Cynefin – “Y Fwyalchen Du Bigfelen” (The Yellow-beaked Blackbird).

   Hey people! 🙂 

   Today, I’d like to share  a really beautiful Welsh tune with you that I have first heard on Radio Cymru some two years ago and it  resonated with me right away. The tune is from Cynefin, a project by Owen Shiers from the Clettwr Valley, which focuses on preserving  the traditional songs and heritage of Ceredigion in the west of Wales, many of which had never been recorded before or have become nearly lost over time. One could have thought that nowadays, when even musicians from non-Anglophone countries whose official languages are doing very well and are not as threatened by English as Welsh is; oftentimes sing their music in English and make it sound very universal and global, it’s enough of an obscure niche when you focus on folk music of Wales in general, let alone just  a small piece of Wales. But I really like it and am happy about it that there are people like Owen Shiers who are strongly connected to and proud of not only just their country, but also their local area and its heritage. 

   If you look up “cynefin” inn a dictionary or a translator or something like that, it is most commonly translated as “habitat”. But in fact, this is one of those deep, untranslatable (at least to English) words, with a meaning that is oddly specific, yet also quite broad at the same time. Much like hiraeth  about which I’ve already written on here several times, and which, by the way, also happens to occupy the central place in this song I’m sharing with you all today. Cynefin has originated as a farming term for paths and trails  frequently used by animals, but over time it’s meaning has become broader and a bit more abstract and deeper, as it is used to mean a place that one is very familiar with and rooted in, and feels a sense of belonging to it. I believe it is also used to describe the relationship one has with such a place. 

   The tune I am sharing with you today is a so-called llatai (love messenger) song. Usually, in this type of songs, or poems, the lyrical subject directly addresses the love messenger, who is usually some animal or creature, often a bird, and sends it to their beloved with a message, because they’re far apart from each other. One example of such tune could be “Ei Di’r Deryn Du?” (Will You Go, Blackbird?) which I shared not long ago. However, this particular llatai song is quite different, because there is no human lover. Instead, the young boy who is the lyrical subject here is feeling a longing (hiraeth) for his home country – Wales – while he is away in England. His longing is emphasised by the singing of a blackbird, which reminds him all the more of the home he left behind. I really like the idea of writing/singing a love song about your home country kind of as if it was a person. 

   According to Cynefin’s Bandcamp page, this song was collected from Mrs. J Emlyn Jones near Llandysul and recorded in the Cymdeithas Alawon Gwerin Cymru (Welsh Folk Song Society) magazine. However because some words were changed by the collector, the words in Cynefin’s song were written by Llew Tegid. The translation below also comes from Cynefin’s Bandcamp. 

   Oh, yellow beaked black bird, 

Enchant the heart with your early song. 

Sweet notes of a merry heart 

Wakes the choir of little birds. 

 

Come and listen to the complaint of a boy 

Who is in heartache night and day: 

A cruel longing pursues him, 

Longing breaks his sad heart. 

 

Leaving the elegant vales of Wales, 

Leaving the enchantment of the land of song, 

O so difficult is separating 

A pure Welshman from fair Wales. 

 

Your notes evoke the hearts longing 

As you tarry in the Englishman’s land, 

In memories of Coed-fron 

Where once your voice was so dear.

Question of the day.

   Do you ever see wild animals? 

   My answer: 

   Well, given the fact that I’m blind, I don’t really get to see or be in any kind of contact with wild animals a lot. That being said though, I grew up in the countryside, having a forest on the other side of our gate, and now live in a place which perhaps is part of a town, strictly speaking, but feels a lot more like a village, so I still do see wild animals sometimes. We are often visited by all kinds of wild, stray cats from the whole area. Now that Jocky is around it happens a lot less and they’re a lot less brave around here, but when we first moved in here they would often move around our backyard very care-freely, not caring about my Dad’s attempts at scaring them away. Our place is also very well-liked by various birds, from kingfishers and blackbirds to magpies and seagulls (the latter two are Jocky’s worst enemies as they keep stealing his food when he’s asleep or on the other side of the backyard, and they’re nasty to Misha too ‘cause they like to drive him up the wall with their noise and he can’t even retaliate because he’s closed in here, and when he manages to escape they often scare him and seem like they’re laughing at him. We are also very often visited by hedgehogs, which is super cool because we all really like hedgehogs, they’re so cute. I got to feel a hedgehog quite a few times. Unfortunately, Jocky can be very nasty to them and has killed a few. 

   Just the other day, a blackbird hit our terrace window while my parents and their friends were having a little party. My Dad took care of it right away and wanted to call the rescue people, but the bird sadly died in the meantime. And then my Dad brought it to show it to me. Honestly, at first I had no idea what he was showing me and I got a total brainfuck for a few seconds. I had a quick feel of a small, silky, shapely, oddly limp head and immediately got chills, ‘cause some little part of my brain thought that my Dad was holding a little piece of Misha and I thought something happened to him, like that he must have gotten out while they were out and had some sort of gory accident or something. That was just a really really brief moment, I didn’t even manage to form that thought properly, but I already thought like I was going to get a heart attack, in my mind this limp little bird looked so much as if it was a little piece of Misha’s body. Only after a little while I realised that Misha is actually tucked away safely in my own wardrobe, and when I looked more closely I finally knew that it was feathers rather than fur and figured out what happened. It looked so sad and pitiful, but so cute as if it was sleeping. My Dad has a particular love for such little wild creatures, which perhaps may seem strange for some who know him but he really does, so he was quite depressed and no longer into partying so after that he promptly went to bed. So yeah, technically I saw a wild animal fairly recently, but for practical reasons I don’t have such opportunities very often. 

   Oh, and another fairly recent situation that I obviously didn’t see directly, but was present when it happened, was that one day when we were driving back home from church, Mum saw a whole flock of boars crossing through the road. Good thing that no one was driving through that particular place at the time, but it must have looked quite absurd. 

   Oh, and now I’m reminded of yet another thing. When Sofi was just a month old, we were also on a way somewhere, and my Dad spotted a female deer that must have been lost I guess or something else was wrong with her, so he stopped and just picked her up without much thinking I guess and brought her into the car. I’m not sure really what he wanted to achieve, guess show her to Mum or something. Mum was really afraid though that the deer might spread some bacteria or whatever and could infect Sofi, and she felt for her just being picked up abruptly like that, it must have been scary for her. I didn’t get to touch her or anything of course, but I heard her shrieking really loudly, probably in confirmation of my Mum’s words, so Dad quickly took her back from where he picked her from. I remember really feeling for her because that shriek of hers really sounded like she was very scared.

   How about you? 🙂 

Gwenan Gibbard – “Deryn Du” (Blackbird).

   Hey guys! 🙂 

   Today I want to share with you all a traditional tune sung by Gwenan Gibbard, an artist whose music I’ve shared on here regularly both as a harpist and singer. It comes from her album Y Gwenith Gwynnaf (The Whitest Wheat).