself, much would be avoided. I could talk to you for hours on the subject. If ever you are in Dolgelley, I shall be pleased to see you. "Crockford's Clerical Directory" will tell you what I am. Yours sincerely, J. W. JAMES.