All his pieces are excellent, but his
masterwork is decidedly the Cywydd y Farn or "Day of Judgment."
This poem which is generally considered by the Welsh as the
brightest ornament of their ancient language, was composed at
Donnington, a small hamlet in Shropshire on the north-west spur of
the Wrekin, at which place, as has been already said, Gronwy toiled
as schoolmaster and curate under Douglas the Scot, for a stipend of
three-and-twenty pounds a year.
CHAPTER XXXI
Start for Anglesey - The Post-Master - Asking Questions - Mynydd
Lydiart - Mr Pritchard - Way to Llanfair.
WHEN I started from Bangor, to visit the birth-place of Gronwy
Owen, I by no means saw my way clearly before me. I knew that he
was born in Anglesey in a parish called Llanfair Mathafarn eithaf,
that is St Mary's of farther Mathafarn - but as to where this
Mathafarn lay, north or south, near or far, I knew positively
nothing. Passing through the northern suburb of Bangor I saw a
small house in front of which was written "post-office" in white
letters; before this house underneath a shrub in a little garden
sat an old man reading. Thinking that from this person, whom I
judged to be the post-master, I was as likely to obtain information
with respect to the place of my destination as from any one, I
stopped, and taking off my hat for a moment, inquired whether he
could tell me anything about the direction of a place called
Llanfair Mathafarn eithaf.
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