Welsh Wedding Quotes

It had been June, the bright hot summer of 1937, and with the curtains thrown back the bedroom had been full of sunlight, sunlight and her and Will's children, their grandchildren, their nieces and nephews- Cecy's blue eyed boys, tall and handsome, and Gideon and Sophie's two girls- and those who were as close as family: Charlotte, white- haired and upright, and the Fairchild sons and daughters with their curling red hair like Henry's had once been. The children had spoken fondly of the way he had always loved their mother, fiercely and devotedly, the way he had never had eyes for anyone else, and how their parents had set the model for the sort of love they hoped to find in their own lives. They spoke of his regard for books, and how he had taught them all to love them too, to respect the printed page and cherish the stories that those pages held. They spoke of the way he still cursed in Welsh when he dropped something, though he rarely used the language otherwise, and of the fact that though his prose was excellent- he had written several histories of the Shadowhunters when he's retired that had been very well respected- his poetry had always been awful, though that never stopped him from reciting it. Their oldest child, James, had spoken laughingly about Will's unrelenting fear of ducks and his continual battle to keep them out of the pond at the family home in Yorkshire. Their grandchildren had reminded him of the song about demon pox he had taught them- when they were much too young, Tessa had always thought- and that they had all memorized. They sang it all together and out of tune, scandalizing Sophie. With tears running down her face, Cecily had reminded him of the moment at her wedding to Gabriel when he had delivered a beautiful speech praising the groom, at the end of which he had announced, "Dear God, I thought she was marrying Gideon. I take it all back," thus vexing not only Cecily and Gabriel but Sophie as well- and Will, though too tired to laugh, had smiled at his sister and squeezed her hand. They had all laughed about his habit of taking Tessa on romantic "holidays" to places from Gothic novels, including the hideous moor where someone had died, a drafty castle with a ghost in it, and of course the square in Paris in which he had decided Sydney Carton had been guillotined, where Will had horrified passerby by shouting "I can see the blood on the cobblestones!" in French.

if a man is a fool to wed for love, he must be utterly daft to wed for lust. No one with sense would expect a candle to burn forever, so why should a flame kindled in bed?

We'd become aliens in our own land," he'd warned, "denied our own laws, our own language, even our yesterdays, for a conquered people are not allowed a prideful past. Worst of all, we'd be leaving our children and grandchildren a legacy of misery and loss, a future bereft of hope.

Amongst the spoils that Brutus had taken from Greece was Ignoge, the daughter of Pandrasus, whom he wedded and who was to bear him three sons, Locrinus, Kamber and Albanactus. Upon the death of Brutus, Kamber and Albanactus inherited Wales (Cambria) and Scotland (Albany) respectively, and Locrinus became king of Loegria, the land named after him, which consisted of present-day England minus Cornwall. (The modern Welsh still know England as Loegria).

The tumbleweed told me he loved the Welsh word hiraeth, which—like many of the best words, it seemed—could not be fully translated into English. But hiraeth meant, loosely: yearning for a home that no longer exists, or maybe never existed at all. The musician said it was how he felt about me—like I was some long-lost home he hadn’t even known he had. I heard the sense of homecoming in his sentiment, more than the impossibility. But really hiraeth felt less like a description of our relationship and more like a description of the way I grieved my marriage: missing not what it had been, but what it hadn’t been—what we’d both hoped it would be.

Did something happen during Mr. Winterborne’s visit? Something besides discussing the wedding?” Helen responded with a miniscule nod, her jaw trembling. Kathleen’s thoughts whirled as she wondered how to help Helen, who seemed on the verge of falling apart. She hadn’t seen her this undone since Theo’s death. “I wish you would tell me,” she said. “My imagination is running amok. What did Winterborne do to make you so unhappy?” “I can’t say,” Helen whispered. Kathleen tried to keep her voice calm. “Did he force himself on you?” A long silence followed. “I don’t know,” Helen said in a sodden voice. “He wanted…I don’t know what he wanted. I’ve never--” She stopped and blew her nose into the handkerchief. “Did he hurt you?” Kathleen forced herself to ask. “No. But he kept kissing me and wouldn’t stop, and…I didn’t like it. It wasn’t at all what I thought kissing would be. And he put his hand…somewhere he shouldn’t. When I pushed him way, he looked angry and said something sharp that sounded like…I thought I was too good for him. He said other things as well, but there was too much Welsh mixed in. I didn’t know what to do. I started to cry, and he left without another word.” She gave a few hiccupping sobs. “I don’t understand what I did wrong.” “You did nothing wrong.” “But I did, I must have.” Helen lifted her thin fingers to her temples, pressing lightly over the cloth that covered them. Winterborne, you ham-handed sod, Kathleen thought furiously. Is it really so difficult for you to be gentle with a shy young woman, the first time you kiss her? “Obviously he has no idea how to behave with an innocent girl,” she said quietly. “Please don’t tell anyone. I would die. Please promise.” “I promise.” “I must make Mr. Winterborne understand that I didn’t mean to make him angry--” “Of course you didn’t. He should know that.” Kathleen hesitated. “Before you proceed with the wedding plans, perhaps we should take some time to reconsider the engagement.” “I don’t know.” Helen winced and gasped. “My head is throbbing. Right now I feel as if I never want to see him again.