https://wiki.sarg.dev/api.php?action=feedcontributions&feedformat=atom&user=82.15.162.127Vero - Wikipedia - User contributions [en]2026-08-10T15:25:30ZUser contributionsMediaWiki 1.44.2https://wiki.sarg.dev/index.php?title=John_Ceiriog_Hughes&diff=88866John Ceiriog Hughes2025-07-24T12:27:55Z<p>82.15.162.127: /* Life */</p>
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<div>{{Short description|Welsh folk-tune collector (1832–1887)}}<br />
{{Use dmy dates|date=October 2022}}<br />
{{Use British English|date=May 2012}}<br />
[[File:Portrait of John Ceiriog Hughes (4674472).jpg|right|thumb|John Ceiriog Hughes]]<br />
'''John Ceiriog Hughes''' (25 September 1832 – 23 April 1887) was a [[Wales|Welsh]] poet and collector of [[Welsh language|Welsh]] [[folk music|folk]] tunes,<ref>{{Cite DWB |id=s-HUGH-CEI-1832 |title=Hughes, John (Ceiriog; 1832-1887), poet |first=David Gwenallt |last=Jones |author-link=D. Gwenallt Jones |year=1959 |access-date=2 November 2021}}</ref> sometimes termed a [[Robert Burns]] of Wales. He was born at Penybryn Farm, overlooking the village of [[Llanarmon Dyffryn Ceiriog]] in the [[Ceiriog Valley]] of north-east Wales, then in [[Denbighshire (historic)|Denbighshire]], now part of [[Wrexham County Borough]]. One of eight children, he was a favourite of his mother, Phoebe, a midwife and herbal-medicine expert.<br />
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==Life==<br />
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At 16, Hughes left the village for [[Manchester]] to work as a grocer. He opened his own shop in 1854. There he met and was befriended and influenced by [[William Williams (Creuddynfab)]], a [[station master]] in the [[Pennines]], who found him a job on the railway. Williams had been appointed first secretary of the [[National Eisteddfod of Wales|National Eisteddfod]] Society. Hughes decided to sell his shop and concentrate on writing poetry, but he also started to drink heavily.<br />
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Hughes returned to Wales in 1865 as station master at [[Llanidloes]]. From 1868, he was also manager of the [[Van Railway]] at [[Caersws railway station]].<ref>{{Cite book |author=C. P. Gasquoine |title=The Story of the Cambrian |year=1973 |publisher=Christopher Davies Ltd}}</ref> In 1876, he became a Freemason, joining Sir Watkin Lodge No. 1477 at Mold, but resigning in 1879. He died in 1887 at the age of 54, leaving £96. He is buried at [[Llanwnnog]].<br />
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==Poetry==<br />
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Hughes made his first attempts at poetry while a pupil at Nant y Glôg School, after his father had given him a book on Welsh grammar, including a section on the sound arrangement known as [[cynghanedd]].<br />
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Ceiriog's desire to restore simplicity of diction and emotional sincerity to Welsh poetry did for it what [[Wordsworth]] and [[Samuel Taylor Coleridge|Coleridge]] had done for English. He is noted for an attempt to create a new Welsh culture and raise the status of the Welsh people, after the publication of the notorious [[Treachery of the Blue Books|Blue Books]] on education in Wales. His lyric poetry rested on traditional folk song and earned national attention when he won the Llangollen Eisteddfod in 1858 with a love poem, "Myfanwy Fychan o Gastell Dinas Brân" (Little Myfanwy from [[Castell Dinas Brân]]).<br />
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Ceiriog's first poetry collection of poetry appeared in 1860 as ''Oriau'r Hwyr'' (Evening Hours). He also wrote light-hearted lyrics, which he adapted to old Welsh tunes or to original composed music. Such lyrics include "[[Dafydd y Garreg Wen]]" (David of the White Rock) and "[[Ar Hyd y Nos]]" (All Through the Night). He also wrote Welsh lyrics for the song "[[God Bless the Prince of Wales]]" and the [[Charles Dibdin]] song, "[[The Bells of Aberdovey]]", which he translated as "Clychau Aberdyfi".<br />
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Ceiriog Hughes wrote Welsh-language lyrics for "[[The Ash Grove]]" which were published in Brinley Richards's ''The Songs of Wales'' (1873). Although one source says that Ceiriog Hughes's Welsh lyrics for "[[Men of Harlech]]" were first published in 1890, remarking that the English words followed only in 1893,<ref name=fuld>James J. Fuld, ''The Book of World-Famous Music: Classical, Popular, and Folk'', Dover, 5th ed., 2000, pg. 394.</ref> Ceiriog's lyrics for "[[Men of Harlech]]" are also to be found in Brinley Richards's ''The Songs of Wales'' (1873).<br />
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Like many Welsh poets, Ceiriog adopted a [[bardic name]] – "Ceiriog" from [[Ceiriog Valley]], where he was born. The hall in his home village contains a memorial inscription to him.<br />
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==Musicologist==<br />
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Ceiriog's fascination with Welsh folk music led him to probe its history, particularly the music of the harpists, who would often accompany songs. This led to a grand project of four planned volumes of Welsh airs, of which only the first appeared in print, in 1863: ''Cant O Ganeuon'' (''A Hundred Songs'').<br />
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==References==<br />
{{Reflist}}<br />
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==External links==<br />
*{{Gutenberg author |id=1217| name=John Ceiriog Hughes}}<br />
*[http://www.chirk.com/ceiriog.html Ceiriog Valley Information]<br />
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[[Category:1832 births]]<br />
[[Category:1887 deaths]]<br />
[[Category:Welsh poets]]<br />
[[Category:People from Denbighshire]]<br />
[[Category:People from Llanidloes]]<br />
[[Category:People from Wrexham County Borough]]<br />
[[Category:19th-century Welsh poets]]</div>82.15.162.127