107-450: Arthur Machen ( / ˈ m æ k ən / or / ˈ m æ x ən / ; 3 March 1863 – 15 December 1947) was the pen-name of Arthur Llewellyn Jones , a Welsh author and mystic of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. He is best known for his influential supernatural , fantasy , and horror fiction . His novella The Great God Pan (1890; 1894) has garnered a reputation as a classic of horror, with Stephen King describing it as "Maybe
214-530: A first language is largely concentrated in the less urban north and west of Wales, principally Gwynedd , inland Conwy and Denbighshire , northern and south-western Powys , the Isle of Anglesey , Carmarthenshire , North Pembrokeshire , Ceredigion , and parts of western Glamorgan , although first-language and other fluent speakers can be found throughout Wales. However, Cardiff is now home to an urban Welsh-speaking population (both from other parts of Wales and from
321-755: A British national identity only. Most residents of Wales (96 per cent, 2.9 million) reported at least one national identity of English, Welsh, Scottish, Northern Irish, or British. A survey published in 2001, by the Centre for Research into Elections and Social Trends at Oxford University (sample size 1161), found that 14.6 per cent of respondents described themselves as British, not Welsh; 8.3 per cent saw themselves as more British than Welsh; 39.0 per cent described themselves as equally Welsh and British; 20.2 per cent saw themselves as more Welsh than British; and 17.9 per cent described themselves as Welsh, not British. Forms of Christianity have dominated religious life in what
428-512: A Civil List pension of £100 per annum in 1932, but the loss of work from Benn's a year later made things difficult once more. A few more collections of Machen's shorter works were published in the thirties, partially as a result of the championing of Machen by John Gawsworth , who also began work on a biography of Machen that was only published in 2005 thanks to the Friends of Arthur Machen. Machen's financial difficulties were only finally ended by
535-569: A Roman Catholic. In politics, Machen was reactionary. He stated in response to a 1937 questionnaire on the Spanish Civil War in the Left Review , "Mr. Arthur Machen presents his compliments and begs to inform that he is, and always has been, entirely for General Franco ." Machen's literary significance is substantial; his stories have been translated into many languages and reprinted in short story anthologies countless times. In
642-534: A Scottish ethnicity tick-box be included in the census in Scotland, and with this inclusion as many as 88.11% claimed Scottish ethnicity. Critics argued that a higher proportion of respondents would have described themselves as of Welsh ethnicity had a Welsh tick-box been made available. Additional criticism was levelled at the timing of the census, which was taken in the middle of the 2001 United Kingdom foot-and-mouth crisis . Organisers said that this had not affected
749-716: A Welsh Mormon settlement, lays claim to a greater proportion of inhabitants of Welsh descent than anywhere outside Wales itself. Malad's local High School is known as the "Malad Dragons", and flies the Welsh Flag as its school colours. Welsh people have also settled in New Zealand and Australia. Around 1.75 million Americans report themselves to have Welsh ancestry, as did 458,705 Canadians in Canada's 2011 census . This compares with 2.9 million people living in Wales (as of
856-547: A box describing themselves as of Scottish or of Irish ethnicity, an option not available for Welsh or English respondents. Prior to the census, Plaid Cymru backed a petition calling for the inclusion of a Welsh tick-box and for the National Assembly to have primary law-making powers and its own National Statistics Office . In the absence of a Welsh tick-box, the only tick-boxes available were 'white-British,' 'Irish', or 'other'. The Scottish parliament insisted that
963-542: A capital at Din Eidyn ( Edinburgh ) and extending from the area of Stirling to the Tyne. Offa's Dyke was erected in the mid-8th century, forming a barrier between Wales and Mercia . The process whereby the indigenous population of Wales came to think of themselves as "Welsh" (a name applied to them by Anglo-Saxon settlers ) is not clear. There is plenty of evidence of the use of the term Brythoniaid (Britons); meanwhile,
1070-568: A collection of bad reviews of his own work, with very little commentary, under the title Precious Balms . In this period of prosperity Machen's home saw many visitors and social gatherings, and Machen made new friends, such as Oliver Stonor . By 1926 the boom in republication was mostly over, and Machen's income dropped. He continued republishing earlier works in collected editions, as well as writing essays and articles for various magazines and newspapers and contributing forewords and introductions to both his own works and those of other writers—such as
1177-679: A common ancestry, history and culture . Wales is one of the four countries of the United Kingdom . The majority of people living in Wales are British citizens . In Wales, the Welsh language ( Welsh : Cymraeg ) is protected by law. Welsh remains the predominant language in many parts of Wales, particularly in North Wales and parts of West Wales , though English is the predominant language in South Wales . The Welsh language
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#17327832045471284-498: A distinct genetic difference between those from northern and southern Wales, which was interpreted as the legacy of Little England beyond Wales . A study of a diverse sample of 2,039 individuals from the United Kingdom allowed the creation of a genetic map and the suggestion that there was a substantial migration of peoples from Europe prior to Roman times forming a strong ancestral component across England, Scotland, and Northern Ireland, but which had little impact in Wales. Wales forms
1391-765: A distinct genetic group, followed by a further division between north and south Wales, although there was evidence of a genetic difference between north and south Pembrokeshire as separated by the Landsker line . Speaking of these results, Professor Peter Donnelly , of the University of Oxford, said that the Welsh carry DNA which could be the most ancient in UK and that people from Wales are genetically relatively distinct. The population of Wales doubled from 587,000 in 1801 to 1,163,000 in 1851 and had reached 2,421,000 by 1911. Most of
1498-599: A frequent collaborator in Luis Buñuel 's classic films. This interest in Machen's works among filmmakers is also shared by Guillermo del Toro and Richard Stanley . Other notable figures with an enthusiasm for Machen have included Brocard Sewell , Barry Humphries , Stewart Lee and Rowan Williams , Archbishop of Canterbury. An Arthur Machen Society was established in 1948 in the United States and survived until
1605-478: A key part, such as the Angels of Mons affair, and organises psychogeographic excursions. Prominent members include Javier Marías , Stewart Lee and R. B. Russell of Tartarus Press . The society was nominated for a World Fantasy Special Award: Non-Professional in 2006. Welsh people Modern ethnicities The Welsh ( Welsh : Cymry ) are an ethnic group and nation native to Wales who share
1712-484: A long poem on the subject of the Eleusinian Mysteries . He attempted to make a living as a journalist, a publisher's clerk, and a children's tutor, devoting his evenings to writing and solitary walks. In 1884 he published his second work, the pastiche The Anatomy of Tobacco , and secured work with the publisher and bookseller George Redway as a cataloguer and magazine editor. This led to further work as
1819-401: A novel composed of a number of interwoven tales, in 1895. The novel and the stories within it were eventually to be regarded as among Machen's best works. However, following the scandal surrounding Oscar Wilde later that year, Machen's association with works of decadent horror made it difficult for him to find a publisher for new works. Thus, though he would write some of his greatest works over
1926-593: A series of mystical events. After his experimentation with the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn , the orthodox ritual of the Church became ever more important to him, gradually defining his position as a High Church Anglican who was able to incorporate elements from his own mystical experiences, Celtic Christianity , and readings in literature and legend into his thinking. In his later years, Machen became
2033-451: A significant part of the late Victorian revival of the gothic novel and the decadent movement of the 1890s, bearing direct comparison to the themes found in contemporary works like Robert Louis Stevenson's Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde , Bram Stoker 's Dracula , and Oscar Wilde's The Picture of Dorian Gray . At the time authors like Wilde, William Butler Yeats , and Arthur Conan Doyle were all admirers of Machen's works. He
2140-574: A translator from French, translating the Heptaméron of Marguerite de Navarre , Le Moyen de Parvenir ( Fantastic Tales ) of Béroalde de Verville , and the Memoirs of Casanova . In 1887, the year his father died, Machen married Amelia (Amy) Hogg, an unconventional music teacher with a passion for the theatre, who had literary friends in London's bohemian circles. Hogg had introduced Machen to
2247-532: Is a focal point for many Welsh Hindus. There are about 2,000 Sikhs in Wales, with the first purpose-built gurdwara opened in the Riverside area of Cardiff in 1989. The Sabbatarian temperance movement was also historically strong among the Welsh; the sale of alcohol was prohibited on Sundays in Wales by the Sunday Closing (Wales) Act 1881 – the first legislation specifically issued for Wales since
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#17327832045472354-534: Is also taught in schools in Wales; and, even in regions of Wales in which Welsh people predominantly speak English on a daily basis, the Welsh language is spoken at home among family or in informal settings, with Welsh speakers often engaging in code-switching and translanguaging . In the English-speaking areas of Wales, many Welsh people are bilingually fluent or semi-fluent in the Welsh language or, to varying degrees, capable of speaking or understanding
2461-478: Is also usually noted in the better studies of Anglo-Welsh literature . The French writer Paul-Jean Toulet translated Machen's The Great God Pan into French and visited Machen in London. Charles Williams was also a devotee of Machen's work, which inspired Williams' own fiction. Historian of fantastic literature Brian Stableford has suggested that Machen "was the first writer of authentically modern horror stories, and his best works must still be reckoned among
2568-536: Is now Wales for more than 1,400 years. Most Welsh people of faith are affiliated with the Church in Wales or other Christian denominations such as the Presbyterian Church of Wales , Catholicism , and Russian Orthodox Christianity. Wales has a long tradition of nonconformism and Methodism . Some Welsh people are affiliated with either Buddhism , Hinduism , Judaism , Islam or Sikhism . In
2675-418: Is obvious in many of his works, marking him as part of neo-romanticism . He was deeply suspicious of science , materialism , commerce , and Puritanism, all of which were anathema to Machen's conservative , bohemian , mystical , and ritualistic temperament. Machen's virulent satirical streak against things he disliked has been regarded as a weakness in his work, and rather dating, especially when it comes to
2782-469: Is the Welsh name for Wales. These words (both of which are pronounced Welsh pronunciation: [ˈkəm.ri] ) are descended from the Brythonic word kombrogi , meaning "fellow-countrymen". Thus, they carry a sense of "land of fellow-countrymen", "our country", and notions of fraternity. The use of the word Cymry as a self-designation derives from the post-Roman Era relationship of the Welsh with
2889-464: Is uncertain how many people in Wales considered themselves to be of Welsh ethnicity; the 2001 UK census did not offer 'Welsh' as an option; respondents had to use a box marked "Other". Ninety-six per cent of the population of Wales thus described themselves as being White British . Controversy surrounding the method of determining ethnicity began as early as 2000, when it was revealed that respondents in Scotland and Northern Ireland would be able to tick
2996-629: Is your country of birth? and How would you describe your national identity? (for the first time 'Welsh' and 'English' were included as options), What is your ethnic group? ('White Welsh/English/Scottish/Northern Irish/British' was an option) and Can you understand, speak, read or write Welsh? . As of the 2011 census in Wales, 66 per cent (2.0 million) of residents reported a Welsh national identity (either on its own or combined with other identities). Of these, 218,000 responded that they had Welsh and British national identity. Just under 17 per cent (519,000) of people in Wales considered themselves to have
3103-475: The Mabinogion and other medieval romances , François Rabelais , Miguel de Cervantes , William Shakespeare , Samuel Johnson , Thomas de Quincey , Charles Dickens , Arthur Conan Doyle , Edgar Allan Poe , and Robert Louis Stevenson . Those writers who failed to achieve this, or far worse did not even attempt it, received short shrift from Machen. Machen's strong opposition to a materialistic viewpoint
3210-555: The Waverley Novels , a three-volume edition of the Glossary of Gothic Architecture , and an early volume of Tennyson . At the age of eleven, Machen boarded at Hereford Cathedral School , where he received a good education. His family could not afford for him to attend university, and Machen went to London, where he sat, but failed, exams for entrance to medical school. He displayed some literary promise and in 1881 published
3317-480: The 2001 census ). There is no known evidence which would objectively support the legend that the Mandan , a Native American tribe of the central United States, are Welsh emigrants who reached North America under Prince Madog in 1170. The Ukrainian city of Donetsk was founded in 1869 by a Welsh businessman, John Hughes (an engineer from Merthyr Tydfil ) who constructed a steel plant and several coal mines in
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3424-481: The Cthulhu Mythos . Machen's use of a contemporary Welsh or London background in which sinister ancient horrors lurk and are capable of interbreeding with modern people obviously helped inspire Lovecraft's similar use of a New England background. Machen's story " The White People " includes references to curious unknown rites and beings, an idea Lovecraft uses frequently in the mythos. Lovecraft pays tribute to
3531-486: The Evening News in 1921 came as a relief in one sense, though it caused financial problems. Machen, however, was recognized as a great Fleet Street character by his contemporaries, and he remained in demand as an essay writer for much of the twenties. The year 1922 saw a revival in Machen's literary fortunes. The Secret Glory , considered by some to be Machen's final masterpiece, was belatedly published, as well as
3638-657: The Iron Age , though some archaeologists argue that there is no evidence for large-scale Iron Age migrations into Great Britain, in which case the Celticisation of Britain would have occurred through cultural diffusion. Most people in Wales today regard themselves as modern Celts , claiming a heritage back to the Iron Age tribes. When the Roman legions departed Britain around 400, a Romano-British culture remained in
3745-497: The Isle of Anglesey (19%). Among respondents between 16 and 74 years of age, those claiming Welsh ethnicity were predominantly in professional and managerial occupations. In advance of the 2011 UK Census, the Office for National Statistics (ONS) launched a census consultation exercise. They received replies from 28 different Welsh organisations and a large proportion of these referred to Welsh ethnicity, language or identity. For
3852-682: The Norman Conquest , and several Normans encouraged immigration to their new lands; the Landsker Line dividing the Pembrokeshire "Englishry" and "Welshry" is still detectable today. The terms Englishry and Welshry are used similarly about Gower . Recent research on ancient DNA has concluded that much of Britain's Neolithic population was replaced by Beaker people in the Bronze Age . The British groups encountered by
3959-424: The " Angels of Mons " episode. He published a series of stories capitalizing on this success, most of which were morale-boosting propaganda, but the most notable, "The Great Return" (1915) and the novella The Terror (1917), were more accomplished. He also published a series of autobiographical articles during the war, later reprinted in book form as Far Off Things . During the war years Machen also met and championed
4066-685: The 1960s. It was followed by the Arthur Machen Society based in the UK, in 1986, which in turn was replaced by the current literary society, The Friends of Arthur Machen. The Friends of Arthur Machen (FoAM) is a non-profit international literary society founded in 1998 dedicated to supporting interest in Arthur Machen and his work, and to aid research. It publishes two journals: Faunus , which reprints rare Machen articles and criticism of his work, and Machenalia . It fosters interest not only in Machen but in events in which he played
4173-595: The 2001, around 7,000 classified themselves as following "other religions", including a reconstructed form of Druidism , which was the pre-Christian religion of Wales (not to be confused with the Druids of the Gorsedd at the National Eisteddfod of Wales). Approximately one third of the population, some 980,000 people, profess no religious faith whatsoever. The census showed that slightly fewer than 10% of
4280-552: The Brythonic-speaking peoples of northern England and southern Scotland, the peoples of " Yr Hen Ogledd " (English: The Old North ). The word came into use as a self-description probably before the 7th century. It is attested in a praise poem to Cadwallon ap Cadfan ( Moliant Cadwallon , by Afan Ferddig) c. 633 . In Welsh literature , the word Cymry was used throughout the Middle Ages to describe
4387-739: The English language. Patagonian Welsh (Cymraeg y Wladfa) is a dialect of the Welsh language which is spoken in Y Wladfa in the Argentine region, Patagonia . There has been migration from Wales to the rest of Britain throughout its history. During the Industrial Revolution thousands of Welsh people migrated, for example, to Liverpool and Ashton-in-Makerfield . As a result, some people from England, Scotland and Ireland have Welsh surnames. Welsh settlers moved to other parts of Europe, concentrated in certain areas. During
Arthur Machen - Misplaced Pages Continue
4494-605: The Grail actually were based on dim recollections of the rites of the Celtic Church. These ideas also featured strongly in the novel The Secret Glory which he wrote at this time, marking the first use in fiction of the idea of the Grail's surviving into modern times in some form, an idea much utilised ever since, as by Charles Williams ( War in Heaven ), Dan Brown ( The Da Vinci Code ) and George Lucas ( Indiana Jones and
4601-574: The Industrial Revolution. The English were the most numerous group, but there were also considerable numbers of Irish; and smaller numbers of other ethnic groups, including Italians migrated to South Wales. Wales received other immigration from various parts of the British Commonwealth of Nations in the 20th century, and African-Caribbean and Asian communities immigrated particularly to urban Wales. In 2001, it
4708-600: The Iron Age and Roman era Britons showed strong similarities with both each other and modern-day Welsh populations, while modern southern and eastern English groups were closer to a later Anglo-Saxon burial. Another study, using Iron Age and Anglo-Saxon samples from Cambridgeshire, concluded that modern Welsh people carry a 30% genetic contribution from Anglo-Saxon settlers in the post-Roman period; however, this could have been brought about due to later migration from England into Wales. A third study, published in 2020 and based on Viking era data from across Europe, suggested that
4815-631: The Jewish population of that area, which reached a peak of 4,000–5,000 in 1913, has declined; only Cardiff has retained a sizeable Jewish population, of about 2000 in the 2001 Census. The largest non-Christian faith in Wales is Islam, with about 22,000 members in 2001 served by about 40 mosques, following the first mosque established in Cardiff . A college for training clerics has been established at Llanybydder in West Wales . Islam arrived in Wales in
4922-478: The Last Crusade ). In 1907, The Hill of Dreams , generally considered Machen's masterpiece, was finally published, though it was not recognized much at the time. The next few years saw Machen continue with acting in various companies and with journalistic work, but he was finding it increasingly hard to earn a living and his legacies were long exhausted. Machen was also attending literary gatherings such as
5029-520: The Magicians , by L. Pauwels and J. Berger (1960), deals extensively with Machen's thought and works. Machen's approach to reality is described as an example of the "fantastic realism" which the book is dedicated to. In music, the composer John Ireland found Machen's works to be a life-changing experience that directly influenced much of his composition. Mark E. Smith of The Fall also found Machen an inspiration. Likewise, Current 93 have drawn on
5136-536: The Middle Ages. From the early 1960s, local council areas were permitted to hold referendums every seven years to determine whether they should be "wet" or "dry" on Sundays: most of the industrialised areas in the east and south went "wet" immediately, and by the 1980s the last district, Dwyfor in the northwest, went wet; since then there have been no more Sunday-closing referendums. Despite Christianity dominating Wales, more ancient traditions persisted. In 1874 it
5243-568: The Monmouthshire historian Fred Hando 's The Pleasant Land of Gwent (1944)—but produced little new fiction. In 1927, he became a manuscript reader for the publisher Ernest Benn , which brought in a much-needed regular income until 1933. In 1929, Machen and his family moved away from London to Amersham in Buckinghamshire, but they still faced financial hardship. He received some recognition for his literary work when he received
5350-528: The New Bohemians and the Square Club . Finally Machen accepted a full-time journalist's job at Alfred Harmsworth 's Evening News in 1910. In February 1912 his son Hilary was born, followed by a daughter Janet in 1917. The coming of war in 1914 saw Machen return to public prominence for the first time in twenty years due to the publication of "The Bowmen" and the subsequent publicity surrounding
5457-592: The Romans were thus largely descended from these Beaker populations. The post-Roman period saw a significant alteration in the genetic makeup of southern Britain due to the arrival of the Anglo-Saxons; however, historical evidence suggests that Wales was little affected by these migrations. A study published in 2016 compared samples from modern Britain and Ireland with DNA found in skeletons from Iron Age, Roman and Anglo-Saxon era Yorkshire. The study found that most of
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#17327832045475564-639: The US may have been 26 times greater than Welsh emigration), to many countries, including the US (in particular, Pennsylvania ), Canada and Y Wladfa in Patagonia , Argentina. Jackson County, Ohio was sometimes referred to as "Little Wales", and one of several communities where Welsh was widely spoken. There was a Welsh language press but by the late 1940s, the last Welsh language newspaper, y Drych began to publish in English. Malad City in Idaho , which began as
5671-638: The United Kingdom, 4.7% in New Zealand, 4.1% in Australia, and 3.8% in the United States, with an estimated 16.3 million people in the countries studied having at least partial Welsh ancestry. Over 300,000 Welsh people live in London . The names "Wales" and "Welsh" are modern descendants of the Anglo-Saxon word wealh , a descendant of the Proto-Germanic word walhaz , which was derived from
5778-572: The Welsh population are regular church or chapel goers (a slightly smaller proportion than in England or Scotland), although about 58% of the population see themselves as Christian in some form. Judaism has quite a long history in Wales, with a Jewish community recorded in Swansea from around 1730. In August 1911, during a period of public order and industrial disputes, Jewish shops across the South Wales coalfield were damaged by mobs. Since that time
5885-580: The Welsh trace, on average, 58% of their ancestry to the Brittonic people, up to 22% from a Danish-like source interpreted as largely representing the Anglo-Saxons, 3% from Norwegian Vikings, and 13% from further south in Europe such as Italy , to a lesser extent, Spain and can possibly be related to French immigration during the Norman period. A 2015 genetic survey of modern British population groups found
5992-547: The Welsh, though the older, more generic term Brythoniaid continued to be used to describe any of the Britonnic peoples , including the Welsh, and was the more common literary term until c. 1100 . Thereafter Cymry prevailed as a reference to the Welsh. Until c. 1560 the word was spelt Kymry or Cymry , regardless of whether it referred to the people or their homeland. During their time in Britain ,
6099-472: The acquisition of Welsh is a gateway to better careers, according to research from the Welsh Language Board and Careers Wales. The Welsh Government identified media as one of six areas likely to experience greater demand for Welsh speakers: the sector is Wales's third-largest revenue earner. Although Welsh is a minority language , and thus threatened by the dominance of English, support for
6206-638: The ancient Romans encountered tribes in present-day Wales that they called the Ordovices , the Demetae , the Silures and the Deceangli . The people of what is now Wales were not distinguished from the rest of the peoples of southern Britain; all were called Britons and spoke Common Brittonic , a Celtic language . This language, and Celtic culture more generally, seems to have arrived in Britain during
6313-457: The areas the Romans had settled, and the pre-Roman cultures in others. The people in what is now Wales continued to speak Common Brittonic with significant influence from Latin , as did people in other areas of western and northern Britain; this language eventually evolved into Old Welsh . The surviving poem Y Gododdin is in early Welsh and refers to the British kingdom of Gododdin with
6420-439: The autobiographical Far Off Things and new editions of his Casanova translation, The House of Souls and The Hill of Dreams . Machen's works had now found a new audience and publishers in the United States, and a series of requests for republications of books started to come in. Vincent Starrett , James Branch Cabell , and Carl Van Vechten were American devotees who helped in this process. Another sign of his rising fortunes
6527-516: The beginning of his literary career, Machen espoused a mystical belief that the humdrum ordinary world hid a more mysterious and strange world beyond. His gothic and decadent works of the 1890s concluded that the lifting of this veil could lead to madness, sex, or death, and usually a combination of all three. Machen's later works became somewhat less obviously full of gothic trappings, but for him investigations into mysteries invariably resulted in life-changing transformation and sacrifice. Machen loved
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#17327832045476634-440: The best [horror story] in the English language." He is also well known for "The Bowmen", a short story that was widely read as fact, creating the legend of the Angels of Mons . Machen was born Arthur Llewelyn Jones in Caerleon , Monmouthshire . The house of his birth, opposite the Olde Bull Inn in The Square at Caerleon is marked with a commemorative blue plaque . The landscape of Monmouthshire (which he usually referred to by
6741-441: The country. This led in 1903 to a second marriage, to Dorothie Purefoy Hudleston, which brought Machen much happiness. Machen managed to find a publisher in 1902 for his earlier written work Hieroglyphics , an analysis of the nature of literature, which concluded that true literature must convey "ecstasy". In 1906 Machen's literary career began once more to flourish as the book The House of Souls collected his most notable works of
6848-414: The earliest use of the word Kymry (referring not to the people but to the land—and possibly to northern Britain in addition to Wales) is found in a poem c. 633 . The name of the region in northern England now known as Cumbria is derived from the same root. Only gradually did Cymru (the land) and Cymry (the people) come to supplant Brython . Although the Welsh language was certainly used at
6955-461: The early 1970s, a paperback reprint of The Three Impostors in the Ballantine Adult Fantasy series brought him to the notice of a new generation. More recently, the small press has continued to keep Machen's work in print. In 2010, to mark the 150 years since Machen's birth, two volumes of Machen's work were republished in the prestigious Library of Wales series. Literary critics such as Wesley D. Sweetser and S. T. Joshi see Machen's works as
7062-508: The early 19th century, and founded towns in Labrador 's coast region; in 1819, the ship Albion left Cardigan for New Brunswick , carrying Welsh settlers to Canada; on board were 27 Cardiganian families, many of whom were farmers. In 1852, Thomas Benbow Phillips of Tregaron established a settlement of about 100 Welsh people in the state of Rio Grande do Sul in Brazil. Internationally Welsh people have emigrated, in relatively small numbers (in proportion to population, Irish emigration to
7169-470: The finest products of the genre". Machen's popularity in 1920s America has been noted, and his work was an influence on the development of the pulp horror found in magazines like Weird Tales and on such notable fantasy writers as James Branch Cabell , Clark Ashton Smith , Robert E. Howard , Frank Belknap Long (who wrote a tribute to Machen in verse, "On Reading Arthur Machen"), Donald Wandrei , David Lindsay and E. Charles Vivian . His significance
7276-423: The first time ever in British census history the 2011 Census gave the opportunity for people to describe their identity as Welsh or English. A 'dress rehearsal' of the Census was carried out on the Welsh island of Anglesey because of its rural nature and its high numbers of Welsh speakers. The Census, taken on 27 March 2011, asked a number of questions relating to nationality and national identity, including What
7383-412: The fore in works such as Dr Stiggins . Similarly, some of his propagandistic First World War stories also have little appeal to a modern audience. Machen, brought up as the son of a Church of England clergyman, always held Christian beliefs, though accompanied by a fascination with sensual mysticism ; his interests in paganism and the occult were especially prominent in his earliest works. Machen
7490-416: The growing Welsh-medium schools of Cardiff itself) due to the centralisation and concentration of national resources and organisations in the capital. For some, speaking Welsh is an important part of their Welsh identity. Parts of the culture are strongly connected to the language — notably the Eisteddfod tradition, poetry and aspects of folk music and dance. Wales also has a strong tradition of poetry in
7597-420: The increase came in the coal mining districts; especially Glamorganshire , which grew from 71,000 in 1801 to 232,000 in 1851 and 1,122,000 in 1911. Part of this increase can be attributed to the demographic transition seen in most industrialising countries during the Industrial Revolution , as death rates dropped and birth rates remained steady. However, there was also a large-scale migration into Wales during
7704-661: The influence by directly incorporating some of Machen's creations and references, such as Nodens and Aklo , into his Cthulhu Mythos and using similar plotlines, most notably seen by a comparison of " The Dunwich Horror " to The Great God Pan and of " The Whisperer in Darkness " to " The Novel of the Black Seal ". Other Lovecraft tales with a debt or reference to Machen include " The Call of Cthulhu ", " The Festival ", " Cool Air ", " The Descendant ", and " The Colour Out of Space ". His intense, atmospheric stories of horror and
7811-641: The issue. As many as a third of all properties in Gwynedd are bought by people from outside Wales. The issue of locals being priced out of the local housing market is common to many rural communities throughout Britain, but in Wales the added dimension of language complicates the issue, as many new residents do not learn the Welsh language. A Plaid Cymru taskforce headed by Dafydd Wigley recommended land should be allocated for affordable local housing, called for grants for locals to buy houses, and recommended that council tax on holiday homes should double. However,
7918-466: The language at limited or conversational proficiency levels. The Welsh language is descended from Brythonic, spoken across Britain since before the Roman invasion . In 2016, an analysis of the geography of Welsh surnames commissioned by the Welsh Government found that 718,000 people (nearly 35% of the Welsh population) have a family name of Welsh origin, compared with 5.3% in the rest of
8025-429: The language grew during the second half of the 20th century, along with the rise of Welsh nationalism in the form of groups such as the political party Plaid Cymru and Cymdeithas yr Iaith Gymraeg (Welsh Language Society). The language is used in the bilingual Welsh Parliament (Senedd) and entered on its records, with English translation. The high cost of translation from English to Welsh has proved controversial. In
8132-598: The late 19th and early 20th centuries, a small wave of contract miners from Wales arrived in Northern France; the centres of Welsh-French population are in coal mining towns, and particularly the French department of Pas-de-Calais along with miners from many other countries. They tended to cluster in communities around their churches. Settlers from Wales (and later Patagonian Welsh) arrived in Newfoundland in
8239-430: The literary appeal launched in 1943 for his eightieth birthday. The initial names on the appeal show the general recognition of Machen's stature as a distinguished man of letters, as they included Max Beerbohm , T. S. Eliot , Bernard Shaw , Walter de la Mare , Algernon Blackwood , and John Masefield . The success of the appeal allowed Machen to live the last few years of his life, until 1947, in relative comfort. From
8346-418: The medieval worldview because he felt it manifested deep spirituality alongside a rambunctious earthiness. Machen was a great enthusiast for literature that expressed the "rapture, beauty, adoration, wonder, awe, mystery, sense of the unknown, desire for the unknown" that he summed up in the word ecstasy . His main passions were for writers and writing he felt achieved this, an idiosyncratic list which included
8453-470: The mid 19th century, and it is thought that Cardiff's Yemeni community is Britain's oldest Muslim community, established when the city was one of the world's largest coal exporting ports. Hinduism and Buddhism each have about 5,000 adherents in Wales, with the rural county of Ceredigion being the centre of Welsh Buddhism. Govinda 's temple and restaurant, run by the Hare Krishnas in Swansea ,
8560-517: The mystical and occult leanings of Machen, with songs such as "The Inmost Light", which shares its title with Machen's story. Some artists on the Ghost Box Music label like Belbury Poly and The Focus Group draw heavily on Machen. It is an interest also shared by film directors like Mexican Rogelio A. González who made a successful version of "The Islington Mystery" as El Esqueleto de la señora Morales (1960), adapted by Luis Alcoriza ,
8667-561: The name for the territory that best maintained cultural continuity with pre-Anglo-Saxon Britain: Wales. The modern names for various Romance-speaking people in Continental Europe (e.g. Wallonia , Wallachia , Valais , Vlachs , and Włochy , the Polish name for Italy) have a similar etymology. The modern Welsh name for themselves is Cymry (plural) (singular: Cymro [m] and Cymraes [f]), and Cymru
8774-637: The name of the Gaulish people known to the Romans as Volcae and which came to refer indiscriminately to inhabitants of the Roman Empire . The Old English -speaking Anglo-Saxons came to use the term to refer to the Britons in particular. As the Britons' territories shrank, the term came ultimately to be applied to a smaller group of people, and the plural form of Wealh , Wēalas , evolved into
8881-553: The name of the medieval Welsh kingdom, Gwent ), with its associations of Celtic , Roman , and medieval history, made a powerful impression on him, and his love of it is at the heart of many of his works. Machen was descended from a long line of clergymen, the family having originated in Carmarthenshire . In 1864, when Machen was two, his father John Edward Jones, became rector of the parish of Llanddewi Fach with Llandegveth , about five miles north of Caerleon, and Machen
8988-486: The next few years, some were published much later. These included The Hill of Dreams , Hieroglyphics , A Fragment of Life , the story " The White People ", and the stories which make up Ornaments in Jade . In 1899, Machen's wife Amy died of cancer after a long period of illness. This had a devastating effect on Machen. He only gradually recovered from his loss over the next year, partially through his close friendship with
9095-536: The nineties and brought them to a new audience. He also published a satirical work, Dr Stiggins: His Views and Principles , generally considered one of his weakest works. Machen also was at this time investigating Celtic Christianity , the Holy Grail and King Arthur . Publishing his views in Lord Alfred Douglas 's The Academy , for which he wrote regularly, Machen concluded that the legends of
9202-562: The past the rules of the British Parliament forbade the use of Welsh in any proceedings. Only English was allowed as the only language all members were assumed to speak. In 2017, the UK government agreed to support the use of Welsh in the Welsh Grand Committee, although not in parliamentary debate in the house outside of this committee. In 2018 Welsh was used in the grand committee for the first time. Welsh as
9309-399: The poet A. E. Waite . It was through Waite's influence that Machen joined at this time the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn , though Machen's interest in the organization was not lasting or very deep. Machen's recovery was further helped by his sudden change of career, becoming an actor in 1901 and a member of Frank Benson 's company of travelling players, a profession which took him round
9416-644: The predominant language in parts of Wales, particularly in North Wales and parts of West Wales. According to the 2001 census the number of Welsh speakers in Wales increased for the first time in 100 years, with 20.5% of a population of over 2.9 million claiming fluency in Welsh. In addition, 28% of the population of Wales claimed to understand Welsh. The census revealed that the increase was most significant in urban areas, such as Cardiff with an increase from 6.6% in 1991 to 10.9% in 2001, and Rhondda Cynon Taf with an increase from 9% in 1991 to 12.3% in 2001. However,
9523-754: The proportion of Welsh speakers declined in Gwynedd from 72.1% in 1991 to 68.7% in 2001, to 65.4% in 2011 and 64.4% in 2021. Similarly, in Ceredigion the percentage fell from 59.1% in 1991 to 51.8% in 2001, to 47.3% in 2011 and to 45.3% in 2021. Ceredigion saw a 19.5% influx of new residents between 1991 and 2001. The decline in Welsh speakers in much of rural Wales is attributable to non-Welsh-speaking residents moving to North Wales, driving up property prices above what locals may afford, according to former Gwynedd county councillor Seimon Glyn of Plaid Cymru , whose controversial comments in 2001 focused attention on
9630-404: The reading list for his students, though Machen, who never met him, detested Crowley. Other occultists, such as Kenneth Grant , also find Machen an inspiration. Far closer to Machen's personal mystical world view was his effect on his friend Evelyn Underhill , who reflected some of Machen's thinking in her highly influential book Mysticism . One chapter of the French best-seller The Morning of
9737-632: The region; the town was thus named Yuzovka (Юзовка) in recognition of his role in its founding ("Yuz" being a Russian or Ukrainian approximation of Hughes). Former Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard was born in Barry, Wales. After she suffered from bronchopneumonia as a child, her parents were advised that it would aid her recovery to live in a warmer climate. This led the family to migrate to Australia in 1966, settling in Adelaide. Edgar Jepson Too Many Requests If you report this error to
9844-513: The results. The foot-and-mouth crisis delayed the 2001 United Kingdom general election ; the first time since the Second World War that any event had postponed an election. In the census, 14% of the population took the 'extra step' to write in that they were of Welsh ethnicity. The highest percentage of those identifying as of Welsh ethnicity was recorded in Gwynedd (at 27%), followed by Carmarthenshire (23%), Ceredigion (22%) and
9951-638: The same census shows that 25% of residents were born outside Wales. The number of Welsh speakers in other places in Britain is uncertain, but there are significant numbers in the main cities, and there are speakers along the Welsh-English border . Even among Welsh speakers, very few people speak only Welsh, with nearly all being bilingual in English. However, a large number of Welsh speakers are more comfortable expressing themselves in Welsh than in English. Some prefer to speak English in South Wales or
10058-430: The supernatural have been read and enjoyed by many modern horror and fantasy writers, influencing directly Peter Straub , Stephen King , Ramsey Campbell , Karl Edward Wagner , " Sarban " (John William Wall), Joanna Russ , Graham Joyce , Simon Clark , Tim Lebbon , and T. E. D. Klein , to name but a few. Klein's novel The Ceremonies was partly based on Machen's "The White People", and Straub's novel Ghost Story
10165-426: The time, Gwyn A. Williams argues that even at the time of the erection of Offa's Dyke, the people to its west saw themselves as Roman, citing the number of Latin inscriptions still being made into the 8th century. However, it is unclear whether such inscriptions reveal a general or normative use of Latin as a marker of identity or its selective use by the early Christian Church . There was immigration to Wales after
10272-528: The urbanised areas and Welsh in the North or in rural areas. A speaker's choice of language can vary according to the subject domain (known in linguistics as code-switching ). Due to an increase in Welsh-language nursery education, recent census data reveals a reversal of decades of linguistic decline: there are now more Welsh speakers under five years of age than over 60. For many young people in Wales,
10379-540: The work of a fellow Welshman, Caradoc Evans . In general, though, Machen thoroughly disliked work at the newspaper, and it was only the need to earn money for his family which kept him at it. The money came in useful, allowing him to move in 1919 to a bigger house with a garden, in St John's Wood , which became a noted location for literary gatherings attended by friends such as the painter Augustus John , D. B. Wyndham Lewis , and Jerome K. Jerome . Machen's dismissal from
10486-460: The works of Robert Louis Stevenson , some of which used gothic or fantastic themes. This led to his first major success, The Great God Pan . It was published in 1894 by John Lane in the noted Keynotes Series, which was part of the growing aesthetic movement of the time. Machen's story was widely denounced for its sexual and horrific content and consequently sold well, going into a second edition. Machen next produced The Three Impostors ,
10593-437: The writer and occultist A. E. Waite , who was to become one of Machen's closest friends. Machen also made the acquaintance of other literary figures, such as M. P. Shiel and Edgar Jepson . Soon after his marriage, Machen began to receive a series of legacies from Scottish relatives that allowed him to gradually devote more time to writing. Around 1890 Machen began to publish in literary magazines, writing stories influenced by
10700-584: Was also a pioneer in psychogeography , due to his interest in the interconnection between landscape and the mind. His strange wanderings in Wales and London recorded in his beautiful prose make him of great interest to writers on this subject, especially those focusing on London, such as Iain Sinclair and Peter Ackroyd . Alan Moore wrote an exploration of Machen's mystical experiences in his work Snakes and Ladders . Aleister Crowley loved Machen's works, feeling they contained "Magickal" truth, and put them on
10807-706: Was brought up at the rectory there. Jones had adopted his wife's maiden name, Machen, to inherit a legacy, legally becoming "Jones-Machen"; his son later used a shortened version, Arthur Machen, as a pen name . Local historian and folklorist Fred Hando suggests Machen's early interest in the occult came from an article of alchemy in a volume of Household Words in his father's library. Hando recounts Machen's other early reading: He bought De Quincey's Confessions of an English Opium-Eater at Pontypool Road Railway Station, The Arabian Nights at Hereford Railway Station, and borrowed Don Quixote from Mrs. Gwyn, of Llanfrechfa Rectory. In his father's library he found also
10914-421: Was influenced by The Great God Pan . Machen's influence is not limited to genre fiction, however. Jorge Luis Borges recognized Machen as a great writer, and through him Machen has had an influence on magic realism . He was also a major influence on Paul Bowles and Javier Marías , the latter of whom dedicated a subplot of his 1989 novel All Souls to collecting the works of Machen and his circle of peers. He
11021-487: Was one of the most significant figures in the life of the Poet Laureate Sir John Betjeman , who attributed to Machen his conversion to High Church Anglicanism, an important part of his philosophy and poetry. Sylvia Townsend Warner (a niece of Machen's second wife, Purefoy) admired Machen and was influenced by him, as is his great-granddaughter, the contemporary artist Tessa Farmer . Machen
11128-482: Was recognized by H. P. Lovecraft , who in his essay " Supernatural Horror in Literature " named Machen as one of the four "modern masters" of supernatural horror (with Algernon Blackwood , Lord Dunsany , and M. R. James ). Machen's influence on Lovecraft's own work was substantial. Lovecraft's reading of Machen in the early 1920s led him away from his earlier Dunsanian writing towards the development of what became
11235-607: Was reported as common for an officiant to walk in front of the coffin with a horse's skull, which may be a tradition linked with the Mari Lwyd tradition. The Welsh language is in the Insular Celtic family; historically spoken throughout Wales, with its predecessor Common Brittonic once spoken throughout most of the island of Great Britain. Prior to the 20th century, large numbers of Welsh people spoke only Welsh, with little or no fluent knowledge of English. Welsh remains
11342-453: Was the publication in 1923 of a collected edition of his works (the "Caerleon Edition") and a bibliography. That year also saw the publication of a recently completed second volume of autobiography, Things Near and Far —the third and final volume, The London Adventure , being published in 1924. Machen's earlier works suddenly started becoming much-sought-after collectors' items at this time, a position they have held ever since. In 1924 he issued
11449-412: Was well read on such matters as alchemy , the kabbalah , and Hermeticism , and these occult interests formed part of his close friendship with A. E. Waite . Machen, however, was always very down-to-earth, requiring substantial proof that a supernatural event had occurred, and was thus highly sceptical of Spiritualism . The death of his first wife led him to a spiritual crossroads, and he experienced
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