Ciw-restr

The Four-Leaved Clover

Llinellau gan Old Man (Cyfanswm: 127)

 
(1, 0) 199 Good evening to all here.
(1, 0) 200 That's a fine light you have in your window, Catrin Griffith.
(1, 0) 201 It shines to the other side of the mountain gate.
 
(1, 0) 204 A bit of supper and a glass of beer─and a welcome if there is one.
 
(1, 0) 208 Don't you give your man there beer with his supper?
 
(1, 0) 224 Over three mountains, and one of them the Black Mountain.
 
(1, 0) 226 It's soft on the top now, and the smell of water everywhere, and the sound of it, too, among the rushes.
 
(1, 0) 239 How can you tell that, Catrin Griffith, when you do not know who I am?
 
(1, 0) 248 Well, well, say no more.
 
(1, 0) 252 No, not Seven Sisters.
 
(1, 0) 255 No, not Carno.
 
(1, 0) 258 No, not Llanilid.
 
(1, 0) 263 Then, perhaps, it was He sent me, if that's true.
(1, 0) 264 But I'll tell you where I came from─from the east and from the west, and from the north and from the south.
(1, 0) 265 IANTO
 
(1, 0) 267 Well, those are fine big places to come from!
 
(1, 0) 271 Gitto Fiddler they call me.
 
(1, 0) 275 No, I will not play a-tune.
(1, 0) 276 I've no delight in it to-night.
(1, 0) 277 But I will sing you a song if you wish.
 
(1, 0) 281 I'll take a bit to put in my pocket, and thank you.
 
(1, 0) 286 Thank you, Ianto bach; it's not in the barn I'll be on a fine night in summer; and not in your best bed under your granny's quilt either; but lying up on Darren, waiting and waiting and waiting.
 
(1, 0) 290 For the moon to come over the edge of the mountain.
 
(1, 0) 293 Drato!
 
(1, 0) 295 Dropped my pouch in the water, coming over the river by the stones.
 
(1, 0) 298 Is there a match with you?
 
(1, 0) 301 And it's a fine thing, Ianto bach, to be out in the world alive, to be going along the roads day after day, seeing all the sights─some new and some old.
 
(1, 0) 304 There's the top of the Van in the sky above you.
 
(1, 0) 323 Yes, indeed, I was.
(1, 0) 324 To hear me sing men would walk ten miles and women hold their tongues for ten seconds.
 
(1, 0) 327 I'm luckier than he is, whatever.
(1, 0) 328 It's better to be an old tramp dragging his bones along in the wet than a rich farmer lying easy in his coffin.
 
(1, 0) 331 In heaven, is he?
(1, 0) 332 Now, that's a place I would never want to go to.
 
(1, 0) 339 Weil, for one thing, there are no mountains to be had in heaven, only streets, like the streets of Cardiff─that's what they say in chapel, whatever.
 
(1, 0) 341 Gold or mud, it's all the same.
(1, 0) 342 A street is a street.
(1, 0) 343 Let me have the top of the mountain in summer and I'd be content for a thousand years─if only there was one curlew whistling down from the sky.
 
(1, 0) 346 Yes; and there's where I met the devil.
(1, 0) 347 He goes to every chapel every Sunday.
(1, 0) 348 IANTO
 
(1, 0) 350 Yes, indeed.
(1, 0) 351 Sometimes he comes and plays a game of draughts with me in the middle of the sermon.
(1, 0) 352 CATRIN
 
(1, 0) 354 Diws anwyl!
(1, 0) 355 Ianto.
(1, 0) 356 Don't talk like that.
(1, 0) 357 I don't like it.
(1, 0) 358 And if I don't go and wash those dishes we'll be up all night.
 
(1, 0) 360 And who's to get up to milk the cows in the morning?
 
(1, 0) 362 The mistress thinks it's time for me to be going.
 
(1, 0) 366 Oh, ho! Oh, ho!
(1, 0) 367 Love songs, is it?
(1, 0) 368 They all want love songs, and I can't think why.
 
(1, 0) 370 Never so young as you.
(1, 0) 371 Here's a song for you: "Tra Bo Dau."
 
(1, 0) 373 ~
(1, 0) 374 Go, gentle dove, whom my dear love
(1, 0) 375 Has in her arms caressed.
(1, 0) 376 This message bear across the air
(1, 0) 377 Unto her faithful breast.
(1, 0) 378 Say Beauty's rose to meet me glows
(1, 0) 379 And starry looks are shot,
(1, 0) 380 But I so miss her loving kiss;
(1, 0) 381 Tell her to fear them not.
(1, 0) 382 Riches desert or deceive us,
(1, 0) 383 Beauty dissolves like the dew,
(1, 0) 384 Love will outlast the rudest blast,
(1, 0) 385 Wherever hearts are true.
 
(1, 0) 389 It's the kind of song for them all, I'm thinking.
(1, 0) 390 'Tisn't a year ago since I was at the wedding of old Bryngwyn with the cobbler's daughter, Gweno.
(1, 0) 391 Duw! there's merry the old fellow was!
(1, 0) 392 Shouting to me to sing a song all about him and his little Gweno.
(1, 0) 393 So I sang them "Tra Bo Dau."
 
(1, 0) 395 And when I was there at Easter time, old Bryngwyn was still merry and wanting "Tra Bo Dau" over again.
(1, 0) 396 But Gweno keeps her sweetheart's letters on the top shelf of the dresser in the green jug her granny gave her.
(1, 0) 397 That's what Ann, the servant, told me, whatever.
 
(1, 0) 400 She's only twenty, Ianto bach, and he sixty-five, if he fas four farms as well as Bryngwyn.
 
(1, 0) 402 Yes, yes─but you're one of the lucky ones.
(1, 0) 403 Anyone can see that.
 
(1, 0) 405 The queer thing is that old Bryngwyn thinks he's lucky, too.
(1, 0) 406 There's an old fool for you!
 
(1, 0) 412 No, no.
(1, 0) 413 IANTO
 
(1, 0) 415 And a fine little housekeeper.
(1, 0) 416 Not a crumb wasted.
(1, 0) 417 And not thinking from morning to night what to put on her back, like other men's wives, but putting a little in the Savings Bank every week.
(1, 0) 418 Is she, indeed, now?
 
(1, 0) 423 Yes, yes.
 
(1, 0) 425 Yes, yes─you're lucky, Ianto Griffith.
 
(1, 0) 427 Very few men are as lucky.
(1, 0) 428 Look at Meredith Pugh down Gwynfa way.
(1, 0) 429 His wife's a terrible screw.
(1, 0) 430 She'll sit all day in the market, and the rain pouring, to sell six-penn'orth of sour apples.
(1, 0) 431 And she gave the minister bread and pickled onion for supper.
(1, 0) 432 There's great talk about her─and I remember her well, a fine young girl.
 
(1, 0) 434 But Meredith doesn't know it.
(1, 0) 435 Boasting he is all the time about his clever wife and his money in the bank.
 
(1, 0) 437 There's plenty of those to be had, Ianto bach.
(1, 0) 438 Marged Ann Price's John now, in the Rhondda.
(1, 0) 439 Twopence a week she gives him for tobacco, and him getting £3 at the works.
 
(1, 0) 441 Wait you a minute!
(1, 0) 442 She made him a coat out of her mother's flannel petticoat─a fine handsome petticoat it was, black with big red stripes, and five-and-twenty years old─everybody knew it.
(1, 0) 443 The men at the works were half killing him with their jokes, but he daren't leave it off.
 
(1, 0) 446 Marged Ann?
(1, 0) 447 Caton pawb, no!
(1, 0) 448 A little bit of a thing she is, very like your wife.
 
(1, 0) 450 In face, I mean, not in nature.
 
(1, 0) 454 That's right.
(1, 0) 455 I like to see a man put the women in their proper place.
(1, 0) 456 But, diawl! there's cunning they are!
(1, 0) 457 My old mother─and some called her a witch─used to say that every woman was a witch, putting spells on men and making them see what isn't there at all.
 
(1, 0) 459 No, indeed─not men like you, but there's plenty like old Bryngwyn and Meredith Pugh and Marged Ann's John.
(1, 0) 460 They put me in mind of Dicky Dwl of Drim, counting cockle shells and thinking he'd found a golden treasure.
 
(1, 0) 462 Yes, yes.
 
(1, 0) 465 Well, it's time for me to be going─but here's something for you first.
 
(1, 0) 468 Don't you laugh at it, Ianto.
(1, 0) 469 There's a great deal of power in that little leaf.
(1, 0) 470 IANTO
 
(1, 0) 472 My mother says it's lucky to find one.
(1, 0) 473 It's more than lucky.
(1, 0) 474 My old mother used to say that if a man had a four-leaved clover about him 'twould keep him safe from any spells that anyone would be putting on him─and she was a gipsy and wise.
 
(1, 0) 476 Never mind.
(1, 0) 477 Where's the harm in putting it in your coat?
 
(1, 0) 483 Good-night to all here.
 
(1, 0) 488 Thank you, ma'am.
 
(1, 0) 490 I'd sooner be the other side of the mountain gate.