Oh What A Time... - #29 Love (Part 1)

Episode Date: February 19, 2024

Valentines Day has reared its head again, which can mean only one thing: this week we’re discussing LUUUUUURVE (love). From the arguably unnecessary Welsh patron saint of love, Mozart and his saucy love letters, to the history of Valentines Day; and the OWAT full timers will get ‘the history of dating’ this week! And how would you go back the past and really REALLY change it? You know what to do, let us know at: [e-mail] This is Part One (Part Two will be out tomorrow), but if you want both parts now, why not become an Oh What A Time: FULL TIMER? In exchange for your £4.99 to support the show, you'll get: - the 4th part of every episode and ad-free listening - episodes a week ahead of everyone else - a bonus episode every month - And first dibs on any live show tickets Subscriptions are available via AnotherSlice, Apple and Spotify. For all the links head to: ohwhatatime.com You can follow us on: X (formerly Twitter) at @ohwhatatimepod And Instagram at @ohwhatatimepod Aaannnd if you like it, why not drop us a review in your podcast app of choice? Thank you to Dan Evans for the artwork (idrawforfood.co.uk). And thank you for subscribing, we couldn't make the show without you! We’ll see you next week! BYE! Chris, Elis and Tom x Get an Exclusive NordVPN deal here: https://nordvpn.com/owat  It’s risk-free with Nord’s 30-day money-back guarantee! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Eligibility and member terms apply. Looking for a collaborator for your career? A strong ally to support your next level success? You will find it at York University School of Continuing Studies, where we offer career programs purpose-built for you. Visit continue.yorku dot ca. Hello and welcome to Oh What A Time, the history podcast that tries to decide if the past really did involve people leaving their doors open and everyone just looking after their own. I'm Chris Scull.

I've been told that by so many different people. But anyway, yes, I'm Ellis James. And I'm Tom Crane. And each week on this show, we'll be looking at a brand new historical subject. And today we're going to be discussing Hubba Hubba, Kiss Kiss Kiss, It's Love. Tom, you know, with the greatest respect, that's sex. I would say this is more of a love episode than sex. Yeah.

Would you? Yeah, this is a post-coital cuddle, as opposed to making the beast for two backs. I thought hubba hubba meant gazing longingly at someone. No. But not necessarily in a tickly sexual way, just kind of, ooh, hubba hubba, me and you on the sofa, winking. No, no, hubba hubba is the kind of thing that happens in a rural car park in Derbyshire

with cars flashing their lights. Just to check, Hubba Bubba is the strange strawberry flavoured chewing gum I used to have when I was about 12. Yeah, OK, good. I know where I am with that. So today, what are we talking about? What are the subjects we're hitting them with today? Well, each week on this show, we'll be looking at a new historical subject and say we're going to be discussing love and we'll be discussing the Welsh patron saint of love, the history of Valentine's Day, Mozart and his love letters.

And for the fourth part, for our bonus subscribers, for the Oh What A Timeful Timers, we're going to be describing and discussing the history of dating. Before we crack into the history, shall we crack into a little bit of correspondence? Does that sound good? Oh, yes. As always, our wonderful listeners, and thank you very much for spending your time with us and sending your wonderful emails. We really do appreciate the support, have come up trumps.

Adam Groves has emailed the show. Now, this is quite a thought-provoking one, actually. Are you ready for thought-provoking? We haven't really done this before. It's normally just, like, mad. Oh, go on. Okay. Adam has said, I just came across the following attached quote on Twitter

and found it thought-provoking. It relates to one day time machine. And the quote is, when people talk about travelling to the past, they worry about radically changing the present by doing something small. But barely anyone in the present really thinks that they can radically change the future by doing something small. So if you were time travelling to the present, it's a weird idea, what would you each change?

Which I think is a shorthand way of saying, what are you going to change about where you're living your life and how are you going to improve the world? But yeah, it's quite interesting, that idea that when people go back to the past, they think, okay, what am I going to do? How is it going to change the future? But people don't really have that. Well, do you know what it is?

Yeah. People think that changing the future by going back and doing something in the past and changing the past is very easy. They think, oh, I'll go back to the year 1800. I'll do one tweak. I'll tell one person one thing. By the time I travel back to 2024, there'll be no war and everyone will be happy

and there'll be no famine and everything will be great. But obviously, changing the present is very difficult because you've got politicians and pressure groups and protesters and all sorts of things. So the idea of actually changing the present is so overwhelming, people can't handle it. But they do like to daydream about going back in time 500 years.

Tapping a king on the shoulder and then suddenly it's 2024. We've all got these fantastic lives. It's so true. I had a chat with someone, Elle, it's a friend from Bath, about the idea of going back in time, what you do. It was a couple of years ago. And he was saying he would go back to World

War II and kill Hitler. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like they weren't trying to do that anyway. Like we just needed some guy from 2023, as it was then or whatever, to head back with his ideas. Yeah, just some bloke with an unusable iPhone. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Well, I've got a torch on it.

I mean, that still works. I don't need Wi-Fi for that. Just to tell you the information, he's a graphic designer. He lives in Bristol. I mean, he's a very nice man. I love him, but... He's a man for the case. Yeah, exactly.

The thing I always think, if you wanted to go back in time, for example, and try and warn the Germans that Hitler was a bad guy, is anyone going to listen to you? I think it'd be a reason. If you went back to 2016 and tried to convince people that Brexit might be a bad idea, no one's going to listen. They're going to believe you.

People would be like, it's 1932. So you won the election in 1933, didn't you, Hitler? In 1932, Chris Scull, people are like, well, that guy in the Nike trainers, no way, and they're gelling his hair. Future boy. Well, that might actually be your one chance, Ellis, if you can point to your futuristic shoes and find how comfy they are.

If you're the only guy who's got shoes that comfy in the world, what else are you getting right? My trainers have had air injected into them, which makes me better at basketball, a game I don't play. Now then, to Hitler. So yeah, that's quite an interesting one. Thank you for that, Adam. If you want to send us any thought-provoking emails,

if you want to get deep, if you really want to sort of, you know, look at the more important issues that circulate around One Day Time Machine, do get in contact with the show. Yeah, we could do an Oh What A Time profound episode where we're just really, really profound. It'll be shorter than our normal one, but we'll do that.

And this is how you get in contact with the show. All right, you horrible lot. Here's how you can stay in touch with the show. You can email us at hello at oh, what a time.com. And you can follow us on Instagram and Twitter at Oh, what a time pod. Now clear off. What does possible sound like for your business? It's having the spend to power your scale with no preset spending limit. Redefine possible with Business Platinum. That's the powerful backing of American Express. Terms and conditions apply.

Visit Amex.ca slash Business Platinum. Breaking news coming in from Bet365, where every nail-biting overtime win, breakaway, pick six, three-point shot, underdog win, buzz'll be telling you all about Mozart and his horny love letters. I'll be talking to you about the history of Valentine's Day. Oh, and I will be talking to you about Sainte-Douine-Wen.

She was an obscure 5th century Welsh saint, and I used Sainte-Douine-Wen to my own dating ends Tom ooh oh and Chris

wow because she's basically the Welsh St Valentine's so Santas Doinwen or Santas Doinwen Day serves the same

purpose as Valentine's Day but it's the 25th of January and I did this with Izzy my fiancé and I've done this with other English girlfriends where on the 25th of January, and I did this with Izzy, my fiancée, and I've done this with other English girlfriends, where on the 25th of January, I've given them a card,

and they say, what's this? What's this? Why are you giving me a card? I'm like, that is the Welsh Valentine's Day. Oh, my God, I love you so much. And they're always like, oh, God, Ellie, she's so romantic. I'm like, really, little old me? Not really.

You're not like other guys. So different. So what might it say on this Welsh Valentine's card? Is it similar to an English one? It tends to be a little bit less tacky than the Valentine's Day. Oh, here we go. Oh, yeah. I was wondering when those jabs would come.

Dirty old English Valentine's Day. All of you flocking down to Clinton's to sort something out. Your xenophobic jabs would come out. So, normally it lasts longer than this. On the island of Anglesey off the northwest coast of Wales is an isolated ruined church. And this church is dedicated to a largely obscure 5th century saint, although she's not as obscure as she was, whose feast day

the 25th of January is celebrated by the Welsh as an alternative to St. Valentine's Day. Although St. Valentine's Day in Welsh is done on St. Forlant as well, so we do celebrate that. So you get double bubble if you're going out with a Welsh speaker. Double Valentine's Day in Wales? What a romantic nation!

Yeah! And no one ever says that. They always say that about the French. They never say it about the Welsh. with a Welsh speaker. Double Valentine's Days in Wales. What a romantic nation. Yeah. No one ever says that. They always say that about the French. They never say it about the Welsh. Yeah. Now, it's difficult to establish exactly who Santus Duinman was or if she really existed at all. It's all a matter of faith.

You've got to believe, man. Now, the commonest held belief is that she was one of the daughters of Bruchan, king of Brucheniog, and he had dozens of daughters, okay? And Brucheniog was the Mid Wales kingdom with Brecon at its heart, although they can't really establish this as fact. Right.

And there are lots of Welsh myths about Duinwen. And basically anyone who passed through Brecon in the 5th century has one point been called the daughter of Bruchan. Now, the story goes that a young man called Maelon de Vodrill fell in love with Duinwen and he asks for her hand in marriage. Classic. Her father, what are the plans, refused the match. Okay, now, unable to marry, Doinwen tearfully rejects Maelor and asks God for a solution.

Maelon, meanwhile, for reasons that are obscure, finds himself encased in ice. And just to confirm, people don't know if this is true or not. Well, this is the myth. There's a lot of myth around. Did it happen? No, then. Did it happen? Eventually, the young woman is granted three wishes by the Almighty.

Number one, that Mylon is to be released from his ice prison. That's the good news. Shall we start with the good news? Number two, that God look after all true lovers, of which I am one, using her as his instrument. And number three, that she remains unmarried for the rest of her life. Now, the old ice prison thing,

the ancient Welsh myths and the Celtic myths, in particular the Mabinogi, or the Mabinogion as they're known in English, they are fantastic, but so weird. Like, it's all, and then he threw a spear at her and she turned into an owl made of flowers. It's like it's a proper mad stuff. There is a, in modern writing,

so as a writer, it's my job, one of the key... Tom, if you use that as one of your plot twists, people will think, no, no, how can we film that? Well, exactly. There is a key justification in the way you write a story, which is basically this thing called therefore but, which means that if anything happens,

the event afterwards has to happen therefore or it's but. So this happens but then or therefore. You can't just drop the fact this man is suddenly encased in ice and have no justification whatsoever. It doesn't come from anywhere. It doesn't adhere to any of the storytelling rules. You've got to hint at, maybe at least in a scene

before, go, it's a bit unusually chilly. It's a bit nippy, isn't it? He comes in wearing three jumpers. Tom. What's going on? Tom. He's not romantic, is he, Ellis? He's not romantic. That's why he'd never be a romantic Welsh lover. Exactly. It's Brecon. It's the 5th century. Get on with it.

It was happening all the time. You go out to the post office and then suddenly... Yeah, like, oh my God, you know, women coming out of lakes and all that kind of... I bought the Penguin edition of the Malbinoge. I had the kids' book version when I was sort of seven or eight. And they're illustrated and they're absolutely crazy stories. And I, about 10 years ago,

I read the, the, the penguin version and it's a penguin classic. Like the story, they're sort of 1600 years old, but they are so nuts. But anyway, now to ensure that Doinwen cannot fall to temptation,

she moves to the tidal outlay of Llanddwain in Angleslesey and she lives there until her death in about sort of 460 AD. Now the cult of Santus Duinwen developed really in the Middle Ages, that's when it developed in earnest, when in the 14th century and maybe a little bit earlier her church and nearby well came to be regarded as a holy shrine, one dedicated as she wished, to the destinies and fortunes of lovers. Now, one of those who wrote poems in service of this cult was the noted medieval Welsh bard, David ap Gwilym. Now, David, I've got a little translated excerpt here. Doinwen, your beauty like the hoar frost's tears, from your chancel with its blazing waxen candles, well does your golden image know how to assuage the griefs of

wretched men. Now, David, he's a really interesting bloke because he wrote poetry in this really strict meter, and it's technically very difficult to write. And a lot of people have sort of studied him and his poetry in conjunction with other poets in europe at the time as part of a sort of european bardic tradition and six seven hundred years on in the same way that you know english academics are still studying chaucer or shakespeare we're still studying him but you can't get away from the fact he wrote a lot of technically very difficult poems about his penis. He absolutely loved writing poetry about his knob. I can't really say any further than that.

Are there a number of them? Loads, no. I'm imagining his English teacher or Welsh teacher is doing the same. Each week is he handing yet another one. Come on mate, just a little bit of let up. The interesting thing with Welsh language literature,

we're so obsessed with poetry. It still is a huge place in Welsh language culture. And poets are these really, really venerated people, far more than novelists and far more than playwrights. We're obsessed with poems, right? And he's like the absolute don. And obviously not all of them are about dicks, but there's just like a significant enough proportion that as a 14-year-old reading this book, I was like, yeah, mum, dad, I'm into literature now.

Is it safe to say he was the world's leading penis poet? Is that a fair statement or not? He's certainly part of the conversation. Now, David Trevor, who was another medieval Welsh poet, wrote work describing the act of pilgrimage to the saints, to Doinwen's shrine, for instance. It wasn't just David Apgwilin who was doing it. Now, a commemorative window to Doinwen was also installed at Bangor Cathedral, where Trevor had been a canon at the end of the 15th century. In the 16th century, you find testimony from Ellis Griffith, a Catholic-turned-Protestant chronicler,

who regularly appealed to the loving protection of the saint but then the reformation kicked in and veneration of old celtic and catholic saints fell by the wayside right because you had religious wars between protestants and catholics not to mention of course the tussle between parliament and the monarch so that gave people other things to worry about now by the 18th century a mixture of antiquarianism which had come back into fashion and curiosity about britain's ancient in inverted commas past led to the partial recovery of medieval faith so in 1761 richard challoner published his memorial of ancient british piety for example which included doing when and her feast day of january the 25th but he didn't detail how

to celebrate sort of Doinwen's day. Now, the real invention of Doinwen as the British Venus, the Welsh equivalent or alternative to St. Valentine, occurred in the 19th century, spurred on by an absolutely fascinating bloke. And to be honest, I've just thought of an episode title. We should be doing myths. Because Yolo Morganog, who was a Welshman who was born in the 18th century, he was the kind of arch creator of pretty much every Welsh myth and legend, right? He's behind a lot of it. So he was trying to create a Welsh identity. So a lot of the druidic stuff that we thought we were doing, he was forging it. Oh, really? So he's an absolutely fascinating bloke, Yolo Morganog. But then what's happened? Because he was forging it so long ago,

we've now been doing it for hundreds of years. So you're saying there was mythological practices that people assumed were ancient druidic things, but he was just coming up with them? Yeah, yeah, were forgeries, which he was doing in the late 1700s. That's so interesting. Yeah, why not? Makes sense. Now, there was this sort of neo-cult.

It was growing at the end of Victoria's reign. There was a period of nationalist revival across Scotland, Ireland and Wales, you know, Home Rule and that kind of thing. And there was the Cymru Vith movement, which was quite similar in Wales at the time. And these people were really into Welsh, Scottish, Irish myths, OK? So to venerate Duinwen was one way of declaring your love for the nation. So there were plays performed at the National Stedfod, which is a big Welsh cultural festival, in 1883. There was a rousing chorus written by Joseph Parry, who I think was a composer,

published in 1886. Caves were re-designated as belonging to Duinwen, and a brand new Celtic cross was erected on Ynys Llanddwain. And it was ostensibly to celebrate Queen Victoria's Diamond Jubilee in 1897, but really it kind of fuelled this Welsh revival. Now, this sort of wave of nationalism, it waxed and then it waned again. And when it waned, this appeal to having a sort of a Welsh language or a Welsh valentine, it sort of waned alongside it. We forgot about it a little bit then. So the Doinwen neocult.

It was very little venerated in the early 20th century, but we'd completely forgotten about it. Now, as late as 1960, one newspaper said, oh, it's just a silly superstition. Now, by the end of the decade, though, there was another wave of Welsh language revivalism with stuff like Cymdeithas o Ddaith, the Welsh Language Society, where they were protesting for Welsh to have equal status alongside English as the language of the country. So then they kind of rediscovered Doinwen, right?

But by this point, Valentine's Day was massive. So on the 24th of January 1969, it was reported in the Welsh press that postmen in Wales would deliver more than 2,000 St Valentine's Day cards tomorrow, all in Welsh, but not Doinwen cards, it were Valentine's Day cards. So by this point, we've still got one romantic day in the year, not two. In the 60s and 70s, you had little purchase really, outside of Welsh language revivalist circles, which was quite small. Most Welsh people waited until February the 14th. But then in the 1990s, when you had things like devolution,

and this is what I remember because I was a teenager in the 90s, she was kind of rediscovered again and she stuck around. So there was this growing demand for a Welsh alternative to mainstream sort of English or Anglophone traditions. So completely bound up in identity and this sort of this idea of, yeah. Yeah, yeah. And how commercial she was. Yeah. So, you know, certainly I think I would say amongst Welsh speakers,

she's kind of now superseded St. Valentine as the saint with the strongest love charm. Yeah. So does that mean that people will primarily celebrate, well, the Romantic Day in Wales is primarily day, at the end of January, then. I would certainly say amongst Welsh speakers. Really? So you know how in primary school, I used to hate this, there would be a postbox and you could deliver your Valentine's cards?

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So now, in a Welsh-language primary school, that would be on the 25th of January rather than on the 14th of February. How interesting. Because we've kind of rediscovered. And she's here to stay now because commercially it's quite a big deal. But yeah, it's quite an interesting story. Which is interesting because it means you can find out earlier

that nobody fancied you in your car. You don't have to wait until mid-February to find out. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's really good to get that out of the way. It's a pilot Valentine's Day. Yeah, it is. But we should do myths because Yonah Morgano, it is crazy the stuff he was coming up with and he was doing it on drugs he was taking laudanum oh right yeah that'll do it yeah yeah

and he was um a lot of it like he he was coming up with stuff a lot of a lot of it was done on primrose hill in in london he's a really really interesting bloke he's got the most amazing 18th century mullet you've ever seen in your life. Sold. Final question, Al. So now, do you still celebrate both? You as a person. Would you give a card on both days to Izzy? I celebrate neither, Tom, because I've got an awful lot on my plate.

Okay, right. Okay, yeah, fair enough. And it comes around, and I forget. Okay, fine. Actually, because obviously it was a couple of weeks ago. Yeah, fair enough. And he comes around and, oh, I forget. Okay, fine. And on the, it actually, because obviously it was a couple of weeks ago, and on the 25th, I was looking at my diary and I was writing with you, I was writing the Fantasy Football League, and I was like, what have I got to do today?

25th of January, what's, hang on, that, that, what, oh God, Santa's doing, and I thought, can I be asked? No, I can't. And the same thing will happen on February the 14th. So, sorry Izzy but sorry sorry

Anyway that is the end of part one of this week's episode of Oh What A Time join us tomorrow for part two where Tom will be discussing St. Valentine. And Chris, what will you be discussing? Mozart and his love letters.

All lovely stuff. And there's a fourth part, which is the history of dating. If you want all that right now, you can become an Oh, What a Time full-timer at ohwhatatime.com. Otherwise, we'll see you tomorrow Thank you.