Monday, October 01, 2007

Ar Hyd y Nos

A little bit of Welsh here. An old song, still sung in these times.
The Welsh are Celts, having come to Britain before the Romans, originally from central Europe, loosely defined "tribes", that wandered from Switzerland to Russia , from Turkey to Afghanistan. Traders, farmers, pagans; never too inclined towards conquering the world, but preferring to sing, dance and hunt when hunger calls.
The song is for someone I have never met, a lady known as Louise.
Louise recently "lost" her mam.
But you know, in Celtic mythology, like the Christians, Jews and Moslems, there is an afterlife, "The Void", the celestial dimension where all spirits commune, where the souls of all those departed amass to become the angels and choirs of the Gods.

The language is old, the sentiment universal.

Sung by Meinir Gwilym with Anwen Jones, two women who obviously love the old language.


Holl amrantau’r sêr ddywedant
Ar hyd y nos.
Dyma’r ffordd i fro gogoniant
Ar hyd y nos.
Golau arall yw tywyllwch,
I arddangos gwir brydferthwch,
Teulu’r nefoedd mewn tawelwch
Ar hyd y nos.

O mor siriol gwena seren
Ar hyd y nos,
I oleuo’i chwaer ddaearen
Ar hyd y nos,
Nos yw henaint pan ddaw cystudd,
Ond i harddu dyn a’i hwyrddydd
Rhown ein golau gwan i’n gilydd
Ar hyd y nos.

In English:
All the star’s eyelids say,
All through the night,
“This is the way to the valley of glory,”
All through the night.
Darkness is another kind of light
To show true beauty,
The Heavenly family in peace,
All through the night.

O how cheerful smiles the star,
All through the night,
To light its earthly sister,
All through the night.
Old age is night when affliction comes,
But to beautify man in his late days,
We’ll put our weak light together,
All through the night.

Peace.

5 comments:

Paul said...

That's very cool Landsker. Like so many others, my genes came out of the same pool. I'm a descendant of Nial the Hostagetaker according to a National Geographic genome project.

enigma4ever said...

that was so lovely..and so sweet...and I hope that Louise sees it when she gets home...

Oceanshaman said...

O how cheerful smiles the star,
All through the night,
To light its earthly sister,
All through the night.

Nice . . . warm . . .

Paul said...

Hey landsker, when's a good time of year to visit the isles? My daughter and I are planning for a trip to Ireland next year.

landsker said...

Hi Paul,
Seems like a Celtic reunion here, it`s a small world. As for visiting, well, it rains slightly less in the summer...Spring is good, August is expensive.
If you should make it over, the front door is open, Wales is just a few hours by boat.
Enigma. & Ocean., Hi, how goes? The tune is an old one, the words were added in the 19th c.
The rhythyms and melodies are similar to the traditional Irish and Scots, always a tad "Bucolic".