Welcome to Welsh week. We begin by celebrating a word with a famous royal connection: Corgi
When Prince Charles visits Buckingham Palace he must have many reasons to feel at home, and he may feel a particular familiarity with his mother’s beloved pet dogs. The Prince of Wales will surely be aware that the Queen’s Corgi dogs hail from Pembroke. These days their royal connection is probably the Corgi’s greatest claim to fame, but the feisty terrier has been celebrated in Welsh folklore for a thousand years.
Legend has it that these small creatures whose name literally means “dwarf dog” are the chosen method of transport for woodland fairies. More recently Corgi Toys has been a leading manufacturer of even smaller types of transport. The Corgi model of the James Bond Aston Martin car has sold over 10 million. The first recorded use of “Corgi” in English came in 1926. Plaid Cymru, the national party of Wales, was formed in 1925 and its promotion of Welsh language and culture in the mid-1920s almost certainly led to the popularisation of this word and many others. By an appropriate coincidence, 1926 also marked the birth of the most famous Corgi owner in the world, Queen Elizabeth the second.
