When I was about five years old, my father used to sing in the public-houses to the accompaniment of Ifan y Gorlan's harp-playing. Soon after, he joined the Calvinistic Methodists and gave up the drink and the old songs. My mother burnt all the printed ballads in the house; and it was only with the greatest difficulty that father could be persuaded to sing to us, even the most innocuous of the old ballads.