Ignore me, I'm Welsh
By Sarah Bryan Miller
ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH
Wednesday, Mar. 01 2006
It's March, when we celebrate the feast of a notable early Celtic saint from
the west coast of Great Britain who performed miracles, made converts and came up with the piece of greenery that today is a symbol of his country.
No, it's not St. Patrick with his shamrock. He gets plenty of publicity; he
doesn't need our help. March 1 is dedicated to St. David, the patron saint of
Wales. His symbol is the leek, a variety of onion, traditionally worn in the
Welshperson's hat today. Termed "a pungent vegetable" by one Welsh Web site, it's not as cool as other national symbols of the British Isles, such as the thistle, the rose and the shamrock.
Then again, the Welsh, as a people, aren't that glamorous.
Don't feel bad if you didn't know about St. David and the leek. The Welsh
aren't the pushy type. Although millions of Americans are of Welsh descent -
people with names such as Williams, Evans, Jones, Jenkins and Richards - many of them aren't even aware of it. The Welsh in this country are the originals and still champions at the art of assimilation, meekly giving way to their better-known Celtic cousins, the Irish, as they noisily purvey shamrocks and green beer in the public recognition derby.
In fact, given that today is also Ash Wednesday, St. David - Dewi Sant in Welsh - has been knocked off the calendar completely.
Contrast that to St. Patrick's Day: It falls, this year, on a Friday in Lent.
That makes it officially a church fast day, but no one doubts that it will be
widely and robustly celebrated anyway.
Not that St. David would complain about his status on the ecclesiastical totem pole. The sixth-century bishop and abbot was a modest but tough man with modest but tough followers.
While the legend of St. Patrick is filled with tales of divine intervention -
driving out snakes, using his cape as a raft, healing a blind man while
simultaneously blinding a companion who laughed at the afflicted one - St.
David's resume contains just one: While preaching to a multitude, the saint got grumbles - "I can't see you!," "I can't hear you!" - so he simply raised the
ground into a hill, with him at the top. Problem solved.
It's fitting that the Welsh saint's biggest miracle should have to do with
acoustics and sightlines, given the great Welsh tradition of choral singing:
Wherever two or three are gathered together, there's sure to be well-tuned
harmony. (The biggest problem with the classic movie "Zulu" is that it depicts
Welsh soldiers singing "Men of Harlech" while fighting - in unison. The unison
bit is patently absurd.)
In Wales, St. David's Day is traditionally observed with singing festivals. The
best-known form of distinctively Welsh entertainment is the Gymanfa Ganu
(pronounced gih-MAHN-vuh GAH-nee and translated as gathering for song), a
kind of community hymn sing in which most of the participants scorn the melody line in favor of singing parts.
The English tried their best to stifle use of the Welsh language. That it has
survived is proof of a certain national stubbornness of character. Welsh is
musical but difficult to pronounce - the name of Wales itself, spelled Cymru,
but pronounced "Cumree," gives you the idea in brief - and many Welsh place
names would be at home in the News of the Weird column.
"Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwrndrobwyll-llantisiliogogogoch," the name of a
now-defunct train station, is just an extreme example.
The Welsh are one of my four primary ethnic groups, thanks to my
great-grandfather John Robert Deans, a mild-mannered Methodist minister, school principal and possessor of a notably beautiful bass voice who settled in Eskridge, Kan., well over a century ago. That's why I usually fly a Welsh flag - bearing a red dragon on a white and green field - on March 1. It's not
surprising that nobody recognizes it; the shocking thing is that most people
mistake it for an Iraqi flag. The Welsh just can't get any respect.
But the Welsh, who quietly swallow insults such as "welshing on a deal," don't
worry too much about recognition. They don't worry about a popular culture that has mostly forgotten them. They certainly don't worry about the pronounced lack of shiny paper cutout leeks to hang in windows or the absence of leek-motif greeting cards to send to their friends and relations for St. David's Day.
They worry more about singing in tune and about having all the voice parts
adequately represented. And if I can confine that "pungent vegetable" to the
stewpot, instead of being obliged to wear it in my hat, I won't ask for
anything more.
sbmiller@post-dispatch.com 314-340-8249
Originally Posted by highlander_Daz
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