ABSTRACT
A popular pursuit with Welsh youths since ancient times. Through regular practice, jumpers excelled in leaping over roads and hedges and across fields. Difficult and dangerous feats were often intended to impress the womenfolk, as demonstrated by the poet prince Hywel ab Owain Gwynedd (fl.1140-70) who leapt 50 feet over the widest river in north Wales to win the hand of Einion ap Geraint’s daughter. Medieval praise poetry is peppered with references to jumping long distances, and by the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries jumping contests were common features at local parish festivals. Exhibition leaping was also evident during this latter period. Despite the general supersession of traditional games by more organised sports toward the end of the nineteenth century, jumping competitions continued in the form of long jump, high jump and hop, step and jump.
