Like Scotland and Ireland, Wales has retained a distinct culture and identity from the rest of the British Isles for thousands of years, during which it has been invaded or subjugated by the Romans, Vikings, Anglo-Saxons, and of course the English.
However, unlike Scotland and Ireland, Wales and its people, history, culture and iconography seem to be quite obscure and don’t get much attention from outsiders, even here in the UK. I’m English, by the way.
I’m curious to know, why is that? Why are, say, Welsh stovepipe hats not as internationally famous and recognisable as Scottish kilts/tartan? Why have no Welsh myths or folktales become as iconic as leprechauns or St Patrick driving out the snakes in Ireland? Why is the Welsh national hero Prince Owain Glyn Dwr not featured in pop culture the way someone like William Wallace has featured in movies like Braveheart and video games like Age of Empires 2 and become a household name outside of his home country? Why do Americans descended from Welsh immigrants not take the same level of pride in their heritage as Irish Americans?
The currently most widespread fashion of the kilt (the philibeg) apparently was introduced by an English Quaker (and was worn mostly in the lower class); after the Great Rebellion in 1745 it was abolished by law (along with bearing arms and other local fashions). By the end of the century the ban was lifted again, on behalf of the (new) Scottish elite which felt a need to justify their claim (after the highland clearances) on the pastures on what used the land inhabited by Gael-speaking highlander clans. By 1821 the kilt was so officious the king himself had worn one on a royal visit.
A particularity of this new high scottish culture was an emphasis on an arcane and ancient set of rules (in dress and behavior) that had never existed before and an emphasis on scottish particularism. Walter Scott attacked Ossian for the use of a harp (instead of a bagpipe) and the use of a cloak (instead of a kilt).
Source: 'the Highland Tradition of Scotland' in Hobsbawm's the Invention of Tradition.
Now: The interest in Welsh culture appears a century earlier with the decline of Welsh as a written language (of the elite. This change is exemplified by the title page of a 1659 English-French-Italian-Spanish-Welsh dictionary: The four former languages are represented as ladies and the Welsh tongue is a bush wench in a silly hat who apparently really wants to join their company.). Edward Lhuyd introduced the very notion of Celtic languages and peoples and the Welsh poets of the day did introduce the tropes still common in all things Celtic: harps, cloaks, rain, fogs, druids, bards, gloomy nostalgia. Vis a 1726 poem by Lewis Morris:
There is in Wales,
one must lament,
No music and no merriment,
And yet there was, in days of old,
A harp in every household.
Source: 'the hunt for the Welsh past in the romantic period', same book.
Each line in this poem today is iconic although it is perhaps nowadays more widely associated with Ireland than Wales. You'll notice in the very beginning of Ulysses by Joyce they are talking about the Mabinogion and in the Dubliners a poet is worried if his name is celtic enough or his poetry wistful enough to be published in the English magazines. Welsh stereotypes are very much alive and they've even been passed on across the water as celtic ones.
I have a follow up question. Isn't the arturian legend part of welsh folklore?
