Julia Deli’s springtime quest to comb the Welsh fringes takes her to a community-run Ceredigion café, a stroll away from Taliesin’s grave, and a Sunday folk session led by Mari Mathias and Elliw Jones.
It’s a balmy day in the former lead-mining village of Tre’r Ddôl, in the Dyfi Valley, and we’re gathering at Cletwr Community Cafe for a Sunday ‘service’ with Welsh folk acts Mari Mathias and Elliw Jones. Ten years ago – it’s their anniversary today – the Ceredigion village bought the former Cletwr garage when it closed, and an eco-rebuild has created amazing acoustics, as well as being home to a volunteer-run cafe, shop filled with local produce, gallery and Welsh-language library.
Their Noson Allan programme and self-funded events, talks, walks and regular clubs like Knit and Natter are proof against isolation in a village that had lost its school, shop, post office, cafe and a church in recent years. The special Sunday afternoon events allow people of all ages and lifestyle to enjoy music together – and being on the route to mountains and coast, we weren’t surprised when passing cyclists dismounted and joined the audience, delighted by their unexpected find.
Elliw Jones’ magical folk with contemporary vocals has, too, been a decade in the making. She plays in an all-woman quintet, Tant, who formed while all at school in north Wales, on the Trac folk music course Gwerin Gwallgof. Jones, from Dyffryn Conwy, plays a mixture of her own songs and guitar arrangements of Welsh folk tunes, introducing us to her warm, bright style with Merch Y Melinydd and easing us into a sense of place.
Myrddin ap Dafydd, former Archdruid and Welsh Language Children’s Laureate, asked Jones to write a tune for his poem Lleuad Lwgu, and her evocative melody perfectly complements the nostalgic farwel cloaked in a story of moonlight poaching. A cover of Nwy Yn Y Nen by Tebot Piws follows, the fragile folk of Dewi Pws laced with Jones’ delicate style as she tells us: “Dewi, who sadly passed away last year, lived next door to my Uncle in Nefyn, and I wanted to sing it in his memory.” The song won the Can I Gymru in 1971, its poetic vision of the empty school the very essence of hiraeth.
Her yearning, articulate language weaves through self-penned numbers Ddoi Di Drwyddi and Bydd Dy Hun, while minister John Jones’ Deio Bach – written in the early 1800s – is a mother’s lament for her emigrated son, the poignant set ending with sweet guitar tunings and a tender touch in a Welsh-language version of Mickey McConnell’s Only Your Rivers Run Free.
Both Tant and Mari Mathias will be playing at Dolgellau’s Sesiwn Fawr, and even sooner at Llanrhystud’s Cambrian Harp Festival, with workshops and concerts throughout the town between Fri 15 and Sun 17 May. Released last month, Mari’s second album Cyfarwydd is a recognition of the importance of Cyfarwyddau, the storytelling bards or ‘history keepers’ who travelled with warbands fighting the Anglo-Saxons. The first mysterious notes on guitar and harmonium announce Cyfarwydd’s opening song Agored Aneurin, which praises the talent of the poet who recorded the banding together of 300 early British tribes – the Hen Ogledd or Brythonic Celts – in the Book Of Gododdin.
The mysterious soundscape deepens with the sliding time signatures of Y Morgen: fishermen are lured to the depths of the ocean by subaquatic drones, natural voice capturing the dark mischief of the sprites, the alliterative language like nets in the turbulence of the undersea world. Mathias’ deep folkloric and pagan-leaning connections to the land and its animals is voiced again in Aderin Pur – the traditional song written from the perspective of a lover, separated by distance, sending his darling a list of her virtues with the help of a feathered friend.
We all join in, when bidden, with the chorus of Ymlaen – bringing in the herd, getting louder and louder to the tinkling cowbells, Matthias intricately harmonising above our chant. Thereafter, a droving song from Cardigan finds Dai Drwg selling dodgy wares at market and the guitar seems to transform into a kora, playing desert blues at a circle dance on Carn Mynydd.
Melin Trefin – a poem by William Williams, another former Archdruid – is set to a jig from Dingle, and is both a celebration of working life and a lament for the decline of rural Welsh heritage. Mathias explains her choice of the Irish tune, realising the importance of seatrade in historical times and “the high level of integration between the coastal peoples.”
Using the pre-fifth-century language, we try another rural activity together, this time counting sheep. Variants of the yan-tan-tethera system are found among many pastoralist communities in Europe, likely reflecting the spread of ‘the old peoples’ and the early use of the Cymric dialect. “Some people in Preseli still count their sheep this way, and I wrote the Hen Ogledd lyrics so part of the language could continue to thrive in songform,” says Mathias.
We’re wool-gathering next. “This is an original folk song, written when I was studying the wool industry in Aberystwyth’s archives. I’d like to help change the mindset around the woollen industry. I’ve been walking around the Preseli Mountains, picking wool from the hedgerows, and using a drop-spindle, so that I can weave my own fabrics and make scarves; I’d love there to be a rebirth for these crafts.” We can hear the rhythm of the spinning wheel in the harmonium, the final release when the tune kicks up its heels, clogs sparking, woollen skirts whirled round in a twmpath.
Wandering in the Preselis was the inspiration for another composition, March Glas, whose wistful tune captures both the unfettered and the fragile qualities of nature. “When you’re up in the mountains, time vanishes completely – you could be in any era,” Mathias tells us. “I wrote this as I was climbing Foel Drygarn and looking down on the magical white ponies, living life as freely as they had always done, roaming on the moorland.” A gentle stirring of the horses becomes a gallop, and there’s heartbreak in the vocal that wants to run with them.
Adar Man Y Mynydd is a song sung by Mathias’ grandfather, and includes notation from the nightingales’ repertoire. “Nightingales – adar eos – used to be so numerous in Wales, as recorded in this song. It’s a sort of springtime song of respect for all birdlife.” A pan-Celtic chord structure from the harmonium completes this hymn to birds and sustainability; a sea-shanty reminding us of bird (and human) migration, the tune soars into infinity with the skylarks.
The headliner leaves us with dance tunes from her debut album Annwn, where she’s fused together two historical lullabies, Ty Twt Bach and Milgi Milgi. The lyrics offer charming sentiment and a powerful mission statement to end on. “I have a tidy little house / Open the door a bit, so that I can see the sea and the waves / And here I will be happy.”
A not-for-profit venture, Cletwr Community Cafe shares those simple aspirations. If you love your megaliths, there’s a talk on nearby stone carvings in the oldest written Welsh on Thurs 4 June – circling us back to Hen Ogledd! – and a free concert from Sinfonia Cymru follows on Thurs 18 June.
A footpath in Tre’r Ddôl leads to Bedd Taliesin, or Taliesin’s grave. Whether it’s the mythological Taliesin, son of Ceridwen, or the sixth-century poet, no-one’s quite sure – but whoever was buried up there with so much ceremony must be smiling down on the events today.
Mari Mathias + Elliw Jones, Cletwr Community Café, Tre’r Ddôl, Sun 10 May
words JULIA DELI photos IAN RICHARDS
