#St Davids Day

[becausegoodheroesdeservekidneys]

Dydd Gŵyl Dewi hapus i bawb!

That's right! It's WALES' BIRTHDAY*!!! Yaaaaayyyy today you are all Welsh. Enjoy your 24 hours of perfect harmonisation ability and utter disinterest in any celebrities. Watch out for the dragons.

*It is not Wales' birthday

I have decided to revive an old favourite of this blog to mark the occasion - prepare for a classic Pick The Fake Welsh Word Poll! And to super charge the Welshness today we are assessing the glory that is the daffodil - the national flower of Wales (lol not really, our national flower is the leek. And that's why queen Lizzie Two had to get coronated with a leek on her dress because we refused to let them use the daffodil even when the palace designer begged. Iconic.)

(But the daffodil is still a symbol of Wales, so it counts here.)

So! Let's go! Etymology at the end.

Etymology Notes

Croeso'r Gwanwyn - they flower in March! Hence the St David's Day link. One of the first flowers to bloom in spring.

Clych babi - the trumpet bit looks like a bell, I suppose, and has similar (make a noise' connotations. Why a baby? Dunno. Maybe a spring link again.

Gwayw brenin - the leaves are definitely spear-like, and the petals look a bit like a crown

Pibell felen - 'pibell' usually means a pipe in the sense of music, so another trumpet reference. Except we didn't have trumpets in Wales, so pipe it is

Gylfinog - the trumpet again. The word is often used for animals (morfil gylfinog is beaked whale, for example). Cognate with Cornish gelvinek, Irish gulba, etc.

Cenhinen Pedr - Peter is probably the saint. The leek is otherwise a Welsh emblem

Lily pengam - the angle of the flower head, maybe, makes it 'wry-headed'? And then the lily link, which turns up a few times

Melyn Clamai - yellow is obvious. Clamai is a corruption of Calan Mai - May Eve. Another reference to the time of year

Lili Clamai - lily again, Calan Mai again.

Dwndili - a corruption of the English word 'daffodil', and the lili again

Daffidondili - further corruption

Daffitwndili - corruption but with hypercorrection of the d to a t! Can you tell these ones are dialectic?

~~~

Enjoy!

[bees-pees]

wee bug for st david’s day :)) dydd gŵyl dewi hapus

[loserbynaturee]

Dydd Gŵyl Dewi Hapus!!

Happy St. David’s day from Leafy! :3

[leonisandmurex]

Catherine, THE PRINCESS OF WALES || TYWYSOGES CYMRU || amongst 𓇬 Daffodils 𓇬 the Welsh national flower || her titled bestowed on the 9th September 2022

[simru-region]

Happy St David’s Day from the Simru Region!

[mayhasopinions]

Happy St David's day to all my fellow Welshfolk out there! Gobeithio cewch chi gyd ddiwrnod gwych!!

[iamstuckinthevoid]

Guys it's Saint David's day you all have to be nice to me (I'm welsh)

[chelseajackarmy]

Dydd Gŵyl Dewi Hapus🏴󠁧󠁢󠁷󠁬󠁳󠁿

[sweetmonsooncos]

Dydd Gŵyl Dewi Sant hapus to my fellow Welshies!!! 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁷󠁬󠁳󠁿🏴󠁧󠁢󠁷󠁬󠁳󠁿🏴󠁧󠁢󠁷󠁬󠁳󠁿🏴󠁧󠁢󠁷󠁬󠁳󠁿

A glorious day to be Welsh ❤️💚🤍

[merlin-the-not-so-magnificent]

Dydd Gŵyl Dewi Hapus

Or Happy St David's Day from Welsh MCR

[barbwoodhaus]

Happy St David’s Day!

Welsh actor Richard Burton with his Pekingese on set, Where Eagles Dare.

[daisyfornost]

dydd gwyl dewi hapus and all that

[jamieandgeorgedashigz]

Happy St David's Day to England's overlooked neighbour, and you cannot disagree with me that dinosaurs are dragons. The Chinese word for dinosaur literally means 'terror' dragon.

[poem-today]

A poem by Gillian Clarke

Blaen Cwrt

You ask how it is. I will tell you.

There is no glass. The air spins in

The stone rectangle. We warm our hands

With apple wood. Some of the smoke

Rises against the ploughed, brown field

As a sign to our neighbours in the

Four folds of the valley that we are in.

Some of the smoke seeps through the stones

Into the barn where it curls like fern

On the walls. Holding a thick root

I press my bucket through the surface

Of the water, lift it brimming and skim

The leaves away. Our fingers curl on

Enamel mugs of tea, like ploughmen.

The stones clear in the rain

Giving their colours. It’s not easy.

There are no brochure blues or boiled sweet

Reds. All is ochre and earth and cloud-green

Nettles tasting sour and the smells of moist

Earth and sheep’s wool. The wattle and daub

Chimney hood has decayed away, slowly

Creeping to dust, chalking the slate

Floor with stories. It has all the first

Necessities for a high standard

Of civilised living: silence inside

A circle of sound, water and fire,

Light on uncountable miles of mountain

From a big, unpredictable sky,

Two rooms, waking and sleeping,

Two languages, two centuries of past

To ponder on, and the basic need

To work hard in order to survive.

.

Gillian Clarke

from The Sundial (Gwasg Gomer) 1978

Note: When her children were young, Clarke bought and renovated an old, ruined small holding called Blaen Cwrt in Talgarreg, south Ceredigion, where she now lives, and which she often figures as her poetic ‘milltir sgwâr’ (square mile). […] Reminiscing on that time and that house as formative to the emergence of her poetic voice, Clarke recalls that ‘to “work hard” meant more than one thing. It’s both chopping wood, carrying water, and writing about it.’ (Dr Siriol McAvoy)

More poems by Gillian Clarke are available on her website

[harrietmjones]

Dydd Gŵyl Dewi Hapus | Happy St. David's Day! 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁷󠁬󠁳󠁿🌼🏈🎼