Welsh Short Fiction

Introduction

Wales is a country located along the southwestern coast of the British Isles and is a member of the United Kingdom, along with England, Scotland, and Northern Ireland. The Welsh themselves are descendants of Celts who settled in the far western area of Great Britain. Their language, Welsh (Cymry), is Celtic in origin and is distantly related to Irish and Scottish Gaelic, but, like Gaelic, has at times been perilously close to extinction because of repressive laws designed to unify the British islands under a single, English king and the cultural dissolution that comes from mass immigration. Though Welsh is the native language of Wales, a government report in 2024 estimated that only about 30 percent of the population could speak it. Since the nineteenth century, much contemporary literature in Wales has been written in English. However, many writers have dedicated themselves to increasing native Welsh literacy.

The Acts of Union

The Welsh have a rich tradition of literature based on centuries of oral and written mythology that is part of their Celtic heritage, especially The Mabinogion (1838-1849). The Acts of Union in 1436 and 1543 allowed England to formally annex Wales and force a lengthy Anglicization process upon the Welsh nobility. These acts did not expressly forbid the Welsh language, but they made adherence to native dress and native speech impractical, if not dangerous, for those lords who wished to retain their land and wealth in the English court. In addition, the trend towards industrialization of Wales from the seventeenth to the nineteenth centuries encouraged massive immigration into southern Wales by individuals who had little or no interest in learning the Welsh language or customs. In practical terms, this has meant that Welsh writers have, at best, had their works in English favored over their writings in Welsh or, at worst, have been able to write only in English because of their lack of education in their native language.

Arthur Machen

One of the hallmarks of Welsh short fiction is its fascination with combining realistic fiction with aspects of fantasy, as exemplified in the works of Arthur Machen. Born Arthur Llewelyn Jones on March 3, 1863, in Caerleon-on-Usk, Machen is best known for his supernatural fiction, fantasy, and horror. The son of an Anglican clergyman, from childhood, he was intrigued by the mystical world that lay beneath mundane daily life. Machen’s work was popular, and his story “The Bowmen,” from his collection The Angels of Mons, the Bowmen, and Other Legends of the War (1915), may have been the source for the famous legend of the Angels of Mons. This legend suggests that a miracle occurred during the British army’s first battle with German troops at Mons, Belgium, on August 23, 1914, at the beginning of World War I.

According to the legend, St. George, the patron saint of England, and a troop of ghostly bowmen fought the attacking German troops and saved the British army; another version depicts massed angels standing before the British troops, successfully shielding them from the enemy. Until his death on December 15, 1947, Machen maintained that his story was a work of fiction. Yet, even in the early twenty-first century, many people believe the battlefield miracle occurred. The Angels of Mons legend is a modern example of an urban legend—that is, an apocryphal, secondhand story that contains many elements of folklore and is believed to be true, even though no actual proof of the occurrence can be provided. Many people, Welsh and English alike, scarred by their memories of wartime deprivation and devastation, found great comfort in the thought of heavenly intervention on behalf of their army, and this comfort led to the legend’s survival.

Most of Machen’s other fiction did not have such an effect on readers, although he certainly influenced writers both in Europe and America. His novella The Great God Pan (1894) is regarded by many as the classic horror story. It was his first success, although he was sharply criticized for including scenes involving sex and violence. Nevertheless, the story became very popular. Part of its popularity was a gothic revival in literature in the 1890s that piqued readers’ interest in mystery, supernatural events, ghosts, and horror. Like other writers of the period, Machen was creating stories that showed how one’s curiosity in exploring the “forbidden” worlds of the occult could end up driving one to madness, sexual depravity, and even death.

In Machen’s story, a young Welsh woman is driven mad when a scientist conjures up the Greek god Pan—the half-man, half-goat god of fertility—and is viciously attacked by the specter. Some years later, in London, several young men begin to commit suicide under mysterious circumstances. The men apparently have been driven to kill themselves by a beautiful and desirable young woman named Helen, who clouds their minds with desire but frustrates any of their attempts to settle her wild spirit. Later, the reader finds out that Helen is the daughter of the Welsh woman who was not only attacked but also raped and impregnated by Pan. This theme (also used by H. P. Lovecraft) has been commented on by several suspense and horror writers, including Stephen King, who believes The Great God Pan is the best horror story ever written.

Rhys Davies

Another Welsh writer, Rhys Davies, born on November 9, 1901, or 1903, in Blaenclydach in the Rhondda Fawr Valley, was a prolific author of short fiction in English, writing over one hundred short stories. Unlike Machen, however, Davies’s family background could not aid him in attaining his childhood desire for a literary career (his father was a village grocer), and he believed he had to move to London to have access to the bulk of the English and European classics available at the time. However, in a gesture of love and nostalgia for his homeland, Davies set most of his stories in Wales. Like fellow writer D. H. Lawrence, Davies found his life as an expatriate author lonely, and they became close friends. His story ”The Chosen One,” originally published in The New Yorker, won an Edgar Allan Poe Award in 1966 and echoed many of the themes of naturalism and determinism found in Lawrence’s stories. Davies received the Welsh Arts Council Prize in 1971, and after his death on August 21, 1978, a trust was established in his name to promote Welsh authors writing in English. Since 1991, the trust has sponsored the Rhys Davies Short Story Competition, which provides monetary awards to short-story writers who are either born or live in Wales and whose stories are written in English.

Dylan Thomas and Caradog Prichard

Dylan Thomas, like Davies, is another Welsh writer who wrote exclusively in English, even though his works were often painfully nostalgic accounts of his childhood in Wales. Thomas was born on October 27, 1914, in the Uplands area of Swansea. Best known as a poet, he was also a short-story writer and a playwright. His father, a teacher of English and English literature, actively sought to keep his son from speaking Welsh. With such sentiment at home, Thomas only received Welsh instruction in school and never became verbally fluent. Nevertheless, A Child’s Christmas in Wales (1954) is a strikingly evocative work and reveals the melancholy writer’s love of his country and homeland traditions.

On the other side of the coin was Caradog Prichard, born on November 3, 1904, in Bethesda, Gwynedd. Prichard initially wrote articles for Welsh-language newspapers and later produced poetry and fiction in Welsh. His works include the novel Un Nos Ola Leuad (1961; Full Moon, 1973, also as One Moonlit Night, 1995) and a short-story collection Y Genod yn Ein Bywyd (1964). A striking characteristic of Prichard’s work is the dark, subversive quality of many of the stories’ settings. Like Davies, Prichard found ample material for his writings in the streets and fields around northern Wales, but unlike Davies, he had little sentiment for his characters or their surroundings.

Roald Dahl

Like Machen, another prolific Welsh author, Roald Dahl, was fond of writing about macabre events occurring in the mundane world. Dahl was born to immigrant Norwegian parents on September 13, 1916, in Llandaff, Cardiff. From his earliest days, Dahl’s mother treated him to the Norwegian tales of his heritage; the elves and kobolds of the sagas and Eddas provided material for his imagination and perhaps eased the uncertainty and horror of his childhood. In 1920, Dahl’s father died, and Astri, one of his three sisters, died of acute appendicitis. At seven, Dahl was enrolled at the Cathedral School in Llandaff, the first of a series of British public schools in which he was cruelly treated by his peers and ridiculed by his instructors.

Dahl never finished his university education, choosing to travel to Africa in the 1930s to work for an oil company. When World War II broke out, he entered the Royal Air Force (RAF) and demonstrated such skill at piloting aircraft, despite minimal training and obsolete equipment, that he rose to the rank of wing commander. Dahl, however, could not avoid the dangers of the war forever. Severely injured in a plane crash in 1940, he spent five months in the hospital recovering from severe head injuries. While in the hospital, he had several horrifying and grotesque dreams that he later said were the inspiration for his stories. After the war, in the 1940s, Dahl rose to prominence writing fiction for children and adults; after his death, a poll conducted in 2008 by The Times placed Dahl at number sixteen on the list of the fifty greatest British writers since 1945.

Like many writers, Dahl began his career by writing short fiction for adults. “A Piece of Cake,” suggested and inspired by C. S. Forester author of the Horatio Hornblower novels, was purchased by The Saturday Evening Post and published in August 1942. This story, describing the plane crash that nearly took his life, led Dahl to write other works about his wartime experiences, including The Gremlins (1943), a children’s novel about the little imaginary creatures that were said to infest the RAF airplanes during World War II.

Dahl was always interested in writing stories for children. James and the Giant Peach (1961), Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (1964, 1973), and Fantastic Mr. Fox (1970) are three of his most popular children’s novels, probably because they show children triumphing over cruel adults. This scenario plays a role in the fantasy lives of most small children. However, Dahl spent the majority of his time writing adult short fiction. Like his stories intended for children, these works showcase his dark humor and fondness for unusual settings. He quickly became a household name; at least sixty short stories are regularly reprinted in mystery and horror fiction collections. He won three Edgar Awards from the Mystery Writers of America for his works, and one of his most often anthologized stories, “The Man from the South” (sometimes called “The Smoker”), was adapted for the television series Alfred Hitchcock Presents. This story blends suspense and mounting horror about a young man who bets he can flick his cigarette lighter alight ten times without stopping. Hearing the young man’s foolish bet, an older man responds that if the young man succeeds, he will win a Cadillac, but if he loses, he will lose a finger. The story’s grotesque surprise ending inspired several film and stage adaptations. Many of Dahl’s other stories were adapted for television; his short-story collection Tales of the Unexpected (1977) inspired a British television series from 1978 to 1988.

The Rise of Welsh

Many, if not most, of the Welsh writers of short fiction before Dahl were best known for their work in English. However, it should not be assumed that Welsh writers never wrote in their native language. Welsh authors born after World War II were increasingly influenced by nationalist fervor. The establishment of Cardiff as the capital city of Wales in 1955; the repeal in 1967 of the Wales and Berwick Act of 1746, which mandated that all future laws applying to England would also apply to Wales; and the creation of Cymdeithas yr Iaith Gymraeg (Welsh Language Society) in 1962 led many Welsh people to believe that English should not be favored over their native language. While Plaid Cymru, the nationalist political party of Wales, increasingly pushed for the creation of a Welsh assembly (which finally came to fruition in 1999, a year after the Government of Wales Act was adopted), party members also agitated for linguistic reforms. The Welsh Language Act of 1993 gave the language equal status with English in Wales. In December 2010, the Welsh assembly unanimously voted to make Welsh the official language of Wales.

Rhys Hughes

Rhys Hughes, born on September 24, 1966, in Cardiff, is one of an increasing number of Welsh authors who write equally well in multiple languages. Worming the Harpy, and Other Bitter Pills (1995), The Smell of Telescopes (2000), A New Universal History of Infamy (2004), and The Postmodern Mariner (2008) are among his collections of interwoven short stories. In Hughes’s case, the term “interwoven” cannot be overemphasized: Castor Jenkins, the so-called Baron Munchausen of Porthcawl, a somewhat disturbed man given to telling amusing, fantastic stories of his adventures, is the protagonist of seven of the short stories in The Postmodern Mariner and an excellent symbol for what Hughes intends to create in the future. Hughes’s main project for the foreseeable future is to write a one-thousand-story cycle. These stories will connect in numerous ways, including shared characters and plots, shared themes, or shared stylistic techniques. Still, the connections between the stories are intended to draw together many individual narratives into a single, postmodern Chaucerian (or Mabinogion) story. Hughes’s project reflects the continuing health and rising spirit of the Welsh tradition of short fiction in the twenty-first century.

Several short fiction writers continue contributing to the literary world and Welsh culture by writing in their native language. Eirug Wyn's works critically satirize social and cultural issues in Wales. Myfanwy Alexander is a Welsh writer who has set her Daf Dafis novels in Wales and writes in her native language. Like Wyn, her works offer criticisms of Welsh social and cultural issues. Still other writers, such as Rachel Trezise, write in English but rely on Welsh culture for the context of their works. 

Bibliography

Brunvand, Jan H. The Vanishing Hitchhiker: American Urban Legends and Their Meanings. W. W. Norton, 1981.

Machen, Arthur. The Collected Arthur Machen. Edited by Christopher Palmer. Duckworth, 1988.

Moore, Dylan. “10 Books by Welsh Authors You Should Read.” Penguin Books, 25 Feb. 2021, www.penguin.co.uk/articles/2021/02/books-welsh-authors-about-wales. Accessed 30 July 2024.

Sturrock, Donald. Storyteller: The Authorized Biography of Roald Dahl. Simon & Schuster, 2010.

Sullivan, C. W. Welsh Celtic Myth in Modern Fantasy. Greenwood Press, 1989.

“Welsh Language Data from the Annual Population Survey: April 2023 to March 2024.” Welsh Government, 2024, www.gov.wales/welsh-language-data-annual-population-survey-april-2023-march-2024. Accessed 30 July 2024.

“Writers of Wales Directory.” Literature Wales, www.literaturewales.org/writers-of-wales. Accessed 30 July 2024.