Paper short abstract:

Welsh ballads are used to create a new appreciation of old surroundings. Increased tourism caused ballad writers to sing in praise of a particular locality, offering excitement and value, some offering Wales as a health spa.

Paper long abstract:

This paper explores how Welsh ballads are used to create a new appreciation of old surroundings. Increased tourism was a particularly attractive motive for ballad writers to sing in praise of a particular locality, offering prospective visitors to Wales excitement and value on many levels, but, principally, it was sold as a health spa for those in search of a cure.

The Wye Valley along the Anglo-Welsh border became the first locality in Britain to be recognized as a tourist area, following the publication of Observations on the River Wye by the Reverend William Gilpin in 1782, an illustrated guide to a picturesque area of Wales. Later, with the publication of George Borrow's Wild Wales in 1862, tourists were provided with a handbook to the rugged scenery of the mountainous areas of Wales.

Many blossoming tourist venues were concerned with health matters, places such as the spa towns of mid Wales, and various important seaside towns encouraged sunbathing as a way to promote health and to cure illnesses. Aggravating health conditions made it a pleasant prospect to go to the wonderfully rejuvenating Llansteffan beach spa in search of a cure for various ills. Ballads to Llansteffan establish the beach as a centre for general well-being, but the ballads also list specific conditions and individual diseases which can be identified, and give an account of the way in which total health was regained.