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Updated: June 13, 2025
'Let it be, said I; then taking off my hat I stood uncovered before the chair, and said in the best Welsh I could command, 'Shade of Huw Morus, supposing your shade haunts the place which you loved so well when alive a Saxon, one of the seed of the Coiling Serpent, has come to this place to pay that respect to true genius, the Dawn Duw, which he is ever ready to pay.
I stopped and remained before the house thinking of the mighty Huw, till the door opened, and out came the dark-featured man, the poet's descendant, whom I saw when visiting the place in company with honest John Jones he had now a spade in his hand and was doubtless going to his labour. As I knew him to be of a rather sullen unsocial disposition, I said nothing to him, but proceeded on my way.
It presented nothing very remarkable, but it had the greatest interest for me, for I remembered how many times Huw Morris had walked out of that porch at the head of the congregation, the clergyman yielding his own place to the inspired bard. I would fain have entered the church, but the landlord had not the key, and told me that he imagined there would be some difficulty in procuring it.
Whilst of the verses of Huw Morris I never knew any one but myself, who am not a Welshman, who could repeat a line beyond the four which I have twice had occasion to mention, and which seem to be generally known in North if not in South Wales. From the flagstone I proceeded to the portico and gazed upon it intensely.
We asked if we were at the house of Huw Morris, and whether they could tell us anything about him; they made us no answer but proceeded with their occupation; John Jones then said that the Gwr Boneddig was very fond of the verses of Huw Morris, and had come a great way to see the place where he was born.
The woman said that nothing would give her greater pleasure than to hear a Sais recite poetry of Huw Morris, whereupon I recited a number of his lines addressed to the Gof Du, or blacksmith. The woman held up her hands, and a carter who was in the kitchen somewhat the worse for liquor, shouted applause.
In his time the hospitality of Chirk became the theme of many a bard, particularly of Huw Morris, who, in one of his songs, has gone so far as to say that were the hill Cefn Uchaf turned into beef and bread, and the rill Ceiriog into beer or wine, they would be consumed in half a year by the hospitality of Chirk.
Two days after the last adventure I set off, over the Berwyn, to visit the birth-place of Huw Morris under the guidance of John Jones, who was well acquainted with the spot. Huw Morus or Morris, was born in the year 1622 on the banks of the Ceiriog. His life was a long one, for he died at the age of eighty-four, after living in six reigns.
I was the last of the file, but I now rushed past John Jones, who was before me, and next to the old lady, and sure enough there was the chair, in the wall, of him who was called in his day, and still is called by the mountaineers of Wales, though his body has been below the earth in the quiet churchyard one hundred and forty years, Eos Ceiriog, the Nightingale of Ceiriog, the sweet caroller Huw Morus, the enthusiastic partizan of Charles and the Church of England, and the never-tiring lampooner of Oliver and the Independents.
In the kitchen the old lady pointed to me the ffon, or walking-stick, of Huw Morris; it was supported against a beam by three hooks; I took it down and walked about the kitchen with it; it was a thin polished black stick, with a crome cut in the shape of an eagle's head; at the end was a brass fence.
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