The All Saints’ triplets

A correspondent signing himself Gwilym Sais sent Hone seven triplets for the first of November, the Welsh Calan Gaeaf, from William Owen Pughe’s translations of the elegies of Llywarch Hen. Each begins ‘On All Saints day’ with a picture of early winter, such as lean stags, yellow birch tops and the plough in the furrow, and ends with a moral maxim that has nothing to do with the weather. Pughe’s note added that the old Welsh counted the day as the end of summer and kept it with bonfires, as some parts of Wales still did. Hone printed the Welsh beside the English.