Y Gwydr Glas

Welsh General / Questions
#1

There is a Welsh folksong ‘Y Gwydr Glas’ featured in the book I am currently reading, ‘Llanw’ by Manon Steffan Ros, and I note that in Manon’s version one of the lines in the first verse differs from what seems to be the traditional wording. Manon has ‘Nad yw ferch hon gartref mae’i h’wyllys dan y tir’ (the girl is not at home her will is under the ground), as against ‘Nad ydyw’r ferch ddim gartre na’i h’wyllys da’n y tŷ’ (the girl is not at home nor her goodwill in the house).

Manon’s version suggests to me that the girl has in fact died – that the ‘Llanc ifanc o’r plwy aralI’, the young lad from the other parish’, she has gone off with is actually Death, and this seems to me a much more poetic and satisfying interpretation than that that she has simply gone off with another man. I’m just curious to know a) if I have got this right and b) if this textual amendment is Manon’s own invention or a common traditional variant.

Incidentally one of the characters in the book says ‘pam mae’r gwydr yn las’ and it seems a good question – why is the glass blue? Is there some special significance to blue glass in Welsh lore?

#2

does the glas hear refer to absolute best/perfect even rather than blue? - it often gets used like that.

#3

Or green? The traditional use of glas covered the spectrum from the blue of the sky to the natural greens of nature.

#4

There are indeed a number of variants of this song but I believe they all basically use the same metaphors to suggest the same thing - that, as you said, the girl has died.

As for gwydr glas - I think the gwydr glas in the song is ‘window-pane’ which would in days gone by have had a blueish-green tint - and so a character who had never seen old windows might well ask why the glass was that colour.