Na Píobairí Uilleann

Chairman, NPU

An Píobaire

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9 4 14 20130930 14 marching against a detachment of Welsh moun- taineers, which was coming briskly forward singing a national air, when all at once the Bre- tons of the French army stopped short in amaze- ment. The air their enemies were singing was one which every day may be heard sounding over the hearths of Brittany. “Electrified,” says the historian, grandson himself of an eyewitness, “by accents which spoke to their hearts, they gave way to a sudden enthusiasm, and joined in the same patriotic refrain. The Welsh, in their turn, stood motionless in their ranks. On both sides officers gave the command to fire; but it was in the same language, and the soldiers stood as if petrified. This hesitation continued, how- ever, but a moment: a common emotion was too strong for discipline; the weapons fell from their hands, and the descendants from the ancient Celts renewed upon the battlefield the fraternal ties which had formerly united their fathers.” Concerning the encounter at Saint-Cast, Ville- marque advances the theory that the singers were the French soldiers, and that the reason why the Welshmen stopped in amazement was that they suspected treachery when they heard their own song. The point is of little consequence, but not so the melody which Villemarque prints as that to which the old ballad is sung. This, as it ap- pears in Bar-zaz-Breiz, is, note for note, the Welsh tune known as “Captain Morgan’s March.” The same melody is sung to another ballad describing the Siege of Guingamp, which took place in 1488. Now, according to Welsh legend, the Morgan whose name is preserved in the ancient “Rhyfelgyrch Cabden Morgan” was “Captain of the Glamorganshire men, about the year 1294, who gallantly defended his country from the incursion of the Saxons and who dis- possessed the Earl of Gloucester of those lands which had formerly been taken from Morgan’s forefathers.” If the air is as old as that it may well be older still, and, indeed, may have been car- ried into ancient Armorica by the immigrants from Great Britain who crossed the Channel in large numbers in the fifth and sixth centuries. (Henry Edward Krehbiel: Afro-American Folksongs: A Study in Racial and National Music, G. Schirmer inc, 1914) A great story, you’ll have to agree… It is one of those stories where you wish that even if it isn’t true, it ought to be! Unfortunately though, there are sections of the narrative where it is best to briefly suspend one’s critical faculties! Firstly, given the notoriously harsh discipline en- forced by all armies and navies throughout Eu- rope in those times, none but a traumatised lu- natic would under any circumstance dare to coun- termand an order given by a superior officer. Secondly, we are expected to accept as fact the improbable scenario whereby “the weapons fell from their hands, and the descendants from the ancient Celts renewed upon the battlefield the fraternal ties which had formerly united their fathers”. True enough, the combatants might well have recognised the air being sung by those on the opposite side – but would they have understood the language used by their op- ponents? My knowledge of the Welsh, Cornish and Breton languages amounts to just about zero so I cannot judge the likelihood of that being the case. Would tired, fearful and stressed-out soldiers who are just about to go into battle suddenly decide – purely on a whim based only on the sound of an old song – to “renew fraternal ties” with their opponents, even if doing so carried the risk of execution as traitors? Would YOU do so if you were in their shoes? I rather doubt it. Moreover, would both sides have been able to communicate effectively? Again, I doubt it – though of course I’d be only delighted if some- body more knowledgeable about those lan- guages would prove me wrong. My impression is that the day-to-day vocabularies and gram- mars of each language had diverged signifi- cantly over the many centuries since they once shared common linguistic roots. In any case, I located references to the slaughter by both sides of non-combatant civilians living in and around Saint-Cast during that same campaign. See http://fh.oxfordjournals.org/content/26/3/ 407.extract# Fraternal ties? I wonder… Finally, we have to treat as nonsense the bit about regaling each other with “hero legend & fairy tale”, because the reality is that a battle – or at least a ‘minor combat’ – subsequently did in fact take place on the beach at Saint-Cast! See again the previous (OxfordJournals) link…

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