Ann Griffith--God-seeker, poet, hymn writer (1776-1805)

In a Celtic Christianity course seventeen years ago in Wales A.M. “Donald” Allchin, noted theologian, mentioned Ann Griffiths, a young hymn writer from mid-Wales. He called her a Methodist-Calvinist poet. I was curious. How did she join these two different theological streams? Why was she remembered?  While the French and American revolutions were raging, she sought strength from her faith. Those in her community worried Napolean would push through England and Wales. She had little education but profound thoughts. She really  intrigued me.  I tucked my page of notes away and turned my attention to the rest of my Celtic course. We traveled to holy wells, monastic ruins and hill forts to see sacred Celtic sites. We boarded a ferry to Dublin to see Trinity College's The Book of Kells, yet it was the snippet of Ann Griffith’s story that grew roots in my imagination. If the chance to return came to Wales, I  vowed to find more about Griffiths. In the meantime, I found a digital library of her works through the University of Crardiff and got acquainted with her hymns. 

On my sabbatical in 2017, I returned to this amazing residential library where you sleep B&B style, eat dinner in a hall that turns into a tea shop by day, and meet interesting people from all over the English-speaking world. 

The crown jewel of the place is a Victorian-era library with spiral staircases, helpful librarians, great wi-fi, and a surplus of old and new books. And when you need a break from study, footpaths through the Gladstone estate wend through green fields of sheep and wildflowers.

First day, the librarians led me to the shelf on Welsh hymnody where I found three books on Ann Griffiths in English.  As I read, I repeatedly encountered a few geographical place names:

Powys—an ancient kingdom, now a sparcely populated region of Mid-Wales
Donalog—the nearest town on a two-laned (main) road to Ann Griffith’s home with a small chapel built in her memory
Pontrobert—where Ann walked to the local Calvinist-Methodist society
Llanfinhangel-yng-Ngwynfa—the village where she was baptized, married and buried
Dolwar Fach—the name of the family farm
River Vyrnwy—the river that wends through the area

In recent years, a seven-mile walking path had been established as a Ann Griffiths pilgrimage route. But how to get there? Would the weather hold out? Could I follow the map with all the Welsh names?  I spent an afternoon researching trains, buses and taxis. It became clear, I needed to rent a car. 

My husband, agreed to drive, if I would plan and navigate (with the help of a GPS). Keeping to the left side of the road was not the hard part. Navigating the roundabouts and narrow one-lane roads where backing up to give way is custom proved the larger challenge.

We were off. 

Ann [nee Thomas] Griffith lived her short twenty-nine years at Dolwar Fach. The youngest of five children, she learned to read and write Welsh through the church school at Llanfinhangel yng Ngwynfa. She was tutored for a brief time in English and managed rudimentary writing skills but did not speak it.   

Small sign on the the 20th century
church that grew from the
Methodist-Calvinist
society of the 19th century. 

At the age of nineteen she joined in the Methodist Calvinist society. [1]  A couple of years earlier, she had become “mistress” of the family farm after her mother died. Her father died, too, within a few years. At twenty-eight Ann married a local farmer named Thomas Griffiths but hers would not be a happily ever after story.  A short ten months after her wedding she gave birth to Elizabeth, who survived just a few days. Ann outlived her daughter by a week more. Death  also claimed her husband within a couple of years. How could this sad tale of lives cut short be the story of one of Wales’ celebrated literary poets and hymn writers?

Ann Griffith's wrote on scraps of paper. If she was caught while writing, she hid her work. She wrote for herself and did not think others would find her words useful. Her friend and house helper, Ruth Evans, found some and sang them, using known tunes. It was Ruth's memory and the oral and singing culture of Wales that enabled Ann's poetry to outlive her. 

A resurgence of interest in the past twenty-five years, has led to significant scholarly work on Ann's poetry. One of her fans is the former Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, who translated of one of her hymns and had it sung at his consecration in 2003.

I am holding the hymnal open to
 one of Griffiths's hymns in
her memorial chapel in Donalog.

Thirty-four hymns and eight personal letters comprise her literary legacy. Seven of the letters were written to John Hughes, a weaver by trade who led the local Methodist Calvinist society. The eighth letter was written to Elizabeth Evans, the sister of Ruth Evans, the singing maid who first sang Ann’s poems. Ruth Evans later married John Hughes who became Ann's first biographer a few years after her death. It’s the stuff of legends—a young, hidden poet's work is sung by the farm maid and written down by some literate traveler. Over the centuries, it reaches us .

Ann Griffith’s hymns are theologically astute, spare and beautiful. They weave biblical images with Calvinist views on the sovereignty of God and the depravity of the human condition alongside theological threads emphasizing Methodism’s  hope in experiential salvation.

Ann was raised in a devout and loving Anglican family that paused in the morning and evening to read from the Book of Common Prayer. Her family went to church regularly and the story is told that the dog accompanied them and waited under the pew. When the family didn't attend, the dog did.

Ann’s older brother became a Methodist, and Ann did not think highly of his decision. Then in the summer of 1796, as the story goes, Ann went to a nearby town to go dancing. There, she met a friend, who invited her to attend the independent chapel. For the first time, she heard a description of sin and a call to accept “true religion” which entailed a more serious surrender and sober life. By 1879, Ann joined the Methodists and was hosting, cooking and making socks for the itinerant preaches. Soon her home had become an official preaching point for the traveling Methodist preachers.

Travelling these same narrow roads by car was difficult. After more than an hour of travel none of the place names we were seeking had appeared on the roadside. I could tell my husband was doubting my plan. Then we saw a sign for Pontrobert. As we slowed to a crawl I scrutinized the church we were passing. Stop. “Let’s park and go back!”  We pulled to a side lane and walked by two other churches. One was the Wesleyan-Methodist chapel, now a trendy private home. The other, a tiny congregational church. The church I has first spotted on the main road had a worn sign that said “MC Seiat”.  I knew that ‘seiat’ meant society. The date on the church told me it was post-Ann and the grumpy shopkeeper next door, confirmed the locked church was opened on Sunday. He said we should turn right at the next main road to find the Ann Griffiths trail.

The Hughes home and attached chapel
where the society met still is stills standing.

As we approached the intersection I saw a sign that had John Hughes’s name in a string of Welsh words—“That’s Ann’s friend!” We turned and went up a narrow unpaved drive. There it was! John Hughes’ house with the chapel he had built alongside in the 1880s. A grave yard across the street had markers for Griffiths and Hughes—no doubt Ann’s siblings and their descendants. From my reading, I knew Ann was not buried there. A weathered map behind glass showed us the general direction of all the other sites we sought!

We headed up a narrow road and stopped after many twists and turns to confirm with some teenagers that we were still heading toward Llfinhangel—Ann Griffiths home. Place names are hard to pronounce in Welsh. Stony faces nodded yes. Michael said to me, “They have no idea what you asked them.” I said, “Maybe they do.”  Around another blind corner, we saw a group of people gathered near a pub. Yes, they pointed to the nearby church where Ann Griffith was buried. A nice woman said, "Make time to stop at Lake Vyrnwy." 

In the graveyard, I found the obelisk atop Ann’s grave. I stopped to pay attention. Birds sang and sheep bleated from the surrounding fields. The sky was filled with billowing clouds. Little had changed over the centuries. I sensed the peace of this place. I paused to give thanks for the life of Ann Griffiths, her husband, and their tiny daughter.

We headed down to Dolwar Fach, missed it, but found Donalog and the Memorial chapel where busts of Ann and John top the modest pillars. A hymnbook was open from recent use. How it pleased me to see this congregation still sang her songs.

We retraced our steps to Dolwar Fach, took another wrong turn that took us for a muddy but glorious walk along the River Vrynwy. We eventually found Ann’s family farm, dotted with sheep and protected by the newest owner’s dogs.

A road marker pointed to Lake Vrynwy. We were hungry and expected a nice view but found a magical place. The woman who sat across from us at dinner said: “It looks like the castle and lake from the Disney movie Frozen!” Yeah, it kinda did. We looked out at the still waters and retraced the day: imagining Ann working the farm, walking to the stone parish church as a child, then turning another direction as a young adult to walk miles meet with the new Methodists in a modest chapel. Throughout her twenty-eight years, she would have walked along the River Vrynwy toward this lovely lake. Being in her local surroundings gave her poetry texture and pathos.

Ann Griffith wrote poetry to help her understand what she was learning and experiencing about God. She had no idea anyone would ever read or sing her words. Two hundred and twelve years after her passing, this pilgrim learned from her faith and enjoyed the beauty of her praise:

Pilgrim, fainting in the tempest

Lift your gaze where he is found,

See the Lamb, our Mediator,

Where his vestments sweep the ground;

Faithfulness, his golden girdle;

Bells around his hem proclaim

Endless mercy for the sinner,

Full atonement in his name.

In your feeble state remember:

Ankle deep, the stream will rise

Like a great unfathomed river,

Measured for you in the skies;

Only resurrection’s children

Swim in floods so deep and wide;

Fathomless and shoreless waters,

From Bethesda’s mighty tide.

O, the depths of our salvation!

Mystery of godliness,

That the God of gods, appearing,

Wore our nature and our flesh;

Here, in his own person, suffered,

All the anger in our stead,

Until justice cried, ‘release him!

Right is done, atonement made!’

O, eternal rest and rapture,

When I labor here no more,

Found within that sea of wonders,

Where one never sees a shore;

Coming in to life abundant,

Where the Three in One is mine;

Boundless sea to swim forever;

One the human and divine!  

Ann Griffith, “Pilgrim, fainting in the tempest,”  Hymns and Letters, translated by Alan Gaunt and Alan Luff, (Stainer & Bell:London, 1999).

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[1] In Wales the Methodist revival began primarily as a revival within the established church in South Wales. Efforts were made to create educational circuits and materials to educate the laity to read the Bible. In 1783 Thomas Charles settled in  nearby Bala and created a distinctive Methodist organization with new small groups called seiats. These societies met in farmhouses or other common buildings and sponsored outdoor preaching where travelling preachers called for a committed live of faith, a pure heart, and attendance at regular society meetings. Both the established and dissenting churches that embraced these “methods” retained a Calvinistic theology.