Maria Jane Williams

Maria Jane Williams (c.1795 – 10 November 1873) was a 19th-century Welsh musician and folklorist born at Aberpergwm House, Glynneath in Glamorgan, South Wales. She rescued many Welsh songs from obscurity, including Y Deryn Pur (The Gentle Bird) and Y Ferch o'r Sger.

Maria Jane Williams was born in either 1794 or 1795, at Aberpergwm House, Glynneath. She was the second daughter of Rees Williams (d. 1812) of Aberpergwm in the Vale of Neath, Glamorganshire, by his wife Ann Jenkins of Fforest Ystradfellte. She lived in Blaen Baglan but in her later years, at a house called Ynys-las, near Aberpergwm House. She died in 1873 and is buried at St Cadoc’s Church in the grounds of Aberpergwm House.

Maria Jane Williams was well educated, a supporter of the Welsh language and traditions and had an extensive knowledge of music. She was especially acclaimed for her singing and was an accomplished player of the guitar, and the harp, having been taught by the famous harpist Parish-Alvars.Henry Fothergill Chorley said that she was "the most exquisite amateur singer he had ever heard" She acquired the name ‘Llinos’ (the Welsh word for linnet), and was associated with the Welsh cultural society known as Cymreigyddion y Fenni and made her home a focus for ‘Celtic Renaissance’ enthusiasts.

In 1826–7 she made a collection of the fairy tales of the Vale of Neath, which was published in the supplemental volume of Crofton Croker's ‘Irish Fairy Legends’ and subsequently reprinted in an abridged form in the ‘Fairy Mythology’ of Thomas Keightley who had suggested that she should make the collection.

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