Celtic Cousins - Part Two by Sara John Last month I made some observations regarding the Welsh and the Scots, cousins within the Celtic nations, who share similarities but also demonstrate differences. I have more to add! I bumped into a number of kilted Scots walking to Llandaff Railway station on the Saturday morning, of THE GAME between Wales and Scotland as they were clearly going to catch the train into the city centre. Nothing surprising about that you may think. But they were with an equal number of locals, wearing more red items than they would normally put on all at the same time. All clearly with a common purpose, sharing jokes, laughing and generally messing about. Morning of the match. A magical time, equal amounts of worry and excitement. On both sides. Will the good humour last the day? Yes, it will. Does it matter who wins? It does, but not so much for the Wales v Scotland or the Scotland v Wales games. Maybe winning is more critical for the other games in the Six Nations Internationals?
Welsh voices singing it as it had never been sung before. A number of people confided in me that they went as much for the singing as for the game. Multiply that a few times for the games in the Principality Stadium. I recall years ago when Bill McLaren was commentating after the Welsh Anthem was sung with great gusto and total conviction saying, “They must have been able to hear that in Treorchy!”
Frequently mentioned to me when we lived in Edinburgh was the tearful joy of the Scots when the Welsh sang Flower of Scotland full-pelt and full-hwyl at Murrayfield.
Apart from a serious regard for education, the written word, honesty, fair play, poetry, storytelling, an enduring respect for the past and as Robbie Burns wrote, recognising that, ‘a Man’s a Man for al’ that’, we share much else.
I know and clearly remembered what it sounded like. I have been there and I witnessed it first hand.
Both the Welsh and the Scots have their own distinctive language and speech patterns.
It went like this, first the Welsh anthem, none of the Scots join in, they just listen to the music and language of heaven. Then, to the visible surprise of the Scots, some of whom may be at Murrayfield for the first time, the lone piper up on the roof of the stadium (the Scots, especially in Edinburgh, do nothing by halves) plays the first few bars of “Flower” and the Welsh are away with the angels again. The first time I was there, I noticed the Scots standing nearest to us with tears running down their faces totally unable to sing their own anthem, Flower of Scotland, because of the sounds of the choir of twenty to thirty thousand
Perhaps the Welsh are fonder of using twenty words when one word would have sufficed? The Welsh also repeat information in a slightly different form just in case the first transmission failed. This is said by some scholars to be ‘leftover’ from the early Medieval period when Norman French was gradually replacing, merging, and taking over (there you are - I’m doing it now) from Saxon and early English.
22 CARDIFF TIMES
Some might comment that the Welsh are well known for voluble speech: speech that is musical, fluid, loquacious.
