It turns out that an Eisteddfod (pronounced Eye-Steth-Vod, plural Eisteddfodau pronounced Eye-Steth-Vod-Ah-Fuck-Welsh-Is-Hard-To-Pronounce) is not a feral crumpet after all. It’s a singing and music competition and festival. There is a Welsh National Eisteddfod, which features Welsh music and is held in different places, and the International Eisteddfod, which has performers from all over the world, and is held in Llangollen every year in the second week of July, which happens to be now. More on that later.

We arrived in Llangollen this morning after navigating some extended stretches of canal that were only one boat wide. We ended up in a convoy of six boats, which is a bad idea for locks but an excellent way of gaining control of a one way narrows. We could crush numerically inferior fleets by sheer weight of numbers and push them backwards down the cut. We didn’t actually need to do that, but is was nice to have the capability. The canal is half way up a hillside, so the towpath gives a great view over the rooftops of the town.

First order of business was to get on a different canal boat. The last stretch of the Llangollen canal is only used by horse drawn boats. Here is the motive power for a seventy foot canal boat loaded with tourists.

The boat reversed direction by switching the rudder to the other end and having the horse pull the other way. While the rudder was being moved, Harvey the Welsh Cob took a chance to refuel by grazing on the vegetation by the towpath.

I must say it’s cheaper than filling up with diesel, and the boat runs quieter, too. Of course, it’s only a one horse power motor.

After the boat ride, we meandered on to the Eisteddfod grounds, paid nine quid each to get in with no idea what we would find, (I still hadn’t abandoned the feral crumpet theory) and found ourselves at a world music festival. There is a huge tented hall where the competitions are held, surrounded by several other performance venues, as well as food stalls, craft stalls, and an owl rescue center. This had half a dozen insomniac owls posing for pictures and staring at you with those great big eyes that say, “If you were just a few inches shorter you’d be owl pellets.”

The first act we saw was a vocal group from Zimbabwe called U’Zambezi Arts, with some wonderful Southern African music. For one number the invited a couple of Spanish musicians they had just met at the festival up on stage to do Diamonds On The Soles Of Her Shoes.

They had us up on our feet dancing for that one, along with a few more of the less inhibited audience members. While this was in progress, a choir of schoolgirls, all in school uniform, had to cross the tent right in front of the stage. Some of them danced along with the music, and some of the scurried across worried that people might be looking at them. I think there’s a deep moral there somewhere. It’s probably that schoolgirls look prettier if they all dress the same.

The was a group called Cymru Brazil that played Welsh music and danced, with the musicians getting up from their instruments and dancing as the piece required. The dancing varied from clogging to capoeira. We caught the end of their act while eating some really excellent Welsh roast pork. It made the smell from the bonfire on the pig farm almost worth while.

I’ve already posted a video of the Rajasthan Heritage Brass Band to facebook, so here’s a still

They are raucous and goofy and jazzy and sound just like a brass band from India should sound like.

Finally we attended “The Gathering”, which was an open mic session for choirs and folk dance groups. The first choir up was from a high school in Davis, California.

Apparently fashions in Northern California have changed while we have been away. They sang several traditional Irish numbers some of them in Gaelic, a language with even more unfriendly spelling than Welsh.

There were folk dancers from Albania, Scotland, the Isle of Man, and a choir from Long Beach, California. The French and German performers were no-shows, however. Something about a football game.

I should mention that there is another account of the last week of our trip. Sherri has also been blogging about her travels, but she apparently lives in a parallel universe where waterfowl are not plotting the downfall of civilization, and the Welsh are perfectly ordinary people.