Literature / Sioned

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Sarah Winifred Parry (20 May 1870 – 12 February 1953) was a Welsh writer influential in the development of the Welsh-language short story. Writing as Winnie Parry, she became a household name with her serialized fiction in the early 20th century. Her most popular and critically successful work, Sioned, was published in instalments between 1894 and 1896, and these were collected into the novel (one story per chapter) in 1906. Sioned was reissued in 1988 and 2003 in the original Welsh, and an English translation appeared in 2025 (after 119 years!).

Sioned is contemporary with Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm and Anne of Green Gables (Late Victorian era), and has a lot in common with both books, though Anne of Avonlea is a closer comparison. The story is mostly set in the Methodist communities of North Wales, hard-working and practical, but with an undercurrent of superstition. Janet Hughes, known to her friends and family as Sioned, is the lanky, clumsy daughter of Margiad and William Hughes (sometimes spelt Huws), who rent and work Ty Gwyn farm. She is initially very ignorant and has very little conscience when it comes to practical jokes. Her conscience mostly comes in the form of her desire not to disappoint her beloved brother Bob. In the first story/chapter it’s established that Sioned can expect to lose Bob through marriage to her friend Little-Elin-from-the-Hill (there are so few names used locally, every other character has some elaboration to identify them). It's also established that Janet doesn't intend to marry anyone who doesn't measure up to Bob, and that she considers showing interest in a suitor to be a mark of weakness. These three things form the framework for Sioned’s growth and near tragedy there's plenty of actual tragedy, too.

Sioned, the novel, is one of Wales’ best kept secrets, finally translated into English after 119 years. Pollyanna has a coping strategy; Anne Shirley has imagination; Rebecca has intellect; Katy Carr has a single defining life event. Sioned has the strength to take the hits as they come, and the commitment to accept no partner who is not the equal of her brother Bob. In the end she is, well, still lanky and clumsy, but considerably less ignorant, and romantically very well-matched with a childhood friend.

Sioned features the following Tropes:

• Accidental Misnaming: The protagonist was christened Janet, but was renamed in childhood by her Welsh-speaking Auntie Pen Rhos, who called her by the Welsh equivalent Sioned. Sioned grows into it, and Janet is all but forgotten by the final chapter.
• An Arm and a Leg: Sioned's brother Bob has his hand crushed in the pony-powered grain mill, and it must be amputated.
• Apron Matron:
  • Auntie Pen Rhos. Married to Sioned's Father's brother, who is correctly henpecked in accordance with the trope. Considered by Sioned's father a "terrible, terrible woman", she's the only one that Sioned's mother can't stand up to- though her interventions tend to be for the good of all. More a dose of harsh medicine than a poison.
  • Auntie London. Married to Sioned's Mother's brother, again impeccably henpecked. Not quite as formidable as Auntie Pen Rhos, but with fewer redeeming qualities. Means well as far as Sioned goes, but tries to make the farm girl something she isn't- a lady!
• Big Brother Worship: “I don’t want to marry anyone who isn’t like my brother Bob.” Sioned’s English Aunt observes ‘Dear me, Janet, he might be your sweetheart the way you carry on!’ To be fair, Bob is a Nice Guy.
• Big Fancy House: Bryncelli, the "farmhouse" where cousin Pegi lives, is actually a former Tudor Manor.
• Book Worm: Brother Bob.
  • There's also Mr. Jones the Assistant, "even worse than Bob" (in Sioned's opinion).
• Break the Cutie: Maggie Tanrallt. She starts out as mischievous and spirited as Sioned, until falling for the obnoxious Rice Thomas. He mistreats her consistently and ingeniously all the time she is in love with him, and when he finally condescends to accept her, she isn’t the same girl. As Sioned’s mother observes, “she is not the same, as blank-eyed as a sheep she looks.”
  • Averted with Sioned. Sioned feels things as strongly as anyone, and cries buckets more than once over Tom Ty Mawr's death, and during her exile in London, and even over the loss of some farm animals, but this girl is tough.
• Caught Singing: Sioned, by Auntie London. Ironically her undisciplined soprano is much better appreciated in England than back home in Wales, where the singing is more formal in the Methodist tradition.
• Character Death: Tom Ty Mawr, pining for Maggie Tanrallt.
• Christmas Episode: In Chapter 14, Sioned's Beloved, Sioned spends Christmas at Bryncelli, the "farmhouse" of her cousin Pegi. In fact this is a Tudor mansion, and the episode uses imagery from the Mabinogion and the King Arthur stories to make the place a refuge from Sioned's troubles. Sioned went there to avoid John Jones, who she thinks no longer loves her. When she gets home, she finds that John hadn't come to Christmas at Ty Gwyn after all.
  • There's also the Christmas in which she first meets Will the Farmhand, who is freezing to death under a stile at the time.
• Coming of Age: Janet (Sioned). The novel focuses on this, taking place over the three years of Janet's development from a mischievous girl to a responsible young woman who's an item with her future husband. She starts out clever and observant, but ignorant and mischievous, with a blind spot for how well people think of her. She relies on her brother Bob to be her conscience. By the end of the book she has helped run the farm and dairy while her mother takes care of the newly-crippled Bob, rescued Will the Farmhand, handled the knowledge and kept the secret that Tom Ty Mawr died pining for Maggie Tanrallt, deliberately acquired some book-learning, and impressed the lawyer John Jones with her grasp of the books they read together.
  • We see Sioned get her first long dress and put her hair up (legitimately) for the first time, two examples of a Rite of Passage in her community. Both are allowed her as a bridesmaid at Bob's wedding. The dress is in shreds before the reception, after Sioned has to break up a dog fight!
  • We've also met Pegi who, although pretty likeable, is the tearaway Sioned could have been if given more freedom.
• Country Mouse: Sioned. During her time in the London Finishing School (not as grand as it sounds) the other girls look on her as a wild creature from the woods (greadur gwyllt o'r coed).
• Defrosting Ice Queen: Averted. Auntie Pen Rhos is at least perceived as an Ice Queen throughout, and is certainly set up as one in Sioned's recollections. But she’s nevertheless a supportive and admirable character. Can be awarded Apron Matron status, but she can't defrost.
• Didn't Think This Through: As children, Bob and John try to cover up several scrapes with the over-adventurous little Sioned such as mending her best black dress with white thread, or putting her clothes on back-to front after an accidental immersion.
• Double In-Law Marriage: Bob Hughes and Elin Jones, Sioned Hughes and John Jones (though we only see one wedding).
• Empathic Environment: Bob and Elin’s wedding day is glorious.
• The Fair Folk:
  • Cousin Pegi. Her home at Bryncelli is an old manor-house likened by Sioned to a knightly court. It may be named for a real life burial mound/earthwork called Bryn Celli Ddu in Anglesey, that Parry would have known about. Pegi first appears in the story driving a chariot- well, a tandem buggy- acompanied by dogs, evoking both Arawn and Rhiannon of the Mabinogion. And she is the most mischievous character in the book, beating even Sioned.
  • Little-Elin-from-the-Hill. She's probably just a diminutive and clever farm girl, but Sioned can't look at her without thinking of y Tylwyth Teg. And as to mischief, she really does a number on the obnoxious cousin Harold, leading him on an exhausting march over the countryside- a traditional fairy trick.
• First-Person Perspective: Sioned, who narrates the whole story over three years. To begin with, Sioned is quite an ignorant person, and over the three years or so of the narrative, she acquires a better vocabulary. Right from the start, she is observant and intuitive- except about how people perceive her. She can see just what's wrong with brother Bob or her friends, but can’t tell she attracted Jacob Jones, nor that others might think so, and has no idea she’s leading Llewelyn on at Bryncelli.
• Flower Motifs: John Jones, Elin's brother sends Sioned a Christmas card decorated with Canterbury Bell flowers, which grow around Sioned's home Ty Gwyn. They symbolize everlasting love and affection in the language of flowers.
• Friend to All Living Things: Sioned herself. And she's a farm girl! She is sentimental about animals in a lot of ways. She has a pet dog (Pero) and even gets attached to farm animals such as Mwyni the cow the death of her first dog Tobi is one of the saddest memories in the reminiscences in Chapter 6, and Mwyni's death affects her too. Her main objection to her uncle's house in London is that there's no pet, and she rescues an injured dog from the street it brings the police into her uncle's house, to her aunt's horror. She feeds the sparrows on the roof. Brother Bob gives her a Jackdaw; Sioned does tease her mother 'if you don't like it, just shoot it'- but she's seen her mother feed it and knows it's in no danger.
  • Her uncle does have a Mad Scientist Laboratory with a snake and a tortoise, among his living specimens, but Sioned is more live-and-let-live with those (as she says of the tortoise, 'You can't pet a half-dead thing like that').
• Good Smoking, Evil Smoking: Sioned's obnoxious, lazy, and sarcastic cousin Harold chain smokes “a little paper pipe he calls a cigarette”. By contrast, her father and brother occasionally smoke pipes, a more traditional and respectable habit.
• Green-Eyed Monster:
  • Maggie Tanrallt. The rather gothic Maggie imagines her crush, Rice Owens, to be in love with every girl she sees him with.
  • Averted with Sioned herself. She loves Elin as much as her brother Bob, and when she sees her crush John Jones with Tiny Hands, can only think how much better for him she’d be than Sioned.
• Hired Help as Family: Will the Farmhand (Wil y Gwas) is hired after Sioned finds him close to freezing to death beneath a stile. He becomes so much a part of the family that Sioned's mother doesn't even praise him anymore! It's mutual, after Will's mother does freeze to death while drunk.
• I Am Not Pretty: Sioned never actually describes herself at all, and once states she couldn’t possibly do so. However, Little-Elin-from-the-Hill, Maggie Tanrallt, Cousin Pegi, and Little Hands John’s cycling buddy and assumed paramour, never named are given full and glowing descriptions from pretty to beautiful.
• Inventor of the Mundane: Sioned. It is strongly implied that Sioned invents the Welsh cake. In reality, this probably happened independently in every Welsh kitchen that had leftover flour and currants.
• I Want My Beloved to Be Happy: Sioned herself (Janet Hughes). We first see this platonically with respect to her brother Bob, who falls in love with Sioned's best friend Elin, then romantically with John Jones, Elin's brother. Sioned believes John's fallen in love with "Little Hands", the never-named local schoolteacher, and that he's right to do so- Sioned never considers herself as either attractive or intelligent enough for John. Sioned is wrong about John, and about herself, and they are together by the end of the book.
• Lethal Chef: Sioned, though only because she's inexperienced. She can cook a perfectly passable dinner, but if it's her first time at something, there's a learning curve. Don't mention pancakes.
• Never Accepted in His Hometown: At home in Wales, where music is taken very seriously, Sioned’s singing voice is a family joke. Even her Nice Guy brother Bob says he’d rather listen to their dog, Pero. But in London, her aunt is so enchanted by Sioned’s undisciplined soprano that she makes her sing at soirées.
• Nice Girl: Well, Sioned is loyal, self-effacing, religious but not pious, and feels strongly for the unfortunate (e.g. Will the Farmhand, Mary Thomas, Mr. Jones the Assistant Pharmacist, and the injured dog in London), and she never lets Maggie Tanrallt know that Maggie has broken Tom Ty Mawr’s heart. But she shares her people’s prejudices against the cowardly (she never once regrets driving Dick the Farmhand away from Ty Gwyn with her fake ghost) and the alcoholic Will the Farmhand’s mother is blamed for her own drunkenness and the ruin of the family farm- not directly by Sioned, but she never says otherwise.
• Nice Guy: Bob. Even Auntie Pen Rhos likes him. He is hard working, intelligent, spiritual (there are plenty of examples of the merely religious), and self-sacrificing. He refuses to believe ill of anyone unless there's clear evidence to the contrary. And he never tells on anyone, though he always owns up for himself. Sioned narrates a few incidents which helped make him that way. He does however become briefly self-pitying when he loses his arm, but he turns this around, with Sioned’s help.
• One-Steve Limit: heroically averted. Not only is every other character a Jones, but forenames like William, John and Dick are very common. Parry gets around this by matching characters with their profession (Margiad the Shop) or residence (Margiad Ty Gwyn). There’s only one Sioned and Bob (her brother), however.
• Overly Generous Fool: Sioned herself. She's so pleased to hear an old tramp speaking Welsh in London she inadvertently gives him a half-sovereign (about a week's wages to a farm laborer).
  • Even more so, Sioned's father William, who's a sucker for a sob story. On one occasion he leaves the house with half-a-crown (2 shillings and sixpence, a day's wages for a laborer) and has given it to a tramp before he gets to the gate. Fortunately Margiad is watching.
• The Pollyanna: Averted. Sioned cries her heart out at being separated from her family, and at believing she has lost her love John Jones, and at the death of Tom Ty Mawr.
• Quitting to Become a Caregiver: Sioned's brother Bob gives up an apprenticeship with his uncle, a London pharmacist, and returns to run the farm after his father injures a leg. His father recovers, but it looks like Bob's blown his opportunity to get off the farm.
• Rejected Marriage Proposal: Jacob Jones. Thoroughly. ‘I’ve tried not to say anything nasty, because I don’t like to hurt anyone’s feelings, but I want you to know I hated you since the moment I met you. Maybe, although it is doubtful enough, you will find some girl somewhere who does not see anything objectionable in you, but I must say that you are extremely objectionable to me.’ And this was his second attempt, you'd think he'd have given up after the first.
• Rescue Introduction: Will the Farmhand. Well, eventually. Found by Sioned freezing to death on Christmas Eve under a country stile, she leaves him there. It takes most of the evening for her conscience to finally get her to tell her father, who hires Will to replace Dick the Farmhand.
• Rite of Passage: Sioned is given a long dress for the first time, and is allowed to wear her hair "up", as an indication that she is no longer a child. She is "Miss Hughes" to the village boys from this point.
• Slice of Life: The first four chapters/stories come across as this, and they could stand alone. But the recurring themes (Sioned won't accept a husband inferior to Bob, and Sioned distrusts any open expression of romantic interest) are established right there in the first chapter. From then every chapter brings Sioned to the closing drama of nearly losing John Jones.
• Spirited Young Lady: Pegi, Sioned's cousin, is a textbook example. Wealthy, independent, intelligent, cultured, and respectable enough to attend chapel, but high-spirited and adventurous. She lives at Bryncelli, a former manor, which reads like a castle out of the Mabinogion. When, one Christmas, Sioned asks Pegi to help her avoid John Jones, the boy she thinks she's loved and lost, Pegi arrives in a tandem chariot with dogs barking all around her, whisks Sioned away, and never once asks Sioned why.
• The Thing That Would Not Leave: On his return to Ty Gwyn, Jacob Jones outstays his welcome while Sioned hides away in the house.
• Unable to Support a Wife: Bob, after losing his hand and believing he will not be able to support Elin. But his brains win out, and he becomes a university lecturer in agriculture.
• Unrequited Love: Tom Ty Mawr. Maggie Tanrallt has no idea he loves her.