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Twm Sion Cati – The Welsh Robin Hood |
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These cartoons were produced by the Western Mail to promote the series that they published in the late 1940's to early 1950's. (Courtesy of Yvonne Wigg) |
One famous story tells of Twm's visit to an ironmonger's in Llandovery to buy a porridge pot. The ironmonger brought out several pans and Twm on questioning the quality and costs of the pans was told that no better would be found in the kitchen of a king. Twm then held one of the pots up to the light and declared that he could see a hole in it. The ironmonger then held up the pot to examine it and Twm forced over his head and quipped that if there was not a hole in it how could such a large and stupid head have been caught inside!
Often he hid from the Sheriff of Carmarthen in the slopes of the thickly wooded and boulder strewn slopes of the Dinas Hill, close to the village of Rhandirmwyn, Carmarthenshire. The village is located in the foothills of the Cambrian Mountains, whose rough and rocky terrain made ideal bandit country.
Twm's hideout is widely known as a cave that resides in the slopes directly above a rocky gorge through which the Twyi flows at an extremely dangerous pace. To this day the cave is still quite difficult to locate, and bears the name, ‘Twm Sion Cati’s Cave’. Dinas HIill is now a RSPB sanctuary, a way-marked footpath runs right around the hill, with a detour to Twm's cave.
Popular myth would have it that Twm married, by clever design, Joan, daughter of Sir John Price of the Priory, Brecon, known as the heiress of Ystradffin. Apparently, Twm was in his seventies when he married, and that Joan was the wealthy widow of the previous Sheriff of Carmarthenshire, a post that Twm took up after his marriage, also becoming the local magistrate.
The irony of Twm becoming a member of the ruling classes to which he had previously been seen to rebel against, would add the finishing touches to a typical ‘rags to riches’ story, and nowadays, would be exposed by the media as a sure sign of hypocrisy and turning his back on the people he was once seen to represent.
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