The 28th February is, when it is not a leap year, the feast day of S Oswald of Worcester, Bishop and Confessor: Bishop of Worcester and Archbishop of York. He was of an Anglo-Danish family from the old Danelaw—his uncle Oda was Archbishop of Canterbury and his kinsman Oskytel preceded him at York—, living and serving God in the times of Edward the Martyr, Hywel Dda, and Erik Bloodaxe; he was trained at the Abbey of Fleury and returned to Britain to support S Dunstan in his reforms of Church and State. He was a truly international man in a truly international Christendom.
Now, as we come to the sun’s hour of rest and lights of evening ’round us shine, the day becomes the vigil not only of the Second Sunday in Lent but of the Feast of S David, Dewi Sant, patron of Wales and the Welsh; and I am allowed to say as ought we all, Dydd Gŵyl Dewi Hapus, Happy S David’s Day: to all Cymry in Cymru and to all the scattered Welsh diaspora, from Aberystwyth to Albemarle County, Virginia, from Australia to the Argentine. For I am, ancestrally, Welsh, you know, good my countrymen, and wear it for a memorable honor: Welsh on all sides of the family. We commemorate, on Dydd Gŵyl Dewi Sant, S David, Dewi Sant, certainly; but by extension, all the saints and heroes of Wales, from David himself (my second cousin 44 times removed, we both descending of Ceredig ap Cunedda, King of Ceredigion, and his consort S Meleri verch Brychan), to Rhodri Mawr ap Merfyn (my 32d great-grandfather), Hywel Dda ap Cadell (my 34th great-grandsire), Rhys ap Gruffydd—the Lord Rhys—(my 25th great-grandfather), Owain Gwynedd ap Gruffydd (my 24th great-grandfather), Llewelyn Fawr ap Iorwerth (my 22d great-grandsire), Owain Glyn Dŵr ap Gruffydd (my nineteenth great-grandfather), Sir Dafydd Gam ap Llewelyn—Shakespeare’s ‘Davy Gam’—(my eighteenth great-grandfather), Sir William ap Thomas, The Blue Knight of Gwent (my seventeenth great-grandfather), Dafydd ab Ieuan, Constable of Harlech Castle (my sixth cousin seventeen times removed), Sir Richard Herbert of Coldbrook (my sixteenth great-grandfather), and the Revd George Herbert the poet (my seventh cousin twelve times removed), and unto Captain Peter Evans, Conwy-born, of Barbados, Southside Virginia, and North Carolina: my ninth great-grandsire. In Dewi Sant, we honor even the humblest in Wales: whereby hangs a tale.
Hywel the Good was a lawgiver. Rhodri the Great spoke with the voice of the thunder. Great men in the secular world fought and ruled and dedicated themselves to arms for the liberties of Wales. That is as it ought to be.
But the words we recall in that secular context are not theirs. They are those of an humble old man in Sir Gaerfyrddin, Carmarthenshire, at Pencader, then as now an obscure hamlet. And in 1163, he had a word for Henry 2d of England, ‘Curtmantle’, my 24th great-grandfather, as that proud and violent man assailed Wales.
My Lord king, this nation may now be harassed, weakened and decimated by your soldiery, as it has so often been by others in former times; but it shall never be totally destroyed by the wrath of man, unless at the same time it is punished by the wrath of God. Whatever else may come to pass, I do not think that on the Day of Direst Judgement any nation other than the Welsh, or in any other language, shall give answer to the Supreme Judge of all for this small corner of the Earth.
Gellir gorthrymu’r genedl hon yn wir, ac i raddau helaeth iawn ei dinistrywio a’i llesgau trwy dy nerthoedd di O frenin, ac eiddo eraill, yn awr megis cynt a llawer gwaith eto pan haedda hynny. Ei dileu’n llwyr, fodd bynnag, trwy ddigofaint dyn, ni ellir, oni bydd hefyd ddigofaint Duw yn cydredeg ag ef. Ac nid unrhyw genedl arall, fel y barnaf i, amgen na hon o’r Cymry, nac unrhyw iaith arall, ar Ddydd y Farn dostlem gerbron y Barnwr Goruchaf pa beth bynnag a ddigwydd i’r gweddill mwyaf ohoni a fydd yn ateb dros y gongl fach hon o’r ddaear.
It is the humble who matter.
George Herbert was the son of a Member of Parliament and himself was briefly an MP: and he gave it all up to become a simple parish priest at Fugglestone St Peter with Bemerton, in the Wiltshire countryside beyond Salisbury. It was he who taught,
Man is God’s image; but a poor man is / Christ’s stamp to boot: both images regard;
and
Teach me, my God and King, / In all things thee to see / And what I do in any thing, / To do it as for thee… / *** A servant with this clause / Makes drudgery divine: / Who sweeps a room, as for thy laws, / Makes that and th’ action fine.
George Herbert, that country parson, that priest to the temple, died aged 39 on 1 March 1633: on S David’s Day.
Dewi Sant was as international, as universal, as catholic as ever was S Oswald, for all that he lived in the narrower, post- or sub-Roman world of the VIth Century AD. His faith and his churchmanship was canonical and catholic, universal. His emphases were local. The monastic rule he set in Wales was one of vegetarianism, teetotalism, and hard work: pulling plows themselves rather than burdening draft animals, holding all things in common, eschewing property. He himself followed the same ascetic rule … and, as my cardiologist should likely note if he knew of it, lived to be 89 or so. In the VIth Century, mind you.
What he said in his last sermon, a few days before he was seconded by death to the Church Triumphant, yet echoes:
Arglwyddi, brodyr, a chwiorydd, Byddwch lawen a chadwch eich ffyd a’ch credd, a gwnewch y petheu bychain a glywsoch ac y welsoch gennyf i. A mwynhau a gerdaf y fford yd aeth an tadeu idi:
that is,
Lords, brothers and sisters, be joyful, and keep your faith and your creed, and do the little things that you have seen me do and heard about. And as for me, I will walk the path that our fathers have trod before us.
To this day, this is a maxim in Wales, in that small corner of the Earth: Gwnewch y pethau bychain mewn bywyd. Do ye the little things in life. And so I think it shall be, until Ddydd y Farn.
I might celebrate this vigil and tomorrow’s feast in the accustomed way: posting a recording of a military band’s playing the stirring ‘Rhyfelgyrch Gwŷr Harlech,’ ‘Men of Harlech’, and of a Welsh male choir from the Valleys belting out ‘Hen Wlad Fy Nhadau’, ‘Land of My Fathers’, and so on. But not, I think, this year.
This the collect for the vigil and the feast:
Almighty and everlasting God, who through thine holy Angel didst wondrously provide an habitation for thy blessed Confessor and Bishop David whilst yet unborn, and didst choose him to bring the true light and knowledge of thee to the people of Wales; mercifully grant unto us, that we who reverence his merits upon earth, may with him ever enjoy the vision of thee in heaven. Through Jesus Christ thy Son our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with thee, in the unity of the Holy Ghost, ever one God, world without end. Amen.
Gwnewch y pethau bychain mewn bywyd. Do ye the little things in life. Who sweeps a room, as for thy laws, makes that and th’ action fine.
Dydd Gŵyl Dewi Hapus.
Markham Shaw Pyle, author & historian 