Land of My Fathers: the anthem, its author and its music
Hen Wlad Fy Nhadau: Land of My Fathers
Hen Wlad Fy Nhadau, Old Land of My Fathers, is the national anthem of Wales, written in Pontypridd in 1856, with words by Evan James, a weaver, and a tune by his son James James, a harpist. Yes, it is the Welsh national anthem, and it holds that position by custom rather than by law: no Act of Parliament and no resolution of any Welsh body has ever adopted it. It became the anthem because Welsh people began singing it as one, at eisteddfodau, at public meetings and eventually at international sporting fixtures, and no authority has ever needed to say so in writing.
WHAT THIS IS
The anthem, its author and its music
WRITTEN
Pontypridd, 1856, by Evan James and James James
IN THIS PROGRAMME
WALES
SOURCES
Public record only. The biographical facts are sourced.
The poem is addressed to Wales as the country of the writer's forebears, and it is described on this page rather than reproduced.
Pontypridd, 1856
The usual account puts the tune first. James James, a harpist who played in a public house his family kept at Mill Street in Pontypridd, composed a melody and asked his father to write words for it. Evan James, a weaver and a poet who competed at eisteddfodau, supplied three verses and a chorus. Both men also carried bardic names: the father was Ieuan ap Iago and the son Iago ap Ieuan, the two mirror images of one another. The piece was called Glan Rhondda, the bank of the Rhondda, after the river beside which the tune is said to have come to the son.
It was first performed in public early in 1856 at Capel Tabor in Maesteg, sung by Elizabeth John, and it spread through the ordinary channels of Welsh music in that decade: manuscript copies passed between chapels, competition at eisteddfodau, and finally print, in Owain Alaw's collection Gems of Welsh Melody in 1860, which put it in front of a national readership.
What the words are about
The Welsh
- Hen Wlad Fy Nhadau
- Old Land of My Fathers, the anthem's actual title, of which the English name is a shortening
- Glan Rhondda
- the bank of the Rhondda, the tune's own title in 1856, before there were any words
- Ieuan ap Iago
- the bardic name of Evan James, the Pontypridd weaver who wrote the words
- Iago ap Ieuan
- the bardic name of James James, his son, the harpist who wrote the tune
- emyn
- a hymn, meaning its words rather than its music; the staple of chapel singing
- tôn
- a tune, named and published in its own right, separately from any words set to it
The poem is a tribute to the country and to what it has produced. The first verse addresses Wales as the land of the writer's forebears and praises its poets, its singers and its soldiers of the past. The second turns to the landscape and to the sound of Welsh music in it. The third asserts that neither conquest nor time has silenced the language. The chorus, after every verse, declares that the country and the language will endure.
Two things about it are worth noticing. It is not a prayer for a monarch, as God Save the King is, and it is not a call to arms, as several European anthems are. Its subject is cultural survival, and the language itself. That explains why it is sung in Welsh by people who speak no Welsh: singing it in the language is the point.
The tune, and why it works for a crowd
Welsh practice keeps a tune and its words apart. A tôn, a tune, is named and printed in its own right, and an emyn, a hymn, can be sung to more than one of them, so a Welsh congregation asks for a tune by name. That is why this melody had a title before it had words. The anthem is not an emyn, but it travelled by the two routes that carried hymn tunes, chapel and competition.
The melody is in 6/8, a lilting compound duple time, and it is strophic: verse and chorus, the same music each time. Its shape is why it survives being sung by 70,000 people who have not rehearsed. The verse sits in a comfortable middle range and rises gradually. The chorus opens higher, with a repeated figure anyone can catch on a second hearing, and drives to a sustained high note near the end, the moment a stadium crowd leans into and holds, before falling to a firm close.
Choirs sing it in four parts, and a Welsh male choir will normally perform it unaccompanied with the melody in the first tenor. Massed unison singing with brass or organ is the other standard form. It is pitched to suit untrained voices, so the top of the chorus is high enough to feel like an effort and low enough to be reachable.
| Element | Detail |
|---|---|
| Words | Evan James, Ieuan ap Iago, a weaver, of Pontypridd |
| Tune | James James, Iago ap Ieuan, his son, a harpist |
| Written | Pontypridd, 1856 |
| Original title | Glan Rhondda |
| First public performance | Capel Tabor, Maesteg, early 1856 |
| Printed | Gems of Welsh Melody, edited by Owain Alaw, 1860 |
| Structure | Three verses and a chorus, of which only the first verse and chorus are sung |
| Language | Welsh; an English version exists but is rarely used |
| Legal status | Adopted by custom; no statute has ever named it |
An anthem by use, not by statute
The distinction between a customary anthem and a statutory one has consequences. A statutory anthem is named in law, which fixes its text, sometimes fixes its official arrangement, and creates a body with authority over it. The United States adopted The Star-Spangled Banner by Act of Congress in 1931; Canada adopted O Canada by the National Anthem Act of 1980 and amended its text by a further Act in 2018, which is only possible because there is an Act to amend.
| Adopted in law | Adopted by use | |
|---|---|---|
| How it becomes the anthem | A legislature names it | People sing it until nobody disputes it |
| The authorised text | Fixed by the statute | Fixed by convention and by what choirs print |
| Changing it | Requires legislation | Requires the public to change its habit |
| Examples | The Star-Spangled Banner, O Canada | Hen Wlad Fy Nhadau, God Save the King |
Wales therefore has an anthem with no official version, though the convention is very strong. Very few people who sing it at a stadium know the other two verses exist.
Where it is sung
The anthem is sung before rugby and football internationals in Cardiff, where the whole crowd singing it, frequently unaccompanied after the band drops out, is the best known instance of Welsh public singing. It closes the Eisteddfod Genedlaethol Cymru, the National Eisteddfod of Wales, and countless local ones. It is sung at the cymanfa ganu, the hymn-singing festival, at civic occasions, at funerals and at Welsh society dinners abroad, from London to Patagonia. Male choirs place it last on a programme, standing, with the audience joining.
The same tune serves two other Celtic countries. Bro Gozh ma Zadou in Brittany and Bro Goth agan Tasow in Cornwall use James James's melody with their own words, which makes a Pontypridd harpist's 1856 tune the shared anthem of three peoples. Very little else written in a Welsh valley in that decade has travelled as far.
Also in this programme
- Welsh classical musicThe composers, the choirs and the institutions
- The eisteddfodWhat an eisteddfod is, and how the music competition works
- Karl JenkinsThe most performed living Welsh composer
- St David's HallThe national concert hall of Wales