How Green was my Valley - Cwm Rhondda - Bread of Heaven - Welsh/Cymraeg . (eng-cym-subs)
ฝัง
- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 8 ก.พ. 2025
- Welsh hymn 'Bread of Heaven' sung by coal miners heading home; from John Ford's film 'How Green Was My Valley'.
'Cwm Rhondda' is the tune, or,in English, 'Rhondda Valley'.
(English & Welsh Subtitles: Is-deitlau Cymraeg a Saesneg)
The welsh hymn in its various forms is AKA:
'Guide me, O Thou great Jehovah'
'Guide me, O Thou great Redeemer'
'Arglwydd, arwain trwy'r anialwch'
& 'Pen Calfaria'
The main refrain heard in this clip is (Cymraeg/English):
Pen Calfaria, Pen Calfaria------------Hill of Calvary, Hill of Calvary,
Nac aed hwnw byth o'm cof---------This shall never leave my memory
I feel the choice and placement of this song was made with thoughtful intent; indeed I believe this is true of almost every detail in a John Ford film.
The Hymn in Welsh & English Translation:
Gweddi am Nerth i fyned trwy anialwch y Byd
Prayer for strength for the journey through the world's wilderness
Last Verse:
Mi ymddirieda' yn dy allu,
Mawr yw'r gwaith a wnest erioed:
Ti gest angau, ti gest uffern,
Ti gest Satan dan dy droed:
Pen Calfaria, Pen Calfaria,
Nac aed hwnw byth o'm cof.
I shall trust in Thy power,
Great is the work that Thou hast always done,
Thou conquered death, Thou conquered hell,
Thou hast crushed Satan beneath Thy feet,
Hill of Calvary, Hill of Calvary,
This shall never escape from my memory
The tune 'Cwm Rhondda' is also commonly used with "Wele'n sefyll rhwng y myrtwydd" & also sometimes "God of Grace and God of Glory" & "Full salvation! Full salvation! Lo, the fountain opened wide".
English Subtitles & Welsh Subtitles,
Is-deitlau Cymraeg a Is-deitlau Saesneg.
~~~terms~~~~~
Rhondda Valley, Welsh male voice choir, miners' song, miners singing, miners song, Lyrics wales film John Ford, movie, Coal miners, Cwm Rhondda, Choral, How green was my valley near the start begining, The Welsh Singers, soundtrack, CYM-eng-WEL-CY-en subs.
![How Green Was My Valley [Stanley Baker & Siân Phillips] {full series}](/img/n.gif)
My uncle who had been a Welsh miner always laughed at the depiction of miners singing on their way home after a shift down the pit. He said that was the last thing you wanted to do as you were so tired.
This always makes me cry as they toss their meager wages into the mother's apron. It speaks to me of faith, and of love, and of family unity. A perfect scene from a perfect film. Thank you!
+Resolute Belle The way they were proud of and happy with those wages -- not making them meager in my mind, because it was enough and plenty to them -- is so moving. That's what it's like to be right with your world, and of all the losses that came with modern life, that's is the one I sense the most.
Facebook's own site
Socialism m8
I miss the unity that used to be the backbone of local communities. Nowadays everyone is suspicious of everyone else. Afraid to look people in the eye for the most part. I miss most of all the God content of our lives (Jesus) that was once the very core of our being.
Beautifully stated.
This movies is timeless it touches the heart and soul of every human being regardless of how old it is the message is not dated
One of my favorite books and movies. The book can't give you the wonderful music. It's a beautiful story either way.
If you've never seen "How Green Was My Valley" you have a treat in store...
The show was rubbish, nothing like true Wales.
@@CelticMorning Agreed. But the singing is wonderful. The mother puts me in mind of my Dad's Mam.
@@CelticMorning they couldn't film in Wales. It was WWII and the studio wouldn't insure their actors across the pond during wartime.
@@iriscollins7583 - My dad's mom too. She was always feeding everybody! We all loved her so much. When she passed, the center of our family was gone & it never was the same again, though we all tried to make it be.
@@CelticMorning Explain.
Always stirs my Welsh heritage.
Same here my great grandfather was one of those people
Same here.
I was absolutely, utterly and completely delighted to discover recently that I have some Welsh ancestry on my father's side. From Llandaff, I believe.
I come from a family of lead miners in Southern Missouri, so this one always touched me.
My grandmother grew up in this era in a mining village in the south of Wales. Shows the hardships they went through.
John Ford was faced with a problem when making this film. Where could he find "miners" in California who could sing the traditional Welsh hymns? Britain was at war, WWII, so he couldn't
recruit singing extras from Wales. And then someone remembered the Welsh church in Los Angeles! Most of the men singing are from the Los Angeles Welsh church choir.
Did not know any Welsh miners but knew many Durham miners and what a fine breed of men they were...The salt of the Earth like miners everywhere...God bless them.
Welsh Miners are just the same as the Durham Miners all of then the Salt of the earth and more
You`re right there
They are some of the greatest people I've ever met.
Both my Great Grandfather's were welsh coal miners, of course this was after the First World War
Are you saying the Welsh colliers where no good?
'Thou hast crushed Satan beneath thy feet'.... Great words and so very true!
The Welsh side of my family weren't miners but were short with beautiful voices. Unfortunately, all I inherited was the short part! Love this movie.
Cymru am byth 🏴🏴proud to be welsh
An absolute masterpiece in visual storytelling. Orson Welles said he learned filmmaking by studying the masters: John Ford, John Ford, John Ford.
Brings back memories of my father and I watching black and white tv at Christmas time how green was my valley was shown
one of my favorite john ford films....diabando's back hand slap on that bastard teacher was a rhing of beauty...excellent film...and the singing of these men throughout was fantastic....esecially the opening song...
One of my favourite movies. It makes me sob every time
Best film ever loved it thank you
You simply have to love a people who sings like that!! These high, clear angelic voices pierce my heart...
One of my all time favourite films
Just happened to be browsing the net and came upon excerpts from MY FAVOURITE MOVIE of all time "How Green was my valley"....remembering my father many years ago got me into older movies (well of his era) and I am so happy he did. Along with Gunga Din and Four Feathers as well. At 78 years old now I will always watch these movies above all all others. God Bless and rest the souls of All the great actors of the day who played in them. And on we go through our journey............
This film is a masterpiece. Citizen Cane may still be considered by the Hollywood crowd to be the best film ever made but it was How Green Was My Valley that won the Academy Award for Best Picture that same year (1941).
+trapezemusic Didn't know that, and I'm glad to hear it.
Both of them are excellent movies. I just wonder if How green was my valley will never be so much appreciated just because the values it promotes (family, duty, honour, resilience, ...) don´t match with the mainstream values of the rotten Hollywood of the XXI century.
@ Hello Raul. You raise an excellent question and one that I have thought about. Valley was on the list of Top 100 Films not long ago ( I think it was in the Top 50). However, as the film industry electorate becomes more and more liberal (if you can Imagine that) I would be saddened but not surprised if it no longer appears on the list. FYI - When its legendary director John Ford received his Lifetime Achievement Award he selected Valley as the film to be shown on that occasion. Clearly, it was the favorite of his many films. I saw it again on television about two months ago and enjoyed it as much as in the past.
@@trapezemusic I completely share your vision, sir. I am always happy to watch it in the telly in the original version (English). But I will never forget the first time I watched it (dubbed to Spanish). I was still a teenager at that time, but I perfectly understood that Ford was showing us a world which definitively doesn´t exist anymore in Europe (and obviously I am not talking about the mining industry as it used to exist).
I come from a family of Welsh coal miners, some of whom immigrated to the U.S. My grandparents actually spoke Welsh in the home and loved singing. This film reminds me where I came from. If all goes really well, my wife and I will be traveling to visit relatives in Wales next year.
Each time I hear this I think of my dad in the mines as a boy. It is one song that gets me misty.
I hope this beautiful hymn will sound at my funeral
Make sure you tell somebody or write it in your bible so after you're gone someone will know. My dad wanted to be buried next to his little sister that passed away at 3 years old, but only my Aunt knew about it & during the mourning & confusion of prepearations she forgot.
My mother always spoke about this film I finally get to see it 75 years later I throughly enjoyed it Thk you posting it
Cymru am byth....I come from an Anglo immigrant working class family that so much mirrors what takes place in this movie. All 5 of us kids were successful mostly due to our hard working parents and grandparents. I miss them all.
A magnificent film with glorious music throughout. Thanks for posting.
Brilliant movie proud of my family's mining back ground over hundreds of years
Great film, great welsh singing.
Beautiful, and as it should be heard. Thank you for also providing the translation detail. I really appreciate it.
Incredible Film , and an important piece of History. And the Filming and Singing are the Very Best
Wonderful movie..!
GREAT FILM
John Ford was a master
I walked down the aisle at my wedding to Cwm Rhondda. I also have it tattooed on my back.
WALES IS THE BEST PLACE SEE GUYS!
Beautiful ❤️❤️❤️
Una película sin grandes pretensiones, sin efectos especiales, sin gran dinámica, pero tremendamente humana, real, profunda en su estilo. Casi se puede oler el carbón pegado a las ropas y al cuerpo de los cansados mineros y la escena de la catástrofe... mejor no sigo.
The movie that made me believe Welsh miners come home from work singing in harmony. Lol
Wf Coaker
They did boyo!
My both pertal grate grandfather's where coal miners like them. Even after being traumatised from the grate war.
Nice.
It's like this in Wales now
welshhibby siturienesfetodosevspoder
Hardly everything going on is in the south of Wales theres fuck all north since the loss of industry
Nope. No coal mining at all. No docks at Port Talbot. Very little heavy industry left.
Filmed in the Aber valley north of Caerphilly 4 terraces sengedd
Consolatrix afflictorum, ora pro nobis.
magic👀
If you are a film student and are watching this: this is the movie "Citizen Kane" lost at the Oscars to
Increíble como todos caen en esta película. XD
The men when they came home on payday always turned their pay (all of it) over to their Mam and when I started to work so did I.
Me too, I never thought of doing anything else.
i used to work with 2 guys in their thirties who still lived at home. not only did they tip up, and get spending money, they worked every hour they could, she must have been drawing £500 a week in the mid 80's. i bet she was gutted when the pit shut.
Rather bewildered by this translation. Not just that it seems completely different from the one I grew up with, but the words don’t scan with the music. How has, ‘Bread of heaven’ become the clumsy ‘Hill of Calgary’ (and that is one of the less bad scans)?
Good question, though the answer is a little complicated:
Over the years the tune Cwm Rhondda has been put to a number of different versions, in both Welsh and English, of the hymn commonly known in English as either "Guide me, O Thou great Redeemer" or "Bread of Heaven".
The Welsh "Arglwydd arwain trwy'r anialwch" is a translation of the English "Bread of Heaven" which is in turn a translation of the original Welsh hymn "Gweddi am Nerth i fyned trwy anialwch y Byd" [aka Pen Calfaria].
It's this Welsh original hymn "Pen Calfaria" (that was later very freely translated into English as "Bread of Heaven" and then translated back into Welsh as "Arglwydd arwain trwy'r anialwch") that the miners are singing in this scene.
So it's more a question of how Pen Calfaria (hill of Calvary) became Bread of Heaven, rather than the other way round.
The English subtitles I added are a very literal translation of the Welsh; as I thought it was interesting to know what was actually being sung. This is why they don't scan.
Does that make any sort of sense?
The small understanding I have of this was gleaned from the "Cwm Rhondda" wikipedia page
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cwm_Rhondda
If you have a look at this page it shows the different versions, and you can see how one transformed into the other.
They went to the pit in the dark, worked 12 hours and went home in the dark, daylight for them, and the pit ponies was for Sunday's only
poso
contar
de
traz
para
frente
I think this song is actually
"Arglwydd arwain trwy'r anialwch"
As no version of cwm Rhondda I could find had those lyrics
Yes and no and sort of. Cwm Rhondda is the tune, also sometimes known as Bread of Heaven due to the English language hymn that is often set to it.
The Welsh Arglwydd arwain trwy'r anialwch is a translation of the English Bread of Heaven which is in turn a translation of the original Welsh hymn Gweddi am Nerth i fyned trwy anialwch y Byd [aka Pen Calfaria].
It's this Welsh original hymn, that was translated into English and then translated back into Welsh as Arglwydd arwain trwy'r anialwch, that we have here.
Anyway that's what I took from the Cwm Rhondda wikipedia page
(I just like John Ford movies and don't speak Welsh).
And as I say Cwm Rhondda is the name of the tune whatever words are set to it.
Does that make any sort of sense?
Cymru am byth 🏴🏴🏴 shmae
Pen Calfaria!..
PEN CALFARIA!
Nac aed hwnw byth o'm cof.. byth o'm cof;
Nac aed hwnw byth o'm cof. 🔥✊
recomendo
o
filme
e
o
luvro
i've been in a few, and seen a lot, but i've never seen a coal mine on top of a hill before.
Arksey, in South Yorkshire had it coal mine overlooking the village
It's not really ON TOP of a hill as you can see the land going up behind the mine. The camera angle makes us imagine we see the hilltop.
@@sally2003h ok then three quarters of the way up a hill, you don't dig downwards from a hill, you find a valley, unless you're digging a well.
dave c No.... you’d be surprised how many Collieries are on the sides of mountain in the Rhondda... just have a look at Cambrian in Clydach Vale... a good 500ft higher than the lowest point in the valley
@@richarddutchholland4780i've never seen one, and i've seen plenty of coal mines. why would anyone sinking a shaft some 900m at great expense, look to add another 100m to the project and initial cost? i've just looked at the pictures of the colliery you stated, and it looks as though it has enormous hills on both sides.
Ahh how much this county has changed 😭
Who is the tenor who sings in the doorway at the end?
Andrew Beadle believe his name is Evan S. Evans.
Oh thank you! I have wondered that for many years. I listen to this often, and that tenor always slays me.
lovely film but the hills of California cannot compare to the black and dirty hills of Old Wales.
Rose White \/\
Colin OBrien
Irish singer/Colin OBRIEN
Living not too far from Malibu Creek State Park, which used to be the 20th Century Fox movie ranch, home also to Planet of the Apes, and MASH, and looking at that mountain range, I can assure you that, tho they were not dirty, they were sure as hell brown. We get rain, if we get rain, from December thru March or April. The rest of the year, those mountains are shades of brown. It's a darn shame that none of the construction for that movie remains. About all that's left, other than a few signs of the MASH set, is Mr. Blanding's Dream house, which is at the corner (more or less) of Mulholland and Malibu Canyon Rd. It's inhabited by the rangers of the State Parks, and is partly visible from the camping parking lot.
The hills beside the coal mining valeys are greener now, with the mines closed down- but Wales is full of beautiful hills and mountains anyway, one of the loveliest little countries on Earth..
I dont hate at all that this object is the only way i can in faith render in english text and only in that an admission of my own oath to any platonic affiliation of self to Christian; however i lament its the sort of thing easily forgotten as simply as a folk melody might be lost to all those to remain singing.
You sure you have the right words wrote, seems different? Great to hear though thank you
They are singing in Welsh. The subtitles are the English translation of the Welsh hymn “Cwm Rhondda”, known in English as “Guide Me, O Thou Great Jehovah” or also “Bread of Life.”
Welsh miners of the period in which this film is set would not have sung the tune 'Cwm Rhondda' as it was not composed until 1909. Typical Hollywood, can't get anything right.
g8ktx they are singing Bryn Calfaria (sp?); same tune is used for at least one other song in addition to cmw rhondda. Just like God Save the Queen & My Country 'tis of Thee are same tune, but diff lyrics.
coal mines aren't at the top of a huge hill either, if you've to sink a 100m shaft to get to the coal deposits, why would you add the size of the hill to the 100m?, you sink the shaft in the valley.
From Wikipedia : The Welsh original of this hymn was first published as Hymn 10 in Mor o Wydr (Sea of Glass) in 1762. The lyrics may have been different to the song sung in the movie
@@davec8730 No you don't. You put the shaft where the coal is. Many are horizontal (up a hill!) to access the coal seam.
@@lawrencewood289 not in the uk you don't, by that time ALL the easily mined coal had been taken in the previous 300+ years.
A saccharine Hollywood version of Wales - the reality was quite different......
I see the movie as more complex than that: The narrator is an old man who gives a very nostalgic & sentimental account of his life, but it's unclear to me how much I can trust his memory or interpretation of events. Indeed a lot of the events recounted on reflection seem quite bleak.
For me this movie works both as an elergy of a bygone era, and as a criticism of this sort dishonest sentimentality. The critical elements unsettle me because by enjoying the elergy I am complicit in the sentamentality.
@@nigelverney9608 I was fortunate enough to be an extra in BBC's 1975 adaptation of 'How green was my valley' for the small screen with Stanley Baker and Sian Phillips ; - they filmed the school fighting scene at our primary school which was suitably archaic ( I was one of the school boys cheering in the background).The TV adaptation was a lot more authentic visually - due in no small part that it was filmed on location in Wales - with Welsh actors - unlike the film which included only one - the rest being English, Irish and American ; John Ford's set designer was clearly inspired by the Cotswolds( not the Welsh valleys) for the miners cottages- the interior shots were positively palatial when compared to the grim reality of how tiny a terraced miners house actually was.
@@cymro6537 Interesting, I didn't know the BBC hade made an adaptation.
The filming at your school must of been quite exciting.
@@nigelverney9608 Yes indeed it was - thing was though ,this was 1975- with all the bad fashion and style that the decade entailed - including hair styles (!) In order to comply with authenticity we had to have our hair cut 'a la 1890's' ( My grandfather's schoolboy photograph was used as a point of reference) It was a long day of filming - but what I do remember was that the catering was excellent . Here's a link www.amazon.co.uk/How-Green-Was-Valley-DVD/dp/B000FOT70A
Yes I agree with you. But it did catch a little of the right atmosphere. And let's be honest the singing for me, made the film.
Miners singing on their way to and from work! Absolute bullshit! Poor men were lucky of they had breat in their lungs to get home due to the coal dust. I know, my dad was one of them so stop all this nonsense and face up to reality.
Black lung is slow to onset. Workmen frequently sing (helps relieve boredom). Sorry about your dad.
Pure Hollywood fantasy.
And?
You don't understand the intention of the author.
yeah right what a load of bull./
Not really...the NHS was copied from the Welsh miners who used to pay in to a fund for people who couldn't afford health care so the community could be healthy no matter their income....it's from tredegar where my family comes from
Terrible film but beautiful singing.
Patriarchy...
Check out the mom (Matriarch!)
Ridiculous film. Hollywood thinks that the Welsh and the Irish are the same thing.
Its a good movie
Errors aside, it's a beautiful film about an old man's life in which he chooses to focus on the beautiful memories over the harsh painful ones. Maybe one day you will understand this.
John Ford does not think the Irish and the Welsh are identical. Care to justify your comment.