Dacw mam yn dwad - Here's Mummy - Welsh Folk Nursery Rhyme
Here is an old Welsh nursery rhyme for Mothering Sunday! Do you remember it? The lyrics are quite strange but children enjoy singing it. Here is a link to it being sung. Why not share with your mam?
Ar ben y Gamfa Wen,
Rhywbeth yn ei ffedog,
A phiser ar ei phen.
Y fuwch yn y beudy
Yn brefu am y llo,
A’r llo’r ochor arall
Yn chwarae Jim Cro
Jim Cro Crystyn
Wan, tŵ, ffôr,
A’r mochyn bach yn eistedd
Mor ddel ar y stôl.
Over the white stile,
Something in her apron
With a pitcher on her head.
The cow is in the cow shed
Lowing for her calf,
And the calf is on the other side
Playing Jim Crow.
Jim Crow Crust
One, two and four,
And the little pig is sitting
Pretty on the stool.
Jim cro was a card game popular with the Welsh miners during their lunch breaks. It has also been linked to awful 'Jim Crow' Laws in America, a brutal segregation of black and white people. You can read the BBC Wales news story here
There is another version of the song with yn gweiddi 'Jim Cro' (shouting 'Jim Crow') or 'Ar Ben y garreg wen' (over the white stone) which one do you remember? As these songs were passed from generation to generation by word of mouth there are often many variations. There are often differences between North and South Welsh songs too.
These old folk songs are often very mysterious - which makes them so fascinating!
13 comments
Dw i’n dysgu Cymraeg ac roedd fy mentor yn dweud wrtha i am y gân hon. Mae’r steil ychydig fel ‘Sosban Fach’ dw i’n meddwl.
I remember this song from my first year at ‘Junior School’ in 1957. Even though it was an ‘English’ school in Glamorgan, all of the older teachers were Welsh speaking. We had no idea what we were singing. A translation would have been helpful. Then, the language was in serious decline and these teachers were probably the rearguard. They would have grown up in Welsh speaking communities, gone to chapel on Sundays and partaken in eisteddfodau. Sadly, I had no interest in learning Welsh. One of my regrets.
I learned this at Sunday school in a traditional Welsh chapel in Pantymwyn in North Wales in the 1940’s.
I wonder if any Welsh Nursery rhymes have a political or historical source like many of the English ones.e.g. “Ring a ring a roses a pocket full of posies” referred to the Plague.
I was taught this in a small Welsh chapel in North Wales in the late forties! It still features strongly in my long-term memory.