In the Journal of the Welsh Folk Song Society Vol III 1930 Part 1, there is a succession of tunes and comments on this measure. I'll give the tune/song titles and the comments. There's WAY too much to type all the words out, and likewise for ABC'ing the tunes.

I don't know if J. Lloyd Williams was still the editor of the Journal at this time. The 'form' was for the Editor to send the tune around to various stalwarts of the society (largely well-informed amateurs) and print any relevant comments which they might make following his own:

21 – YN Y GWY^DD (In the Wood)

Sung to the Editor at Aberystwyth in June, 1923, by the Rev. W. Rees, formerly Vicar of Llangaddock, Carmarthenshire. Mr Rees was well over 80 years of age, but he had a marvellous memory, and he sang for me several songs that were current in St. David's – his native district – during the early years of last century.

The song is clearly a variant of the beautiful tune of the same name (see No 22) noted by Miss Jane Williams in the Neath Valley. The words begin the same in both cases. The singer, while carrying on his work "in the wood", meditates on the uncertainties of life. This kind of semi-religious song was then very common, possibly the Methodist movement had much to do with it. – Ed.
"This sounds to me like a Scottish tune. It belongs to a characteristic verse-metre, the (probably) earliest known example of which is suggested by a title in 'The Complaynt of Scotland,' 1549.

'My lufe is Iyand seik, send him joy, send him joy.'

This may have suggested Hector Macneill's:

'My luves in Germanie, Send him hame, send him hame.'

There were also songs, of probably earlier date than the above, on Captain Kidd, Admiral Benbow, and the notorious crminal Sam (or Jack) Hall; and in the nineteenth centruy a revival hymn in 'Richard Weaver's Tune Book' 1861, was modelled upon the same stanza. All these tunes, together with the Welsh air, appear to be variants of the same original. 'Captain Kidd' and 'Sam Hall' are the dying confessions of villains, and the revival hymn is obviously suggested by one of them. It begins:

'come ye that fear the Lord
Unto me, unto me, etc.'

A verse of 'Captain Kidd,' with a somewhat modernized American form of the tune, may be quoted from an American collection, 'Our Familiar Songs, and Those Who made Them' 1889 (see below). Captain Kidd was hanged in Execution Dock on the Thames, in 1701, and the ballad is probably contemporary."
- Miss A.G. Gilchrist

CAPTAIN KIDD

To Miss Gilchrist's very interesting note we may add that there are among Welsh traditional tunes some dozens in this metre – some minor, others major or modal – and they are generically described as of the "Mentra Gwern" type. Some of them (e.g. Twrgwyn) have even been utilized as hymn-tunes.

For additional references to these tunes see pp 47, 48, 49.

It may be pointed out further that some of the middle phrases of Nos 21 and 22 are very similar to the corresponding ones in "Captain Kidd." – Ed.

"Of all these carol-tunes, No 21 strikes one most, with its lovely sweeping Seventh." - Sir Walford Davies

"Compare the tunes of Nos. 21 and 22 with 'Admiral Benbow' and 'Brave Boys', Chappell's Popular Music of the Older Times." - Miss L.E. Broadwood

22 – YN Y GWY^DD. FORM 2 OF No. 21

From Miss Maria Jane Williams of Aberpergwm's excellent collection of 'Ancient National Airs of Gwent and Morgannwg, 1844'. The tunes were noted before 1838, for they were sent to the Abergavenny Eisteddfod in that year, where they won the first prize for the best collection of unpublished Welsh traditional songs. Of the words, we have only this verse and the imperfect one under 21.

The word "gwy^dd" in Welsh sometimes means "weaver", and Moffatt, following Miss Williams' note on the tune, in setting it in his 'Minstrelsy of Wales' has entitled the song 'The Old Weaver'. " - Ed.

23 – Y MO^R. FORM 3 OF No 21 (The Sea)

As the words to this tune are modern, I had always thought the tune contemporaneous with them until I happened to notice its resemblance to the "Gwy^dd" tunes. Here,then, we have three forms of the same tune from districts as widely separated as St David's in Pembrokeshire, the Neath Valley in Glamorganshire, and Snowdonia in North Wales; and furthermore, they seem to be linked up with the English songs quoted by Miss Gilchrist and Miss Broadwood. The exceedingly humours ballad describing the many curious things to be found in the sea, and ending with a reference to Jonah's having 'resided for three days within an angry whale' was at one time exceedingly popular with Welsh students in Oxford, and it was regularly sung at the meetings of Cymdeithas Dafydd ap Gwilym. The author of the ballad was Mr Rowland E Roberts, Dorlan Goch, Clwt y Bont, and afterwards of Llanberis. As we have had many enquireis for the words, we here print the remaining verses. – Ed

(8 verses follow)

"I am curiously fascinated by No 23 with its extraordinary arrangement of seven bars followed by eleven bars. In spite of this irregularity (as it would seem to me) I think it is a fine modal tune." – Mr A. Martin Freeman

"'Y Mo^r' is most like the 'My luve's in Germanie' form of the tune. See Alfred Moffatt's Minstrelsy of Scotland, etc" - Miss A.G. Gilchrist

24 FFARWEL I DREF MANCEINION. (FORM 4 OF No. 21) (Farewell to Manchster Town)

The above tune and words were sent to the 'Brython' for Feb 9th, 1928, by Mr Maurice Roberts, Ashton-in-Makerfield. He had learnt it from an old uncle "50 to 60 years ago."

In a later number of 'Y Brython', Ieuan ap Ioan gives the whole of the ballad, as copied from a note book written about 1845 by James Anwyl, Keeper of Harlech Castle. – Ed.

"I consider No 23 far better than 21, but neither is as good as the Aberpergwm version (No 22) which is more highly organised and expressive." - Mr E.T Davies

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