The North American Festival of Wales 2007

Intro/Background

During August 30-September 2, 2007, we attended the North American Festival of Wales 2007, in Alexandria, Virginia. This article is a summary of experiences there and thoughts about the conference.

Links

• The Welsh National Gymanfa Ganu Association
• The North American Festival of Wales
• Wikipedia article on the Cymanfa Ganu
• An article on the history and survival of the Welsh language

What is a Cymanfa Ganu?

A cymanfa ganu (plural cymanfaoedd canu) is, literally, a gathering for song. It is a tradition in many Welsh chapels both in Wales and in the Welsh diaspora, rising from Welsh Nonconformity. While not regarded strictly a worship service, yet it is a sacred time, a gathering to sing Welsh hymns and thus give praise to God. A cymanfa today consists mainly of congregational singing of hymns, led by an arweinydd (conductor) and accompanied by an organist. It often also contains special music, usually performed by male voice choirs, soloists, and harpists. The cymanfa keeps alive the tradition of Welsh hymn singing. In American cymanfaoedd, the singing is usually in a mixture of Welsh language and English.

Structure of the NAFOW

The NAFOW is held in a different city each year. This year, it was held in Alexandria, Virginia, in commemoration of the fiftieth anniversary of the last Cymanfa that was held in Washington, DC in 1957.

The festival begins on Thursday night with a folk concert, often called a noson lawen (merry evening). It continues on Friday and Saturday with various seminars, language classes, singing practices, and Welsh folk dancing. There are also screenings of Welsh films and often tours are available to points of Welsh interest in the area. On Saturday night, there is a grand concert, normally featuring a male voice choir and soloists. Each night, after the formal events, there is usually informal singing (what we're there for!) followed by a Welsh pub, with even more singing. The festival concludes on Sunday with a bilingual worship service in the morning, followed by the afternoon and evening sessions of the national Cymanfa itself.

Experiences at the 2007 NAFOW

The Noson Lawen

This year, the folk concert featured Dafydd Iwan, probably the best known Welsh folk singer-songwriter, as well as an activist for the preservation of the Welsh language. He is also the current president of Plaid Cymru, the Welsh nationalist political party that advocates an independent Wales: Cymru Rhydd, Cymru Cymraeg (a free Wales, a Welsh-speaking Wales). He turned 64 just prior to attending this Cymanfa, and has been forced out of retirement because the demand for his music is so great. He sings only in Welsh, saying that it is an incentive for people to learn the language! Hearing him sing made me feel that I was witnessing history. He gave an interesting description of the Welsh: "We invented the noson lawen, the merry evening, at which we sing sad songs."

The seminars

There are so many seminars given that it is impossible to attend them all. Last year, I went to the Welsh language class, the ysgol gan (singing school), and the twmpath dawns (Welsh folk dance), so this year I decided I would instead attend as many of seminar talks as possible.

The Mabinogion, by Dr. Gwyn Thomas

Dr. Thomas spoke on the tales preserved in the four branches of the Mabinogi, contained in the Black Book of Carmarthen. This is one of the earliest classics of Welsh literature, and gives us a window back to some of the ancient pre-Christian stories and beliefs of the Celtic peoples.

King Arthur and the Welsh Nation, by Dr. Christopher Snyder

Dr. Snyder spoke on how the Arthurian legends have been used for various literary and political purposes by various groups, both Celtic and non-Celtic, and even non-British.

William Willams, by Terry Breverton

William Williams was an early Welsh-American privateer, author, musician, and painter, who wrote what is considered the first American novel, The Journal of Llewellin Penrose, Seaman. This was based on his own experiences as a privateer, marooned on the Miskito coast. He became a painter and was the teacher for the famous artist Benjamin West. His Penrose novel, written in the 1760s, showed quite an advanced social consciousness for the time, arguing for the abolition of slavery.

Welsh Pirates, by Terry Breverton

While we customarily think of pirates as bloodthirsty cutthroats, Mr. Breverton presented a different aspect of their life. Men could be impressed into service on a "legitimate" naval or merchant vessel, and life there was usually hard, authoritarian, and brutal, with low pay and bad conditions. A pirate ship, on the other hand, had a mostly volunteer crew and was a social democracy. The captain of a pirate ship was elected and could be replaced. Men from merchant ships often welcomed pirates and joined their crews.

Wales has long been a seafaring nation, and supplied many of the leading privateers and pirates. Primary among these were the privateer Henry Morgan and the pirate Bartholomew "Black Bart" Roberts. Morgan was a privateer assigned to raid the Spansh colonies when England was at war with Spain. Never mind that he kept up the raiding after the war was over. Black Bart Roberts was much more successful than more well-known pirates such as Blackbeard and Captain Kidd, as he captured over four hundred documented ships. Interestingly, he was forced into piracy, being captured by the Welsh pirate Howell Davis. He retained some of his religious tendencies, as he tried to discourage his men from drinking and playing cards. He also gave his musicians Sunday off, indicating that he may have been a Sabbatarian.

The discussion of life on a pirate ship as opposed to an "honest" ship does give one pause to think about the spiritual effects of both kinds of life.

Adventures in Wales, by Trevor Fishlock

Trevor Fishlock is a journalist who hosts a Welsh TV show on walking journeys in Wales. He told of the experiences that he has had and the people that he has encountered in his journeys. He also gave social commentary on the changes that he has seen in Wales over the years.

Carrying the Flame, by Trevor Fishlock

Mr. Fishlock was commissioned by the National Museum of Wales to write a history of Wales to mark the museum's centennary. In the book, In This Place, he traced the history as it can be described by the artifacts held in the museum's archives. The talk spanned the history of Wales as seen through the Museum.

From a spiritual interest, he described the rise of Welsh Nonconformity. The services in the official Church of England were in English, not Welsh. The people had to sit with their English masters, and were not given instruction. In response, Welsh chapels began to arise. The services were in Welsh. Moreover, they offered the people instruction and literacy training. The people deserted the established church in droves for the chapels. And yet the rigid climate that arose there would ultimately contribute to the chapels' downfall in the mid-twentieth century. They had long been centers of social life as well as religious life. But around the time of the advent of television, and the social and economic changes that followed, chapel attendance dropped precipitously. Wales today, like much of the rest of Europe, is regarded as post-Christian. Many chapels have been converted into museums, restaurants, shops, and artist's residences.

How the Welsh Language was Saved, by Dafydd Iwan

There is a saying in Welsh: Heb iaith, heb galon (without language, without heart).

Dafydd Iwan described the modern effort to save the Welsh language, and the state of the language today and its relationship to the politics of Wales.

(Note: part of this information may have come from other speakers.) The translation of the Bible into English produced a desire to have it translated into Welsh as well. Bishop William Morgan's translation of 1588, revised in 1620, became the standard Welsh Bible until the twentieth century. Its effect on the Welsh language was enormous. It showed that Welsh could be a medium for high literature. It spawned a Welsh literary movement and helped assure the survival of Welsh as a language.

Welsh came under increasing pressure in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, as the idea grew that to advance in the English-dominated world, the Welsh needed to learn English. Latent in this was, "and forget your Welsh." Even some religious leaders recommended this course of action. A study was done that concluded that the Welsh were being held back by their lack of knowledge of English, and that they should be educated in English only. Consequently, a whole generation of children was brought up with only English in school. In 1962, the modern Welsh language survival movement began, with Dafydd Iwan as one of its leaders. Its members were willing to break laws and go to jail to make their points. New Welsh-medium schools began to be established, and the generation that had been deprived of its Welsh began to want their children educated in Welsh. Slowly the tide began to turn. The language movement has obtained laws making Welsh an acceptable language to use in government proceedings, and is working to expand and strengthen those laws. While it may be too early to say that the survival of Welsh is assured, it seems to be holding its own and gaining ground.

It does give pause to those of us interested in Celtic spirituality, to stop and think on the survival of the languages in which those ancients from whom we learn that spirituality spoke, while we discuss their ideas in the language of their conquerors.

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