Welsh Journals

County Alderman Reverend W. G. HARGRAVE THOMAS. Needham Market Vicarage, Suffolk. All the best for your Tenth Anniversary. Byddaf yn canu, W. G. HARGRAVE THOMAS. CEDRIC MORRIS. Benton End, Hadleigh, Suffolk, 12th June, 1947. Dear Keidrych, I hope Wales may bless Wales for decades to come, and the decades afterwards. CEDRIC Morris. EMYR HUMPHREYS. Caernarfon. Warmest good wishes to Wales in its tenth anniversary year. Already it is historically true to say that English-speaking Wales has been rescued from cultural atrophy by the courageous editor of this magazine. Mr. Rhys is our benefactor and it is not too much to hope the whole nation will recognise him as such-provided he lives long enough. (Fortunately he is young enough.) A country which manages to excuse its political imbecility by fondly pointing out its cultural knicknackery should at least make the effort to pat the back of the most genuine champion of the Welsh" forgotten-half." It may be tco much to ask, but is it too much to expect ? Gorau awen gwirionedd, and all that. EMYR HUMPHREYS. ELISABETH INGLIS-JONES. I hope it isn't too late to send you and Wales my very best wishes for the Tenth Anniversary, as well as my warmest congratulations at the way you succeed in capturing the flavour and feeling of our native land I always thoroughly enjoy it, with an agreeable nostaglia. ELISABETH INGLIS-JONES. EDITORIAL COMMENT. 21a, Lammas Street, Carmarthen. Four hundred years ago (we are reminded by a wireless speaker), the first book in the Welsh language was published. It was Sir John Price's YN Y LHYVR HWNN y traeithir printed in London for Edward Whitchurch, 1546, a sort of catholic almanac or commentary on the Bible, forerunner of those scores of commentaries which were once the mainstay of Welsh publishing. In his introduction Sir John Price, or Prys (1502-1555), states that he was prevailed upon to publish the book because of the large number of Welshmen who knew no language but Welsh. This volume consists of a preface, directions how to read Welsh and sound the letters, a Calendar giving Saints' days with the feasts of many Welsh saints, an almanac for twenty years, information as to the changes of the moon, the Creed, the Lord's Prayer, the Commandments, the Seven Virtues, the Seven Deadly Sins, with other prayers and instructions. In 1719, the first Welsh press was established by Isaac Carter at Newcastle-Emlyn. Carter eventually removed himself to Carmarthen, which, as Sir John Rhys writes in The Welsh People, soon became the main centre for South Wales, a position which it has, on the whole, held to the present day." When one takes into account the pioneer work of John Ross at Carmarthen, of the Welsh Manuscript Society's publisher, W. Rees, Tonn Press at Llandovery (it was he who first published Lady Charlotte Guests' Mabinogion), of the Spurrell family in King Street, and that of one of our Penguin-like series Llyfrau'r Dryw (Wren Books) at Llandebie-always remembering that J. D. Lewis and Sons' Gwasg Gomer and the Welsh Book Club -are just on the border at Llandyssul-we think we can well claim that this part of the country is still holding its position honourably.