Welsh Bards in North America

The Matter of Britain

The Ordinalia. Celtic Christianity was still very much Christian. The three medieval mystery plays constituting the Ordinalia were written in Cornish from the late fourteenth century. The three plays are Origo Mundi, (or The Origin of the World), Passio Christi (or The Passion of Christ) and Resurrexio Domini (or The Resurrection of Our Lord). The metres of these plays are various arrangements of seven- and four-syllabled lines.

African Origins of Stonehenge Geoffrey of Monmouth, a medieval Norman, said that Merlin brought the sacred stones to the Salisbury Plain from Ireland. In archaic times the stones were brought to Ireland ["Mount Killaraus"] by Giants from Africa and were used as a site for performing rituals and for healing. King Uther Pendragon, under the inspired guidance of Merlin [Myrddin], apparently used teleportation to move the stones from Ireland to the present location on the larger island.

Henry Lovelich - Seynt Graal, Or The Sank Ryal

Early Welsh chronicles -- References in lore and literature to King Arthur, the Round Table

King Arthur and the Cymry Heroes -- Arthurian legends in Cymraeg (the Welsh branch of Brythonic language)

Joseph d'Aramathe (by Robert de Boron) - first keeper of the Holy Grail

Jesus, King Arthur and the Journey of the Holy Grail (Maurice Cotterell) - the Secrets of the Sun Kings, deciphering they mysteries re. the transmigration of the soul

Boys will be boys :: the human Jesus :: the lost years, what about Glastonbury, Avalon, and Jesus' hidden years with Joseph Arimathea in Britain (today's Cornwall, specifically Glastonbury Tor or "Ynys yr Afalon" in cymraeg)? Take a tantalizing look at a more human savior. Did the historical "real-life" Jesus have to learn obedience much like the rest of us -- with occasional reprimands and swats?

Saxon Invasions Harassed by the Picts of the north, it was a Briton chieftain (king) named Vortigern who invited the Saxons (English) to their island. The Saxons settled the south; the Angles settled more northward; the Jutes settled around Kent and Canterbury. But the Saxons kept coming ... and coming -- till they were the enemy, not the Picts. The term Welsh (Wealas) was what the Saxons called the Britons (Wealas meant foreigner or enemy). The Britons called themselves Cymru (Camri). Even today, the Welsh or Cymraeg name for the English is "Saxon" [y Saeson].

The Welsh Revival in Modern Times - began with Henry's triumph at Bosworth field and the fulfilling of Merlin's prophecy from time out of memory. The Tudors well knew their descent from the fabled King Arthur, and Merlin's lore was more than myth to them. Queen Elizabeth I clung to the Arthurian tales, and cherished their substance, much as the American Presidents Kennedy and Reagan later would.

The most learned scholar of the Puritan age of theology, Welshman John Owen of Oxford - Prince of the Puritan Divines

Evangelistic enthusiasm sweeps the land Wales, land of revivals. Begun as an effort to kindle non-denominational, non-sectarian spirituality, the Welsh revival of 1904-05 coincided with the rise of the labour movement, socialism, and a general disaffection with religion among the working class and youths.

The Welsh Barony (Pennsylvania) - The Welsh have had an impact upon Pennsylvania's society and culture since the founding of the colony in 1681. The mass immigration of Welsh to Pennsylvania before 1700 was due largely to the desire of Welsh Quakers for religious freedom and escape from persecution, and for the creation of a separate colony, tract, or "barony" in America. Thus, in part, these Welsh Quakers may have hoped to preserve the language and customs of their homeland.

Bryn Mawr (Welsh Barony) - Emmy Nöther transformed the world of physics and math. Those Bryn Mawr Quakers BELIEVED in smart women: "let's make them smarter!" Also see Katherine Hepburn.

Thomas Merton was arguably the twentieth century's most widely published and widely read spiritual writer. He was such a gentle soul, such an heir of the richest vein of "solitude" spirituality. Merton somehow seamlessly brought together the finest spiritual elements of mysticism and personalism and fused that wisdom with the contemplative spirituality of the Western tradition.

Merton was Welsh (New Zealand and America). His mother Ruth Jenkins related to the Religious Society of Friends, or Quakers. On occasion, Thomas accompanied her to Meetings for Worship. Merton recalled the experience as having been 'about as supernatural as a Montgomery Ward catalogue,' he had no enduring interest in the denomination. Yet through the silent worship, anti-war convictions, and body of spiritual teaching of the Quakers, Ruth's religious influence on him was considerable. (Source: Lutterworth Press)

Brittany : Amorica

Bretagne Celtique - This website carries you away in the Celtic past of Brittany. Druids, Meghaliths, much more.

Little Britain (Breizh) - The language of these Breton Celts, and how it relates to the cousin Celts of Cornwall, Wales, and beyond.

Ancient Armorica and modern Brittany - the age of romance, pre-history, and a rich heritage of legends steeped in the historic past.

Cairn de Gavrinis - the cairn which is among the most famous megalithic monuments in the world.

Quimper - the heart of Celtic culture in Brittany - perhaps the most Celtic spot in all Brittany. Quimper is known throughout Brittany and the Celtic world for its Festival de Cornouaille, mid summer.

Barzhaz Breizh, meaning Ballads of Brittany - Brittany is a land of inspiration, and has inspired storytelling and tall tales. La Villemarqué compiled Breton tales in his Barzhaz Breizh, and their fame has grown.

Brittany and Cornwall : Celtic Saints of Cornwall. (Most of Cornwall and Brittany's Celtic saints are of Welsh origins.)

Pierre Abelard - The story of Abelard and Heloise inspired and shocked the medieval world, as real life melodrama does the same in our own. Born in Le Pallet, Brittany, Abelard was brilliant, gifted, and assertive.

The Celtic Warrior - Cymru, Breizh & Kernow in Celtic Solidarity. Cymru, Breizh & Kernow in Celtic Solidarity.

Cornish and Breton Saints St. Piran (or Perran), St. Ronan, and many others in history (and legend).

Celtic Music in Brittany Tony Upton gives you information on the music of Brittany, including notable musicians and groups, unique instruments, types of tunes and more.

Henry VIII (Tudor) was 'smitten' by her

Genevieve Bujold as Anne Boleyn

Was Anne Boleyn dark welsh? We know from history that she had a great deal of Norman French ancestry, as did well born 'English' from Chaucer to Wyclif. But we also know, from contemporary accounts, that Anne had dark, olive-colored skin, thick dark brown hair and dark brown eyes which often appeared black. Those large dark eyes were often singled out in descriptions of Anne, as well as her long slender neck. She was very intelligent and in her own way strong willed, and Tudor King Henry VIII was captivated by the beauty he saw in her. He "had" to have her, and he let the world know he intended to have her - ruat caelum - though the heavens fall. Anne loved him, too, but alas (once they married) she did not produce the sought-for male heir the king expected.

"All she produced" was     -     ELIZABETH!

Dark complexion is not definitive!

There are all ranges of complections of Welsh, just as there are for Gaelic Celts (Irish and Scot), our close cousins. The stories of the early saints and high kings and charismatic abbots surely are an inspiration after so much Anglic domination (for centuries). Such leadership and character and "vision" of a man like Columba (Gaelic Irish), or (earlier) King Arthur, who was Brythonic, --- or later, Abelard. Abelard was a Breton but also Brythonic. He was a brilliant scholar of genius and bold curiosity. Interestingly, there was something of the "Dark Welsh" in his complexion. Hugh of St. Victor labelled him the son of a Jewish father and an Egyptian mother. In Paris his darkness (and shortness) must have stood out. [LINK: Brythonic Amorica (Brittany)]

Historian Friedrich Heer writes

The English looked upon the Celts as barbarians. A clerk in the entourage of Archbishop Pecham, writing circa 1283, claimed that the Welsh were the remnant of the Trojans, cast adrift among the wild wastes of Cambria by diabolic intervention; they had abandoned themselves to a life of quite unspeakable promiscuity, brigandage and wicked idleness. This devilish race would long ago have been destroyed and swept off the face of the earth had it not been for the excessive clemency of the English kings, who allowed themselves to be deceived by the assumed and treacherous penitence of the Welsh and refrained from pressing home the advantages won on their frequent and necessary punitive expeditions.

Gerald of Wales, on the other hand, writing a century earlier, remarked that the English were a people destined by nature to servitude.

The Welsh were a nation of herdsmen, nomads of the simplest type, free to move as they would and take their possessions with them; they were attached to their freedom, imaginative, and full of the joys of song. They were attracted neither by the sedentary life of the Anglo-Saxon peasantry nor by the organized stability aimed at by the Normans, and resisted both impartially. In directing popular hatred against the unfortunate Welsh, Irish and Scots, the English drew on a vocabulary of execration of which any modern propagandist might be proud. Equally ruthless were the techniques used to compel surrender.

[Heer describes several instances of extreme brutality and torture used by the English against the restive Scots -- even their women.] The Scots were later to take a grim revenge on the English monarchy and its "Church of Saints" for this violation of [the Scots'] Church and territory. The English kings and the English bishops of the seventeenth century had no more implacable enemies than the great Scottish Puritans.

p 353-4, The Medieval World

Feminist scholar Elizabeth Gould Davis writes

In [Brythonic] Somerset and Cornwall the [Christian] legend goes back to the childhood of Jesus. In this deligthful story, the boy Jesus had accompanied his great-Uncle, the rich merchant Joseph of Arimathea, on at least one business trip to [Celtic] Britain and had so won the hearts of the Brythonic Celts with his bright and questing mind that they had never forgotten him. Thus when some thirty years later his mother visited them with Joseph and they learned of the fate of the promising boy, they were eager to build a wittle church in his memory at Glastonbury. Thus did Christianity come to Celtic Britain nearly six hundred years before Augustine.

William Blake's poem "Jerusalem" is obviously based on this lovely legend:

And did His feet in ancient time
Walk upon England's mountains green?
And was the holy Lamb of God
On England's pleasant pastures seen?
And did the Countenance Divine
Shine forth upon our clouded hills?
And was Jerusalem builded here
Among these dark satanic mills?

"Perhaps there is some truth in the strange tradition which still lingers, not only among the hill folk of Somerset, but of Gloucestershire, that Joseph of Arimathea came to Britain first as a metal merchant seeking tin from the Scilly Islands and Cornwall, and lead and copper and other metals from the hills of Somerset, and that Our Lord Himself came with him as a boy, There is also a tradition in the west of Ireland that Our Lord came to Glastonbury as a boy." [from Lionel Smithett Lewis]

The Celtic King Arviragus, the direct ancestor of Queen Helena and thus of the Emperor Constantine, was the old friend if Joseph, and he memorialized this friendship by donating to the infant church at Glastonbury the land on which it was built.

King Arthur in the sixth century AD claimed to be eighth in direct descent from Joseph of Arimathea.

p 250-1, The First Sex
The boyhood of Jesus

a Cornwall harbor - East Devon (in what was ancient Dumnonia)

Celtic Christianity
Even after being ordered by mainstream Church authorities to conform (Whitby, 664 AD), the abbots of ancient Celtic Christianity preferred to follow the time honored practice of their (far older) version of Christian observance, which was monastic-centered. The Welsh (and Irish and Cornish and Bretans) clung tenaciously to the Celtic tonsure and Celtic Easter long after those practices had been rejected by the Roman bishops followed by the Saxon converts. Bede has numerous pejorative remarks villifying the "perfidious" Britons and their independent ways. In 1172 AD the Synod of Cashel once again ordered an end to Celtic independence. Ironically, Celtic practice ultimately prevailed over the Roman in one instance -- penitence.

There was no trace of insolence or rebelliousness in the Celtic Christian's pragmatic independence. The British abbots clung to the habits that had worked so well for them for literally half a millenium before the Saxons newcomers adopted Roman Christianity, and promptly used their Roman "authority" as a cudgel to beat the Welsh and Irish and Bretons, whose Christian humility and learning was both nobler and of a venerable antiquity far surpassing the Saxons of Canterbury. In retrospect, we wonder if the "Arthurian" (Celtic) model was not superior (in meekness and) localism and subsidiarity -- to the proud centralism of Saxon Romanism.