I just wanted to let you know that here in the US, there is no bias like that toward the Welsh. There are plenty enough of other biases, but not Welsh. We just kinda see you guys as the ones who held onto all the magic. Well, I do, anyway. 😉
In my experience the American consciousness of Wales doesn't go beyond the fact that it exists, there are sheep, and questionable activities may or may not occur with regards to said sheep. Also the flag's neat.
I come from a wargaming perspective and Americans do tend to believe that your Welsh/British forces should look just like Anglo Saxons only impoverished.
I'm old as hell and born in the US. When asking about my family ancestry, my great aunt told me to just claim to be English. There was family from Ireland and Wales, but the Irish were all drunks and the Welsh were talented artist and poets but had an 'unhealthy melancholy'. So, in the 1950s the bigotry was there. Turns out I'm mostly Irish and Welsh with one English granny. I'm glad! Take that Aunt Ruby.
I saw an interesting statistic recently. The number of people in the United States claiming English heritage dropped massively between the 1950s and the 1990s. It seems that the social pressures changed a lot in that period, such that people with a mixture of ancestry from the UK and Ireland were incentivised to claim English identity in the 50s, but by the 90s were incentivised to claim Scottish, Irish or Welsh. Says something interesting about the changing dynamics of privileged in-group identity in the second half of the 20th century, I am sure.
I'm from the US but spent some time abroad, and I definitely noticed that Brits talk about the Welsh like their poor country cousins! When I learned more about their history later, I was surprised to realize that the Welsh are basically the only people in Britain, and perhaps some of the few people in the world, who have never been displaced. That is, the Welsh now seem to be descended from the first humans ever to wander into that bit of land -- which is truly extraordinary!
That would be amazing, but unfortunately it’s not true. There have been various population replacement level migrations into Europe over the last 10,000 years. Notably Neolithic Anatolian Farmers about 8 to 9,000 years ago and Bronze Age Steppe Nomads about 4 to 5,000 years ago. The Welsh have certainly been there a long time, but they would be genetically very different to the people who were on that land 10,000, or even 5,000, years ago. There are interesting lectures about it on TH-cam from Harvard geneticist Richard Reich. The one on The New Scientist channel is very good.
Not true, the Celts are believed to have originally been from central Europe and displaced many of the more indigenous populations. The Basque may in fact actually be more like what you're thinking though!
@Penderyn You are wrong. The genetics is clear. There was a 90% population replacement event in Britain about 500 years after the construction of Stonehenge, or about 4,000 years ago. The Neolithic Farmer population was largely replaced. This happened across all of Europe between about 5000 and 4000 years ago, though the replacement was greater in Northern Europe than in Southern Europe. Down in Italy and Spain and the like it was more like a 50% replacement, or mixing. Though linguistically and culturally, the incoming Indo-Europeans became dominant. Almost all modern European languages are Indo-European. Basque, however, as mentioned by asdf asdf above, is thought to possibly be a residual language left from the Neolithic Farmers who occupied Europe before the Bronze Age arrival of Indo-Europeans. In terms of genetics, the people of Sardinia are apparently almost completely descended from the Neolithic people. It seems the Indo-Europeans had very little genetic impact there, unlike pretty much everywhere else, although they do speak an Indo-European language. Other non-Indo-European languages in Europe are Finish, Estonian and Hungarian. But they are all languages that were brought by other more recent incoming peoples, rather than remnant languages of the Neolithic population. I never said that “the Celts” called themselves Celts, or that the incoming people who replaced the Neolithic Farmers were Celts. The first Indo-Europeans to settle in Britain were a people that archaeologists and geneticists call the Bell Beaker Culture. It used to be debated if this culture arrived as a migration of people, or just of ideas and culture. In the last 15 years archeogenetics has proven it was very much the former. I believe it is not known what language they spoke. It is possible it was what linguists would classify as a Celtic language, even though they did not yet produce what we would call Celtic material culture. The Celtic languages are part of the Indo-European language family (part of a larger group called Italo-Celtic), as are the Germanic, Slavic, Romance and Greek languages. So called “Celtic” material culture may have arrived in Britain more as a transfer of culture than people. But the people in Britain who adopted were in the main part not descended from the earlier Neolithic population, but from Bronze Age Indo-European immigrants/invaders. Like I said above, check out Harvard Professor David Reich. His book Who We Are And How We Got Here is a great primer on what the new field of Archeo-Genetics has taught us in the last 15 years, when combined with archaeology and linguistics.
I wonder if the "medieval Welsh were poor" comes from England's attempts to squash Welsh culture. The English attempted to crush Welsh (and Scottish) culture for a long time.
I wouldn't be surprised if something like this was involved. I mean propaganda against your opponents and areas you've invaded is one of the older tricks in the book.
That’s a part of it yes, it was a two pronged attack by the Catholic Church and the Germanic Royal lineage, for many reasons over many centuries but essentially was all about rewriting history in their own image and to discredit the history of those who had claims to certain historical events they didn’t want future generations to learn about and in so carry on the true history of Britain. We have to remember, the “Welsh” are actually the British because the Welsh are the native Brits. You had a small pocket of Picts in the highlands of Scotland but other than that, the rest of Britain was what we now know as wales and the Welsh for centuries British history as we know it and are taught it is based on lies, history from the perspective of the Germanic tribes who invaded it and wrote their own version of history in order to big themselves up an inflate their own egos and also it was essentially self propagandising, they wanted history to look favourably on them when in reality, the truth is very different. The term “Celt” is an example of this, a term created in the 18th century was a successful attempt to put down and denigrate the different complex cultures and traditions and languages of Britain and Ireland into one box, to make out that they were backwards compared to the Germanic invaders. I know people use the term Celt as some kind of pride thing but I don’t, I think it’s offensive and we shouldn’t embrace the term because it doesn’t do us justice, it’s grabbing onto a lie when we should be saying, no!! That is not who we are, we are considerably better and more than that fake narrative created as a means to put us down and belittle us and our history. Our legacy is not Celtic, it’s far greater, our role in world history is far greater than the one that was concocted for us by those who wanted to put us down. The fake narrative also benefited the church too so they were complicit in pushing the lies because it hid things they didn’t want to be written in history because it contradicted the things they were preaching at the time. For example the 562AD comet disaster than wiped out millions upon millions of Brits and was what left Britain vulnerable to invasion by the likes of the Angles and Saxons and Jutes etc and ultimately led to the overpowering of the Brits which then led to the Norman Invasion. Why was this significant, well, firstly, the church at the time said that no rock could fall from the sky, this event disproved that, so they had to cover it up and destroy any written account of the event, of which they were largely for the most part successful and secondly, because the event caused the majority of Britain to be inhabitable and which left Britain basically undefended, allowing to Germanic tribes to invade pretty much untested, that wasn’t glamorous enough for the history books. The Brits had successful held all invaders at bay even the Romans for decades, Britain was notorious for being nigh on impossible to invade and settle, so for propaganda purposes, they couldn’t let the history books say they successfully invaded Britain without any resistance because that’s like bragging at beating a one armed blind man at a game of boxing, there is no honour in that, you want history to say that they were David defeating Goliath because that makes a better more heroic story, so that’s what they did and they created the dark ages version of history and the church were happy to oblige and play along with it because it meant no talk of the rock falling from the sky, it was win win for both sides and that’s just one example of a major historical event in British history that was white washed by the establishments in order to further their own agendas and resulted in the false history which is still protected to this day, despite the shed loads of evidence that verifiably contradicts what’s the history books claim, they would rather knowingly continue the lie than to accept and admit that what we are taught is a lie. I would say it’s the biggest cover up and lie in possibly the whole of history!
You mean Norman, the English were subjugated by the Normans at the point when the King of England decided to mess about in the rest of the island. We didn't have a king who spoke English as a first language until Henry IV in the 1400's
French person here, the only contact I've had with medieval Welsh culture is the Mabinogion, and those stories translate such a high and epic quality to me, it has never occurred to me that people thought of medieval Wales as kind of backwards and poor.
I have found there is this English bias towards Welsh culture even still. The idea that it has a culture at all is a surprise or a punch line of some very bad jokes. It stems from the utter lack of education on Welsh history taught. Colonisers are not keen on explaining their thief and murder. Growing up in North Wales and moving to England was quite a culture shock. Things like poetry, music and art are the backbone of Welsh school experience. In England these are "rich people things". I enjoy your channel quite a bit and it is good to hear Welsh.
That's weird; where I live in America, I've been reminded on a near daily basis for my entire life that people who colonized the Americas were genocidal, racist, slave driving thieves and rapists, and told that because I look like those people, that I should bear a certain amount of guilt for their crimes against humanity, even though not a single one of my ancestors had a single thing to do with the settlement of the Americas.
Do you guys feel biculturally British & Welsh, then? & not English? (like those of South or East Asian descent, they are Indian/ Pakistani/ Chinese & British, but not fully "English"...?) Genuinely would love to know.
What I see in England, as an Englishman is zero attempt by the British Establishment to learn us about Wales, the Welsh or other British Celtic cultures. That is a pathetic state of affairs. Tarring us as colonisers is the pot calling the kettle black to be honest. The Celts were colonisers of these islands and were quite happy to colonise other lands alongside the English.
I studied in Wales and England，but Wales always have a special place in my heart. You can really feel the culture when you go to wales and see a lot of beautiful castle and stunning sites. And i think bbc made a doc about the history of wales, which did a good job explain the sufficicated history of wales. It was really in the forefront of modern day law.
I have to say, other than the history my favorite part of your videos is when you speak Welsh. Its such a beautiful language and i'm glad that people are keeping it alive. ^.^
I blame the English: Prince of Wales indeed. And have you ever contemplated the fact that Wales has an awesome dragon on their flag, while England's flag is the cross of St. George?
I thoroughly enjoyed this, thank you. The Welsh aren't alone, the Cornish have been ignored too. The only thing most people know is King Arthur & Tintagel castle which is garbage anyway - thank you English Heritage. English Heritage & the National Trust have mismanaged some of our best sites & others have been ignored completely. I grew up very close to what was thought to be an Iron Age hillfort but nothing has been done to explore it in my lifetime (50+); if I recall rightly the only finds in the county museum from this site date from the 1930s.
@@TheWelshViking Yeah if you think reenacting early medieval Wales can be rough try Cornwall! For some reason people really believe the region where (from 300AD or so) the majority of Europes Tin came from was some poor backwater. They ignore the proactive settlement of Brittany by SW Britons and the clear signs of trade links and settlement by Vikings and Irish too. God, Last Kingdom says we don't even know not to put holes in our shields! I know you say not looking at Facebook but we are working hard at Morvleydh to change that: Www.facebook.com/Morvleydh
English Heritage is still hanging onto Battle as the location where Harold lost his crown. We now have enough evidence to discredit this but they ignore it. So they won’t have a hope in the west.
My great-grandmother read to me from the Four Branches of the Mabinogion and the tales from the Red Book of Hergest. I found them totally interesting and I can't imagine how anyone would think the medieval Welsh were poor, uncouth, illiterates.
They were certainly not, unlike the Sausage eating Heathens from Schleswig Holstein, Wales is Bollocks Cymru is the name " Brotherhood " for all you Cornish fans, you spoke the Cymric Brythonic Celtic as did every other Celt in Britain!
Subbed, completely agree, as someone that's Welsh born and bred and proud of their heritage, it's incredibly insulting to hear people portray Welsh people in such a discriminatory manner.
me: immediately goes to look at books and into medieval Wales. I am from Coventry and my public schooling did not mention Wales in the medieval period, like it never existed. Ashamed to admit it never crossed my mind.
I watched this amazing five part documentary series on TH-cam a few years back, it covers the history of Wales from cavemen to now. Great info on the medieval period in there. Here's the first episode, if that interests you. th-cam.com/video/hfKYqjempvc/w-d-xo.html
As an American with Welsh ancestry this is fascinating to learn. Is it perhaps a particularly English prejudice? It makes me think I should learn to speak Welsh, too!
You should! Please do! We’d love to have you in the gang! Traditionally, I would say yes, but I have to say that many English people simply aren’t taught about Wales and its history.
So, I'm over a year late, but I've had an interest in Welsh folklore ever since reading the Chronicles of Prydain as a child and then finding out where its inspiration came from. In fact, the first book I wrote is a historical fantasy set in late 4th century Roman Wales (or what would now be Wales, obviously). It makes me sad that Wales doesn't get the recognition it deserves, especially considering that the Arthurian legend, once you disentangle Charlemagne from it, has its origins there. Also, Brythonic languages sound so much prettier than old English, but that's neither here nor there. Anyway, I only recently found your channel but I absolutely love the quality of your content. If you're reading this, thanks Jimmy! If you're not reading this, thanks all the same.
It's a shame growing up in Wales, going to wsh stream schools and studying history up to a level that we were never really taught about Welsh history and culture. In Welsh lessons we learned about the stories of Branwen and Cantre'r Gwaelod from the Mabinogion, and Taliesin was maby mentioned once or twice untill a level when he is actually covered but as it is an optional subject by then very phew in our school study it. History was worse as we only studied 1 unit in year 12 where we had to consider the affect of the Tudor monarchy on the people of Wales which is an optional unit that can be swapped with the Russian revolution. In primary school we also learnt about Santes Dwinwen (Welsh patron Saint of love), Owain Glyndwr (who was our local historical figure), and Dewi Sant for 1 day each every year untill we reached high school It is appalling that we are seen as a proud national who are proud of our heritage and yet our history is not taught in schools
Yep, I remember those choices in school. Communism or the Tudors. Nothing on the actual kingdoms of medieval Wales, nothing on the development of our long and storied culture. But you might get one of the Mabinogion if you’re lucky! Ofnadwy, ‘de? Keep spreading it out there though, and I promise to do the same :)
You were lucky to learn about Owain Glyndwr in primary school! I'd heard the name, but I knew nothing about him until about three years ago when I decided to look into it myself - and I'm now in my 40s! We never learned anything about him in school, despite being only a few miles from where he lived. For me in school history lessons in the 1990s, Wales began as a country in the late 1800s. It didn't exist before then.
I went through English medium and didn't even realise we had our own language until secondary school, although I will say things do appear to be a lot better on that regards with my nephews & nieces going through the same school. My children are attending Welsh language medium and they are learning quite a bit more, especially about their local history etc they even mention the Celts which I only learnt about from trips to museums with my family. My main welsh history education was Rebecca, Merthyr, Chartists in Newport and some stuff on the pre-fabs after the second world war.
I agree, I did history until I finished secondary (might do it at uni) and it was not a lot of Welsh. Don't get me wrong I love learning a bit of history from other countries. But when you do ww2 and only get a little brief description of Wales in the 40s and a statistic here and there...that's not correct. When your history of medieval Wales is that there's castles and there was Owain Glyndwr....that's also not right. I know more English history than I do of Wales and Its embarrassing. Also I love the Mabinogion of Branwen because my name is Branwen 😅 had a book with illustrations that were a little scary for 5 year old me.
As a massive fan of Gaelic & Brythonic languages, I'm absolutely delighted to hear there's such an extensive collection of old Welsh poems in existance. Looking forward to read all of that (when my knowledge of Welsh extends beyond singing along to 'Dacw Nghariad', that is). Also, the absence of midroll ads is much appreciated !
Im born and raised in North Wales (Denbigh for 24 years). I moved to Liverpool about 8 years ago. I've recently got into researching my ancestory and it annoys me how people dismiss welsh history
Thanks for this! I am a fairly ignorant American and even I managed to figure out when I worked with people in the U. K. that they seemed to treat Wales like a joke / full of dirty people. It was always a puzzlement to me, especially since the Welsh landscape seems so beautiful in pictures. Looking forward to learning more!
It depends where you go and who you meet. Ignorant people can be found everywhere sadly ... I was lucky to learn about Wales without all that nonsense. I suppose I was taught that they were all really good singers, though, which I guess might be a bit of a stereotype. I think things are improving. And Jimmy is helping one video at a time!
All this Arthur stuff can be found in Central Scotland where Welsh hung on in places as late as Bannockburn. Arthur's Seat, Ben Arthur, Camelon, Badenheath, Arthur's Oon Etc. Excellent wee book, "Welsh Origins of Scottish Place Names" by William Oxenham. Carreg Gwalch. £6.50.
I love a good history rant. God knows I got off on enough of them myself if the various topics of my own history wheelhouses even vaguely get mentioned. Then I have to put another coin into the "lecturing about history when nobody asked" jar. :D Speaking of coin, congrats on getting monetized!
I lived in an area called gelligaer in a 5 mile area we have roman and pre roman settlements, neolithic standing stones and wonderful stories of ancient brithonic ruling families. Wonderful stories One of my favorite books is fairy tales of the Rhymney valley. We had a wonderful history teacher at school and the area almost creaks under the weight of it
There's a really good book trilogy called ''The Warlord Chronicles'' Basically 5th century Wales with King Arthur . ''The Winter king'', ''Enemy of God'', ''Excalibur''. I pretty much heard nothing about welsh before that series and it just blew my mind . I found it beautiful ! It has lots of welsh culture in it.
Thanks for this. As a Madog research fellow working on the Welsh contributions to medicine and deep diving into the Meddygon Myddfai I came across the kings gifting clothing/fabric to doctors so it's nice to have a tertiary resource for that as well. Diolch. (also the Meddygon Myddfai are a fascinating side venture into Medieval Wales between the reality and the folklore behind their story)
Well, if it makes you feel better, I'm American and I was just learning about Owain Glyndwr. I'm also a little bit obsessed with the Merlin character. So it is out there. One must go a bit deeper to finally get to Welsh history but it is a rich and fascinating history.
If we go right back, the welsh helped the english defeat the vikings, not only that, the welsh was the only region to constantly repel viking attacks. People can talk down to the welsh all they want, but history proves what kind of hardy people the welsh are. We are a small region, but undoubtedly the hardiest all throughout history.
South Walian here studying to be a historian. This video summarises why I got in to studying history. Just wanted to thank you for putting videos up and telling people of our culture! Where I grew up we never heard any history past the valleys and the mines, so people such as yourself are a blessing. Diolch yn fawr, fy ddyn!
Thanks for the vid--there is a corpus of Welsh verse out there proving how sophisticated the culture was! The Rhydderch Hael cycle, the Eagle of Pengwern, Taliesin, the triads--so much lost but so much still preserved. Yeah, the US does not have a prejudice against Wales (that I have ever seen), just ignorance (sigh). Thank you for the book titles!
Excellent! The historian in me loves your take on a country my ancestors came from and the deserved pride you show. Love your language too, even if I don’t understand it.
Don’t forget the great masterpieces like the Four Branches of the Mabinogi. Epic, mysterious and gives you a real way of looking at medieval Wales. Those books looked really great. I guess I have added two more books to my unlimited list of wanted books. Diolch a da iawn!!!!!!!! Cymru am byth!!!!!!
Totally ok with you having ads at the start! These videos add some fun and knowledge to my life, you definitely should get paid a bit for them if you can! Plenty of people getting paid a lot more for less accurate stuff (cough Vikings cough).
I play, or at least DID play(finances suck, particularly when you don’t have any lol) the harp, so as a part of that is an interest in the instrument, it’s history and the history of the cultures that prized it. In this case it’s the the Irish with your Turlough O’Carolans, and earlier still, the Welsh. Taliesin is a byeword for bard, a maker of tales and songs, a poet. Hywel the Good’s laws were a model for lawmakers in centuries long after his kingdom was gone. The Welsh were a vital culture just like all the other cultures in the British isles and I can understand your frustration, since I’ve always thought of the “Celtic” cultures as rather splendid, educated and advanced(for their era) and it surprises me that it’s not general knowledge....yes some people were poor, some were most definitely NOT, and EVERYone liked a bit ‘o bling to the degree that they could afford it.
Awesome video! It's so important to debunk potentially harmful myths and stereotypes in history. Especially when the archaeology DOES NOT support them!
I love your channel and how you are sticking up not just for Wales, but for truth and respect as well. I hope you are still doing this a few years from now.
Da iawn byti, spot on, thanks for the refreshing video. Its definitely something that genuinely annoys me when people say the medieval / pre medieval welsh were backwards, poor tribal savages. Simply not true I've been researching the "age of the saints" for a few years and how many of the ancient kings later became saints for example St. Brychan, St. Gwynllyw, St. Tewdrig. Also the 6th century church and hamlet of Llanwonno which is not far from where I live. Wales has a rich history which I throughly enjoy researching, our ancestors certainly weren't poor. Thanks again 👍
I am an American being of Welsh and German descent on my mother's side and English/Scot/Irish on my father's side. My mother was very proud of her heritage - especially being Welsh - and when it came to the Welsh side, her advice to me when I was a little girl was, "Never call a Welshman an Englishman." It took me years to understand what she meant because Wales was as foreign to me as the South Pole, but through research and family interviews, I've learned to love the country of a portion of my ancestors. I especially love one saying I came across recently: "We Welsh are well balanced - we have a chip on both shoulders," which describes me perfectly as I am always fighting for the forgotten, the downtrodden, and the little guy. I often "get my Welsh up" when I see injustice in any form. I am so looking forward to one day visit or, hopefully, live in this beautiful country and it's wonderful people and culture. Dymuniadau gorau!
Is there a reason why it took longer for Wales to become unified than a place like England or Scotland? I took a class on the History of Britain and Ireland last semester and we largely focused on England and Ireland. It sucks that British history is overshadowed by just the English. Personally as someone who loves Scottish history I took every opportunity to do my projects on Scotland.
A lot of political infighting, really. But Wales was unified in the 11th and 13th centuries. Sadly, being such a small area, it was relatively easy to march across
@@TheWelshViking Isn't it at least partly because the Welsh had an inheritance system that tended to fragment rather than consolidate power and land? The Normans were heavily into primogeniture and favoured legitimate heirs, while the Welsh shared the inheritance between all sons, legimate or not.
Rachel Boersma-Plug that was actually common to most of the “Celtic” cultures in the British isles. It was part of their tribally based society(kingship is just an extension of tribal leadership in essence)
greater linguistic, genetic, and cultural diversity where you get mountains. Hard to invade without a ton of troops. You see it in other places too to a much greater extent: Afghanistan, the Caucuses, the alps. Scotland is a little different due to the lowland expanse - Wales's lowland expanse was England which took longer to consolidate than than Strath Clyd and Dal Raita.
@@rachelboersma-plug9482 I think you’ve hit the nail on the head there, but when did the Anglo-Normans stop this practice? I know William the Conqueror split his lands between his sons but eventually this stopped, I wonder when and why?
Happy to hear the crannog reference, I'm visiting one on Wednesday : ) "I don't see it so it never existed" as an attitude annoys me. Especailly when they just haven't looked.
@@TheWelshViking The Scottish crannog Center, on Loch Tay in Perthshire. They're actually about to move to a new location as they're running out of space for repairs after ~20 years. Do check them out, They have some fab resources : D
I was briefly in the SCA around the year 2000, and I choose a Welsh persona. No one in my group even had resources regarding the Welsh one way or another. I feel like this video was more informative than anything I was able to research then
A while back I watched "The adventure of english" a documentary about the evolution of the English language by the BBC. On the very first episode it just refers to the word "Welsh" coming from "weelas" that is the celtic word for "slave" and is otherwise rather dismissive (the same goes for the Irish language). Being an English documentary about themselves I expected it to be biased but not to that degree. Thank you for this video!
This was really educational. Thank you. I actually never thought about Welsh history much, so this has opened a whole new world for me. Instant subscription
Wales is an amazing country! I have lived in Cardiff and in Holyhead and I love it there! Bangor is a lovely town and I played with their local theatre group as well, so I spent a lot of time in that place. And just from that I have always known about the very rich cultural heritage of Wales. Holyhead is very proud of its history so it's hard to ignore when you love there! Thank you so much for all this wonderful information - more people need to know how wonderful and rich a place it is!
*adds Welsh to the loooong list of impressions that I'd like to do* Also, all my knowledge of medieval Wales come from reading the Cadfael books which make Welsh culture seem so much more civilised that the English (Saxon or Norman hehehe). Can I vote for a subtitled history video in Welsh?
i have come across some closed minded people in america when it comes to the welsh...i personally have always defended the welsh, but maybe i'm biased as my great-great grandmother hails from wales (poetry!). i also absolutely LOVE that you speak some welsh in your videos!
Arguably the most well-known literary figure from the Early Medieval period, anywhere WORLDWIDE is King Arthur. He may or may not have been inspired by a real historical figure, but all the earliest literary incarnations of him are Welsh. The influence of Arthurian legends on later European literature is hard to overstate. The cultural impact Early Medieval Wales has had on the world is phenomenal.
I love that you mention the trade routes, they are really important for context! I have been looking at trade route influences as well, in the Irish context, and once you see it you simply cannot ignore the significant impact on the culture. Congrats on monetization too!
I laughed and almost spat out my cider at the idea that it rains in Wales. I think I've always assumed that the Welsh courts were as sophisticated as those anywhere else in Europe. Why wouldn't they be? Anyway, I'm looking forward to learning more.
Everyone hates and bashes Lolo Morganwg. But he's what makes American's like myself (with some Welsh ancestors in the family tree) fall in love with Wales! That and the Mabinogion stories that were condensed into the Time Life Books "Enchanted Worlds" when we were kids, that had all these color paintings of King Math, Blodeuwedd and Gwydion. God I loved growing up with those books! They were better than anything Hollywood had for us to consume. Well except Game of Thrones....but I totally understand that "King Bran the Broken" is really just King Math without the virgin. lol And I know that's a little off subject....but I bring it up because they definitely DID NOT makes Wales look poor! They kinda make ancient Wales look mystical and almost Atlantis-like. Which as a kid just really did it for me.
I know a london guy who night think Wales was a real county and more just an area of England. He even had a towel with the Welsh flag on it. Took him to Saint Fagans to sort that out lol
As funny as it seems, the major take away I got was, “do people really think that it rains all the time in wales?” All the pictures I’ve ever seen were gorgeous hiking trails and sunsets. It might be because I dated a Welshman ages ago. There was a legitimate language barrier. 😂😂😂
Speaking of Bangor i live an hour north of Bangor, PA which is in a place called the slate belt and is known for the large number of welsh immigrants in the 1800s/1900s
I just want to let you know that you’re not the only one! I’ve had my fair share of urinating against the winds of ignorance that blows In the face of Welsh history. Your piece here was a breath of fresh air. Great stuff! I live in Caernarfon, probably the last stronghold of the Brythonic language the Saxons called Welsh. Needless to say that like the rest of Wales most of the Cymry here in Caernarfon know hardly nothing about their country’s own rich history. The winners write the history books - but you are putting that right Welsh Viking. Diolch! :-)
Welsh Ambassador to the world 👏🏼 tell us more about your mysterious country. It is true that a lot is said and talked of the other countries in the UK but less of Wales.
It was time for this culture to emerge as well. For those of us who are not English, it is difficult to grasp the history of Wales. Thank you so much for taking the time to teach us about this time in Wales
That was refreshing. I am only about 1/64th Welsh, but live in what was once the Brythonic-speaking Erging, which gets a few mentions in the Mabiogi. I would love to know more about this period. My local shop is within sight of where King Arthur was said to have slain his remaining son, the hill I live on was called Caer Rein after Rhiann Dremrudd, the famous descendant of Brychan Brechyniog, I work between a church dedicated to St Dyffrig and the hill where Vortigern met his end.
Those books might be too expensive to own but you can look at them in various university libraries. According to Worldcat, 104 libraries in North America and the UK own copies of the book. Even in Texas, where I live, I could drive down to Austin and read the copy at the University of Texas Library. Parking would be a big nightmare but I could still look at it without buying the book. Although, when I think of the shopping temptations in Austin, it might be cheaper to buy the book.
And if you go to your local library, they could probably get it for you through inter library loan. Here in Texas we have Texshare which means you'll definitely be able to find a library near you to get it shipped to and you can get a Texshare card to check things out at academic libraries!
@@cindyrosser2471 Not all libraries have suspended interlibrary loan and it's a good thing to keep in mind when your library begins to add services back in to what they are offering.
Congratulations friend! I didn't realize you had reached monetization! How exciting. Keep up the great stuff. I appreciate you sharing your knowledge with us.
LOVE!! Thank you for the references - so excited! My stepfather’s family is from Wales and I feel so connected that I took a little Welsh in the one university in the US teaching Welsh at the time. We recently found a family gravestone (not medieval!) that was inscribed with a lovely long poem in the grand Welsh literary tradition. I think perhaps Tolkien modeled the hobbits after the modern “view” of the Welsh - cosy, comfort-loving and unpretentious but the stalwart heroes in the end! And they loved poems as well. I had hoped to attend Eisteddfod this year but alas, plague struck. Yay for Wales and the Welsh!
Oh, I hope you get to come and enjoy it soon! It’s a splendid celebration of modern Welsh culture. You certainly count as Welsh in my book, and I heartily encourage you to keep plugging gently away at dysgu’r hên iaith. May I ask what the poem was? I’m a gravestone nerd, as you’ll know ;)
@@TheWelshViking I do plan on that! I read a hilarious book recently called "Some Sex and a Hill: or How to Learn Welsh in 3 Easy Pints." I thought I'd died and gone to heaven - a funny book about language learning! I'm such a geek! Very happy to hear the Eisteddfod is what it purports to be...so many "festivals" in the US are just a way to sell more gadgets. I am eager to go!
I saw that cranog on Time Team! Wales is fascinating. I never really knew anything until Time Tram and reading Ken Follett’s century trilogy. I’m also a devotee of Cerridwen and so have done research on my own. Excellent video! Thanks is for sharing your expertise!
Thank you so much for doing these sorts of videos. I'm Canadian and I've been looking into my family history a lot lately. I grew up calling my dad's parents Nain and Taid, and I knew part of my family was Welsh, but my Taid was adopted, and his records are sealed So, last year, I did a DNA test to find out my ancestry. I thought I would be roughy 25% Welsh with only my Nain being traced back to that (her family came to Canada after setting up a Welsh settlement in Argentina, then they left when they would be forced to start speaking Spanish), but to my surprise, I'm only 40%. I also found out that Nain, who is currently 96 years old, grew up fluent in Welsh. She didn't teach it to my dad or his siblings though, and within a generation we lost the language. It's my goal for 2022 to learn some Welsh, so please keep dusting it into your videos! I intend to also spend a lot of time learning about the history of Wales to inform me more about my Welsh ancestors, recent and ancient. Btw, my Welsh family is from Northern Wales, so I'm learning the Northern pronuncations for everything. Thank you again!
I dont think i have ever thought of medieval Wales as ”poor,weak” or ”backwards”. Then again, i like history. Also, i would be surprised if my friends here in Sweden where unaware of Taliesin etc ( my friends are as nerdy as me ).
WoW Now that I know where the word BARD comes from... I shall boldly proclaim it to anyone who will listen!!! Thanks for your rant. I have been going though all your videos and it is wonderful to see where your passions lie (lye?). I am always stoked to listen when folks are truly "into things". HELLS TO THE YES JIMMY! PREACH!
All this quite aside from the fact that the Normans would not have guarded that border if they didn't feel seriously threatened by an organized society. How many of the first Norman earls were set on the marches? Weren't the Tudors from there? hmmm.
Henry Tudor became Henry VII on the English throne! Though considering Henry VIII, his son Edward, and daughter Elizabeth, I don't think Wales is very proud of that.
I've been able to trace my family history, on my paternal Grandfather's side, back several hundred years in Wales, and apparently viking ancestry was in the mix somewhere back further in time. My family DNA tests have also revealed Norwegian roots. The specific ancestors my family has been able to identify were peasant farmers, of course illiterate, but that doesn't mean that they were 'unintelligent' people - I believe that they must have been exceptionally hard working, and brilliant at what they did in the social context they were in. I've enjoyed listening to Jimmy's talk on medieval Wales. It's a fascinating topic.
I love folklore and mythology and I remember visiting Wales as a child and buying booklets of it. I'm more of a lit history person so I'd be up for some of that if you'd be into it
I have to say, if you're a mystery novel fan and have ever read Ellis Peters' medieval Cadfael series, it certainly has an impact on one's opinion of pre-modern Welsh civilisation! 😉 There, the laws of Wales are held up as being significantly more enlightened than those of feudal England... not to mention that at the time they weren't embroiled in a really sordid civil war, unlike the poor English countryside! Have to admit though, the extent of Welsh archeological finds was definitely a bit of a surprise to me, they definitely seem to be less focused on in the wider historical community. Would love to see more of that highlighted on the channel, as occasion permits...?
I enjoyed that. It's always good to learn about places and peoples that one knows very little about. Thank you so much for sharing your knowledge about early Wales. I learned something new today, so that makes it an excellent day. Take care. (The ads are fine. I usually just knit through them 😁)
I’ll admit that I knew Wales was a different entity for most of my life, but I definitely saw it as a subset culturally until about 2019. I definitely appreciate the new info here! Love that we still use the word bard, it really feels like a good solid word. Thank you for this, and roll those ads!!
Thank you very much, very nice informative video. My Maiden name is Bell and I was born and raised in and still reside in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. South eastern Pennsylvania has many many towns and townships with Welsh names as well as English, Scottish, and Irish. My only Daughter's maiden name is Jennifer Wise and her Paternal Great Grandfather's name was Percy Wise and he was a coal miner. Her Daughters names are Fiona and Gwendolyn, their last name is Coulby. My Daughter did study for a term at the Unversity Of Cork where she did have a course in Irish. Years ago I took my Mother to Ireland, she was a McLaughlin married to a Bell and the morning that we arrived in Dublin, we were staying at the Burlington Hotel, which at that time had a service bar in the lobby lounge and after breakfast in the hotel dining room we decided to have a drink after the long flight on a very stormy crossing, we settled into comfy chairs there and shortly after that three very handsome young men came down to the lobby bar and ordered drinks, they were very nice young men who introduced themselves as Welshmen who had been in Dublin for a Bachelor Party and we struck up a conversation and they and myself were hungover so it turned into a fun time sharing stories. These young Welchmen had a crazy wonderful sarcastic sense of humor which I share in common with them. I know that this is rather rambling, but we were all having a pleasant time. Then I related a story to them "true story" about my Paternal Great Grandfather John Bell, who was born in Clones, County Monaghan, Ireland, his family had returned to Paisley Scotland when he was a teenager, where he learned his trade as a tailor before emigrating from Paisley to Philadelphia in 1859. When John Bell arrived in Philadelphia he got a position as a tailor in Philadelphia. He met his Wife in Philadelphia, who was also a tailor, they did move to Lancaster and his Wife stayed home there to raise their children, but he took the train everyday from Lancaster to Philadelphia for work. This is where this story peaked our Welch companions attention, as I related to them the story of my Great Greatgrandfather's demise. His birthday was February 2, which over here is a minor "festival" day "Groundhog Day" which is a silly drinking day, so because it was his Birthday and he had time to celebrate with just a bit too much whisky. When he boarded the train back to Lancaster, he "fell" asleep and missed his stop, shortly thereafter he awakened and realized he needed to get off at the next stop coming up and would have to catch the next train back to Lancaster. That DID NOT end well, he was struck by the oncoming train that he needed to board. This is where our Welch companions laughed like crazy as did I, when I told them that he didn't die for three days, obviously he was pretty drunk when the train hit him. My Mother, myself and our three charming Welch companions had a great belly laugh on a Sunday morning in Dublin along with me telling a true amusingly but ironically sad story. My Great Great Grandfather's Widow to raise four small children by herself, she never remarried. One final comment, my Husband and I have had our DNA test done by 23 and Me about five years ago and since then many more people have done so and recently I discovered that I do have some distant Cousins in Wales, along with my Irish, Scottish and English Cousins.😎😂🥃
Diolch, adderchog! I'm a mediaeval Welsh piper, so far my band is more mediaeval inspired but I'm slowly trying to put together a more accurate later mediaeval piper outfit. Diolch am y manylion, nai edrych mlaen i dy fideo gwisg Cymro canoloes gynnar. I'm looking forward to your early mediaeval Welshman video. You might have it up already, I've not looked yet! By the way I was at Castell Biwmares last weekend playing my pipes!
I just wanted to let you know that here in the US, there is no bias like that toward the Welsh. There are plenty enough of other biases, but not Welsh. We just kinda see you guys as the ones who held onto all the magic. Well, I do, anyway. 😉
In my experience the American consciousness of Wales doesn't go beyond the fact that it exists, there are sheep, and questionable activities may or may not occur with regards to said sheep. Also the flag's neat.
I come from a wargaming perspective and Americans do tend to believe that your Welsh/British forces should look just like Anglo Saxons only impoverished.
Now the IRISH on the other hand...
(Just kidding; I'm very proud of my Irish American heritage through my grandmother!)
@@Ithirahad We're deeply suspicious of what the Scots and Kiwis do with all their sheep, too.
I swear when I listend to the Welsh National Anthem I thought it was the language JRR Tolkien based Elvish on, it is that otherworldly.
I'm old as hell and born in the US. When asking about my family ancestry, my great aunt told me to just claim to be English. There was family from Ireland and Wales, but the Irish were all drunks and the Welsh were talented artist and poets but had an 'unhealthy melancholy'. So, in the 1950s the bigotry was there. Turns out I'm mostly Irish and Welsh with one English granny. I'm glad! Take that Aunt Ruby.
I saw an interesting statistic recently. The number of people in the United States claiming English heritage dropped massively between the 1950s and the 1990s. It seems that the social pressures changed a lot in that period, such that people with a mixture of ancestry from the UK and Ireland were incentivised to claim English identity in the 50s, but by the 90s were incentivised to claim Scottish, Irish or Welsh. Says something interesting about the changing dynamics of privileged in-group identity in the second half of the 20th century, I am sure.
Unhealthy melancholy lol well put
Same story with me. So glad I came upon your comment. 🌹
I'm from the US but spent some time abroad, and I definitely noticed that Brits talk about the Welsh like their poor country cousins! When I learned more about their history later, I was surprised to realize that the Welsh are basically the only people in Britain, and perhaps some of the few people in the world, who have never been displaced. That is, the Welsh now seem to be descended from the first humans ever to wander into that bit of land -- which is truly extraordinary!
That would be amazing, but unfortunately it’s not true. There have been various population replacement level migrations into Europe over the last 10,000 years. Notably Neolithic Anatolian Farmers about 8 to 9,000 years ago and Bronze Age Steppe Nomads about 4 to 5,000 years ago. The Welsh have certainly been there a long time, but they would be genetically very different to the people who were on that land 10,000, or even 5,000, years ago. There are interesting lectures about it on TH-cam from Harvard geneticist Richard Reich. The one on The New Scientist channel is very good.
Not true, the Celts are believed to have originally been from central Europe and displaced many of the more indigenous populations.
The Basque may in fact actually be more like what you're thinking though!
@Penderyn You are wrong. The genetics is clear. There was a 90% population replacement event in Britain about 500 years after the construction of Stonehenge, or about 4,000 years ago. The Neolithic Farmer population was largely replaced. This happened across all of Europe between about 5000 and 4000 years ago, though the replacement was greater in Northern Europe than in Southern Europe. Down in Italy and Spain and the like it was more like a 50% replacement, or mixing. Though linguistically and culturally, the incoming Indo-Europeans became dominant. Almost all modern European languages are Indo-European. Basque, however, as mentioned by asdf asdf above, is thought to possibly be a residual language left from the Neolithic Farmers who occupied Europe before the Bronze Age arrival of Indo-Europeans. In terms of genetics, the people of Sardinia are apparently almost completely descended from the Neolithic people. It seems the Indo-Europeans had very little genetic impact there, unlike pretty much everywhere else, although they do speak an Indo-European language. Other non-Indo-European languages in Europe are Finish, Estonian and Hungarian. But they are all languages that were brought by other more recent incoming peoples, rather than remnant languages of the Neolithic population.
I never said that “the Celts” called themselves Celts, or that the incoming people who replaced the Neolithic Farmers were Celts. The first Indo-Europeans to settle in Britain were a people that archaeologists and geneticists call the Bell Beaker Culture. It used to be debated if this culture arrived as a migration of people, or just of ideas and culture. In the last 15 years archeogenetics has proven it was very much the former. I believe it is not known what language they spoke. It is possible it was what linguists would classify as a Celtic language, even though they did not yet produce what we would call Celtic material culture. The Celtic languages are part of the Indo-European language family (part of a larger group called Italo-Celtic), as are the Germanic, Slavic, Romance and Greek languages. So called “Celtic” material culture may have arrived in Britain more as a transfer of culture than people. But the people in Britain who adopted were in the main part not descended from the earlier Neolithic population, but from Bronze Age Indo-European immigrants/invaders.
Like I said above, check out Harvard Professor David Reich. His book Who We Are And How We Got Here is a great primer on what the new field of Archeo-Genetics has taught us in the last 15 years, when combined with archaeology and linguistics.
@Penderyn Not sure where you're getting that from but that's not at all in line with the current consensus
I wonder if the "medieval Welsh were poor" comes from England's attempts to squash Welsh culture.
The English attempted to crush Welsh (and Scottish) culture for a long time.
I wouldn't be surprised if something like this was involved.
I mean propaganda against your opponents and areas you've invaded is one of the older tricks in the book.
most likely, I mean they did outlaw our language for alittle over 300 years at one point.
Beware of modern political nationalism in action. The rewriting of history by the Marxist left goes on apace.
That’s a part of it yes, it was a two pronged attack by the Catholic Church and the Germanic Royal lineage, for many reasons over many centuries but essentially was all about rewriting history in their own image and to discredit the history of those who had claims to certain historical events they didn’t want future generations to learn about and in so carry on the true history of Britain.
We have to remember, the “Welsh” are actually the British because the Welsh are the native Brits. You had a small pocket of Picts in the highlands of Scotland but other than that, the rest of Britain was what we now know as wales and the Welsh for centuries
British history as we know it and are taught it is based on lies, history from the perspective of the Germanic tribes who invaded it and wrote their own version of history in order to big themselves up an inflate their own egos and also it was essentially self propagandising, they wanted history to look favourably on them when in reality, the truth is very different.
The term “Celt” is an example of this, a term created in the 18th century was a successful attempt to put down and denigrate the different complex cultures and traditions and languages of Britain and Ireland into one box, to make out that they were backwards compared to the Germanic invaders.
I know people use the term Celt as some kind of pride thing but I don’t, I think it’s offensive and we shouldn’t embrace the term because it doesn’t do us justice, it’s grabbing onto a lie when we should be saying, no!! That is not who we are, we are considerably better and more than that fake narrative created as a means to put us down and belittle us and our history.
Our legacy is not Celtic, it’s far greater, our role in world history is far greater than the one that was concocted for us by those who wanted to put us down.
The fake narrative also benefited the church too so they were complicit in pushing the lies because it hid things they didn’t want to be written in history because it contradicted the things they were preaching at the time.
For example the 562AD comet disaster than wiped out millions upon millions of Brits and was what left Britain vulnerable to invasion by the likes of the Angles and Saxons and Jutes etc and ultimately led to the overpowering of the Brits which then led to the Norman Invasion.
Why was this significant, well, firstly, the church at the time said that no rock could fall from the sky, this event disproved that, so they had to cover it up and destroy any written account of the event, of which they were largely for the most part successful and secondly, because the event caused the majority of Britain to be inhabitable and which left Britain basically undefended, allowing to Germanic tribes to invade pretty much untested, that wasn’t glamorous enough for the history books.
The Brits had successful held all invaders at bay even the Romans for decades, Britain was notorious for being nigh on impossible to invade and settle, so for propaganda purposes, they couldn’t let the history books say they successfully invaded Britain without any resistance because that’s like bragging at beating a one armed blind man at a game of boxing, there is no honour in that, you want history to say that they were David defeating Goliath because that makes a better more heroic story, so that’s what they did and they created the dark ages version of history and the church were happy to oblige and play along with it because it meant no talk of the rock falling from the sky, it was win win for both sides and that’s just one example of a major historical event in British history that was white washed by the establishments in order to further their own agendas and resulted in the false history which is still protected to this day, despite the shed loads of evidence that verifiably contradicts what’s the history books claim, they would rather knowingly continue the lie than to accept and admit that what we are taught is a lie.
I would say it’s the biggest cover up and lie in possibly the whole of history!
You mean Norman, the English were subjugated by the Normans at the point when the King of England decided to mess about in the rest of the island. We didn't have a king who spoke English as a first language until Henry IV in the 1400's
Hearing Talesin and Aneirin pronounced like they should be is so, so lovely on the ears!
:3 I does my best!
He says them wrong. He pronounced it Taliesin instead of Taliesyn
@@macsenwyn7223 northwalien.
French person here, the only contact I've had with medieval Welsh culture is the Mabinogion, and those stories translate such a high and epic quality to me, it has never occurred to me that people thought of medieval Wales as kind of backwards and poor.
I have found there is this English bias towards Welsh culture even still. The idea that it has a culture at all is a surprise or a punch line of some very bad jokes. It stems from the utter lack of education on Welsh history taught. Colonisers are not keen on explaining their thief and murder.
Growing up in North Wales and moving to England was quite a culture shock. Things like poetry, music and art are the backbone of Welsh school experience. In England these are "rich people things". I enjoy your channel quite a bit and it is good to hear Welsh.
Same, Lucy. I remember moving to England and the culture shock was real!
Diolch yn fawr am rhannu’ch brofion :)
That's weird; where I live in America, I've been reminded on a near daily basis for my entire life that people who colonized the Americas were genocidal, racist, slave driving thieves and rapists, and told that because I look like those people, that I should bear a certain amount of guilt for their crimes against humanity, even though not a single one of my ancestors had a single thing to do with the settlement of the Americas.
Do you guys feel biculturally British & Welsh, then? & not English?
(like those of South or East Asian descent, they are Indian/ Pakistani/ Chinese & British, but not fully "English"...?)
Genuinely would love to know.
@@Jumpoable I'm British that doesn't make me Welsh. I could be Indian and South Asian. But i'm not Pakistani
What I see in England, as an Englishman is zero attempt by the British Establishment to learn us about Wales, the Welsh or other British Celtic cultures. That is a pathetic state of affairs. Tarring us as colonisers is the pot calling the kettle black to be honest. The Celts were colonisers of these islands and were quite happy to colonise other lands alongside the English.
I studied in Wales and England，but Wales always have a special place in my heart. You can really feel the culture when you go to wales and see a lot of beautiful castle and stunning sites. And i think bbc made a doc about the history of wales, which did a good job explain the sufficicated history of wales. It was really in the forefront of modern day law.
I have to say, other than the history my favorite part of your videos is when you speak Welsh. Its such a beautiful language and i'm glad that people are keeping it alive. ^.^
I blame the English: Prince of Wales indeed. And have you ever contemplated the fact that Wales has an awesome dragon on their flag, while England's flag is the cross of St. George?
Badass dragon flag, gold mines, delicious singing, King Arthur, Ioan Gryffydd, the Mabinogion, Diana Wynne Jones.
We just rock, honestly.
@@TheWelshViking We do - don't we ^-^
@@hetrodoxly1203 Wessex! \m/
st george the dragon killer
That's a good point.
Wales also hosted the Mold gold cape, too. :)
Thanks for the video. From Sweden here, did not know much about Wales.
I thoroughly enjoyed this, thank you.
The Welsh aren't alone, the Cornish have been ignored too. The only thing most people know is King Arthur & Tintagel castle which is garbage anyway - thank you English Heritage. English Heritage & the National Trust have mismanaged some of our best sites & others have been ignored completely. I grew up very close to what was thought to be an Iron Age hillfort but nothing has been done to explore it in my lifetime (50+); if I recall rightly the only finds in the county museum from this site date from the 1930s.
Indeed, and in the period Cornwall and Wales were simply Britons. Alas!
@@TheWelshViking Yeah if you think reenacting early medieval Wales can be rough try Cornwall!
For some reason people really believe the region where (from 300AD or so) the majority of Europes Tin came from was some poor backwater. They ignore the proactive settlement of Brittany by SW Britons and the clear signs of trade links and settlement by Vikings and Irish too.
God, Last Kingdom says we don't even know not to put holes in our shields!
I know you say not looking at Facebook but we are working hard at Morvleydh to change that:
Www.facebook.com/Morvleydh
@@MH-gc2hr yeah the book is better then the series at least...those stupid wicker shields with holes in the middle haunt my dreams
English Heritage is still hanging onto Battle as the location where Harold lost his crown. We now have enough evidence to discredit this but they ignore it. So they won’t have a hope in the west.
Ignored Brythonic Regions: Cries in North Devonian.
My great-grandmother read to me from the Four Branches of the Mabinogion and the tales from the Red Book of Hergest. I found them totally interesting and I can't imagine how anyone would think the medieval Welsh were poor, uncouth, illiterates.
They were certainly not, unlike the Sausage eating Heathens from Schleswig Holstein, Wales is Bollocks Cymru is the name " Brotherhood " for all you Cornish fans, you spoke the Cymric Brythonic Celtic as did every other Celt in Britain!
Subbed, completely agree, as someone that's Welsh born and bred and proud of their heritage, it's incredibly insulting to hear people portray Welsh people in such a discriminatory manner.
me: immediately goes to look at books and into medieval Wales.
I am from Coventry and my public schooling did not mention Wales in the medieval period, like it never existed. Ashamed to admit it never crossed my mind.
I watched this amazing five part documentary series on TH-cam a few years back, it covers the history of Wales from cavemen to now. Great info on the medieval period in there. Here's the first episode, if that interests you. th-cam.com/video/hfKYqjempvc/w-d-xo.html
As an American with Welsh ancestry this is fascinating to learn. Is it perhaps a particularly English prejudice? It makes me think I should learn to speak Welsh, too!
You should! Please do! We’d love to have you in the gang!
Traditionally, I would say yes, but I have to say that many English people simply aren’t taught about Wales and its history.
So, I'm over a year late, but I've had an interest in Welsh folklore ever since reading the Chronicles of Prydain as a child and then finding out where its inspiration came from. In fact, the first book I wrote is a historical fantasy set in late 4th century Roman Wales (or what would now be Wales, obviously). It makes me sad that Wales doesn't get the recognition it deserves, especially considering that the Arthurian legend, once you disentangle Charlemagne from it, has its origins there. Also, Brythonic languages sound so much prettier than old English, but that's neither here nor there.
Anyway, I only recently found your channel but I absolutely love the quality of your content. If you're reading this, thanks Jimmy! If you're not reading this, thanks all the same.
It's a shame growing up in Wales, going to wsh stream schools and studying history up to a level that we were never really taught about Welsh history and culture. In Welsh lessons we learned about the stories of Branwen and Cantre'r Gwaelod from the Mabinogion, and Taliesin was maby mentioned once or twice untill a level when he is actually covered but as it is an optional subject by then very phew in our school study it.
History was worse as we only studied 1 unit in year 12 where we had to consider the affect of the Tudor monarchy on the people of Wales which is an optional unit that can be swapped with the Russian revolution.
In primary school we also learnt about Santes Dwinwen (Welsh patron Saint of love), Owain Glyndwr (who was our local historical figure), and Dewi Sant for 1 day each every year untill we reached high school
It is appalling that we are seen as a proud national who are proud of our heritage and yet our history is not taught in schools
Yep, I remember those choices in school. Communism or the Tudors. Nothing on the actual kingdoms of medieval Wales, nothing on the development of our long and storied culture.
But you might get one of the Mabinogion if you’re lucky!
Ofnadwy, ‘de?
Keep spreading it out there though, and I promise to do the same :)
You were lucky to learn about Owain Glyndwr in primary school! I'd heard the name, but I knew nothing about him until about three years ago when I decided to look into it myself - and I'm now in my 40s! We never learned anything about him in school, despite being only a few miles from where he lived. For me in school history lessons in the 1990s, Wales began as a country in the late 1800s. It didn't exist before then.
I went through English medium and didn't even realise we had our own language until secondary school, although I will say things do appear to be a lot better on that regards with my nephews & nieces going through the same school. My children are attending Welsh language medium and they are learning quite a bit more, especially about their local history etc they even mention the Celts which I only learnt about from trips to museums with my family. My main welsh history education was Rebecca, Merthyr, Chartists in Newport and some stuff on the pre-fabs after the second world war.
I agree, I did history until I finished secondary (might do it at uni) and it was not a lot of Welsh. Don't get me wrong I love learning a bit of history from other countries. But when you do ww2 and only get a little brief description of Wales in the 40s and a statistic here and there...that's not correct. When your history of medieval Wales is that there's castles and there was Owain Glyndwr....that's also not right. I know more English history than I do of Wales and Its embarrassing.
Also I love the Mabinogion of Branwen because my name is Branwen 😅 had a book with illustrations that were a little scary for 5 year old me.
That PR campaign by Edward I is still going strong.
Filled the gap nicely, I got decent English, Scottish, Scandinavian and Irish, vloggers, now I finally got a decent Welsh one, thanks.
I’m binge-watching you this morning whilst I do some packing to move to Ceredigion. Everything you say resonates - diolch yn fawr iawn!
Diolch for making and posting this video.
As a massive fan of Gaelic & Brythonic languages, I'm absolutely delighted to hear there's such an extensive collection of old Welsh poems in existance. Looking forward to read all of that (when my knowledge of Welsh extends beyond singing along to 'Dacw Nghariad', that is). Also, the absence of midroll ads is much appreciated !
What a tune, though! A great way to learn my tongue! :D
@@TheWelshViking :)
Im born and raised in North Wales (Denbigh for 24 years). I moved to Liverpool about 8 years ago. I've recently got into researching my ancestory and it annoys me how people dismiss welsh history
Thanks for this! I am a fairly ignorant American and even I managed to figure out when I worked with people in the U. K. that they seemed to treat Wales like a joke / full of dirty people. It was always a puzzlement to me, especially since the Welsh landscape seems so beautiful in pictures. Looking forward to learning more!
It depends where you go and who you meet. Ignorant people can be found everywhere sadly ... I was lucky to learn about Wales without all that nonsense. I suppose I was taught that they were all really good singers, though, which I guess might be a bit of a stereotype. I think things are improving. And Jimmy is helping one video at a time!
Saying that Tom Jones boss singer
All this Arthur stuff can be found in Central Scotland where Welsh hung on in places as late as Bannockburn.
Arthur's Seat, Ben Arthur, Camelon, Badenheath, Arthur's Oon
Etc.
Excellent wee book, "Welsh Origins of Scottish Place Names" by William Oxenham.
Carreg Gwalch. £6.50.
I love a good history rant. God knows I got off on enough of them myself if the various topics of my own history wheelhouses even vaguely get mentioned. Then I have to put another coin into the "lecturing about history when nobody asked" jar. :D
Speaking of coin, congrats on getting monetized!
I lived in an area called gelligaer in a 5 mile area we have roman and pre roman settlements, neolithic standing stones and wonderful stories of ancient brithonic ruling families. Wonderful stories One of my favorite books is fairy tales of the Rhymney valley. We had a wonderful history teacher at school and the area almost creaks under the weight of it
There's a really good book trilogy called ''The Warlord Chronicles'' Basically 5th century Wales with King Arthur . ''The Winter king'', ''Enemy of God'', ''Excalibur''. I pretty much heard nothing about welsh before that series and it just blew my mind . I found it beautiful ! It has lots of welsh culture in it.
Thanks for this. As a Madog research fellow working on the Welsh contributions to medicine and deep diving into the Meddygon Myddfai I came across the kings gifting clothing/fabric to doctors so it's nice to have a tertiary resource for that as well. Diolch. (also the Meddygon Myddfai are a fascinating side venture into Medieval Wales between the reality and the folklore behind their story)
Well, if it makes you feel better, I'm American and I was just learning about Owain Glyndwr. I'm also a little bit obsessed with the Merlin character. So it is out there. One must go a bit deeper to finally get to Welsh history but it is a rich and fascinating history.
If we go right back, the welsh helped the english defeat the vikings, not only that, the welsh was the only region to constantly repel viking attacks. People can talk down to the welsh all they want, but history proves what kind of hardy people the welsh are. We are a small region, but undoubtedly the hardiest all throughout history.
South Walian here studying to be a historian. This video summarises why I got in to studying history. Just wanted to thank you for putting videos up and telling people of our culture! Where I grew up we never heard any history past the valleys and the mines, so people such as yourself are a blessing. Diolch yn fawr, fy ddyn!
Thank you for sharing your knowledge of Medieval Wales, an area which is grossly overlooked in history teaching in the UK. Didderol iawn!
Thanks for the vid--there is a corpus of Welsh verse out there proving how sophisticated the culture was! The Rhydderch Hael cycle, the Eagle of Pengwern, Taliesin, the triads--so much lost but so much still preserved. Yeah, the US does not have a prejudice against Wales (that I have ever seen), just ignorance (sigh). Thank you for the book titles!
Excellent! The historian in me loves your take on a country my ancestors came from and the deserved pride you show. Love your language too, even if I don’t understand it.
Never too late to learn, m’lady!
The Welsh Viking Might be. Hard enough to remember NA English 😂
Don’t forget the great masterpieces like the Four Branches of the Mabinogi. Epic, mysterious and gives you a real way of looking at medieval Wales. Those books looked really great. I guess I have added two more books to my unlimited list of wanted books.
Diolch a da iawn!!!!!!!!
Cymru am byth!!!!!!
Totally ok with you having ads at the start! These videos add some fun and knowledge to my life, you definitely should get paid a bit for them if you can! Plenty of people getting paid a lot more for less accurate stuff (cough Vikings cough).
This is actually helpful at just the right time! Been part of reenactment for 2 rears now, and as I'm Welsh I'm building a Welsh archer persona! Fab!
I play, or at least DID play(finances suck, particularly when you don’t have any lol) the harp, so as a part of that is an interest in the instrument, it’s history and the history of the cultures that prized it. In this case it’s the the Irish with your Turlough O’Carolans, and earlier still, the Welsh. Taliesin is a byeword for bard, a maker of tales and songs, a poet. Hywel the Good’s laws were a model for lawmakers in centuries long after his kingdom was gone. The Welsh were a vital culture just like all the other cultures in the British isles and I can understand your frustration, since I’ve always thought of the “Celtic” cultures as rather splendid, educated and advanced(for their era) and it surprises me that it’s not general knowledge....yes some people were poor, some were most definitely NOT, and EVERYone liked a bit ‘o bling to the degree that they could afford it.
This 👆This right here. This succinct summation of EVERYTHING about medieval Wales and her culture.
Awesome video! It's so important to debunk potentially harmful myths and stereotypes in history. Especially when the archaeology DOES NOT support them!
Jimmy is finds-driven and will not accept no bogus history! NO SIR.
I love your channel and how you are sticking up not just for Wales, but for truth and respect as well. I hope you are still doing this a few years from now.
Da iawn byti, spot on, thanks for the refreshing video. Its definitely something that genuinely annoys me when people say the medieval / pre medieval welsh were backwards, poor tribal savages.
Simply not true I've been researching the "age of the saints" for a few years and how many of the ancient kings later became saints for example St. Brychan, St. Gwynllyw, St. Tewdrig.
Also the 6th century church and hamlet of Llanwonno which is not far from where I live.
Wales has a rich history which I throughly enjoy researching, our ancestors certainly weren't poor.
Thanks again 👍
I am an American being of Welsh and German descent on my mother's side and English/Scot/Irish on my father's side. My mother was very proud of her heritage - especially being Welsh - and when it came to the Welsh side, her advice to me when I was a little girl was, "Never call a Welshman an Englishman." It took me years to understand what she meant because Wales was as foreign to me as the South Pole, but through research and family interviews, I've learned to love the country of a portion of my ancestors. I especially love one saying I came across recently: "We Welsh are well balanced - we have a chip on both shoulders," which describes me perfectly as I am always fighting for the forgotten, the downtrodden, and the little guy. I often "get my Welsh up" when I see injustice in any form. I am so looking forward to one day visit or, hopefully, live in this beautiful country and it's wonderful people and culture. Dymuniadau gorau!
Friends who can source their information with academic research are the best kind of friends!
Is there a reason why it took longer for Wales to become unified than a place like England or Scotland?
I took a class on the History of Britain and Ireland last semester and we largely focused on England and Ireland. It sucks that British history is overshadowed by just the English. Personally as someone who loves Scottish history I took every opportunity to do my projects on Scotland.
A lot of political infighting, really. But Wales was unified in the 11th and 13th centuries. Sadly, being such a small area, it was relatively easy to march across
@@TheWelshViking Isn't it at least partly because the Welsh had an inheritance system that tended to fragment rather than consolidate power and land? The Normans were heavily into primogeniture and favoured legitimate heirs, while the Welsh shared the inheritance between all sons, legimate or not.
Rachel Boersma-Plug that was actually common to most of the “Celtic” cultures in the British isles. It was part of their tribally based society(kingship is just an extension of tribal leadership in essence)
greater linguistic, genetic, and cultural diversity where you get mountains. Hard to invade without a ton of troops. You see it in other places too to a much greater extent: Afghanistan, the Caucuses, the alps. Scotland is a little different due to the lowland expanse - Wales's lowland expanse was England which took longer to consolidate than than Strath Clyd and Dal Raita.
@@rachelboersma-plug9482 I think you’ve hit the nail on the head there, but when did the Anglo-Normans stop this practice? I know William the Conqueror split his lands between his sons but eventually this stopped, I wonder when and why?
Happy to hear the crannog reference, I'm visiting one on Wednesday : )
"I don't see it so it never existed" as an attitude annoys me. Especailly when they just haven't looked.
Oh! Congrats on being monetised, time to bringe you work, again!
Wahey! Diolch yn fawr!
Ooh, which crannog? I love the things. Such a mad idea
@@TheWelshViking The Scottish crannog Center, on Loch Tay in Perthshire. They're actually about to move to a new location as they're running out of space for repairs after ~20 years. Do check them out, They have some fab resources : D
I loved the shocked disdain in the delivery of, "... It's not ITV..."
I was briefly in the SCA around the year 2000, and I choose a Welsh persona. No one in my group even had resources regarding the Welsh one way or another. I feel like this video was more informative than anything I was able to research then
I'm SCA with a Welsh persona, I also had a really hard time finding good resources so I'm soaking this adorable man up!
Best Welsh book I ever read was 'Buched Dewi'. Easier than modern Welsh, I found - being a 2nd language Welsh speaker.
A while back I watched "The adventure of english" a documentary about the evolution of the English language by the BBC. On the very first episode it just refers to the word "Welsh" coming from "weelas" that is the celtic word for "slave" and is otherwise rather dismissive (the same goes for the Irish language). Being an English documentary about themselves I expected it to be biased but not to that degree. Thank you for this video!
This was really educational. Thank you. I actually never thought about Welsh history much, so this has opened a whole new world for me. Instant subscription
Wales is an amazing country! I have lived in Cardiff and in Holyhead and I love it there! Bangor is a lovely town and I played with their local theatre group as well, so I spent a lot of time in that place. And just from that I have always known about the very rich cultural heritage of Wales. Holyhead is very proud of its history so it's hard to ignore when you love there! Thank you so much for all this wonderful information - more people need to know how wonderful and rich a place it is!
Love hearing a bit of the history of Wales. And very much enjoying the bits of Welsh language sprinkled in.
Dwi mor falch! Diolch yn fawr! :)
*adds Welsh to the loooong list of impressions that I'd like to do*
Also, all my knowledge of medieval Wales come from reading the Cadfael books which make Welsh culture seem so much more civilised that the English (Saxon or Norman hehehe).
Can I vote for a subtitled history video in Welsh?
Sure thing! I’ll work towards that :)
Oh, Cadfael is absolutely wonderful!
i have come across some closed minded people in america when it comes to the welsh...i personally have always defended the welsh, but maybe i'm biased as my great-great grandmother hails from wales (poetry!). i also absolutely LOVE that you speak some welsh in your videos!
My ancestors come from Wales, the Sole family line. So it's nice to see someone stick up for us being forgotten about.
Arguably the most well-known literary figure from the Early Medieval period, anywhere WORLDWIDE is King Arthur. He may or may not have been inspired by a real historical figure, but all the earliest literary incarnations of him are Welsh. The influence of Arthurian legends on later European literature is hard to overstate. The cultural impact Early Medieval Wales has had on the world is phenomenal.
Once again, a concise and most illuminating video. Thanks Jimmy, you're are so good at this!
I love that you mention the trade routes, they are really important for context! I have been looking at trade route influences as well, in the Irish context, and once you see it you simply cannot ignore the significant impact on the culture.
Congrats on monetization too!
I laughed and almost spat out my cider at the idea that it rains in Wales. I think I've always assumed that the Welsh courts were as sophisticated as those anywhere else in Europe. Why wouldn't they be? Anyway, I'm looking forward to learning more.
Right? Silly nonsense that becomes accepted history
I sing in an Episcopal church choir, we have nothing but love and respect for Wales and the Welsh!
Everyone hates and bashes Lolo Morganwg. But he's what makes American's like myself (with some Welsh ancestors in the family tree) fall in love with Wales! That and the Mabinogion stories that were condensed into the Time Life Books "Enchanted Worlds" when we were kids, that had all these color paintings of King Math, Blodeuwedd and Gwydion. God I loved growing up with those books! They were better than anything Hollywood had for us to consume. Well except Game of Thrones....but I totally understand that "King Bran the Broken" is really just King Math without the virgin. lol And I know that's a little off subject....but I bring it up because they definitely DID NOT makes Wales look poor! They kinda make ancient Wales look mystical and almost Atlantis-like. Which as a kid just really did it for me.
Such fabulous works and the paintings...!
One thing, though, i I may, is it’s Iolo, not Lolo :)
I know people that didn't even realize Wales is an actual country. They thought it was an English county.
*loads rpg with holy intent*
Who?
I heard people say that sometimes and I got really annoyed 😂😂😂
*Calls upon Ddraig Goch with rebellious intent*
I know a london guy who night think Wales was a real county and more just an area of England. He even had a towel with the Welsh flag on it. Took him to Saint Fagans to sort that out lol
As funny as it seems, the major take away I got was, “do people really think that it rains all the time in wales?” All the pictures I’ve ever seen were gorgeous hiking trails and sunsets. It might be because I dated a Welshman ages ago. There was a legitimate language barrier. 😂😂😂
Speaking of Bangor i live an hour north of Bangor, PA which is in a place called the slate belt and is known for the large number of welsh immigrants in the 1800s/1900s
Love Wales. Looking forward to going there again.
I just want to let you know that you’re not the only one! I’ve had my fair share of urinating against the winds of ignorance that blows In the face of Welsh history. Your piece here was a breath of fresh air. Great stuff! I live in Caernarfon, probably the last stronghold of the Brythonic language the Saxons called Welsh. Needless to say that like the rest of Wales most of the Cymry here in Caernarfon know hardly nothing about their country’s own rich history. The winners write the history books - but you are putting that right Welsh Viking. Diolch! :-)
I MUST find a way to casually insert urinates me off into a conversation.
Diolch yn fawr iawn. Really good 😁
I am happy that you are monetized! I like the idea that someone that teaches me things can make money doing so!
Great video thankyou, good to see some true welsh history🏴 well done
Subscribed ,greetings from Greece
Welsh Ambassador to the world 👏🏼 tell us more about your mysterious country. It is true that a lot is said and talked of the other countries in the UK but less of Wales.
It was time for this culture to emerge as well. For those of us who are not English, it is difficult to grasp the history of Wales. Thank you so much for taking the time to teach us about this time in Wales
That was refreshing. I am only about 1/64th Welsh, but live in what was once the Brythonic-speaking Erging, which gets a few mentions in the Mabiogi. I would love to know more about this period.
My local shop is within sight of where King Arthur was said to have slain his remaining son, the hill I live on was called Caer Rein after Rhiann Dremrudd, the famous descendant of Brychan Brechyniog, I work between a church dedicated to St Dyffrig and the hill where Vortigern met his end.
Many thanks from a Welshman in Australia really good discussion
Those books might be too expensive to own but you can look at them in various university libraries. According to Worldcat, 104 libraries in North America and the UK own copies of the book. Even in Texas, where I live, I could drive down to Austin and read the copy at the University of Texas Library. Parking would be a big nightmare but I could still look at it without buying the book. Although, when I think of the shopping temptations in Austin, it might be cheaper to buy the book.
Glad to see a fellow Texan in the comments!
And if you go to your local library, they could probably get it for you through inter library loan. Here in Texas we have Texshare which means you'll definitely be able to find a library near you to get it shipped to and you can get a Texshare card to check things out at academic libraries!
@@nikkicafeina my library has suspended ILL due to Covid19
@@cindyrosser2471 Not all libraries have suspended interlibrary loan and it's a good thing to keep in mind when your library begins to add services back in to what they are offering.
Congratulations friend! I didn't realize you had reached monetization! How exciting. Keep up the great stuff. I appreciate you sharing your knowledge with us.
Thanks! And congrats on your Community tab!
Your passion is infectious! It always stirs my heart and sends me down research rabbit holes when I see someone whose curiosity matches my own.
I’m happy with anything that helps you keep making your videos!
LOVE!! Thank you for the references - so excited! My stepfather’s family is from Wales and I feel so connected that I took a little Welsh in the one university in the US teaching Welsh at the time. We recently found a family gravestone (not medieval!) that was inscribed with a lovely long poem in the grand Welsh literary tradition. I think perhaps Tolkien modeled the hobbits after the modern “view” of the Welsh - cosy, comfort-loving and unpretentious but the stalwart heroes in the end! And they loved poems as well. I had hoped to attend Eisteddfod this year but alas, plague struck. Yay for Wales and the Welsh!
Oh, I hope you get to come and enjoy it soon! It’s a splendid celebration of modern Welsh culture. You certainly count as Welsh in my book, and I heartily encourage you to keep plugging gently away at dysgu’r hên iaith.
May I ask what the poem was? I’m a gravestone nerd, as you’ll know ;)
@@TheWelshViking I do plan on that! I read a hilarious book recently called "Some Sex and a Hill: or How to Learn Welsh in 3 Easy Pints." I thought I'd died and gone to heaven - a funny book about language learning! I'm such a geek! Very happy to hear the Eisteddfod is what it purports to be...so many "festivals" in the US are just a way to sell more gadgets. I am eager to go!
@@terriwilliams4938 That sounds like a fabulous book, and I think I’m going to hunt it down. Thank you!
The welsh are the poet bards from which all greatest poetry came from - producing Dylan the best
I saw that cranog on Time Team! Wales is fascinating. I never really knew anything until Time Tram and reading Ken Follett’s century trilogy. I’m also a devotee of Cerridwen and so have done research on my own. Excellent video! Thanks is for sharing your expertise!
I'd love to hear your thoughts on Alan Wilson's Arthurian theories.
Thank you so much for doing these sorts of videos. I'm Canadian and I've been looking into my family history a lot lately. I grew up calling my dad's parents Nain and Taid, and I knew part of my family was Welsh, but my Taid was adopted, and his records are sealed So, last year, I did a DNA test to find out my ancestry. I thought I would be roughy 25% Welsh with only my Nain being traced back to that (her family came to Canada after setting up a Welsh settlement in Argentina, then they left when they would be forced to start speaking Spanish), but to my surprise, I'm only 40%. I also found out that Nain, who is currently 96 years old, grew up fluent in Welsh. She didn't teach it to my dad or his siblings though, and within a generation we lost the language. It's my goal for 2022 to learn some Welsh, so please keep dusting it into your videos! I intend to also spend a lot of time learning about the history of Wales to inform me more about my Welsh ancestors, recent and ancient. Btw, my Welsh family is from Northern Wales, so I'm learning the Northern pronuncations for everything. Thank you again!
I dont think i have ever thought of medieval Wales as ”poor,weak” or ”backwards”. Then again, i like history.
Also, i would be surprised if my friends here in Sweden where unaware of Taliesin etc ( my friends are as nerdy as me ).
WoW Now that I know where the word BARD comes from... I shall boldly proclaim it to anyone who will listen!!! Thanks for your rant. I have been going though all your videos and it is wonderful to see where your passions lie (lye?). I am always stoked to listen when folks are truly "into things". HELLS TO THE YES JIMMY! PREACH!
All this quite aside from the fact that the Normans would not have guarded that border if they didn't feel seriously threatened by an organized society. How many of the first Norman earls were set on the marches? Weren't the Tudors from there? hmmm.
Henry Tudor became Henry VII on the English throne! Though considering Henry VIII, his son Edward, and daughter Elizabeth, I don't think Wales is very proud of that.
@@persiswynter6357 Were they not kings of Wales as well? so conquered MORE territory for Wales?
Not to mention how many castles Edward I had to build! And yeah, the Tudors were descended from Welsh kings- Rhys ap Gruffudd, King of Gwynedd, IIRC.
Hello! I'm the first comment. :) I loved visiting Wales while I lived in the UK. It captured my imagination.
This is fascinating. I would love to hear you recite some early poetry
Then I will do so!
Brilliant idea! Hope he does, that would be lovely.
I've been able to trace my family history, on my paternal Grandfather's side, back several hundred years in Wales, and apparently viking ancestry was in the mix somewhere back further in time. My family DNA tests have also revealed Norwegian roots. The specific ancestors my family has been able to identify were peasant farmers, of course illiterate, but that doesn't mean that they were 'unintelligent' people - I believe that they must have been exceptionally hard working, and brilliant at what they did in the social context they were in. I've enjoyed listening to Jimmy's talk on medieval Wales. It's a fascinating topic.
I love folklore and mythology and I remember visiting Wales as a child and buying booklets of it. I'm more of a lit history person so I'd be up for some of that if you'd be into it
I’d definitely be up for that! I’ll add some lit hist to the research list :)
I have to say, if you're a mystery novel fan and have ever read Ellis Peters' medieval Cadfael series, it certainly has an impact on one's opinion of pre-modern Welsh civilisation! 😉 There, the laws of Wales are held up as being significantly more enlightened than those of feudal England... not to mention that at the time they weren't embroiled in a really sordid civil war, unlike the poor English countryside!
Have to admit though, the extent of Welsh archeological finds was definitely a bit of a surprise to me, they definitely seem to be less focused on in the wider historical community. Would love to see more of that highlighted on the channel, as occasion permits...?
I enjoyed that. It's always good to learn about places and peoples that one knows very little about. Thank you so much for sharing your knowledge about early Wales. I learned something new today, so that makes it an excellent day. Take care. (The ads are fine. I usually just knit through them 😁)
I’ll admit that I knew Wales was a different entity for most of my life, but I definitely saw it as a subset culturally until about 2019. I definitely appreciate the new info here! Love that we still use the word bard, it really feels like a good solid word. Thank you for this, and roll those ads!!
Oh! Would you be willing to put in subtitles of the Welsh at the end? I’d love to see how it’s all spelled!
I’ll try to make that happen, Teela. I’m still learning how all the tech stuff works. Otherwise maybe I’ll do a highlight reel! 😆
Thank you very much, very nice informative video. My Maiden name is Bell and I was born and raised in and still reside in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. South eastern Pennsylvania has many many towns and townships with Welsh names as well as English, Scottish, and Irish. My only Daughter's maiden name is Jennifer Wise and her Paternal Great Grandfather's name was Percy Wise and he was a coal miner. Her Daughters names are Fiona and Gwendolyn, their last name is Coulby. My Daughter did study for a term at the Unversity Of Cork where she did have a course in Irish.
Years ago I took my Mother to Ireland, she was a McLaughlin married to a Bell and the morning that we arrived in Dublin, we were staying at the Burlington Hotel, which at that time had a service bar in the lobby lounge and after breakfast in the hotel dining room we decided to have a drink after the long flight on a very stormy crossing, we settled into comfy chairs there and shortly after that three very handsome young men came down to the lobby bar and ordered drinks, they were very nice young men who introduced themselves as Welshmen who had been in Dublin for a Bachelor Party and we struck up a conversation and they and myself were hungover so it turned into a fun time sharing stories. These young Welchmen had a crazy wonderful sarcastic sense of humor which I share in common with them. I know that this is rather rambling, but we were all having a pleasant time. Then I related a story to them "true story" about my Paternal Great Grandfather John Bell, who was born in Clones, County Monaghan, Ireland, his family had returned to Paisley Scotland when he was a teenager, where he learned his trade as a tailor before emigrating from Paisley to Philadelphia in 1859. When John Bell arrived in Philadelphia he got a position as a tailor in Philadelphia. He met his Wife in Philadelphia, who was also a tailor, they did move to Lancaster and his Wife stayed home there to raise their children, but he took the train everyday from Lancaster to Philadelphia for work. This is where this story peaked our Welch companions attention, as I related to them the story of my Great Greatgrandfather's demise. His birthday was February 2, which over here is a minor "festival" day "Groundhog Day" which is a silly drinking day, so because it was his Birthday and he had time to celebrate with just a bit too much whisky. When he boarded the train back to Lancaster, he "fell" asleep and missed his stop, shortly thereafter he awakened and realized he needed to get off at the next stop coming up and would have to catch the next train back to Lancaster. That DID NOT end well, he was struck by the oncoming train that he needed to board. This is where our Welch companions laughed like crazy as did I, when I told them that he didn't die for three days, obviously he was pretty drunk when the train hit him. My Mother, myself and our three charming Welch companions had a great belly laugh on a Sunday morning in Dublin along with me telling a true amusingly but ironically sad story. My Great Great Grandfather's Widow to raise four small children by herself, she never remarried.
One final comment, my Husband and I have had our DNA test done by 23 and Me about five years ago and since then many more people have done so and recently I discovered that I do have some distant Cousins in Wales, along with my Irish, Scottish and English Cousins.😎😂🥃
I'm a Davis, which is likely to be Welsh, and have always identified with Wales. Thanks for the info -- I didn't know much about that era!
Diolch, adderchog! I'm a mediaeval Welsh piper, so far my band is more mediaeval inspired but I'm slowly trying to put together a more accurate later mediaeval piper outfit. Diolch am y manylion, nai edrych mlaen i dy fideo gwisg Cymro canoloes gynnar. I'm looking forward to your early mediaeval Welshman video. You might have it up already, I've not looked yet! By the way I was at Castell Biwmares last weekend playing my pipes!