Transcribed from the 1861 “The London QuarterlyReview,” (American Edition) pages 20 to 33, ,
taken from the “The LondonQuarterly Review”, 1861, pages 20–33.
newyork:
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1861.
p.20Art. II.—The Sleeping Bard; or Visionsof the World, Death, and Hell. By ElisWyn. Translated from the Cambrian British by GeorgeBorrow. London, 1860.
The Welsh style themselves Cymry or Cumry, a word which, intheir language, means a number of people associated together. [20] They were the second mass ofpopulation which moved from Asia into Europe. They followedand pushed forward the Gael or Gauls; were themselves impelledonward by the Slowaks or Sclavonians, who were themselves hunted,goaded, and pestered by a wild, waspish race of people, whom, forwant of a better name, we will call Tatars or Tartars. TheCymry have left their name behind them in various regions fareastward of the one where they now sojourn. The mosteasterly countries which still bear their name, or modificationsthereof, are Cambia, ‘which is two dayes journey from thehead of the great river Bruapo,’ and the Cryme orCrimea. In those parts, and ‘where Constantinople nowis,’ they tarried a considerable time, and increased andmultiplied marvellously: and it was whilst tarrying in thoseregions, which they called collectively Gwlad yr Haf, or thesummer country, that an extraordinary man was born amongst them,who was called by Greeks and Romans, hundreds of years after hisdeath, Hesus, but whom the Cymry called, and still do call, Hu orHee, with the surname of Cadarn, or the Mighty. This Hu orHesus taught his countrymen the use of the plough, and to acertain extent civilized them. Finding eventually that thesummer country was becoming over-populated, he placed himself atthe head of a vast multitude and set off towards the west. Hu and his people fought or negotiated their way through variouscountries possessed by the Gael, till they came to the shore ofthe sea which separates the great isle of the west from thecontinent. Hearing that it was only thinly peopled theydetermined to pass over to it; and put their determination intoexecution, crossing ‘the hazy sea,’ at present termedthe German Ocean, in boats made of wicker work and skins, similarto but larger than the coracles which the Cymry always carriedwith them in their long expeditions.
This great island was called Alban, Albyn, or Albion. Alban is a Gaelic or Gaulic word, signifying properly ahill-region. It is to be found under various modificationsin different parts of the world, but only where the Gaulic racehave at some time sojourned. The word Afghan is merely amodification of Alban, or Alpan; so is Armenia; so is Alp; so isof course Albania. The term was given to the island simplybecause the cliffs which fronted the continent, where the seabetween the two lands was narrowest, were very high andtowering. The island at the time of the arrival of theCymry had, as has already been intimated, a scantypopulation. This population consisted of Gael or Gauls, apeople of cognate race to the Cymry, and speaking a language muchthe same as theirs, differing from it, however, in somerespects. Hu and his people took possession of the bestparts of the island, either driving the few Gaels to other