Welsh Icons

-Daffodils, leeks, Welsh hat...

-Hiya!

Dragon hat, Welsh hat, inflatable leek, dragon hat!

Icons, icons! Get your Welsh icons here.

I know we think of people as our national icons.

Tom, Shirl, Catherine Zeta,

the Welsh rugby team on days such as this,

but what about the things we wear and wave for Wales...

the dragon, the flag, the leek, the daff?

How did they become our national icons? Heard it all before?

Well, I thought I had, too,

but sifting through this lot is like travelling through Wales herself, full of twists and turns.

So please join us in our detective story to find out about these.

Icons, icons! Get your icons here.

Daffodils, leeks, Welsh hat!

FANFARE

Oh, for heaven sake, shush!

Shush, shush, shush, with your cannons and trumpets. This is rare footage from a SILENT movie.

Thank you.

This is film of an investiture at Caernarfon in 1911.

But it's also said that on this historic occasion,

the first punches were thrown in a fierce battle between two of our Welsh icons.

DING-DING

The issue, is the leek or is the daffodil the rightful national emblem of Wales?

Now, it's been endlessly repeated as fact

that the investiture of young Edward as Prince of Wales in 1911 was the day of the daffodil,

because David Lloyd George, no less,

stuck a daffodil in his lapel on that very day, championing its cause as our national emblem.

So question, had the day of the daff really dawned?

Was this a body blow to the leek's hope of fame and national glory?

I don't think so. Look again at the photos.

There's not a golden daffodil in sight.

Not even a black and white one, fluttering and dancing in the Caernarfon breeze.

And why? Well, unless they'd had a particularly cold snap up here in Caernarfon in 1911,

it's pretty unlikely Lloyd George would have found a daffodil in flower

anywhere from Twthill to Gei Llechi.

It was July, for heaven sake.

But what does seem to be true is that Lloyd George had indeed been championing

the cause of the daffodil in preference to the leek for some years before the investiture

and that, in the early 1900s, the vexed question of daffodil versus leek was already, erm, a hot potato.

Obviously, the entire destiny of the nation's at stake if we don't sort out once and for all

this business of leeks and daffs, so move over, Sherlock.

You have my solemn word that no stone shall be left unturned

in this quest to identify the true national emblem of Wales.

If that's all right with you.

CHEERING

All right, all right. I know this is all going over the top a bit.

Besides, what have the Welsh to worry about? Let's face it,

our neighbours have made some pretty odd choices of emblems.

There's the thistle of the Scots

and the rose of the English.

Both a tad prickly for me, but I'll say no more lest I cause offence.

And then there's the shamrock.

What in the botanical heavens is a shamrock?

At least you can chomp on a leek or gaze wistfully at a daff.

So what is the case in favour of daffodils as our national emblem?

Well, they flower around St David's Day. Tick.

They're attractive and they don't smell like leeks. Double tick.

Welsh researchers discovered that the daffodil has potential as a medication against Alzheimer's.

Bonus point. And botanists have shown that there are native Welsh varieties of daffodils.

So let's give it up for the daff.

Narcissus pseudonarcissus.

Sub-species...pseudonarcissus. Flower of Wales.

APPLAUSE AND CHEERING

Of course, the fact that the daffodil exists in Wales from antiquity doesn't mean

it's any more legitimate as a national emblem than an oak leaf, a poppy or a blade of grass.

Part of the reason for the war between the leek and the daffodil

must lie in that bastion of nationhood, that wall against a sea of Englishness,

the Welsh language itself.

Leeks. "Cennin".

Daffodils. "Cennin Pedr".

It's the same as if in English we called leeks "leeks", as we do,

but decided to call daffodils "Peter's leeks".

Who wouldn't get their icons in a twist?

So let's see if I can do a bit of untwisting.

Get to the root of the matter, and if possible

come up with any references to the leek being a national emblem before the time

of Lloyd George and his daffs, or at least some old tradition connecting the leek with St David's Day.

Well, the big surprise is that we have to thank these gentlemen for some key evidence...

the Yeomen of the Guard, the elite bodyguard of kings and queens of England for over 500 years.

In his own private accounts, we have Henry VIII, no less,

outlining what's clearly an annual expense he lavished on his daughter Princess Mary. Lucky girl.

"Mens' M'cij, 1537-8.

The month of March, 1537-8.

"Item. Given among the yeomen of the king's guard, bringing a leek to my lady grace on St David's Day.

15 shillings. "

A clincher.

What's been noted here is a ritual, an established annual ritual on St David's Day,

with a Tudor king, Henry VIII, aware and proud of his Welsh ancestry,

paying a princely sum for a leek to be delivered by the yeomen of the guard, his personal guard,

to his daughter Mary on St David's Day.

And there's another key piece of historical evidence

in favour of the leek at the National Museum in Cardiff.

Now let me introduce you to Philip Proger, originally from Gwerndu in Breconshire.

Here's a local lad who did very well for himself.

He was equerry to James I and later groom of his privy chamber. What more could you ask?

But take a look at what he's holding in his hand.

It's a bit small and limp.

Certainly not as big as Max Boyce's

or anything waved around at international matches.

But it is definitely a leek and not a daff.

But why would a Welshman in one of the most important positions

in the court of the King of England want to have a portrait of himself holding a leek?

Unless the leek meant something special,

something that said what he represented, who he was, where he came from.

I don't want to labour the point,

but I think Lloyd George was barking up the wrong plant when he championed the daffodil.

If I've got to rely purely on historical fact to justify our national emblem,

then it is and can only be...

the leek.

# Hallelujah, hallelujah

# Hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah! #

But it wouldn't be Welsh history if there wasn't a little twist in the tail

and perhaps the Welsh language is closer to the mark than I thought

because leeks, "cennin", and daffodils, "cennin Pedr"...

well, as plants, they are distant relatives.

They are both classed as Alliaceae.

Leeks and daffodils belong to one big, happy botanical family.

So let's bury the hatchet.

On St David's Day, wear what you want, leeks or daffodils.

Wear them where you want and when you want.

We're like them.

We're all in the same family soup.

Daffodils, leeks.

We may all appear to be different, but in fact we're all Welsh.

And these things, leeks, daffodils, they should unite us, not divide us.

Mm. I've just thought of something a little bit awkward.

Historically, I think we can say with some confidence that the leek has been our national emblem

for 400 years, with its rival, the daffodil, tagging along for the last 100 years.

But why did we choose the leek?

How did these become our national emblem?

It's time to bring the leek to book.

And what better book or play to do the job than one written by the Bard himself, William Shakespeare.

What is this castle called that stands hard by?

They call it Agincourt.

It's a play that commemorates a great battle against the French.

Its title - Henry V.

Then call we this the field of Agincourt...

Here Henry has just beaten off the French at Agincourt.

His Welsh captain, Fluellen, reminds him of another event that held

great significance for both men, and our story of the leek, the Battle of Crecy in 1346.

Your grandfather

of famous memory, and please your majesty,

and your great-uncle Edward the Black Prince of Wales, as I have read in the chronicles,

-fought a most famous battle here in France.

-They did, Fluellen.

Your majesty says very true.

If your majesty is remembered of it, the Welshmen did good service in a garden where leeks did grow,

wearing leeks in their Monmouth caps, which your majesty know to be an honourable badge of the service,

and I do believe your majesty takes no scorn to wear a leek upon Saint Davy's day.

I wear it for a memorable honour. For I am Welsh, you know, good countryman.

And so he was. Born in Monmouth.

Good man. There's no doubt that the battle Fluellen was referring to was Crecy,

but it doesn't prove much more than that William Shakespeare was well aware

of the tradition linking the leeks, the Welsh and Crecy, and the wearing of the leek on St David's Day.

So is that why Philip Proger decided to get himself painted, leek in hand,

to commemorate his fellow countrymen who had fought so gallantly at the great Battle of Crecy?

It would also help explain why the Tudor dynasty sent leeks to each other on St David's Day.

But it also seems that Philip's boss, the Scottish Stuart King James VI and I,

had respect for the tradition.

"The wearing of leeks on St David's Day by the Welshmen, " he said,

"is a good and commendable fashion in commemoration of the great fight by the Black Prince of Wales."

Again, by that great fight he definitely means Crecy.

So a Scottish king applauds a Welsh celebration of an English king's defeat of France.

This is starting to sound like the Six Nations.

Now something else is niggling me.

Both Shakespeare and King James are quite clear about one detail.

That the leek is linked directly to St David's Day, March 1st.

And yet the Battle of Crecy was fought on the 26th August.

So can Crecy really be at the heart of the leek story?

It doesn't make sense.

Let's try another tack.

Are there any older traditions or bits of historical evidence

that perhaps link St David himself with the leek?

Of course there are!

I found a simple version of the story

that says St David lived a humble life off bread, water and leeks, jazzed up with a sprinkling of salt.

He died on March 1st, hence St David's Day and the leek.

But we're Welsh. What's the point of a simple story when we can make it

much more complicated and have a good old row about it?

For example, there's the version that St David told his men

to wear a leek in their caps as military colours

and that they won a great battle against the invading Saxons.

No, St David led the men in battle.

No, I think you'll find St David fought alongside King Arthur in a great battle.

Rubbish! It was with King Cadwaladr in 640 AD.

St David fought a glorious battle, having told his men to wear a leek in their hats.

Of course, the Saxons didn't have a clue who anybody was, so they ended up slaughtering themselves.

But by 640 AD, St David was long dead.

This is all myth and legend.

Even if there is a persistent theme of a great battle,

be it against the French at Crecy or with St David against the Saxons,

the truth is there's no proof of any of it.

What we do know is that the Welsh have always liked their leeks.

Let's be realistic though. Until fairly recently,

I'm pretty sure the Welsh didn't really give a figurative fig for St David, St David's Day or Crecy.

All that stuff and ceremony was for the well-to-do Welsh elite in London,

the Royals and Welsh regiments.

No, back home in Wales, leeks have been,

for at least a 1,000 years to my knowledge, food - good winter food.

And yet I've heard it said that the leek has one other trick up its sleeve.

That it was the green and white of leeks that partly inspired one of

the greatest of all Welsh icons. Mmm.

Now I may regret even thinking this but I wonder how long this,

Y Ddraig Goch, the Red Dragon, has been our national flag?

Why a dragon,

and why the red, white and green?

There's no doubt that it's an icon that's recognised the world over.

Raised, worn and borne with dignity, passion and pride on many great, even historic, occasions.

Here's one that's been taken into outer space aboard

Space Shuttle Atlantis in 1994 by Joe Tanner, mission specialist.

Joe Tanner of Illinois, but whose grandfather was head teacher in the school in Llanddewi Brefi.

Joe, the only astronaut in the village.

This one also ventured far from home.

It flew from the Terra Nova, the ship that set sail from Cardiff on June 15th, 1910,

bound for the Antarctic, carrying Captain Scott on his ill-fated mission to the South Pole.

We're all proud of it and quite right, too.

But you can take things too far.

I've read claims that the Red Dragon on its green and white field, or background,

is the oldest national flag in continuous use anywhere in the world.

Like heck it is!

It might well have been in space

and sailed to the Antarctic, but the Red Dragon's first official

outing as the national flag of Wales was as recently as...

Wait for it...

the 23rd February, 1959.

On that day, Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II directed that in future

only the red dragon on a green and white flag should be flown on government buildings.

So it was official then. In 1959, our flag became the flag of Wales.

Er, not quite.

Her Majesty's College of Arms begged to differ with Her Majesty.

As the aptly named Austin Strutt put it at the time:

"Never", "cannot"? Cheek!

But I'm curious now.

Clearly, the flag as we know it had been around for some time before 1959,

if only flapping off the back of the Terra Nova in 1910.

But does that mean the bits and bobs that make up the flag...

the dragon, the green and white background, are only a tad over a century old?

Of course it doesn't.

Let's start with the star of the show, the red dragon.

It's clear the dragon has been associated with Wales for a fairly, perhaps a very, long time.

But how long? Now unless the Countryside Council informs us otherwise,

I think we can say that the dragon, red or otherwise, is not exactly a native species of Wales.

So where does the idea of the dragon come from?

I sense you may be way ahead of me here.

Of course, I'm now going to say the dragon

was a Roman legionary standard the Welsh liked so much we nicked it.

Time for a close encounter of the Roman kind.

Meet draco, or a draco. It's easy to see how the Roman word gives us dragon in English or draig in Welsh.

This is a replica but you can see how it would have made an impression.

The head of a dragon, or a wolf.

One's even been found in the shape of a crocodile.

And the tail, well, it was a windsock and when the wind blew,

out of the head would come a loud hissing sound.

Scary stuff. Well, it was if it was coming at you at the head of a Roman cavalry charge.

But it wasn't a Roman legionary standard. That was always an eagle.

The draco would have been carried at the head of a cohort, a much smaller unit of about 480 men.

A Roman military expert called Vegetius tells it like it was.

"Dracones per singulas cohortes a draconariis feruntur ad proelium. " Now what could be clearer than that?

He says, "The dragons are borne into battle

"by the Draconarii or dragon-bearers of the individual cohort."

The surprising thing is that they seem to be quite late arrivals on the Roman military scene.

So when and where exactly did the Romans get the idea from?

Part of the answer is kindly provided by the Romans themselves in a rather lavish strip cartoon.

This is Trajan's Column in Rome, built to glorify the emperor's great military victories in 113 AD

and, from the carvings, the losing side clearly had themselves a battle standard, the draco.

To the victor the spoils and the draco, which the Romans

adopted and used in turn to scare the bejesus out of their enemies, including the Welsh.

So these things must have made a very big impression in a very short time.

They did.

Scarcely had the Romans left, than the words "draig" and "dragon"

had become, and for centuries afterwards would remain,

familiar terms of praise in the Welsh language for any great warrior or hero.

How do we know that centuries later, I hear you ask.

Well, because someone was kind enough to include it in their poetry and not just any old poetry.

This was ancient Welsh poetry.

This is a rare moment.

Some of our oldest poetry

in one of the most important books in the Welsh language under maximum security.

And there's something over there I really want to see.

Here he is.

Llyfr Aneirin, the Books of Aneirin.

And inside, Canu Aneirin. Aneirin's poetry.

These poems were written down in about 1265 AD,

but they date all the way back to 600 AD.

And what we're looking for are just five little words.

And here they are - "ar rud dhreic fud pharaon".

"Dhreic" here. D-H-R-E-I-C. "Dhreic".

"Rud" old Welsh for red. "Dhreic" - dragon.

"And the red dragon will be victor".

Out of the depths of history, from 1,400 years ago,

the first red dragon.

Having found our first red dragon, I suppose the next question is,

when did the red dragon come to symbolise

not just a great heroic individual,

but the spirit of the nation itself?

Part of the answer lies here.

We're just outside Beddgelert in North Wales and that is Dinas Emrys.

Geologically, Dinas Emrys is a small volcanic outcrop.

Archaeologically, it has features dating from the Iron Age right through to the Middle Ages.

But its importance to us lies in its role in the story of the Welsh dragon

and it takes us back over 1,200 years to a time when the Welsh were really getting hammered by invaders.

But they knew a well-sharpened Welsh quill could be mightier than any Saxon sword,

so they wrote a tale and this is how the tale began.

King Vortigern was having trouble building himself a castle up there on Dinas Emrys.

Every night the whole thing fell down.

I think I know the builders.

Anyway, to cut a long story short, he enlisted the help of a bright young wizard called Ambrosius.

Ambrosius being Emrys in Latin, hence Dinas Emrys, the stronghold of Emrys.

On the advice of Ambrosius the king had his men dig into the hill below the summit

and there they found a lake and, below the lake, two dragons were slugging it out dragon-style.

One, a white dragon for the Saxons.

The other, you guessed it, a red dragon for the Welsh.

That's why the earth was moving.

That's why the castle kept falling down.

At first, it seemed the white dragon was gaining the upper hand,

but then the red dragon rallied and saw the old enemy, the white dragon, off, just before the final whistle.

Ah, yes! History can, and so often does, repeat itself.

But the prophesy of the Dinas Emrys saga stuck.

The victorious red dragon was caught by this tale and held firmly and forever

in the minds and hearts of poets, princes and the people

as a powerful symbol of nation and of hope.

If new sons of this ancient prophesy weren't forthcoming,

then the old ones, great kings and warriors of yesteryear -

Cadwaladr, Cynan, Owain, Arthur -

would rise from their slumber and, under the banner of a red dragon,

they would lead the Welsh to freedom, to victory and to glory.

None of which explains this.

The date, November 2nd.

The year, 1401.

The place, Caernarfon Castle.

Owain Glyndwr has just laid victorious siege to this English castle town.

He's the charismatic leader of the most successful

Welsh rebellion against English authority in Wales, a true son of prophesy.

It's one of his major early successes, a blow struck for freedom and justice,

and it's all done under a Welsh banner.

And here it is.

A golden dragon on a white background?

So what was he up to? Didn't he know the prophesy of the red dragon of Dinas Emrys?

Of course he did.

Owain Glyndwr was highly educated and very well versed in heraldry.

He knew his dragon would embody the spirit of the nation.

He knew it would be seen as an emblem, an icon of fierce Welsh independence.

He knew his golden dragon would conjure up the memory and

power of one person, the greatest king of the Britons ever known...

King Arthur himself.

A hero from another golden age who led vast armies against the oppressor

under a white banner emblazoned with a golden dragon.

The funny thing is that by the time of Owain Glyndwr,

the Arthur whose inspiration he took and shook like a fist

wasn't some ancient hero from the mists of time when men were men.

No, at the siege of Caernarfon, Arthur, the character we know and love,

was a pretty recent literary invention.

Arthur was a sort of medieval Welsh superhero, made up

of semi-historical bits and bobs by a man called Geoffrey of Monmouth.

His history of the kings of Britain, published in 1136,

was a work of fiction JK Rowling would be pressed to beat.

And it was full of fantastical detail, like Arthur's golden standard,

but it was accepted as fact and became a bestseller across Europe.

Everyone would have known who and what the golden dragon represented.

OK, it was a pile of fibs, but so what?

As for forging bits of history where there are inconvenient gaps

or making up golden ages of this, that or the other way back when, well, don't we do that today?

But enough of rugby.

Anyway, at least we now have a dragon.

Yes, a golden dragon, but we do have a dragon as an emblem of national unity.

After Glyndwr's victory at Caernarfon, we have to wait over

80 years before it reappears, but this time the dragon saw red, a lot of it,

when it was carried into battle by a son of one of the most ancient and noble families of Gwynedd.

The family seat was here at Plas Penmynydd on Anglesey.

They were to give their name to one of the greatest royal dynasties in England history, the Tudors,

and the founder of that Tudor dynasty, the first to warm the throne of England

and wear its crown was Henry Tudor, destined to become Henry VII.

In 1485, after years of exile, Henry Tudor landed at Milford Haven

and at the head of a motley army, marched on Bosworth in Leicestershire.

There at Bosworth Field on Monday 22nd August, 1485, he engaged in a great battle

against the Yorkist king Richard III,

who famously lost his crown and his gee-gee all in one day.

"A horse, a horse.

"My kingdom for a horse!" he cried.

No chance! On your bike.

Nothing's going to stop this Welshman taking his rightful place on the throne of England.

Actually, when I say "rightful", Henry's claim to the throne was,

shall we say, a little thin to a point of being illegitimate, but let's not poop the Tudor's party.

The key issue for us is that not only had a Welshman, well, a quarter Welshman anyway,

landed the big one, the crown of England, he'd won it under a banner described then as...

The banner we know today as the Red Dragon, Y Ddraig Goch.

We found it. The earliest historical reference, the Old Glory of Wales.

The first ever red, white and green, and it's over 500 years old.

The prophesy of Dinas Emrys had come true.

A Welsh dragon, a dragon red in tongue, tooth and claw,

had at last seen off the white dragon of oppression.

Soon enough it spread its iconic little self across Tudor England,

on the royal coat of arms,

on the crossbars of the great doors to the Lady Chapel at Westminster.

And a dragon still glows ruby red

in the magnificent window gifted by Henry VII to King's College Cambridge.

But hang on a minute.

What's happened to the victorious red, green and white flag of Bosworth?

Some time during the Tudor period, the dragon and flag seem to have parted company.

I'll show you what I mean.

No, not the annual Dover regatta.

What we have in this splendid painting is Henry VIII's fleet

about to set sail for France in 1520.

Now if you look carefully at the painting,

the cross of St George is very much in evidence.

But look closer at this little boat

and here all along this poop deck and the aft castle... All right, the back end -

and there are literally dozens of green and white Welsh flags

alternating with crosses of St George.

Well, wash my mouth out. Henry hadn't ditched the red dragon at all.

Or had he? Let's look at that green and white banner again.

There you can see the new Tudor rose.

And there, that's the portcullis.

That's his gran's family emblem.

And plenty of these, the fleur de lis. That's for France.

But not a red dragon anywhere. Mm.

Might be wrong though. Right here,

technically the rear window,

there is a red dragon.

But the green and white are vertical and duplicated.

So the issue is that part of our iconic national flag,

the green and white bit, seems to be being used

by the Tudors as a sort of heraldic dartboard they'd throw anything at.

That could mean that green and white are the Tudor family livery colours.

They're a bit like a horse jockey's silks.

But there is another possibility.

It's something I've only just come across.

And the clue I've found is that it does involve a battle and one we visited before.

But not the Battle of Bosworth Field.

It's time to time travel again, back to August 26th, 1346.

The Battle of Crecy.

Let me introduce you to a WMD, a proper medieval weapon of mass destruction.

This is the English, or equally appropriately, the Welsh, longbow.

Oh, my! The luck of the beginner.

The longbow was developed largely in the Marches, the Welsh borders,

as a brutally-effective siege weapon.

But it was put to devastating use by Welsh and English archers at the Battle of Crecy in 1346.

As we already know, Crecy was meant to be when the Prince of Wales

stuck a leek in his helmet to lead the lads.

Good call, because from what I've just found out, his 5,000 Welsh troops

must themselves have looked just like a field of leeks.

No, I haven't lost the plot. Let me explain.

It's an uncomfortable historical fact that Welsh soldiers in the 1300s were...

Well, they lacked a certain finesse.

They liked nothing more than hard drinking followed by a good punch-up

and they were good at it.

Must be in the genes.

WHISTLE BLOWS

So to keep an eye on them, rather than appeal to their sense of national pride,

Edward III, that's the Black Prince's dad, the king issued specific instructions

that the Welsh troops, and only the Welsh troops, mind you, should be issued with, and I quote...

HE READS IN FRENCH

In other words, a uniform of green and white cloth consisting of

"a short coat and hat of these two colours, green and white, with the green on the right".

So for whatever reasons, at the Battle of Crecy in 1346,

the Welsh were the first troops ever to appear on a continental battlefield

in what can only be called a national military uniform, a uniform of green and white.

Crecy was a great victory for the longbow, the king, his boy...

the Black Prince of Wales and the fearsome reputation of Welsh troops.

But what a day for Welsh icons, eh?

If we're to believe some versions of events, we ended up with the leek as a national emblem,

the green and white uniform and the Prince of Wales' feathers, which the Prince of Wales nicked

after the battle from the blind, very brave, but very dead Prince of Bohemia.

And he nicked his motto, "Ich dien", I serve.

It's ironic that in the late 1800s when they were choosing

a symbol for our national rugby team, the Welsh Rugby Union

opted for the three feathers of the Prince of Wales on a scarlet shirt,

rather than the leek, to demonstrate the principality's loyalty to the British Empire.

On the other hand, when it came to this,

back in the late 1800s, the governing body of Welsh football

decided that this should be the national strip.

Nobody knows how or why, but this is a mirror image of the uniform

worn by the Welsh soldiers, all 5,000 of them, at Crecy.

Coincidence?

So the question is, did the Tudors of noble Welsh decent favour green and white as their

heraldic colours because of the valour shown by the Welsh soldiers in their national uniform at Crecy?

And is that, ultimately, why we have green and white on the flag today?

Maybe so.

Then again, maybe not.

Because an absolutely crucial and totally unexpected

piece of evidence has come to light to suggest another real possibility.

And that new evidence about the green and white on the flag

switches the story from Crecy in northern France back to Anglesey in North Wales.

And it involves a fascinating archaeological site discovered as recently as 1992.

And here it is, or what's left of it.

This is Llys Rhosyr, the princely court of one of the greatest names in Welsh history, Llywelyn Fawr...

Llywelyn the Great.

Back in the early 1200s, Llywelyn earned the moniker Llywelyn the Great

by making himself ruler of a hefty slice of what we know now as Wales.

His once-magnificent court at Rhosyr, one of several he owned,

was abandoned after Edward I's conquest of Wales.

Shortly afterwards, it was covered in a deep duvet of sand following

a terrible storm and it lay lost to sight for the next 700 years.

But it's not just Llywelyn's court that's been woken from its slumber.

What we've uncovered is completely new evidence that breathes fire into the story of this ancient site.

It's evidence that links this very royal court to the Battle of Crecy,

right through to the green and white banner of the Tudors, to the national flag of today.

It's nothing painted or carved or etched, but written.

800-year-old Welsh poetry written in celebration of this royal court,

praising Llywelyn himself and referring to the battle dress of his men.

"Mae llu yn Rhosyr, mae llyn,

"mae i'r glych, mae fy arglwydd Llywelyn a gwyr tal yn ei ganlyn.

"Mil a murdd mewn gwyrdd a gwyn.

"Gwr yn werthrhydd, gwr yn wrthyn yn Lloegr,

"Llywelyn ar gychwyn, ymlaen cain cawad unbyn

"ym mhluant gwyrdd ac un gwyn."

I think with my basic Welsh, I managed to pick out "Llywelyn".

"Gwyrdd" - green. And "gwyn" - white. Let's find out.

"There is a force of men in Rhosyr.

"There is drinking, golden bells clinking. There is my Lord Llywelyn.

"His warriors follow him, 1,000 of them, a host in green and white."

There they are... Llywelyn's men in green and white.

And here's the second poem.

"A man who stands firm against humiliation, who fiercely opposes the men of England,

"such a man is Llywelyn as he sets out to war,

"leading a defence force of lords in green and white garments."

It's my little eureka moment.

Poetry as a key in our investigation into the origins of the Welsh flag.

800 years ago, that's almost 150 before Crecy,

300 years before the Battle of Bosworth,

one of the great leaders of Welsh history is described

as having an army of men dressing uniformly, dare it be said, in a uniform of green and white.

Might it be too much to suggest that these very same colours were deliberately copied and used to

inspire every "Dai Bach y Soldiwr" and his colonel for generations to come?

If I'm right, the national flag is an icon of unity, a coming together

of the red dragon and all it stood for, with the battle colours of a great Welsh prince.

Sometimes the elements have drifted apart, been separated,

perhaps they even meant different things to different people at different times, but I do

sense a sort of jerky continuity that leads to the flagpole of today.

I love all this stuff.

Because whether I'm right or wrong about the details,

there's no denying that this old national icon of ours has depth, it has meaning, it has mystery.

So whether you want to wear it, wave it at a match,

wrap yourself up in it for a lap of honour,

or see it as history on a stick, it's worth a respectful nod, a salute,

for old times' sake.

For an icon of national pride and spirit to a humbler icon of national taste.

Delia adds sage and onion to hers.

Heston sprinkles garlic wine vinegar on his. I wonder how you make yours?

Welcome to Ed's kitchen and an icon you can make at home.

In here I've melted a teaspoon of butter in two ounces of ale.

Did you know ale was beer without any hops in it? I didn't.

And two ounces of cheddar...

Any good, Welsh, farmhouse cheddar will do.

And I'm just going to stir it all until it's melted.

It's odd how foods become associated with individual nations and people,

how certain dishes become iconic.

Ask the French what they call the English, for example,

and they immediately say "les rosbifs", the roast beefs.

Ask the English what they call the French and no doubt they'll refer to the habit

of eating the hindquarters of a certain amphibian.

And the Welsh haven't escaped this culinary leg pull either.

For over 400 years, we've been associated not just with leeks but this.

Now I'm just going to add

about a teaspoon of mustard.

A pinch of salt,

and pepper and give it a good stir.

Top French chefs love it and call it "le lapin gallois".

And the English name for it?

Welsh rarebit or rabbit.

Now then, want to start a war?

Is it rarebit or is it rabbit?

Let me help you.

It's neither, although "rabbit"

is the older form, going back as far as 1699.

No, the real name of this iconic Welsh dish should be "caws pobi",

which means in Welsh, quite simply,

"toasted cheese".

I've always wanted to say this. Here's one I made earlier.

HE SNIFFS

Proper Welsh caws pobi.

Now, we know the Welsh were all over the Tudor court like a rash,

all our habits keenly observed...

our speaking in a strange language, Welsh, our fondness for hard drink, our eating caws pobi.

Oh, how they laughed at our little ways. Want to hear a joke from 1542?

They say the old ones are the best.

Heaven's heaving with Welshmen and they're generally upsetting the neighbours.

So God says to St Peter, "Any chance of shifting these Welsh?"

So St Peter goes outside the Pearly Gates and shouts,

"Caws pobi! Caws pobi! Toasted cheese! Toasted cheese!"

There's a stampede and the Welsh are gone.

Hilarious. The joke was written down in 1542 by a monk, Andrew Board,

who was defrocked for being "conversant"

with women. So the last laugh was on him.

Anyway, my icon is getting cold.

Excuse me.

Eat your heart out, Delia.

It's funny, but with the exception of caws pobi,

most of our icons so far have turned out to a bit posh, royal even.

Then at the beginning of the last century, huge numbers of ordinary Welsh people

opted for an icon that was very much of their own choosing.

The year was 1908, and in 1908 an Englishman painted an image of Wales that became,

almost by accident, not only hugely popular right across the UK, but was

adopted in Wales as a portrayal of who we were, who we wanted to be, how we wanted to be seen.

The original painting hangs here at the Lady Lever Art Gallery in Port Sunlight on the Wirral.

And here it is.

This is Salem.

Perhaps it's a little too nostalgic and sentimental for today's

Cool Cymru and a more global, digital age.

But copies of it used to be everywhere, certainly within my living memory. Not that long!

But what's fascinating about this picture is how it went from being a fine watercolour

destined for a private collection into a national icon.

It was painted by English artist Sydney Curnow Vosper, who then sold it at an exhibition

at the Royal Watercolour Society in London in 1909.

The person who bought it for the hefty sum of £105 was the wealthy William Hesketh Lever,

Lord Leverhulme, who not only established this magnificent art gallery

to house his collection of artworks,

he was also the owner of Sunlight soap, the biggest manufacturer of soap in the UK at the time.

Besides having good artistic taste, Lord Leverhulme was also a very shrewd man.

Rather than having this congregation hanging round gathering dust, he put them to work.

For every seven pounds in weight of Sunlight soap you bought, you too,

could become the proud owner of a print of Salem.

And they went like hot Welsh cakes all over the UK, but particularly in Wales.

For the first time ever, ordinary folk bought into a work of art

and an idea of Welshness that stuck like superglue.

But there's something not quite right here.

This wasn't the Wales of 1908.

It was a romanticised Wales of decades earlier.

It's the costumes.

They're a throwback to some ancient good old days.

Take Sian Owen's shawl, for example.

In 1908, it was already an antique and had to be borrowed by the artist

from the vicar's wife, Mrs Williams, down the road in Harlech.

And as for the hat, well, it really was old hat.

And I do mean "the hat", not "those hats".

And why? Because Curnow Vosper could only find the one hat

and he painted it on one, two, three, four heads.

The actual hat belonged to this elderly woman's mother, so although

Curnow Vosper was painting something entirely sympathetic to the Welsh, it was well and truly time-warped.

But what I love about this painting, here we have the iconic picture of

Welshness and within it we have something even more uniquely Welsh,

the Welsh hat.

# Where did you get that hat? Where did you get that tile?

# Isn't it a nobby one and just the proper style

# I should like to have one, just the same as that

# Wherever I go they shout, hello, where did you get that hat? #

The Welsh hat must surely be high in the current top ten of Welsh icons.

Tens of thousands of them are sold by shops and supermarkets every year to parents under

strict instructions from their little daughters to get them a Welsh hat for school on St David's Day.

The idea of a costume being worn on St David's Day goes back quite a long way.

This photograph from the collection at St Fagans shows kiddies wearing

it in Blaenporth School in 1913, barely five years after the paint had dried on Curnow Vosper's Salem.

So it's clear that by the beginning of the last century, we in Wales had some sort of idea that a tall hat

represented us in a quaint but respectable sort of way and it

was something national enough to be worn to celebrate our patron saint.

On the other hand, it's also evident that the hat was something that

people from outside Wales associated with us as being especially Welsh.

Bull fighting - Spain. Kilt - Scotland.

Lederhosen - Germany.

The Welsh hat - Wales.

So I set myself two simple questions, what exactly is a Welsh hat and how old are they?

Simple, but I'll eat my hat if the answers are.

These are, after all, Welsh icons.

# Where did you get that hat, hey! #

Now, it seems there were two types of Welsh hat.

All of them had a broad, stiff brim

and a tall crown rising to a flat top.

Flat top, never a pointed top.

That would have made Wales a permanent Halloween party.

In South Wales, the sides were more tapered.

In North Wales, they were straighter.

That's straightforward enough.

The odd thing is... I don't think I'm talking through my hat here.

Of the 250 of these hats that remain, some were made in Wales, but...

Carver's, Christys'.

London, Bristol.

The ultimate Welsh icon was made in England.

So a Welsh icon largely made in England.

"Rhyfedd o fyd". A strange old world.

It's like finding out that the Welsh rugby kit is made in the Far East.

OK, OK. But what about that second question, how old is the Welsh hat?

Well, it seems that Welsh women have been

wearing men's hats, as well as the trousers, for rather a long time.

Here's the Reverend Joseph Romilly describing a sea voyage from Liverpool to Beaumaris.

"Wednesday 12th September, 1827.

"Disgusting day. Wind in our teeth, tide against us, heavy rain.

"Went into steerage which was half price.

"There found four gentlemen-like, young Irishmen and three Welsh women with their nasty black hats."

Not a fan then!

Then in 1839, the poet Alfred, Lord Tennyson visited Wales.

He's a bit more complimentary, if not about Wales, then at least about our girls.

"I cannot say that I have seen much worth the trouble of the journey,

"always excepting the Welsh women's hats, which look very comical to the English eye, being,

"in truth, men's hats, beavers, with the brim a little broad and tied under the chin with a black ribbon.

"Some faces look very pretty in them."

Oh, dear! Here's someone else who really doesn't like the Welsh hat.

This one's by Nathaniel Hawthorne, the American author.

He wrote The Scarlet Letter.

He visited Wales in 1854 when he was made

American consul general in Liverpool and this is his valued observation.

"Many of the Welsh women, particularly the elder ones,

"wear black beaver hats, high crowned and almost precisely like men's.

"It makes them look ugly and witch-like."

In defence of Welsh womanhood, I should point out that this very same

Nathaniel Hawthorne's family were in general a bit down on witches.

His great-grandfather presided at the infamous Salem witch trials.

He does however bring us conveniently in a full circle from Salem, US, to Salem back in Wales.

Because when Nathaniel and the others visited Wales,

a quite specific period from the 1820s to the 1860s, it was exactly when the ladies of Salem would have

been wearing their fashionable but distinctly Welsh hats to chapel, or on an outing.

But what, or perhaps the question is who, started the fashion?

We might have found a credible answer.

Tall hats, tall column.

It takes as long to climb as to say the Anglesey village it overlooks -

Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrn - drobwllllantysiliogogogoch.

Owf!

This rather magnificent monument was built to the memory of Henry William Paget, First Marquess of Anglesey,

First Earl of Uxbridge, of the second creation, and Colonel of the 7th the Queen's Own Light Dragoons.

Quite a title. Quite a lot of titles. Quite a man.

He was quite a ladies' man as well, by all accounts.

But in battle, as courageous and dashing a cavalry commander

as any novelist could wish for, particularly

at the Battle of Waterloo in 1815, when he had at least eight horses shot from under him

and he famously lost one leg and gained another.

Towards the end,

he and Wellington were riding together when grapeshot flew over the neck of Wellington's horse

and smashed the Marquess right in the knee.

"My God, sir, I've lost my leg."

Wellington lowered his telescope.

"By God, sir, so you have."

And immediately resumed surveying the battlefield.

So, the Anglesey leg was made for the wounded hero.

It's the first articulated artificial limb ever made, but as I've suggested, the

Marquess' gallantry also extended to the ladies and, by God, sir, to Welsh ladies as well.

At the 1821 Eisteddfod in Caernarfon, the war hero

and idol of his people, the Marquess of Anglesey, was President for the day.

According to the Cambrian newspaper report, he made a speech to the assembled people.

In his Presidential address, he says he preferred and admired a beautiful face under a neat black hat, such

as the lassies of Snowdonia wear, to the large French bonnets that he saw hiding several charming faces.

He commends the ladies present the virtues of the Welsh hat,

and the newspaper goes on, "The advice of the noble president has had the desired effect.

"For nearly all the ladies at the last Pwllheli and Caernarfon hunts appeared in black hats."

HORSE NEIGHS

Precisely what sort of Welsh hat we're talking about, we simply don't know.

There's not enough evidence to say whether it was this, that or the other kind of Welsh hat.

What we do know is that when Princess, soon to be Queen, Victoria visited Bangor, here,

just 11 years later, both she and her mum wore what they called Welsh hats

and they did so, "In compliment,"

as they said, "to the fair maids of Cambria."

So by the early 1830s, everybody, including top bods in Britain,

knew about the Welsh hat, although, frustratingly,

no description has been found anywhere of what Her Majesty meant precisely by her Welsh hat.

So royalty and gentry seemed to have decided that, although it wasn't

the done thing to wear a Welsh hat in England,

it was only right and proper and fashionable for the memsahibs

to wear it on a visit to this near-flung post of empire.

A bit like wearing a kimono in Japan,

a sari in India or dressing up in tartan for a visit to Scotland.

BELLS CHIME

Big Ben. Is there a more stirring bong on the planet?

There's a Welsh connection here, too, and a Welsh hat connection.

The clock was named Big Ben after Sir Benjamin Hall, whose parents were wealthy Welsh.

Anyway, it's not Benjamin Hall I'm really interested in, but his wife, Augusta Hall,

Lady Llanover, who's been credited by almost every historian

since the 1960s with inventing the Welsh hat and costume. She didn't.

Lady Llanover deserves more credit for the things she did do,

like promoting Welsh education, the Eisteddfod, literature, even Welsh cookery.

Her frog and eel pie is to die for.

There's no doubt that on her own estate and amongst her wealthy, elite circle of acquaintances

she did champion the idea of adapting and poshing up all sorts of Welsh regional costumes,

but this was for upper-class parties, soirees, the local Abergavenny Eisteddfod and so on.

Mind you, not all her guests enjoyed the frisson of wearing Welsh costume.

At the Abergavenny Eisteddfod of 1853, a Miss Mary Lucy of Charlecote

was instructed by her ladyship's maid to take off her fashionable gown and wear Welsh costume instead.

"The hat was much too large for me and was so heavy it did nothing but come down half over my nose,"

she said. As for the Welsh costume, Miss Lucy complained it was ugly.

"I never was more uncomfortable and vowed I would never again

"wear such horrible things to please Lady Llanover.

"Nor did I. And all the other ladies agreed with me. "

I bet she screamed and screamed and screamed.

Then again, by the 1860s, so did the younger generation of less wealthy lassies from rural Wales.

Granny's cap no longer fitted them either and they refused to wear it.

So the Welsh hat went to town, specifically to seaside towns,

where it did hilariously funny tricks for the visitors

on the local postcard stands.

It also migrated to the new confident industrial communities, where it reaffirmed

the feminine side of our identity, but only on special occasions,

like the opening of the new East Dock in Swansea in 1881,

or at the Liverpool National Eisteddfod promoting Welsh industry in 1884.

But there's something not quite right here either.

By the end of the 1800s and early 1900s, we have hundreds and hundreds

of photos of young women from all over Wales once again wearing Welsh hats.

What was going on?

-OK, say cheese!

-Cheese!

There's nothing new under the sun.

What those young ladies were doing was getting dressed up with family and friends for a photograph

wearing fancy dress, just like Granny's, with a good old-fashioned Welsh hat to top it all off.

-OK, and again please.

-Cheese!

In the same way that I can come here to St Fagans

and have a cheesy photograph of me wearing the Edwardian clothes that were all the rage 100 years ago.

-OK, just one more time. Say cheese.

-Cheese!

It's a bit of nostalgia, maybe a bit of fun.

It certainly doesn't mean that those Welsh girls went around wearing a Welsh hat every day

any more than me wearing a top hat in the first decades of the 21st century

mean that all Welshmen now go round in top hats.

Might have started something here.

For richer, for poorer, for better and for worse, it seems we're destined to be married

to the image of the Welsh hat for all eternity.

Like it or not, it's part of who we are, how we see ourselves and how others see us.

A national icon.

And in this case, it's one we've bought into, quite literally,

to the tune of over half a million pounds.

That's what it cost to buy this for the nation, the Welsh nation.

It's called A Welsh Landscape With Two Women Knitting.

Like Salem, it was never painted for home consumption.

It's by a Scottish, not an English artist, for a change, name of William Dyce.

And the landscape he so skilfully painted was the Conwy Valley, an area he visited in 1860.

These women,

there's something a bit stuck on about them.

This one's almost certainly taken from an early photograph, perhaps

this one by Francis Bedford in the 1850s.

Let's just say,

she's had a hard life.

But she is for real, just as her workaday hat and clogs are.

And then, here's the hard sell, one of Queen Victoria's fair maids of Cambria,

the pretty youngster in her red cape,

which would have been a blue cape in this area of

North Wales at that particular time, and her impressive Welsh hat,

which would only have been worn for Sunday best

or for strutting her stuff on market day,

but definitely not for knitting socks on a mountain top.

It's hard to say but this Miss is a myth. Reality, the ideal.

But I'm certain it's this Miss in her Welsh hat and all her glory that we've bought into.

It's an expensive postcard of ourselves, for ourselves, wishing we were still there.

It's a hymn and an aria to an us that maybe never was.

And does it matter?

We're a nation that's always run on high-octane nostalgia and a lot of hwyl thrown in for luck.

Besides, it's a great image.

Nice hat, cariad.

Welsh hat!

Welsh hat, madam! Dragon hat, sir! Inflatable leek.

Welsh icons, the most visible representation of us as a nation, a real cawl,

a lobscouse of myth and reality, history and creative storytelling.

This has been great fun, but trying to pinpoint their exact origin has been incredibly difficult.

Maybe that's the point, that really is the point, that

these things have become national icons and belong to us because their history is so fuzzy and complex.

So I reckon, wear 'em with pride, wave 'em with dignity,

but let's do it with our tongue placed

ever so gently in our national cheek. Welsh hat, madam?

No!

Wales!

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