: St Fagans National Museum of History Making History Project

Un o’m hoff bleserau fel Archifydd Clyweledol yw cael eistedd mewn heddwch am awr neu ddwy gyda phaned o goffi (ac efallai ddarn neu ddau o siocled) yn gwrando ar ddetholiad o’r 12,000 o recordiadau sain sydd yn ei harchif bellach.  Â drws fy swyddfa ar gau ac â’r clustffonau yn eu lle mae modd dianc i ffermdai a ffatrïoedd, i iard yr ysgol, i sedd y diaconiaid, i waelodion y pwll glo, i uchelderau y fferm fynydd neu i ble bynnag y mynnoch i gael cip ar fywydau Cymru’r gorffennol.

Cefais gyfle i wneud hyn y diwrnod o’r blaen ac mae’n rhyfeddol weithiau fel mae clywed pwt o stori, o ddywediad neu bennill yn dod ag atgofion yn llifo nôl.  Roeddwn i yn gwrando ar ŵr yn sôn am ei blentyndod yn Llanwddyn ac am y rhigymau a glywodd ar aelwyd y cartref.  Roedd yn un o wyth o blant ac mae’n sôn am y rhigwm y byddai ei fam yn ei ddweud wrth geisio tawelu’r plant trwy enwi bysedd eu traed.

Bowden, Gwas y Fowden, Dibyl Dabal, Gwas y Stabal, Bys Bach druan gŵr, dorrodd ei ben wrth gario dŵr. 

Recordiwyd yn Llanwddyn (1971)

Mae creu rhigymau am enwau bysedd y traed neu’r llaw yn arferiad byd-eang.   Mewn rhai gwledydd, arferir dechrau gyda’r bys bach a gorffen gyda’r bys bawd, ond ymddengys mai’r traddodiad yng Nghymru yw dechrau gyda’r bawd (bawd y droed fel arfer) a gweithio eich ffordd i lawr y bysedd gan roi siglad bach i bob un nes cyrraedd y bys bach.

Pan oeddwn i yn ifanc rwy’n cofio mam (sy’n dod o Trap, ger Llandeilo) yn tynnu fy hosan ac yn enwi bysedd fy nhraed un wrth un.  Dyma’r enwau oedd ganddi hi ar y bysedd:

Bys Bowtyn, Twm Sgotyn, Lloyd Harris, Charles Dafis a Stiwart Bach y cwmni.

Mae dwsinau o fersiynau o’r rhigwm hwn i’r bysedd yn Archif Sain Amgueddfa Werin Cymru yn amrywio o ardal i ardal ac weithiau o deulu i deulu.  Mae rhai enwau fel “Modryb Bawd” yn ymddangos mewn llawer i ardal a rhai enwau yn unigryw i bentref neu i gymdeithas arbennig.  Weithiau ceir ail ddarn i’r rhigwm fel y gwelir isod.

Dyma rai o’m ffefrynnau i o gasgliad yr archif:

Bys Bwstyn, Twm Swglyn, Long Harris, Jac Dafis a Bili Bach.

Hwn yn mynd i’r farchnad; Hwn yn aros gartre; Hwn yn neud cawl; Hwn yn bwyta’r cwbwl a Bili Bach yn starfo.

Recordiwyd yn Nhal-sarn (1969)

Modryb Bawd, Bys yr Uwd, Hirfys, Pwtfys, Dingw.

Recordiwyd yn Llangoed (1967)

Hen Fawd Fawr yn mynd i’r mynydd.

“I be?” medda Bys yr Uwd

“I ladd defaid”, medda’r Hirfys

“Mi gawn ni ddrwg”, medda’r Cwtfys

“Llechwn, llechwn o dan y llechi”, medda’r peth bach.

Recordiwyd yn Nyffryn Ardudwy (1972)

Fenni Fenni, Cefnder Fenni Fenni, Fenni Dapwr, Dic y Crogwr, Bys Bach druan gŵr, dynnodd y drain trwy’r dŵr.

Recordiwyd yn Llantrisant (1976)

Modryb Bawd, Bys yr Uwd, Pen y Gogor, Bys y Pibar, Robin Gewin Bach.

Recordiwyd yn Nefyn (1968)

Roedd hi hefyd yn arfer ymysg merched i adrodd y rhigymau hyn wrth dynnu bysedd eu dwylo neu fysedd dwylo eu ffrindiau.  Byddai nifer y bysedd a fyddai’n clicio wrth eu tynnu yn darogan y nifer o blant y byddai perchennog y bysedd yn eu cael yn y dyfodol. 

Felly’r tro nesaf mae’r plant yn rhedeg fel corwynt trwy’r tŷ, yn rhoi darnau o fanana yn y peiriant DVD neu’n tynnu llun ar wal y gegin, anghofiwch am y teledu, am gemau’r tabled neu gil-dwrn o losin.  I dawelu'r cariadon bach ac i adfer heddwch, eisteddwch nhw i lawr, tynnwch eu hosannau a chyfrwch fysedd eu traed.

A belated happy New Year to you all! In the weeks since I posted my last co-curation update, we’ve been on the road again co-producing audio-visual content for the Making History project. Working with various community groups and individuals, we've been creating short films based on the collections selected for display. These films will form part of the interpretation in the new galleries. Here's a quick overview of what we've been up to.

First World War

In December, I was invited behind the wired walls of Maindy Barracks to interview two serving members of 3^rd Battalion The Royal Welsh. One of the new galleries will include a display about the First World War, focusing on voluntary action, healing and remembrance. My brief was to capture a glimpse into Army life today and to record contemporary responses to century-old collections. Inevitably, the interviews touched on difficult subjects – separation, injury and death. Hearing first-hand testimony from the soldiers was a fascinating experience. It's going to be a challenge to combine and edit the interviews into a three minute film.

Miners’ Strike

Earlier this month, we shifted our attention to the 1984-5 Miners’ Strike. Working with colleagues from Big Pit National Coal Museum, we asked a group of Youth Ambassadors from Blaenavon to interview individuals who were involved in the Strike.

After a morning learning about the ethics and techniques of oral history, the young people formulated their own questions and spent the afternoon recording the interviews. We were conscious of the need to represent a diverse range of experiences; to give the young people the opportunity to challenge their preconceptions. With this in mind, we invited an ex-police officer to join the workshop, as well as former miners and others affected by the dispute.

You’ll have to wait until the new galleries open to see the results! Needless to say, the Young Ambassadors were natural interviewers – curious, probing and balanced. When asked to reflect on the process, Owen from Blaenavon said he'd been on “an extreme historical adventure”. I'll second that.

#MakingHistory #CreuHanes

The work with 3rd Battalion The Royal Welsh is supported by the Armed Forces Community Covenant Grant Scheme.

Spare a thought for our stonemasons who have been working tirelessly re-creating a 13^th century royal hall from Anglesey. Our team have mortar mixers and steel scaffolding which weren’t available at the time, but in truth the process has changed very little. It is simply a case of laying one stone at a time. The long walls of the main hall have reached their full height and all ground-level window reveals have been finished. Wooden formers were made to hold the arching stones in place until the mortar had hardened. The masons will continue to build the nine meter gables until the Carpenters Fellowship are ready to install the internal timber frame that will help take the load of the roof.

The drawing on the right provided by Tim Potts from the Carpenters Fellowship allows us see what the interior of the hall will look like after the frame has been installed. This frame along with the stonework will form an aisled hall typical of the period. The design of the frame features semi-circular arched bracing which was informed by research into two surviving buildings: the Bishops Palace at Hereford and the Great Hall at Leicester Castle), while the stonework recreates that of the royal court at Rhosyr, Anglesey. For more info visit: https://museum.wales/blog/2015-11-09/The-Bishops-Palace-Hereford and https://museum.wales/stfagans/buildings/llys-llywellyn/. The oak frame will look wonderful, but be prepared for it to be painted in typical Romanesque patterns such as chevrons in alternating colours.

Our research work currently focuses on recreating period wall-hangings and furnishings. One of the more challenging aspects of this build is successfully meshing two disparate worlds. On the one hand we are tasked with re-creating the world of Llywelyn the Great, ruler of Gwynedd 1200–1240 and owner of the court at Rhosyr. On the other hand we have to comply with the requirements of our own 21^st century world: visitor/staff well-being and hazard mitigation. No doubt this will be the first Welsh hall with underfloor heating and an emergency lighting system.

The Bishop’s Palace at Hereford was once a very grand hall, and as it was built in 1180, offers a rare glimpse at the constructional techniques of the period. Last week, my colleagues and I visited the Palace to see the one giant arched-brace that survives, hidden in the attic.

One of St. Fagans’ latest building projects is the reconstruction of a medieval Royal hall from Rhosyr, near Newborough in Anglesey. This hall was significant because it was one of 22 in Gwynedd owned by Llywelyn ap Iorwerth (Llywelyn ‘the Great’) during the beginning of the 13^th century. At the time Princes were peripatetic and would visit each hall in turn, in order to attend to the administrative needs of that region. As this hall now only stands as a ruin, very little evidence survived of its timber-framed roof, and a considerable amount of research has been undertaken in order to provide a representative design for the reconstruction. One potential ‘post-pad’, and areas of differential stone paving was enough evidence to suggest the existence of two rows of timber posts within the great hall at Rhosyr. These divided the space along its length, forming a central ‘knave’ and an ‘aisle’ on either side. Rows of tall timber posts like these need to be braced together to ensure their rigidity, and hence the reason for our visit to Hereford. The curved arch is almost as impressive today as it must have been when it was built. We plan on replicating this framing technique by joining our posts with similar, if smaller, arched-braces. Together they will form strong ‘arcades’ on which our roof rafters can rest.

The 1168 work was finished to a very high standard, as you can see from the ornately carved capitals and the studding along the upper edge of the brace. The timber is also of some note, as today such large diameters are only to be found in the dreams of woodworkers. For instance, each half of the brace is made from a single long curving trunk, which would be an exceptionally rare find these days. Also, the circular column near the base of the arch has been carved from, and is still attached to, the same trunk as the square post it backs on to - which called for a very wide tree.  A point of note, however, is that although the standard of workmanship is high, its design is somewhat frowned upon. In his book ‘English Historic Carpentry’ (1980) Cecil A. Hewett wrote ‘This is poor carpentry’… ‘The Hereford example is wrought to a high standard, but this quality is expressed only in the skilled cutting of the timber and the degree of ‘fit’ achieved. As illustrated, the jointing is weak and hardly deserves to be called such..’

Although described as ‘bad carpentry’ The Bishop’s Palace has stood for 835 years. Having returned from Hereford, my challenge is to replicate this design for use in our own hall, where 17 of these semi-circular arched braces are required to support Llys Rhosyr’s thatched roof, albeit at a reduced scale. The inclusion of a pair of hidden tennons at the top of the arch will successfully raise the standard of the jointing while crucially, maintaining the look of the original brace.

I’m back at my desk in St Fagans having just had one of those ‘I love my job’ kind of weeks. On Wednesday, I spent the day with an amazing group of Year 10 students from Ysgol Clywedog in Wrexham, gauging their opinions on devolution and its impact on Wales since 1997. Heavy-going stuff for 14 year olds? Think again!

With my colleagues Owain and Richard, I met the students at Wrexham County Borough Museum bright and early on Wednesday morning for an action-packed day of researching, questioning and debating. The aim of the day was to produce a film of the students discussing devolution and what it means to them as teenagers living in Wrexham today – a town which voted ‘no’ in 1997. We took a banner from the collection with us as a springboard for debate. This banner – made for the ‘yes’ campaign by the artist Mary Lloyd Jones – will be displayed in one of the redeveloped galleries here at St Fagans in the near future, along with contemporary voices from Ysgol Clywedog.

To kick-start the discussion, we asked the students to do a little background research. Some trawled the web using i-pads, while others accessed local newspapers stored on microfilm in the museum’s archive. Headlines and articles from the Wrexham Leader gave a snapshot of the debate at a local level – 44.3% of voters in Wrexham were in favour of devolution, while 55.7% were against. The Year 10 researchers were not surprised by the ‘no’ vote in Wrexham. This prompted a lengthy discussion about their identities as young people in north-east Wales, living so close to the border with England. Interestingly, eight out of the nine participants would have voted ‘yes’ in 1997 had they been eligible to vote.

We then moved on to analysing the banner. Without any prompts or contextual information, we asked the students to jot down their initial reactions and emotions on viewing it for the first time. Comments varied from questions about its design to its usage and meaning. In the afternoon, we filmed two group discussions, with the students directing questions to each other. This took on the feel of an informal Question Time, without the cheering and heckling! We were so impressed with the energy and enthusiasm of the students, it’s going to be a real challenge to edit the finished product.

A huge thank you to Thomas, Jess, Edan, Pedro, Morgan, Elise, Matthew, Lucy and Harry from Ysgol Clywedog for taking part in the project. We can’t wait to see the film on display. Our thanks also to Wrexham Museum for hosting and supporting the workshop. Diolch yn fawr iawn i bawb.

#YesForWalesBanner #MakingHistory

#BanerIeDrosGymru #CreuHanes