VINTAGE TALES FROM AROUND THE WORLD

A X-MAS TALE OF A CHILD IN WALSE (Walse 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁷󠁬󠁳󠁿)

Wales is a country situated in the southwest of Great Britain, famous for its rough coastline, mountainous national parks, unique Welsh language, and Celtic culture. The capital city, Cardiff, is a sophisticated coastal city with lively nightlife and a medieval castle featuring intricate Gothic Revival interiors. In the northwest, Snowdonia National Park boasts lakes, glacial landforms, hiking trails, and a railway that goes up to the summit of Snowdon. The capital of Wales is Cardiff.

Welsh folktales are a fascinating and varied collection of stories that have been passed down from generation to generation. They typically feature mythical creatures, magical objects, and heroic characters, providing a unique insight into the culture and history of Wales.

Many writers and artists, including J.R.R. Tolkien, have been inspired by Welsh folktales and have borrowed elements from Welsh mythology for their works. These tales are still enjoyed today by people of all ages, offering a glimpse into the rich cultural heritage of Wales.

Dylan Thomas, a renowned Welsh poet, captivated audiences with his heartwarming tale of "A Child's Christmas in Wales" when it was first broadcast on the radio in 1952. The story, which portrays a young child's nostalgic recollection of Christmases past, has since become one of Thomas's most beloved works. It was later published in 1955, earning even more widespread acclaim for its vivid descriptions of a simpler time and place.

And I want to share this story with you. But I titled it "A X-mas tale of a child in Walse" using the letter X.

Let's read;

One Christmas was so much like another, in those years around the sea-town corner now and out of all sound except the distant speaking of the voices I sometimes hear a moment before sleep, that I can never remember whether it snowed for six days and six nights when I was twelve or whether it snowed for twelve days and twelve nights when I was six.

All the Christmases roll down toward the two-tongued sea, like a cold and headlong moon bundling down the sky that was our street; and they stop at the rim of the ice-edged fish-freezing waves, and I plunge my hands in the snow and bring out whatever I can find. In goes my hand into that wool-white bell-tongued ball of holidays resting at the rim of the carol-singing sea, and out come Mrs. Prothero and the firemen.

It was on the afternoon of Christmas Eve, and I was in Mrs. Prothero's garden, waiting for cats, with her son Jim. It was snowing. It was always snowing at Christmas. December, in my memory, is white as Lapland, though there were no reindeer. But there were cats. Patient, cold, and callous, our hands wrapped in socks, we waited to snowball the cats. Sleek and long as jaguars and horrible-whiskered, spitting and snarling, they would slink and sidle over the white back-garden walls, and the lynx-eyed hunters, Jim and I, fur-capped and moccasined trappers from Hudson Bay, off Mumbles Road, would hurl our deadly snowballs at the green of their eyes. The wise cats never appeared.

We were so still, Eskimo-footed arctic marksmen in the muffling silence of the eternal snows - eternal, ever since Wednesday - that we never heard Mrs. Prothero's first cry from her igloo at the bottom of the garden. Or, if we heard it at all, it was, to us, like the far-off challenge of our enemy and prey, the neighbor's polar cat. But soon the voice grew louder.

"Fire!" cried Mrs. Prothero, and she beat the dinner-gong.

And we ran down the garden, with the snowballs in our arms, toward the house; and smoke, indeed, was pouring out of the dining room, and the gong was bombilating, and Mrs. Prothero was announcing ruin like a town crier in Pompeii. This was better than all the cats in Wales standing on the wall in a row. We bounded into the house, laden with snowballs, and stopped at the open door of the smoke-filled room.

Something was burning all right; perhaps it was Mr. Prothero, who always slept there after midday dinner with a newspaper over his face. But he was standing in the middle of the room, saying, "A fine Christmas!" and smacking at the smoke with a slipper.