To judge of Tom's personal character, and also an extract of
the interlude, from which the reader may form a tolerably correct
idea of the poetical powers of him whom his countrymen delight to
call "the Welsh Shakespear."
CHAPTER LIX
History of Twm O'r Nant - Eagerness for Learning - The First
Interlude - The Cruel Fighter - Raising Wood - The Luckless Hour -
Turnpike-Keeping - Death in the Snow - Tom's Great Feat - The Muse
a Friend - Strength in Old Age - Resurrection of the Dead.
"I AM the first-born of my parents," says Thomas Edwards. "They
were poor people and very ignorant. I was brought into the world
in a place called Lower Pen Parchell, on land which once belonged
to the celebrated Iolo Goch. My parents afterwards removed to the
Nant (or dingle) near Nantglyn, situated in a place called Coom
Pernant. The Nant was the middlemost of three homesteads, which
are in the Coom, and are called the Upper, Middle, and Lower Nant;
and it so happened that in the Upper Nant there were people who had
a boy of about the same age as myself, and forasmuch as they were
better to do in the world than my parents, they having only two
children whilst mine had ten, I was called Tom of the Dingle,
whilst he was denominated Thomas Williams."
After giving some anecdotes of his childhood he goes on thus:-
"Time passed on till I was about eight years old, and then in the
summer I was lucky enough to be sent to school for three weeks; and
as soon as I had learnt to spell and read a few words I conceived a
mighty desire to learn to write; so I went in quest of elderberries
to make me ink, and my first essay in writing was trying to copy on
the sides of the leaves of books the letters of the words I read.
It happened, however, that a shop in the village caught fire, and
the greater part of it was burnt, only a few trifles being saved,
and amongst the scorched articles my mother got for a penny a
number of sheets of paper burnt at the edges, and sewed them
together to serve as copy-books for me. Without loss of time I
went to the smith of Waendwysog, who wrote for me the letters on
the upper part of the leaves; and careful enough was I to fill the
whole paper with scrawlings which looked for all the world like
crow's feet. I went on getting paper and ink, and something to
copy now from this person, and now from that, until I learned to
read Welsh and to write it at the same time."
He copied out a great many carols and songs, and the neighbours
observing his fondness for learning persuaded his father to allow
him to go to the village school to learn English.
