(Long Music) #11 WELSH CARROT AND HUNTED RABBIT - Jasons Bed Time Story Time

Hello and welcome to jasonnewland.com. My name is Jason Newland and this is Jason's Bedtime Storytime and this is I guess this podcast is just me telling bedtime stories so that you can drift off to sleep calmly, quietly, relaxingly and please remember to only listen when you can safely close your eyes if I haven't already said so because you don't want to fall asleep while you're flying a space shuttle or something do you?

It's a good idea to be nice and relaxed and be able to close your eyes and let go and something about listening to a fairy story or fairy tale is, if nothing else, it's a distraction from maybe what's in your mind and that chitter chatter that might be there that perhaps you've found in the past has got in the way of you sleeping calmly so at the very least it's a distraction and during the fairy tale I read and these ones are from 1921 so they're out of copyright and the

book it's basically it's Welsh fairy tales and it was blimey it's a public domain and it says written by William Elliot Griffiths so I've downloaded it to my Kindle so rather than reading it off a big screen so you bear with me while I try and read it so there's a few different a few stories yeah there's one called the Welsh Rabbit and Hunted Hares so that's going to be the first one I read I don't know how long it's going to last but there's 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8,

9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24 so there's 24 stories in this book and my intention is to read all of them I don't know if it would be like every day I'll do one or I might even do more than one story per recording if the story is too short so if the story only lasts 15 minutes then I may do a couple of stories it's quite difficult to really know so I hope you're well I hope you enjoy this little

recording and here we go yeah so this story and as I said it's Welsh stories Welsh fairy tales so I might not have actually heard of this story before and you might not have heard of it either although we might have done it might be a really popular one I won't know until I start reading it but I don't get a sense of it from the title that I recognize it so here we go so Welsh rabbit and hunted hares long long ago there was a good saint named David who

taught the early Cymric or Welsh people better manners and many good things to eat and ways of enjoying themselves that's a bit of a weird start isn't it teaching the Welsh people better manners ooh but this is a story so I'm reading that and I don't know if Cymric is the correct way of pronouncing it it's a C-Y-M-R-I-K Cymric or Cymwyc Cymwyc anyway I'm going to call it Cymryc Cymryc now the Welsh folks in speaking of their good teachers pronounced his name Tafid and affectionately Taffy and this came to be

the usual name for a person born in Wales so everybody born in Wales was called Taffy that was their name everyone I mean how how would you know who you were talking about I've got a message who from Taffy what's the message see you in the pub at 10 o'clock so which Taffy I don't know which pub Taffy's pub which which street is that in Taffy street oh who runs the pub Taffy this is getting confusing in our nurseries we all learned that Taffy was a Welsh man but it was

their enemies who made a bad rhyme about Taffy okay so Taffy was a positive name but the enemies turned it into a negative okay wherever there were cows or goats people could get milk that seems to be a bit of a a weird follow-on doesn't it from the sentence about enemies and a and a bad rhyme about Taffy's and they're talking about goats and milk anyway so they always had what was necessary for a good meal whether it was breakfast dinner or supper milk cream curds whey and cheese enriched the

family table were not these enough but Saint David taught the people how to make a still more delicious food out of cheese and that this could be done without taking the life of any creature as opposed to all the other cheese created dishes Saint David showed the girls how to take cheese slice and toast it over the coals or melt it in a skillet and pour it hot over toast or biscuits this gave the cheese a new and sweeter flavour when spread on bread either plain or browned over the fire

the result in combination was a delicacy fit for a king and equal to anything known so cheese on toast was the most amazing thing that had ever been created at that point fit for a king and equal to anything known more amazing than anything else i created the wheel that's nothing i had cheese on toast look at the castle i built nothing mate i had toast with melted cheese on it okay the fame of this new addition to the british bill of fare spread near and far the english people who

had always been fond of rabbit pie and still eat thousands of molly cotton tails every day named it welsh rabbit and thought it one of the best things to eat in fact there are so many people who do not easily see a joke who misunderstood the fun or who suppose the name to be either slang or vulgar or a mistake and who call it rabbit it is like cape cod turkey codfish or bombay ducks fried fish or irish plums potatoes and such funny cookery with fancy names now up to this

time the rabbits and hares had been so hunted with the aids of dogs that there was hardly a chance any of them of any of them surviving the cruel slaughter cheerful in the year 604 the prince of Powys was out hunting the dogs started a hare and oh well they started a hare how do you start a hare well it wound it up put batteries in it so they started a hare and pursued it into a dense thicket when the hunter with the horn came up a strange sight met his

eyes there he saw a lovely maiden she was kneeling on the ground and devoutly praying though surprised at this the prince was anxious to secure his game he hissed on the hounds hissed with an h on the hounds and ordered the horn to be blown for the dogs to charge on their prey expecting them to bring him the game at once instead of this though they were trained dogs and would fight even a wolf they slunk away howling and frightened as if in pain while the horn struck fast to the

lips of the blower and he was silent meanwhile their hair nestled under the maiden's dress and seemed not in the least disturbed i can see how it would feel quite relaxed amazed at this the prince turned to the fair lady and asked who are you she answered my mother named me mona keller i have fled from ireland where my father wished to marry me to one of his chief men whom i did not love under god's guidance i came to this secret desert place where i have lived for 15 years

without seeing the face of a man to this the prince in admiration replied oh most worthy melangel which is the way the welsh pronounce mona keller because on account of thy merits it has pleased god to shelter and save this little wild hare i on my part herewith because on account of thy merits it has pleased god to shelter and save this little wild hare i on my part herewith present thee with this land to be for the service of god and an asylum for all men and women who seek

thy prostitute protection so long as they do not pollute this sanctuary let none not even prince or chieftain drag them forth the beautiful saint passed the rest of her life in this place at night she slept on the bare rock many were the wonders wrought for those who with pure hearts sought her refuge the little wild hares were under her special protection and they are still called melangel's lambs and that's the end this story she was a lovely lady and she protected the rabbits they go to sleep