Cylchgronau Cymru

Canterbury celebrated there before the high altar early one morning in the year Î88, ere the little procession of ecclesiastics, each with the red cross of the Crusader on his breast, filed away over Uechlavar to preach the Holy War to the bowmen and spearmen of Wales. And in that solemn procession there marched the truest of Menevia's heroes, the champion of her rights — a young man, tall slender in figure, with delicate features and a fine complexion overshadowed by large wide eyebrows," — Gerald of Wales. Out of the patriotism of Gerald the Welshman, out of the greatness of his love for his native Menevia arose one of the greatest episodes in the whole of Welsh history — Gerald's half-forgotten attempt to establish a truly national Welsh Church with St. David's at its head, a St. David's independent of Canterbury. So long as Wales shall stand by the writings of the chroniclers and by the songs of the bards, shall his noble deed be praised throughout all time such were the words of Llewellyn the Great; but alas for prophecy that most brilliant of failures has all but passed into the closet of oblivion. But surely that was the saddest day in all Menevia's history when the greatest of all her pilgrims came back again to the little city of the west, broken by disappointments, outlawed by his king, and foiled by his enemies having in daily peril of assassination, crossed the Alps in the deep snows of winter to get to Rome to plead the cause of St. David's-in vain; and returned again after being dogged by his creditors to Bologna, robbed on the road to Cambrai and imprisoned in France. At St. David's he found that all his friends had deserted A WELSH VILLAGE INDUSTRY A CHANCE FOR THE DISABLED MADE in Germany" was an unpopular legend in the toy shops last Christmas, and only to be accepted when the bought before the War excuse was attached to it. The coming Christmas will see the familiar mark no more. British toy- makers seem to have wakened up from their long sleep, and the demand for toys which shall not only be British but look British appears likely to be well met. Welsh parents, however, will be glad to know that their children may have toys which are not only British but Welsh, made in Wales by him and no one dared to speak to him but one old woman. Then and only then did Gerald relinquish the unequal fight. and the ideal of Welsh Ecclesiastical independence was lost in the dust for ever. Many and great wars," said the Prince of Powis, have we Welshmen waged with England, but none so great and fierce as his who fought the king and the arch bishop and withstood the might of the whole clergy and people of England far the homtm of Walts. And there somewhere under the roof of the grand old pile. in that sacred earth which he loved so steadfastly and so well. Gerald sleeps. And there in the dusk, with the passing tribute of a thought, let us leave him. Menevia's hero and her martyr. Outside the shadows are creeping over the old Cathedral fast blotting gargoyle and buttress from sight a round red harvest moon is rising over the ridge, and as the car purrs away for the distant railway, get my last glimpse of the old church, bathed in the brightening moonlight. "Salisbury by moonlight is more graceful and lovely; Win- chester more grand and awful than either is by day: but they cannot at all compete with the strange and unique charm of St. David's. They are still build- ings, palpably and unmistakably the works of man but St. David's almost assumes the character of a work of nature. The thoughts of man and his works, even the visions of fallen state and glory are well-nigh lost in the forms of the scene itself, hardly less than in gazing on the wild cliffs whence its materials were first hewn. whose spirit they would seem to have refused utterly to cast away." EM.W. Welshmen and women and having in their make-up something of the spirit of Wales. It was as a means of giving employment and in- terest for the winter evenings to the working men of Trefnant, a little village nestling in the Vale of Qwyd, that the idea of reviving the old jointed toy brat occurred to Miss Mary Heaton about six years ago. She applied to the County Technical Committee, who gave her a grant to pay a teacher, and Edward Jones, the wood-carver, of Trefnant, gave her valuable help in time and work. Classes were