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Fairy Tales and Folksongs / Chwedlau a Canu Gwerin CeredigionTook place @ The Friendship, Borth, 7pm Tuesday 16th December 2014 -- It was possible to view part of the event online.
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Want to share your own story? Scroll down.
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Cymerau yn cyflwyno; Chwedlau a chanu gwerin coll Ceredigion
gydag Elsa Davies, ffidl a llais; Ceri Owen-Jones, telyn a llais; Peter Stevenson, storïwr a darlunydd. Yn Nhafarn y Friendship, y Borth. Ymunwch â ni ar gyfer noson o adrodd straeon a chaneuon y môr a’r dyfroedd yn ardal y Borth. Mae hen chwedlau ac alawon Gogledd Ceredigion yn sôn am fywydau’r bobl a oedd yn byw yma cyn ni, y pysgotwyr a’r athronwyr, y beirdd a’r melinwyr, y doeth a’r chwilfrydig, yr arwyr a’r twyllwyr, y llyffantod a’r môr-forynion. Maent wedi eu lleoli yn ein tirwedd, a’r môr, y pylloedd, y llynnoedd, y ffynhonnau, y nentydd a’r afonydd yn ffiniau iddynt, a’r dyfroedd wedi’u cuddio islaw’r haenen denau o fawn ar gorsydd sy’n arnofio. Daw’r straeon o’r dirwedd a’i phobl; chwedlau hud ymhlith straeon ‘The Salty Welsh Sea’, straeon am lifogydd gyda ‘Rhysyn a’r Môr-forwyn’, o’r tir islaw’r dŵr yn ‘The Lady of the Millpond’, y tir uwchlaw’r dŵr, nad oes modd inni ei weld â’n llygaid noeth, yn ‘Plant Rhys Dwfn’, a’r anifail doethaf yng Nghymru yn ‘The Old Toad of Borth Bog’. Mae Peter Stevenson yn storïwr, darlunydd llyfrau, awdur, arlwywr sioeau ‘Magical Lantern’, trefnydd Gŵyl Adrodd Straeon Aberystwyth a’r clwb ‘Stories by Gaslight’, ac yn crwydro o amgylch hen Lwybrau Cerdded Ceredigion, â’i ben yn y gwynt a mwd ar ei esgidiau. Mae Elsa Davies, ffidl, a Ceri Owen-Jones, telyn, yn chwarae alawon traddodiadol, a ddysgwyd gan ffrindiau neu wedi’u codi o hen lawysgrifau coll, ac yn breuddwydio am ganeuon gwerin ar arfordir Gorllewin Cymru: cerdddoriaeth a gyfansoddwyd mewn ceginau clyd neu wrth gerdded clogwyni tywyll, eithinog. |
Cymerau presents; The lost fairytales and folk music of Ceredigion
with Elsa Davies, fiddle and voice; Ceri Owen-Jones, harp and voice; Peter Stevenson, storiwr and illustrator. At the Friendship in Borth. Join us for an evening of storytelling and songs of the sea and waters around Borth. The old fairy tales and tunes of North Ceredigion tell of the lives of the people who livnt in 'The Salty Welsh Sea' stories of floods with 'Rhysyn and the Mermaid' of the land beneath the sea in 'the Lady of the Millpond' the land above the sea, hidden from our eyes, in 'Plant Rhys Ddwfn' and the wisest animal in Wales, 'the Old Toad of Borth Bog'. Peter Stevenson is a storyteller, book illustrator, writer, purveyor of Magical Lantern shows, organiser of Aberystwyth Storytelling Festival and Stories by Gaslight club, and wanders the old Ceredigion Tramping Road with head in the clouds and mud on his boots. Elsa Davies, fiddle, and Ceri-Owen Jones, harp, play traditional tunes, learnt from friends or brought to life from sleeping manuscripts, and dream mash-up folk music on the West Welsh coast: a music shaped in warm kitchens and tramping dark, gorse-patched cliffs. |
Share your own water related stories with us!
Hopefully Peter's storytelling will inspire you to share your own water related stories with us. You can do this by filling in the form below and pressing Submit. We will post all stories on this page. If you would like to share a story in another format eg. Pictures, audio or video then please send us a link to the relevant media so that we can embed it into this site.
Stories
Ariana Jordão - Knochengorroch Farm, Dumfries and Galloway, Scotland 03/02/2015
The first time we met it was like looking in a mirror. Thinking back now i imagine you must have felt the same. It was a warm September afternoon and i meandered riverside, to the best spot, the deep water. I remember thinking about getting in and feeling immediately bored by the logistics involved; in the next moment i'm mapping the bottom like a lizard, streamlining my body to the flow, propelling stroke by stroke along the murky iron coloured river bottom. When i came up for air, i see your face. Wet black hair, vibrant brown eyes, silky water creature. Human beings are also animals and this was such an encounter, empty of words and full of meaning. We could not have been more naked as we swam past each other, looking both beyond and into ourselves. The next i remember i'm back at the bank, peeling off layers of wet clothing, thinking about the waters between us.
Owain Jones - Bath 16/12/2014
We used to drove cattle / sheep along a coast road to salt-marsh grazing near Cardiff docks. Along the Weentlooge levels (moors) between Cardiff and Newport. Reens (ditches) lines the roads, pefect green with a layer of duck weed. Glass bottles used to float bottom up in the reens, thrown out of car windows. My sister and i would throw stones at them, and when hit, they would smash and disappear, sink, with sudden, satisfying completeness.
Antony Lyons - Bristol 16/12/2014
I grew up near a magical lake in Ireland - called Lough Gur.
There are many myths and legends associated with it
Here is some text from a 19C book called ‘The Farm by Lough Gur'
"Lough Gur dominates the scene. It was to us a personality loved, but also feared. Every seven years, so it is said, Gur demands the heart of a human being.
One of the Desmonds, Garret the Earl, was doomed to gallop once in seven years over the surface of the water, and around the lake. He rides on a milk-white horse, shod with silver shoes, and must ride until the silver shoes are worn out. Then he will be loosed from the enchantment which binds him, and will live, a man amongst men, for he has never died."
"Lough Gur has been called the Enchanted Lake; some say that in ancient days there was a city where the lake is now, before an earthquake threw up the hills and filled the hollow with water so that the city was submerged. Even now, when the surface of the lake is smooth, they say one may see from a boat, far down and down again, the drowned city, its walls and castle, houses and church, perfect and intact."
"So the old people said. They knew little more than we children did of the gentle moon-worshippers of old, who burnt the fire of Samhain on the night of November the first, and on the sixth night of every moon brought their sick into the moonlight to be healed. The old folk had heard that night called All-Heal. They knew that if a sick person was not better by the eight or ninth day of the moon he would hear Ceolsidhe, the fairy music with which Aine the Banshee, spirit of Lough Gur, comforts the dying. He would fall asleep to Suantraighe, the whispering song of sleep which Fer Fi plays on a three-stringed harp.
No wonder that they who travelled the roads, the wandering beggars, pipers and harpers, story-tellers, Poor Scholars, drovers and tinkers, all feared to be benighted within a mile of Gur’s enchanted waters, feared even to fall asleep in broad daylight, so great was the magic in the air."
There are many myths and legends associated with it
Here is some text from a 19C book called ‘The Farm by Lough Gur'
"Lough Gur dominates the scene. It was to us a personality loved, but also feared. Every seven years, so it is said, Gur demands the heart of a human being.
One of the Desmonds, Garret the Earl, was doomed to gallop once in seven years over the surface of the water, and around the lake. He rides on a milk-white horse, shod with silver shoes, and must ride until the silver shoes are worn out. Then he will be loosed from the enchantment which binds him, and will live, a man amongst men, for he has never died."
"Lough Gur has been called the Enchanted Lake; some say that in ancient days there was a city where the lake is now, before an earthquake threw up the hills and filled the hollow with water so that the city was submerged. Even now, when the surface of the lake is smooth, they say one may see from a boat, far down and down again, the drowned city, its walls and castle, houses and church, perfect and intact."
"So the old people said. They knew little more than we children did of the gentle moon-worshippers of old, who burnt the fire of Samhain on the night of November the first, and on the sixth night of every moon brought their sick into the moonlight to be healed. The old folk had heard that night called All-Heal. They knew that if a sick person was not better by the eight or ninth day of the moon he would hear Ceolsidhe, the fairy music with which Aine the Banshee, spirit of Lough Gur, comforts the dying. He would fall asleep to Suantraighe, the whispering song of sleep which Fer Fi plays on a three-stringed harp.
No wonder that they who travelled the roads, the wandering beggars, pipers and harpers, story-tellers, Poor Scholars, drovers and tinkers, all feared to be benighted within a mile of Gur’s enchanted waters, feared even to fall asleep in broad daylight, so great was the magic in the air."
Owain Jones - Bath 16/12/14
I have holidayed in Tenby, Pembrokeshire, as child, teenager, adult, parent - staying in a flat overlooking North beach. The tides are spectacular. I feel the place is less unless the tides are really high / low. I have had series of dreams in which the tide either goes improbably far out - revealing weird structures on the sea bed – or comes in improbably far, right up to the windows of the flat – which is on the seventh floor of a block, onto of the cliffs.
Owain Jones - Bath 16/12/14
One more for now. On new year’s day, many in our village used to go on a group walk to a nearby landmark – “One Tree Hill” a very prominent landmark in our local landscape. One year we woke to a strange weather phenomenon, freezing rain had coated everything in clear ice. It was very difficult to walk on any hard surface. But once on the grass we were ok. When we finally got to the top of the hill, the solitary tree, an ash tree, (well actually there are two very close together), was coated in clear ice! Very magical. And water could be seen trickling down the bark inside the ice on the trunk, as, I guess, the tree’s body warmth was melting the ice.
