Welsh Journals

oriental. It was published in 1801 in "The Com- playnt of Scotland." "March said to Aperill I see three hogges upon a hill, But lend your three first days to me, And I'll be bound to gar them dee, The first it sail be wind and weet, The next it sail be snaw and sleet, The third it sail be sic a freeze Sall gar the birds stick to the trees, And when the borrowed days were gane The three silly hogges cam' hirplin' hame." The hog to a Scottish farmer is a one-year-old ewe, gar means "to cause," and hirplin is "crip- pling." Thus has spread far and wide the tale of the Borrowed Days. No doubt the observed severity of winter's dying effort and the false security engendered by an early touch of spring weather, provided both the material and the stimulus for the imagination. In both East and West these days were regarded as unlucky. In Devonshire the farmers of the older generation called the first three days of March "blind days," and they were considered so unlucky that no one would sow seed on any one of the three. In Scotland of a past age the Borrowed Days (or Barren Days) OUR COLLEGES AND A COMPLEX by M. Watcyn Williams, M.C., B.A. NOW that the jargon of the new psychology has passed into popular speech, it is not surprising that the assertive diffidence of Welshmen in more fields than one should be referred to as "the Welsh inferiority complex." To what extent we really suffer from it who shall say ? The following, at least, will be cited as evidence of its existence, and any and every claim made on behalf of Wales will be written down as a mere "compensation," revealing how deeply we have buried our sense of Saxon ascend- ancy. It may be permissible to point out that a conscious effort to relate a consciousness of in- feriority to fact is not exactly a "complex," and an attempt to examine the evidence before us may not be quite useless. Occasionally one has heard young graduates express a longing to bring Oxford to Wales, on the surface a quite laudable ideal. There are surely many enrichments of life due to an ancient and honourable tradition, and to a wide range of contacts, which the older Universities may pass on to the Principality. Yet the manner and spirit of those who claim to be possessed by such an ideal tends to nauseate, and men feel that it were regarded as especially dangerous to weak or sickly cattle. "If they'll only pit ower (sur- vive) the Barren Days!" used to be the prayer of the owner. The superstitious, too, would neither borrow nor lend on these days. It was asserted that they took their name because in the corres- ponding days of the year the Israelites borrowed from the Egyptians so successfully, and the in- clemency of the weather, still associated with the days, remains an echo of the storm that proved fatal to the pursuing creditors. But these are mere flickers of fancy playing on the obscurity of the name Borrowed (or Borrowing) Days. So far I have not been able to trace the tale in Wales. It may be that someone who happens to read this may be able to reveal its existence in our midst also. There is no doubt in my mind that in the Syrian version we have the tale in its earliest and most complete form, and that from that same region, or its adjacent lands, its wan- derings began. The channels of its dissemination must for ever remain hidden. Thus mysteriously do the quaint conceits of early peoples pass from mouth to mouth and land to land. But in this case, as in many another, we are forced to admit that the East was its progenitor. Ex oriente lux. indicates so complete a loss of touch with Wales that its exponents can scarcely give us what Oxford has legitimately to offer. In other words, men feel, though perhaps they have never analysed, the truth for which the Nationalist stands, that there is a Welsh tradition and culture second to none, and that its identity must be maintained, whatever be the possibility of enrichment from without. The way in which some people suggest that Oxford may be brought to Wales is itself a confession of the inferiority complex, and what is perhaps more disturbing, our own reaction to the confession savours of the same trouble. It does, however, seem to be the case that the more men despise Wales, and the training which its University and theological colleges have to offer, the more likely they are to secure promotion at the hands of the older genera- tion in our midst. One can have no real kick against men who decide that the other universities offer certain advantages which cannot be secured at home, but we in Wales cannot have the penny and the bun in these matters. We cannot "boost" our own mental factories while we dump their products elsewhere. If the "Open Sesame" to