Welsh Journals

A WELSH PARISH REGISTER I N the course of a summer holiday this year in North Wales, I spent a few pleasant days at Llangefni, in Anglesea, a place to live in in these days of dearth and high prices. During my stay I made the acquaintance of the Rector, a good Welshman with an English name. We talked one afternoon of subjects of mutual interest-the future of the Church in Wales, the Welsh language, and about some of our boys who happen to be in the same school in England. Discuss- ing the Parish Church of Llangefni, dedicated to Cyngar Sant, I came to one of my hobbies, and asked if there was anything interesting in the way of registers. We have an 18th century churchwardens' account book," was the reply. Would you like to see it? I was glad of the opportunity, and spent a profitable half-hour in the study of life in Sir Fon 150 years ago. I noticed at once that the records in the beginning of the book, from 1761 to 1766, were written in Welsh. After the Reformation, English took the place of Latin as the official language in Wales. I have read some of the old registers which have survived in Gwent and Morganwg from the days when Welsh was the language of the people, and they are all in English. The churchwardens' account book at Llangefni is an instructive exception to the tendency and fashion of the age. Coming to its contents, I at once received a light upon a word upon the origin of which I had worked in vain. Churchwardens are styled procotorion, pryctorion, and pycatorion in this old record. Bycatwr was the usual name in Glamorgan, and the old sexton in this Angli- cised parish, with whom I always conversed in Welsh, always referred to the churchwarden by that name. I take it that the Llangefni register is right, and that bycatwr is the Latin procurator, who would be to the parish what the proctor was to the old universities. I am glad to remember now that I only once fell into his clutches when I was at Oxford. The use of the corrected form procotorion, is due to the influence of William Salesbury. His corrected natalic is to be found here for the colloquial nadolig. We learn from the book that the Holy Communion was celebrated four times a year, bread and wine be- ing purchased for Easter, Whit Sunday, Calan Gaua, and Christmas. The calan gaua,-winter calends,- celebrations at the beginning of November, when the feasts of All Saints and All Souls,-in Welsh Gwyl y MeirW, — were kept, witness to the survival after the Reformation of the Catholic reverence for the memory of the dead. Talking about the dead, there is a pathetic reference in this old book to some poor girl who was chargeable to the parish. The first notice is about so much paid am fagu yr lodas (for upbringing the lass). She did not live long, for we soon learn that money was paid Will correspondents kindly note that our future address is The Welsh Outlook," 8. Broad Street, Newtown, Mont. By the Reo. R. E. Rowlands, M.A. am ganwulla a tybaco erbyn y wylnos y lodas (for can- dles and tobacco for the wake of the lass). She was only a pauper, poor girl, but the churchwardens were careful that there were sufficient inducements for people to come to show their respect for her end. There is another illustration of the survival of old pre-Retormation customs in the statement that one penny was paid am dorth wen y Pasc Bychan- Pasc tfychan is Low Sunday, the first Sunday after Easter. the name has been retained in Cornwall, Pasc Bihan, and in Brittany. It supplies one of the examples of the reality of the ancient British Church before the Saxon invasion, so also the Welsh plwyf and the Breton plough are the characteristically Celtic equivalents of the English parish. I am writing here in the country without books of reference at hand, and can only con- jecture that the dorth wen, which cost only a penny, was a relic of the distribution of the blessed bread at Easter. Gwyn (white), in old Wales, was the equiva- lent of holy, sanctified, and was also a title of the saints. Whit Sunday is an English example of this use. There is nothing to complain of the discipline of the Church, at least outwardly, at this time. The Arch- deacon held his visitation regularly at Llanerchymedd. By the way, we must observe the difference in the status of country villages in Anglesea in the course of a century and a half. By to-day Llangefni has outstripped Llanerchymedd, and become quite a flourishing little country town. In 1760 the churchwardens paid am ein llyfon yn Llanerchymedd, 2/ The llyfon — we should say llwon to-day-were the oaths taken upon their assumption of office. They paid someone for drawing up their presentment to the Archdeacon, just as to-day the assistant overseer gets his fee for writing the valuation list. We are reminded of the old order which has passed away, by the statement that the Church rate was £ 7 5s. Od. I think I have extracted all that is useful in this old record. After 1766 the accounts are in English, and, as the poet says, the subsequent proceedings interested him no more. On my way from the Rectory I heard one man say to another, Mi bycia i i'ch gweld chi heno (I will run to see you to-night). Pycio is a word in common use in Carnarvonshire and Anglesea. The only example of its use in literature I have come across is in Sir Thomas Malory's Mort d' Arthur, who is very fond of the verb to pyke," with the same meaning as our North Wales picio. It is another remarkable fact that the same word is used in New York to-day as a slang term- In other parts of America it has been corrupted to hike." The original meaning has been retained in both cases. The word, with others that I know of, may have been introduced to North Wales by the Norman castles.