Clychau Cantre’r Gwaelod (The Bells of Cantre’r Gwaelod) is a poem of John James Williams (1869-1954), J. J. by his bardic name. A pastor and a poet, he composed secular poems, many hymns and two scriptural plays. He competed in the poetry contest of the Eisteddfod Genedlaethol Cymru (National Eisteddfod of Wales), the most important of the yearly festivals of Welsh culture, and won the chair awarded to the best bard in 1906 and 1908. Later in life he adjudicated the chair competition for nearly a quarter of a century, and presided it as Archdruid from 1936 to 1939.

This poem is well-known in Wales. It is a modern evocation of a famous Welsh legend, first attested from the 13^th century in the Black Book of Carmarthen (Llyfr Du Caerfyrddin). The legend in its late form tells that there were once large tracts of lowland under the current Cardigan Bay (Bae Ceredigion), the large inlet of the Irish Sea indenting the western coast of Wales. They were called Cantre’r Gwaelod “the Lowland Hundred” (a cantref or hundred was a territorial unit of Wales in the Middle Ages) and were ruled by the king Gwyddno Garanhir (“Longshanks”). The land has sixteen cities and was defended from the sea by an embankment and sluices. Their keeper was Seithennin. One evening in a banquet he became drunk, forgot to close the sluices, and so let the sea rush in and drown land and people; Taliesin the bard was the only one to escape alive. Ever since, some people believe that they can hear the bells of the sunken cities ringing faintly beneath the sea...

Similar stories of lands submerged by lakes of by the sea are widespread in Wales, and also found in Cornwall (with the land of Lyonesse lost to the sea) and Brittany (with the drowned city of Ys). They may keep memories of sudden coastal floodings, bolstered by the stumps of old submerged forests appearing at very low tides on several points of the Welsh coast. Although rarely mentioned as possible inspirations for Tolkien, they are reminiscent of the lost lands of his legendarium, Beleriand and Númenor. Of course, the main source of the story Númenor was Atlantis by Tolkien’s self admission; but for its other name of Westernesse he once gave Lyonesse (together with Logres, the realm of Arthur) as an inspiration in the Nomenclature of The Lord of the Rings. Besides, a mysterious ringing of bells from the sea filled with longing features prominently in his poem The Sea-Bell published in The Adventures of Tom Bombadil. With such echoes, J. J. Williams’ poem seemed us quite appropriate here as an illustration of modern literary Welsh.

The translation is ours. The text’s transcription emulates the Gothic minuscule, a common style of the Latin alphabet in the second half of the Middle Ages. We made use of Pia Frauss’ typeface _a e i o u.