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CYLCHGRAWN LLYFRGELL GENEDLAETHOL CYMRU THE NATIONAL LIBRARY OF WALES JOURNAL VOLUME III. Summer, 1943 NUMBERS I & 2. 'HEN WLAD FY NHADAU'' This fine national song (as concerns its music one of the most noble possessed by any nation) is now eighty-five years old and seems destined to immortality. It is strange, therefore, that up to the present no serious attempt has been made to collect all possible information as to its origin and the growth of its popularity. The following represents an effort in that direction, but it may be admitted that, the poet having been dead for fifty years and the composer for forty, it is rather late to expect any very abundant result from investigation. Should further facts be known to any reader he will doubtless communicate them, and in that way there may be amplified the body of recorded fact on a subject that must interest every Welshman and every lover of stirring popular song. THE EARLIEST MANUSCRIPT. The earliest copy of the song in existence is one in the handwriting of its com- poser, James James (1 833-1902). It is found in a book of manuscript music which evidently formed his general repertory as player and singer, and which is now, happily, on permanent deposit at the National Library of Wales.2 This book testifies to very varied instrumental and choral activities on the part of its owner, containing as it does 1. Well-known popular glees, part songs, etc., such as (to mention only a few) Mazzinghi's When a Little Farm we keep, Callcott's Red Cross Knight, Danby's Awake Æolian Lyre, and Spofforth's Hail! Smiling Morn, and a round or two, such as Poor Thomas Day. 2. Dance Music, such as The Cymro Waltzes', by Grecian, The Royal Court Polkas', by Linter, Topsy Quadrilles, and the Pontypridd Quadrilles. Of this dance 1 This article is offered to the National Library with the writer's warm gratitude to all its officials, Christmas, 1942. 2 Music MS. of James James, Pontypridd, deposited by the National Museum of Wales, 1938.