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Title: Peeps at many lands: Wales

Author: E. M. Wilmot-Buxton

Release date: March 6, 2023 [eBook #70214]

Language: English

Original publication: United Kingdom: Adam and Charles Black

Credits: Fiona Holmes and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.


*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PEEPS AT MANY LANDS: WALES ***



Transcriber’s Note
Page 16 - Glendyfrdwy changed to Glyndyfrdwy

The Footnotes have been changed from alpha to numeric.

In the List of Illustrations the page number for OLD ROMAN BRIDGE
NEAR SWANSEA has been changed from 78 to 80 as positioned in the
original.


[Illustration: ABEREDW AND BLACK MOUNTAINS. _Page 60._]


[Illustration:

    PEEPS AT MANY LANDS

    WALES

    BY

    E. M. WILMOT-BUXTON
    F.R.HIST.S.

    AUTHOR OF “BRITAIN LONG AGO”, ETC.

    CONTAINING TWELVE FULL-PAGE
    ILLUSTRATIONS IN COLOUR

    LONDON
    ADAM AND CHARLES BLACK
    1911
]




CONTENTS


    CHAPTER                                      PAGE

    INTRODUCTION                                  vii

    I. WILD WALES                                  1

    II. SNOWDONIA, THE FASTNESS OF LLEWELYN        8

    III. IN GLENDOWER LAND                        14

    IV. A WELSH MARKET-TOWN                       20

    V. A VISIT TO ANGLESEY AND HOLYHEAD           26

    VI. AN EISTEDDFOD                             31

    VII. “MEN OF HARLECH”                         35

    VIII. A BURIED VILLAGE                        43

    IX. THE SACRED RIVER                          48

    X. A PEEP AT PEMBROKE                         51

    XI. THE VALLEY OF THE WYE                     59

    XII. THE GREAT PLYNLIMMON                     64

    XIII. THE VALE OF TEIFY                       71

    XIV. THE DEVIL’S BRIDGE                       78

    XV. THE GLOWING MOUNTAIN                      85




LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS


    ABEREDW AND BLACK MOUNTAINS          _frontispiece_

                                          FACING PAGE

    CONWAY CASTLE                                   9

    DISTANT VIEW OF CARNARVON BAY                  16

    VALLE CRUCIS ABBEY                             25

    CARNARVON CASTLE                               32

    BRAN THE BLESSED AT HARLECH CASTLE WATCHING
    MATHOLWCH’S FLEET ARRIVE FROM IRELAND          41

    A DRUID PRIEST                                 48

    ST. CATHERINE’S ROCK, TENBY                    57

    THE WYE NEAR RHAYADER                          64

    CARDIGAN BAY                                   73

    OLD ROMAN BRIDGE NEAR SWANSEA                  80

    THE STACK, HOLYHEAD (_p. 26_)          _on the cover_

    _Sketch-Map of Wales on page vi_

[Illustration: SKETCH-MAP OF WALES.]




INTRODUCTION


These peeps at Wales will take us into a country busy with its various
industries of coal-mining, slate-quarrying, and wool manufacture, yet
one which, in spite of its modern developments and trade interests, has
never lost the magic and glamour of an earlier age.

Every country-town, almost every hill and mound in the district, has
its legend, its romance, which lives in the hearts of an intensely
patriotic and imaginative people, and blends the past and the present
into one.

This is the reason why, in these peeps at various spots in Wales, we
have often chosen those unknown to the tourist, but interesting to
those who care for the people as well as for the place, because of some
legend or history that paints, as nothing else can do, their life in
the days of old.

Romance broods over all: the spell of the wizard Merlin has touched
vale and hill; Arthur and his Round Table, though belonging originally
to the sister-country of Brittany, has migrated hither and left his
name and those of his Knights in every part of the land; Taliesin, the
marvellous child-bard, still sings beyond the mountain-peaks.

The actual history of Wales, too, stained with blood though it often
is, has its romance as well; for what can be more romantic than the
hopeless struggle for a lost cause as carried on by the last Llewelyn
and by the brave Glendower?

By its many “caers,” or forts, its ruined castles, its well-made roads,
it speaks of a history of constant struggle and rebellion against
superior forces--the struggle of the Celt against the Saxon, the
rebellion of the freeborn against the conqueror.

Some of this history, some of these traditions, we shall read in these
pages as we visit the places with which they are connected; and because
of these we shall have to turn our backs upon many a spot, better
known and more frequented than those we have chosen, but, perhaps,
for that very reason, less interesting, since, owing to the crowds of
English tourists which beset them, they have lost much of their Celtic
character.

And let not those of us who “have no Welsh” be daunted by the apparent
difficulty of pronouncing the names of these places. A Welshman will
tell you that his language is “phonetic”--that is, pronounced exactly
as it is spelt! Nor is this rule misleading if we will but bear in mind
that _dd_ is sounded like the English _th_ in _breathe_,
that _ff_ is _f_, and _f_ is _v_. _W_ is
sounded like _oo_; _y_ is _u_ if it comes early in the
word, and _i_ if later; _aw_ is _ow_; and _ll_ is
best pronounced, on one authority, by pressing the tongue against the
front teeth and breathing hard.

  E. M. W.-B.




WALES




CHAPTER I

WILD WALES


Once upon a time, says a famous Welsh legend, a certain witch named
Caridwen set to work to brew a cauldron of knowledge that might make
her youngest son the wisest man in the world. Now, this cauldron had to
boil for a year and a day, and at the end of that time it would yield
three drops of precious liquid which would make whoever drank them the
wisest of all men. So she set a passing tramp named Gwion Bach to stir
the cauldron and to keep it on the boil, and made up her mind to kill
him directly the time was up, lest he should learn the secret of the
magic liquid.

But she miscalculated the time, and so it happened that one day, in her
absence, the three magic drops flew up out of the cauldron and fell
upon the finger of Gwion Bach. Feeling his finger thus scalded, he put
it to his mouth and sucked it, and immediately he became very wise, and
knew what Caridwen meant to do to him.

So he fled to his own people, and the cauldron, left unstirred, burst
in two, so that the poisonous liquid that was left, poured out and
flowed into a stream near by, and all the cattle that drank of that
stream went mad and died.

When Caridwen saw this, she made haste to catch Gwion Bach and put him
to death; but he, when he saw her running after him, changed himself
into a hare, for the magic potion had given him skill of all kinds.
But she immediately turned herself into a greyhound, and had nearly
caught him, when he sprang into a river and changed himself into a
fish. Then she became an otter, and chased him till, hard pressed, he
took the form of a bird. Caridwen then became a hawk, and chased him
till, dead-beat, he fell into a granary and changed himself into a
grain of wheat. The witch promptly became a high-crested black hen,
and scratched among the grains till she found him. She was about to
swallow him, when he, now almost at the end of his resources, became
a beautiful little child. Then Caridwen, not having the heart to kill
him, put him into a leathern bag and cast him into the sea, not far
from Aberystwith, just below the Weir of Gwyddno, on April 29.

Now, Gwyddno had a most unlucky son named Elphin, who was “always
needing and never getting”; and in order that he might gain something
for himself, his father granted him all the weir should contain on
May-day. So the nets were set, but in the morning they were quite empty
save for a leathern bag which had caught in one of them. Then said one
of his companions: “Till this day, the weir has been worth a hundred
pounds’ worth of fish every May morning. Now see how your luck has
turned them away, and left you nothing but a skin.”

“Nay,” said Elphin; “perhaps the skin bag may have something in it that
is worth more than a hundred pounds.”

So they opened it, and a little lad peeped out.

“See what a bright face!” they cried. And Elphin, heavy with
disappointment, said, “Let him be called Taliesin, then” (which means
Bright Face), and took him home behind him on his horse. But as they
rode along the boy began to sing to him so sweet a song of consolation
that Elphin marvelled, and asked where he had learnt a thing so
beautiful. Then Taliesin replied that, though he was but little, he
was, nevertheless, very wise. When they reached the house, Gwyddno
asked his son if he had had a good haul. “Father,” replied Elphin, “I
have caught a poet-minstrel.”

“Alas! What good will that do thee?” asked his father; but Taliesin
answered for himself: “It will do him more good than the weir ever did
for thee!”

And so it came about; for Taliesin, the magic child, not only saved
Elphin’s life and liberty when he was in great danger and made him
a rich and fortunate man; he also brought high fame to the House of
Gwyddno by his very name and connection with it. For Taliesin, the rest
of whose wonderful story must be read elsewhere, became the minstrel,
and bard, and prophet of the Britain of old days; and this was one of
his prophecies made concerning the people of his land:

    “Their Lord they shall praise,
    Their language they shall keep,
    Their land they shall lose
    Except Wild Wales.”

Let us see how the prophecy has been fulfilled.

When the Romans conquered Britain, they found the hardest part of
their task lay in that north-western part of the island which is now
called Wales. The people were more uncivilized than the Britons of the
south-east, but they knew how to fight to the death; and the Roman
writer paints for us a vivid picture of the grim lines of warriors,
urged on by the cries of wild women dancing a witch-dance in the van,
and by the words of the white-robed, ivy-crowned Druids, who called
down the curses of the sky-god upon the Roman foe.

Even when this part of Britain at length was subdued, the inhabitants
were very little influenced by their conquerors. They used the fine
Roman roads laid down for the passage of their conquerors’ troops from
Caerleon to Chester and along the coast; they marvelled at the pretty
Roman villas that arose upon their borders; but they kept their own
language and their own customs, and were influenced scarcely at all
by the civilization which was spreading fast in the south and east of
Britain. One thing, however, they eagerly embraced, and that was the
Christian faith, and that is one reason why many Welsh words connected
with the religious services of the Church are merely Latin words in
disguise.

When the rest of Britain, at the end of the fifth century, had fallen
into the hands of the English invaders and conquerors, the western part
remained free. High among their mountains, these fierce tribes bade
defiance to Angle, and Saxon, and Jute, and to them came for protection
many of those who had been forced to flee for their lives from other
parts of Britain. From that time this region came to be known by the
English as _Wales_, the Land of Strangers; and thus was part of
the prophecy concerning the whole people of Britain fulfilled:

    “_Their land they shall lose_
    _Except Wild Wales._”

“_Their language they shall keep._” We have seen how few Latin
words had been borrowed from the Romans, and now that all the rest of
the island was fast forgetting its original tongue and learning the
language of its conquerors, the men of the West were fulfilling that
part of the prophecy also. Up to this time there had been in the land
three distinct races, and at least three languages. There were the
short, dark-haired Celts, who came originally from the South of Europe,
and who became the serfs of the next new-comers, the Irish Celts. These
were tall, red-haired people, and very like them were the next to come,
the Brythons, or Welsh Celts. While the English were making themselves
masters of the rest of Britain, these two latter tribes were at civil
war, and in the end the Brythons, or Britons, got the upper hand, and
their language became the language of Wales.

It was about this time, too, that the first line of the bardic prophecy
began to be fulfilled. Under the stirring influence of Dewi, the
Water-drinker, the monk of Dyfed, whom we know as St. David, Wales
became caught up in a wave of religious zeal. Monasteries were built,
missionaries travelled from end to end of the country, everywhere the
Gospel was preached, and the people received it gladly. Countless Welsh
“saints,” or missionaries, arose, whose names are now only remembered
by the churches or places dedicated to them; and while England was
sunk in heathen darkness, the light of the Celtic Church was burning
brightly in the West. From that time down to the present day religious
zeal has been the characteristic of the Welshman. “_Their Lord they
shall praise._”

The Norman Conquest, five centuries later, brought the Lowlands of
Wales--the Borderland, or “Marches,” as it was called--under the
rule of Norman barons, but the wilder part of the country, though it
condescended to borrow something of Norman civilization, remained
independent. At the end of the reign of Henry III. Wales was a land
of shepherd farmers, who knew well how to use the bow and the spear.
They were divided into many tribes, but united by their religion and by
their love of music, poetry, oratory, and all those arts which depend
upon a vivid imagination for their growth. Even to this day the stories
that they told are as fascinating to us as they were to the Welsh boys
and girls who first heard them as they sat by the rude hearthstone, and
heard the wind skirling down the mountain outside the heavily barred
door.

Fortunately for this Celtic spirit of imagination that turns all
it touches to gold, the next attempt at conquest shook rather than
shattered the independence of Wild Wales. But we shall best understand
and enjoy this part of the story of the land if we read it in
connection with the particular places at which the more striking events
occurred.




CHAPTER II

SNOWDONIA, THE FASTNESS OF LLEWELYN


The story of the great struggle of Wales for freedom under a Prince of
her own is laid, fitly enough, amid the wild scenery that surrounds
the highest point in Southern Britain. The whole district of Snowdon,
with its grim moorlands and towering heights forming a bulwark to the
western shore, breathes an air of freedom, and it was here that the
last Llewelyn defied the might of the first English Edward.

Roused by the bitter lament of those who had fallen under the yoke
of the Anglo-Norman barons, Llewelyn, Lord of Snowdon, threw off the
pretence of alliance and friendship which Henry III. had thought well
to keep up between them, and claimed to be ruler of all Wales, as his
grandfather had done in the days of Henry II. During the long Barons’
War in England the “Lord of Snowdon” found no difficulty in maintaining
his right to be “Prince of Wales”; the real trouble only began when
Edward I., on his accession, called upon the Prince to do homage as his
vassal. For two years Llewelyn paid no heed, and when he heard that an
English army was advancing upon him, went out boldly to meet it.

[Illustration:

    CONWAY CASTLE AND QUAY.      _Page 13._
]

But the chieftains of Central and South Wales turned traitor, his own
brother David deserted him, and the Prince, driven back to the inmost
recesses of his mountain fastness, was forced to lay down his arms.
Preferring to have him as friend rather than enemy, Edward behaved
generously enough, merely seizing a large slice of his dominions,
confining him to the Snowdon district, and providing that the title
“Prince of Wales” should cease at his death.

Four years elapsed of outward peace and inward commotion. Then came a
rumour of a strange event. Long years before, Merlin, a famous Welsh
bard and prophet, had foretold that “when English money became round,
a Prince of Wales should be crowned in London.” In 1282 a new copper
coinage had taken the place of the usual breaking of the silver penny
into halves and quarters; and in that same year the traitor David, who
had been rewarded with an English earldom, threw off his allegiance to
Edward, and appeared with an army before his brother’s dwelling-place.
Gladly did Llewelyn once more raise the standard of revolt, and a
desperate struggle for freedom began. The great army of the English
King, encircling the Snowdon range, which was the headquarters of the
Prince, drew in closer and closer; but meantime the English soldiers
were suffering terribly in that hard winter of 1282, which the hardy
Welshmen, living in the snowbound caves of the mountain, seemed to
pass through unheeding. As long as Llewelyn was there to inspire and
cheer, pain and even death were to be welcomed; but almost by chance
the men of Wales lost their leader in a quite unimportant skirmish.
Llewelyn had emerged from his mountain lair, and, hoping to drive the
English from the Brecknock district, had ridden forth to meet some
allies. He was met by a party of English horsemen and cut down by an
almost unknown knight. With Llewelyn, “our last ruler,” as the Welsh
still call him, the cause of Welsh independence was lost. At Rhuddlan,
in Flintshire, you may still see a bit of the wall remaining where
the Statute of Wales was passed by the Parliament held there in 1284;
and in that Statute Edward showed the greatest wisdom; for, instead
of forcing English laws and customs upon them, he allowed the Welsh
to keep their own as far as possible, altering them only where it was
clearly for their own advantage.

It was at Carnarvon Castle, which guards the entrance to “Snowdonia,”
that the little Prince was born who was presented by Edward I. to the
Welsh chieftains upon a shield as a “Prince of Wales who could not
speak a word of English.” And nowadays Carnarvon is, perhaps, the
best starting-point from which to take a glimpse of this wild and
mountainous district.

Behind us, as we look towards the mountains, lie the Menai Straits,
spanned by the fine suspension bridge, so strong and yet so fairy-like
with its arches of Anglesey marble, that it has been called a “poem in
stone and iron.” This bridge continues the Holyhead road to the island
of Anglesey, the home of the Llewelyns, where the soil is so fertile
that an old saying declares that it can provide corn enough for all the
people in Wales; and thence, across the island, we may reach Holyhead,
the starting-point for the Irish mail-boats.

Travelling towards Snowdon by rail to Llanberis, the scenery changes
rapidly from pretty woods and pastures to that of rugged heights,
crags, and rock-bound lakes. The mountain valley in which the village
lies is commanded by the very ancient Welsh castle of Dolbadarn,
once the prison of Owen, the brother of the ill-fated Llewelyn, Lord
of Snowdon. Below is the great lake, and beyond the wild Pass of
Llanberis, bounded by a “tumultuous chaos of rock and crag, as if
Titans in some burst of fury had been rending cliffs and flinging their
fragments far and wide.” If we are lazy, we may climb Snowdon by the
little mountain train, but if not, we set off up the ascent till, just
below the steepest part, we turn off a little from the path to look at
the wonderful hollow of Cwmglas, high up in the mountain-side, with
its two tiny tarns, surrounded by “striated” or glacier-marked rocks.

A steep scramble brings us to the top of Snowdon, and if it is a clear
day a glorious view rewards us. Beyond the line of sea is the blue
range of the Wicklow Mountains in Ireland; below us, half hidden by the
crags and shoulders of the huge mass, lie lakes and valleys, and the
quiet lowlands stretching to the borders of the Atlantic.

Through one of the loveliest of these valleys we reach the
mountain-girt village of Beddgelert. You all know the story of Llewelyn
and his faithful dog, killed by his master because he thought he had
eaten the child he had in reality saved from a wolf. Here you may
see the stones which mark his tomb; but you will probably be told
that the story is but a myth, and that the grave is really that of
a Welsh chieftain named Gelert, and not of a dog at all. You may
console yourselves with knowing that, whether this is true or not,
the picturesque little village was a favourite hunting-spot for the
Llewelyn whose story we know in history, and that the curious little
church there is part of one of the oldest monasteries in Wales.

Another beautiful valley leads to the famous pass and bridge of
Aberglaslyn. Here the huge cliffs on either hand approach so closely
to one another that there is barely room for road and river; and the
wooded slopes, as they near the water, afford a strong contrast to the
wild rocks above.

After this rugged splendour, the prettiness of the Fairy Glen at
Bettws-y-Coed will seem tame enough. We will not linger there, but
will finish our glimpse of this land of Llewelyn by a visit to Conway
Castle, built by Edward I. in 1283, to safeguard this part of Wild
Wales that he had so hardly won.

The town of Conway, “rugged without, beautiful within,” is a fine
example of the fortified walled towns of the Middle Ages. The walls are
triangular, and are said to represent a Welsh harp, and are entered by
crumbling stone gateways.

Above them towers the castle of Edward I., in which he was himself
besieged on one occasion by the rebel Welsh, and was only saved by the
arrival of his fleet.

The poet Gray makes this neighbourhood the scene of an event upon which
the light of history throws grave doubt. The English King, believing
that the conquest of Wales would never be completed while the bards
remained to stir up the patriotic zeal of their fellow-countrymen, is
said to have ordered a general massacre of them on the banks of the
River Conway. It was the prophetic curse pronounced on the King by one
of these bards, standing “on a rock, whose haughty brow frowns o’er
old Conway’s foaming flood,” which

                    “Scattered wild dismay
    As down the steep of Snowdon’s shaggy side
    He wound with toilsome march his long array.”

In spite of “Cambria’s curse and Cambria’s tears,” the English King
must have felt fairly secure within the massive walls of the castle,
whose banqueting-hall, now open to the sky, and ivy-grown, is of such
noble length and breadth that it might well have contained a regiment
of retainers. The passionate patriotism of Wales had little chance
against the solid strength of English builders and English troops.




CHAPTER III

IN GLENDOWER LAND


As the name of Llewelyn is connected with the Snowdon district, so the
name of another Welsh hero, Owen Glendower, lives still in that valley
of the Dee that lies between Corwen and Llangollen.

The valley itself is one of the most interesting in Wales. Almost of
a horseshoe shape, it is bounded by ranges of mountains, not very
high, but beautiful in shape and colour. On one side, a blaze of
yellow gorse, Moel Gamelin rears his rounded head; on the other the
heather-clad heights of the Berwyns invite us to scramble up their
slopes and to walk along the sky-line to the end of the vale. In the
hollow lies the picturesque little market-town of Llangollen, and above
it the steep cone-shaped hill is crowned by the ruined castle of Dinas
Bran.

In the old days this castle must have been of great importance, for it
guarded the entrance to the kingdom of Powys, the middle kingdom of
Wales. It was the stronghold of Madoc, Lord of Powys, and of his son
Griffith, who died in Llewelyn’s last desperate struggle for freedom,
both of whom were the ancestors of Owen Glendower himself.

Nowadays we shall find a relic of olden times in the harpist who sits
upon the summit and plays Welsh airs, full of mournful sweetness, to
those who visit the ruins. Below in the half-hidden Valle Crucis, lies
one of the most famous of Welsh abbeys, which we are going to explore,
in order to find the resting-place of these ancestors of Glendower.

In former days Valle Crucis Abbey, founded by the Lords of Dinas Bran,
was noted for its hospitality--a virtue of which we are reminded by the
ruins of a large hostel, or guest-house, and by the fish-ponds which
still exist. Here are the monks’ dormitories; and here, in the chapel,
below the beautiful remains of the east window, lie the battered tombs
of Madoc, the founder, and his son. Returning to Llangollen, and
passing along the Holyhead road, we presently come to Glyndyfrdwy, that
“glen of the Dee” from which our hero Owen took his surname.

Like most young Welshmen of noble birth after the Conquest of Wales,
Owen Glendower was brought up in England. Shakespeare makes him remind
Hotspur that--

    “I can speak English, lord, as well as you,
    For I was trained up in the English Court,
    Where, being but young, I framed to the harp,
    Many an English ditty lovely well.”

[Illustration: DISTANT VIEW OF CARNARVON BAY]

When Henry IV. became King, Owen appealed to him against Lord Grey
of Ruthin, who had seized a piece of his moorland. The King favoured
Lord Grey, and earned the lifelong hatred of his rival, who promptly
recovered his land by force of arms. Grey of Ruthin took a mean
revenge. When Henry summoned his Welsh barons, among others, to aid
him in a war with Scotland, he suppressed the message that summoned
Glendower, and then denounced him to the King as a traitor for not
obeying his call. Glendower’s house was immediately besieged, and he
had only just time to escape to the woods. Now, Owen was no mean and
unknown Welsh knight. He was as learned in books as he was skilled
in warfare, and his house at Sycherth, ten miles from his native
valley, was famous for its hospitality. His wife and children were of
noble breed; as a poet of the day sings: “His wife, the best of wives,
beneficent mother of a beautiful nest of chieftains. Happy am I in her
wine and metheglyn.”

So, after a century of peace, when this descendant of the last Llewelyn
raised the standard of revolt on the banks of the Dee, the Welshmen of
the districts far and wide flocked to his aid, singing with the bard,
Red Iolo:

    “Thy high renown shall never fail;
    Owen Glendower, the Great, the Good,
    Lord of Glyndyfrdwy’s fertile vale,
    High born, princely Owen, hail!”

Ruthin, the stronghold of Lord Grey, now a quiet country-town, was
first attacked and burnt to the ground. Before Henry’s army, under the
government of Harry Percy, or Hotspur, and the young Prince Henry,
then a boy of fourteen, could act against them, the revolt had spread
all over Wales, and had declared its aim to be independence of English
rule. The success with which Glendower met soon earned for him the
reputation of a wizard.

“I can call spirits from the vasty deep,” Shakespeare makes him boast
to Hotspur; who rudely replies: “Ay, but will they answer?” But let the
rough Northern Earl scoff as he might, Owen certainly met with almost
uncanny success. The English troops, “bootless and weatherbeaten,”
were driven back across the borders again and again. Not only North
Wales, but the South country also rose under him. Midway between the
two stands “Pumlumon,” better known as Plynlimmon, a five-pointed peak
that rises, almost solitary, from the surrounding plain. Upon this top
Glendower planted his standard, and from thence he managed to capture
Mortimer, the powerful English Earl of royal blood, who became before
long his son-in-law.

Owen was now openly acknowledged as Prince of Wales; castle after
castle fell into his hands, and Parliaments were held by him at
Dolgelly, under the shadow of Cader Idris, and elsewhere. But meantime
Prince Henry, the future Henry V., was growing up and learning the art
of war. It was he who, while Owen was busy in South Wales, came to his
own valley of Glyndyfrdwy, and burnt his house down. For seven years
the war went on, until the land was wellnigh ruined and the people
weary of warfare. Pardons were freely offered and as freely accepted,
until at last Owen Glendower found himself deserted. Still he would
not give in, and when Henry V., soon after he was made King, sent him
an unasked for pardon by the hands of Glendower’s own son, it came too
late; the hero of Wales’ last bid for independence was dead.

Nearly eighty years later Wales recovered her name for loyalty to an
English Sovereign when a certain Henry Tudor, grandson of a Welsh
country gentleman who had married a King’s widow, landed at Milford
Haven, and, with the aid of his fellow-countrymen, won the Battle of
Bosworth, and was crowned King as Henry VII. And so, when Henry VIII.,
his son, wished to bring about the Union of England and Wales by Act
of Parliament, no voice was lifted against it. But if Henry thought
by this Act, and by forbidding all magistrates in Wales to use the
Welsh language, he was going to make the country actually a part of
England, he was greatly mistaken. The upper classes might flock to the
English Court and forget their Welsh homes, but the greater part of
the people--the workers of the nation--kept their own speech, their
own customs, their own traditions. The days of warfare were over; but
still you can tell a Welshman from an Englishman wherever he is found.
He may talk the purest English, but the fall and rise of his voice as
he talks differs from the more monotonous tones of his Anglo-Saxon
companion. He is more excitable, more easily moved to wrath, or tears,
or laughter, and he possesses, as a rule, a far more vivid imagination
than is found anywhere outside the Celtic race of which he forms a part.




CHAPTER IV

A WELSH MARKET-TOWN


We have come to the end of Glendower’s story, but before we leave his
part of the country altogether let us pay a visit to Corwen, the old
market-town that lies so near his own valley.

Someone has said that Corwen is “relentlessly tucked away under
the dark shoulder” of the heather-clad Berwyns, for above it lies
the height of Pen-y-Pigyn, which certainly keeps the sun off very
effectually. In the porch of the old church, indeed, we shall find
a great stone, called by a Welsh name that means “the pointed stone
in the icy nook.” A legend, found in many other parts of Wales, says
that the builders vainly tried to erect the church, which was built
before the town, on a sunnier position farther down the valley, but
every night the walls were destroyed and the materials carried down
to the sunless spot under the hill. Just above the vestry door of that
same church is a curious mark, said to have been made by the dagger
of Glendower, flung by him in a fit of rage one day from the top of
Pen-y-Pigyn.

So far away is Corwen from mines or flannel mills or tourist centres,
that it forms in many ways a good example of a Welsh country-town, as
it might have existed not long after the days of Glendower himself.

The great interest lies in the monthly fair-day, when the streets
and market-place are full of shaggy Welsh ponies, black-faced
mountain-sheep, and cattle with immense horns. At every corner stand
groups of farmers, talking eagerly with hands and shoulders as much as
with lips, and with that curious rise and fall of the voice which, they
tell us, is the secret of Welsh oratory. Of that conversation the Saxon
from over the border understands not a word; but no sooner does he make
a remark than with the utmost ease the Welshmen respond in excellent
English. The power of expressing themselves equally well in both
languages is a striking feature of even the most uneducated classes
in Wales. Only here and there in some farm hidden far away among the
hills could one meet with the experience of one who, weary and thirsty
after a long tramp over the high moors, approached a tiny farm-house
and asked the old woman who opened the door for a cup of milk. A shake
of the head was the only reply. “But you must have milk or water in
the house!” persisted the visitor. Another shake and a stream of words
in an unknown tongue followed. Not to be baffled, the Saxon raised his
hand to his mouth and made as if to drink.

With a cry of delight the old dame rushed away, and returned with a
large bowlful of liquid, of which the traveller eagerly partook. It was
fine thick butter-milk, but, alas! it was quite sour!

Perhaps, however, the chief regret in the visitor’s mind was the
impossibility of explaining why the bowl was returned full to the
brim, for the old dame’s puzzled look said plainly enough: “What more
_could_ the stranger want than good Welsh butter-milk?”

Meantime the market-women have spread out their goods--poultry, butter,
eggs, and flowers--on the market-stalls in a picturesque fashion
enough. Many of the women themselves are worth the attention of an
artist, with their strong brown faces, black crisp hair, and very dark
blue eyes, “put in with a smutty finger,” as someone has well described
them.

Fifty years ago you would have seen them dressed in short red skirts,
buckled shoes, crossed bodices, and tall steeple-crowned hats worn
over caps; but these, unfortunately, have vanished.

The men--farmers or cattle-drovers for the most part--differ in face
more than they do in name. To English ears everyone seems to be called
either David Mor-r-gan (with a beautiful roll to the “r”) or Owen
Jones. But to the careful eye the difference between the two original
races is clear. The one is still short, smaller in build, and very
dark-haired; the other is tall, ruddy, with long loose limbs and fiery
red hair.

Borrow, whose amusing description of his walks in “Wild Wales” you will
like some day to read, thus describes a fair at Llangollen some fifty
years ago, and from what one knows of these country-towns, one would
not expect to find things very different to-day.

“The fair,” he says, “was held in and near a little square in the
south-east quarter of the town. It was a little bustling fair, attended
by plenty of people from the country. A dense row of carts extended
from the police-station half across the space. These carts were filled
with pigs, and had stout cord nettings drawn over them, to prevent the
animals escaping.

“By the sides of these carts the principal business of the fair
appeared to be going on--there stood the owners, male and female,
higgling with Llangollen men and women who came to buy. The pigs
were all small, and the price given seemed to vary from eighteen to
twenty-five shillings. Those who bought pigs generally carried them
away in their arms, and then there was no little diversion. Dire was
the screaming of the porkers, yet the purchaser always knew how to
manage his bargain, keeping the left arm round the body of the swine,
and with the right hand fast gripping the ear. Some few were led away
by strings.

“There were some Welsh cattle, small, of course, and the purchasers
of these seemed to be Englishmen--tall, burly fellows in general, far
exceeding the Welsh in height and size....

“Now and then a big fellow made an offer, and held out his hand for
a little Celtic grazier to give it a slap--a cattle bargain being
concluded by a slap of the hand--but the Welshman generally turned away
with a half-resentful exclamation.

“There were a few horses and ponies in a street leading into the
fair--I saw none sold, however....

“Now, if I add there was much gabbling of Welsh round about, and here
and there some slight sawing of English--that in the street leading
from the north there were some stalls of gingerbread, and a table at
which a queer-looking being, with a red Greek cap on his head, sold
rhubarb, herbs, and phials containing I know not what--I think I
have said all that is necessary about Llangollen Fair.”

[Illustration: VALLE CRUCIS ABBEY. _Page 15._]

Perhaps, however, we should visit Corwen or any other Welsh market-town
on a Sunday to see the most striking characteristics of the people.

The streets are nearly deserted, and a strange stillness broods over
the place. At the open door of some of the cottages an aged woman sits
with a Welsh Bible on her knees, and keeps an eye upon the toddling
baby at her feet. Everyone else has vanished, and not until a burst of
melody sounds from the plainly-built chapels which occur so frequently
on the highways and within the township, is their whereabouts revealed.
Such singing it is, too! It has been said that the Welsh people sing
naturally in parts, and certainly it seems as though nothing but years
of training would produce such a result with English choirs, not to
speak of a whole congregation, as is the case in Wales. In perfect time
and tune the beautiful old Welsh melodies ring forth, and we begin to
realize what a large part this hymn-singing and fiery enthusiastic
preaching plays in the daily life of this emotional and deeply
religious people.




CHAPTER V

A VISIT TO ANGLESEY AND HOLYHEAD


We took such a brief backward glimpse at Anglesey and Holy Island when
we were visiting Llewelyn’s country that we may as well now make a
longer visit.

Crossing the Menai Straits by the suspension bridge, we pass through
a treeless moorland and over a causeway into Holy Island, from whence
rises up the great headland known as Holyhead.

“A divine promontory,” Ruskin calls it, “looking westward--the Holy
Headland--still not without awe when its red light glares first through
the gloom.”

The first thing we shall want to visit here is South Stack, a
precipitous mass of cliff climbed by three hundred and eighty steps.
From thence we look down on the lighthouse, which, though one hundred
and fifty feet high, looks from this point like a child’s toy. The
cliff scenery is magnificent here, and a grand sea rolls in to the foot
of the rocks.

On our way back we must go to see some most interesting relics of old
days. They are known as the Irishmen’s Huts, and were first built in
those ancient times when tribes of Irish Celts crossed over to the
island, and thence to the mainland, threatening, indeed, to displace
altogether the original people of the land, and themselves driven out
in later days by another race. These huts are grouped together so as
to form tiny villages, in spots where they are guarded either by steep
rocks or by roughly-constructed walls. They are round in shape, and
built of stone, though the remains of the walls are now not more than
two feet high. All the entrances look towards the south, as though the
inhabitants knew the value of sunshine; and the doorways are formed of
two upright stones, with another placed across the top. The roofs were
probably thatched or turfed over poles, which stretched from one wall
to the other.

From what was found under the ground on which they stand when it was
examined some years ago, it seems as though some of these huts were
used for living in, some for bathing, some for working metal, some for
kitchens. Necklaces of jet, stone lamps, weapons of bronze, and moulds
for making bronze buttons were found in some. In others there are the
remains of an apparatus for working metal; in others there are tanks,
in which water was boiled by throwing hot stones into the water they
contained.

Retracing our way by rail, we pass the village of Llangadwaladr, the
home of the last British Prince to hold the title of King of All
Britain. The son of this Prince, Cadwaladr, who lived and died in the
seventh century, is buried in the church of the place that bears his
name, the “enclosure, or church, of Cadwaladr.” But the chief interest
lies in his father, Cadwallon, and his cousin, Brian, who together won
one of the last great battles in the cause of British freedom against
the English conquerors.

Cadwallon, son of King Cadfan, and Edwin, son of King Ethelfrid of
Northumbria, were both born about the same year in the island of
Anglesey, or Mona, as the Celts call it; for the Celtic mother of Edwin
had been driven out of the royal palace, and had returned to her former
home. The boys were brought up together in Brittany, another Celtic
kingdom, and returned together to Anglesey, where they lived until, on
the death of his father, Cadwallon was chosen King of All Britain. This
was, however, but an empty title, for almost at that very time Edwin
left the island and made his way to Northumbria, where he seized the
kingdom and with it much of the land of the Britons which lay upon its
borders. But Cadwallon cared not, because he had been his friend.

Now the heart of Brian, the nephew of the British King, was very sore
because of the sufferings of his fellow-countrymen at the hands of the
English conquerors. One day, as he hunted the otter with his uncle on
the banks of a river, the King was overcome with heat and lay down to
sleep, putting his head on the lap of the lad.

But Brian’s heart was so heavy that his tears ran down upon the face of
Cadwallon, who muttered uneasily: “It rains, it rains!”

Then, opening his eyes, he saw the blue sky above him, and said to his
nephew: “Surely there has been a shower, and now the sun is shining.
But where is the rainbow?”

And Brian said: “My lord, it shines upon the head of Edwin!”

Then Cadwallon saw his tearful face, and asked him what he meant; and
Brian told him all his woe. Whereupon Cadwallon swore to devote the
rest of his life to winning back the land of Britain for her own people.

But the strong King of Northumbria drove him back from his borders
again and again, and almost in despair he set sail with Brian to seek
help from Brittany. A great storm arose, however, drove the ship upon
the rocks, and everyone was drowned save Cadwallon and his nephew, who
were cast upon a desert island.

There, says the tale, King Cadwallon would have died of hunger and
heart-break had not the devoted Brian secretly cut off a slice of
his own flesh, which he roasted and gave to his uncle, saying it was
venison. The King ate and took courage, and after a time they were
able to pass over the stormy sea in the wrecked boat to Brittany.

The King of that land promised help, but meantime Brian heard that
his sister had been taken a captive to Edwin’s Court, and that Edwin
himself was much under the influence of a certain clever counsellor,
who was especially hostile to the Britons.

So Brian, dressed in beggar’s rags, but carrying a spiked staff,
crossed to Wessex, and made the long journey on foot to York to the
palace of Edwin. Standing outside, among a crowd of outcasts, he
presently saw his sister come forth from the Queen’s household with a
pitcher on her head to draw water from the well. At once he pretended
to ask alms of her, and meantime told her who he was, and bade her
point out to him the wily counsellor among Edwin’s followers. At that
moment the latter came out with a bag of money for the beggars, and
Brian, rushing forward, pierced him to the heart with his pointed
staff, and then vanished among the crowd.

Fleeing from thence to Penda, the strong King of the Mercians, Brian
won him over to his uncle’s side, and forthwith Cadwallon, Brian, and
Penda marched against Edwin in a great battle, in which the King of
Northumbria, Cadwallon’s foster-father, was defeated and slain.

Penda took care to secure the northern kingdom for himself, but
until his death Cadwallon earned his title to some extent by becoming
undisputed ruler over Wales, Devon, Cornwall, and the land now known as
Westmorland and Cumberland.

He married a sister of grim King Penda, and their son was the peaceful
Cadwaladr, in whose reign much of the land of the Britons was again
lost to them. Never again did Welsh Prince claim to be King of All
Britain, even in name.




CHAPTER VI

AN EISTEDDFOD


No one who knows and loves Wales will have failed to be present at some
time or another at that most interesting and curious ceremony known as
an Eisteddfod.

The name simply means a “sitting,” and probably refers, not to the
spectators, but to the “chairing” of the bard, which forms a chief part
in the proceedings.

These gatherings, for the purpose of preserving the poetry and music of
the country, are held all over the land; but each year a great national
Eisteddfod is held at some convenient centre; and of this notice is
published a year and a day beforehand.

At the appointed time, before crowds of spectators, the trumpets are
sounded, and the candidates are presented for the “degree” of bard. For
this they have to pass tests of various kinds, poetical and literary,
which are judged then and there. Then the “bards” present their
addresses to the audience--a poem, a prose composition, a song, as the
case may be. Musical competitions form a very marked feature of the
contest. From far and near the country choirs flock in, and rival each
other in choral and solo singing, until one is adjudged the prize.

Other competitors play the harp or violin, and when the contest is
decided, the great ceremony of “chairing the bard” begins. A “chair
subject” having been previously set for competition, the winner is
solemnly conducted to a chair of carved oak, a naked sword is held over
his head, and he is greeted with the blare of trumpets as the bard. A
concert, given by well-known singers, closes the proceedings, which
have often lasted for two or three days.

[Illustration: CARNARVON CASTLE. _Page 10._]

This ceremony dates from very far-off times. It may, indeed, be found
in some form in the time of that wonderful King Arthur of whom you have
all heard.

He, as you know, was King of Britain in the “days before history,” and
at his Court it was the custom to set tests of valour to his knights.
Once he set seven of them to find fair Olwen, daughter of Thornogre
Thistlehair, chief of the Giants, and they were given a year and a day
for their quest. Of the many wonderful adventures that befell them
you may read in a delightful collection of Welsh stories called the
“Mabinogion,” or “Book for Girls and Boys.”

At another Yule-tide his nephew, Sir Gawayne, was put to a more severe
test. A Green Knight of immense stature rode into the dining-hall of
the King, and dared any knight present to give him, who was armed only
with a holly-stick, a blow with an axe, on the condition that he should
receive a blow in return a year and a day after the event.

Sir Gawayne proved himself the only one who was not too dismayed at
such a condition, and with one good blow cut off the Green Knight’s
head. The latter, however, merely picked it up, and held it aloft, upon
which the head, opening its eyes and addressing Sir Gawayne, said:

“Look you, be ready as you have promised, and seek me till you find me.
Get you to Green Chapel a year and a day from now, there to receive a
blow on New Year’s Eve.”

The adventures of Sir Gawayne must be read elsewhere. They form the
subject of a fine English poem of the fourteenth century, and were
certainly of the nature of a test of courage and endurance.

By the sixth century the Eisteddfod seems to have become more of a test
of poetical and musical talent than of knightly skill and prowess.
Those who proved themselves worthy at the yearly gathering were classed
as bards, and were given the right of entry into the castles of all
Welsh barons and Princes. At one of the earliest of these meetings
Gwynedd, Prince of North Wales, in order to show how superior vocal
music was to that performed on instruments, offered a prize to the
bards who should swim over the Conway.

Eagerly the test was accepted, but when they reached the farther bank
the unfortunate harpists found their strings were ruined by the water,
while the singers were merely braced up to even more successful efforts
than before.

In the twelfth century we hear of a very notable Eisteddfod held at
Caerwys, now a little country-town, hidden away on a high tableland
among the hills, but notable in former days as the favourite residence
of the last Llewelyn. It was his ancestor, Griffith, who held there a
gathering, “to which there repaired all the men of Wales and also some
from England and Scotland,” says the proud historian of the event.
And another is described as taking place at Cardigan Castle, where
assembled many bards, harpers, and minstrels, “the best to be found in
all Wales.”

In the last century this interesting old custom, which had become much
neglected, was revived, and now almost every Welsh town can boast of
its own little Eisteddfod, in which the various choirs of church and
chapel, the plough-boy poet and the clever school-child, all play
their part in keeping alive that spirit of poetry and music which is
characteristic of the national character of Wild Wales.




CHAPTER VII

“MEN OF HARLECH”


When Edward I. had completed his so-called conquest of Wales, he
safeguarded the land he had won by building seven strong castles in
seven danger-spots. Those at Carnarvon and Conway we have already
visited, but most interesting of all is Harlech Castle, linked as it
is with the story of the far-off past as well as with the more modern
history of Wales.

Built on a crag of rock that juts from a terrace two hundred feet above
the plain, stand the great stone towers, looking towards the majestic
range of Snowdon to the north, and guarding the wide stretch of country
below; while to the west they gaze over the Irish Sea. Legend tells us
that the castle stands upon the site of a far more ancient building,
Branwen’s Tower, which stood there a thousand years before English
Edward was heard of.

Bran the Blessed was King of Britain in those days, and with him in his
fortress at Harlech lived his sister, Branwen, the fairest maiden in
all the land.

Now, one day, says the legend, Bran was at Harlech with his brothers
and his followers, and sat with them upon the great rock overlooking
the sea. And as they sat they saw thirteen ships coming from Ireland
and making straight towards them. Then Bran the Blessed raised himself
and said: “I see swift ships coming to this land. See that my officers
equip themselves right well and go to find out their errand.”

So the officers did so, and when the ships drew near the shore, behold,
they saw that they were very richly furnished, with ropes of silk and
flags of satin. And in the foremost stood one who lifted a shield high
above the bulwarks, and the point of the shield was held upward in
token of peace.

Then the strangers landed, and when they had saluted the King, Bran
from his rock said unto them: “Heaven prosper you, my friends. To whom
do these ships belong, and who amongst you is your chief?”

And they said: “Behold, the King of Ireland, Matholwch, is here as
suitor unto thee, and he will not land unless thou grant him his
desire.”

“And what is his desire?” asked the King.

And they said: “He would make alliance with thee, lord, by taking in
marriage Branwen, thy fair sister; that, if it seem good to thee, the
Island of the Mighty might be joined to the Island of the Blessed, and
so both become more powerful.”

“Let him land,” said King Bran, “and we will take counsel together upon
this matter.”

So the two Kings met in friendly wise, and it was arranged that
Matholwch should marry Branwen, the fairest damsel in the land, and
that the wedding should take place at Aberffraw, in Anglesey.

There a great feast was held, all in tents, “for no house could contain
Bran the Blessed.” But when the banquet was at its height, came in the
bride’s half-brother, Evnyssian, and, out of spite, because he had not
been consulted in the matter, he went to the stables where the horses
of the Irish King had been housed, and “cut off their lips to the teeth
and their ears close to their heads, and their tails close to their
backs, and their eyelids to the bone.”

In his wrath, when he discovered this, the Irish King would have broken
off the alliance and declared war there and then, but Bran managed to
appease his anger by giving him “a silver rod as tall as himself and a
plate of gold as wide as his face;” and so he sailed away to the Isle
of Saints with his fair bride.

But he never forgot the insult that had been offered him, for his
people, jealous of the strange Queen, were constantly reminding him of
it; and after her little son, Gwern, was born, the King deposed her
from her place at his side, and ordered her to be cook in his palace.

Sad indeed was Branwen, for she was lonely in the land; but she
reared a starling in the cover of her kneading-trough, and when she
had written down the story of her wrongs, she tied the letter under
the bird’s wing, and set it free. The bird, it is said, flew straight
to Carnarvon, the abode at that time of King Bran, perched upon his
shoulder, and flapped his wings till the letter was seen and taken from
him.

Full of anger at the treatment his sister had received, King Bran
called together his fighting-men and embarked for Ireland. But
Matholwch had no will for warfare, and, having held converse with him,
offered to make up for the wrongs offered to his wife by giving up
his crown at once to his young son Gwern. To this Bran agreed, and
forthwith the Irish King ordered a great banquet to be prepared, that
the contract might be sealed.

Now, the boy Gwern was present at this banquet, and showed himself
so lovable and so fair that all admired him. But his wicked uncle,
Evnyssian, who had already wrought so much evil, waited till he came
near, and then of a sudden seized him by neck and ankles, and threw him
into the great fire that blazed upon the hearth. In vain did Branwen
try to fling herself into the flames that she might save her son. The
deed was done before she could grasp him, and his fair body had become
a heap of ashes.

Because of this foul deed did bitter warfare break out between the two
countries, and so hard went the fighting against the British that at
length only seven knights were left alive on the side of Bran, and he
himself was sorely wounded in the head, so that he was about to die.
Then Bran the Blessed commanded this poor remnant of his followers to
strike off his head and bear it to his native land, and he bade them
keep it at Harlech for seven years, and then to set it upon the White
Mount in the city of Lud; which place is now called Tower Hill in
London town.

So the seven knights returned to Harlech with the head of their King,
and with them they brought his sister, the unhappy Branwen. And on
their way they rested in Anglesey, where Branwen, looking first towards
Ireland and then towards Britain, cried with tears: “Woe is me that I
was ever born, for two islands have been destroyed because of me!”

Then died poor Branwen of a broken heart, and they buried her in
Anglesey, at a spot known henceforth as Ynys Branwen, “where a square
grave was made for her on the banks of the Alaw, and there was she
laid.”[1]

[Footnote 1: From the “Mabinogion,” according to the version in Rev. S.
Baring-Gould’s “Book of North Wales.”]

Early in the last century a four-sided hole was discovered by a farmer
in this place, covered over with coarse flagstones. Within was an urn,
placed with its mouth downwards, and full of ashes and fragments of
bone. The urn was certainly one of that period known as the Bronze
Age, and belonged to the “days before history,” so we may not unsafely
conclude that the ashes it contained were really those of the unhappy
Branwen, sister of Bran the Blessed.

And so we come back to Harlech Castle, still with its Branwen Tower,
built by Edward I. as a bulwark against the “rebel Welsh.”

In later days Owen Glendower besieged and obtained possession of the
castle, and was in his turn besieged there by Prince Henry. There
it was that his son-in-law, Mortimer, died, and there the wife and
children of the latter took, for the last time, refuge when the place
was once again captured by the English.

[Illustration: BRAN THE BLESSED AT HARLECH CASTLE WATCHING
MATHOLWCH’S FLEET ARRIVE FROM IRELAND. _Page 36._]

The Wars of the Roses caused stirring times at Harlech. The castle
was held against Edward IV. by David ap Sinion, who had offered to
receive there under his protection Margaret, the unfortunate widow of
Henry VI., and her son, young Edward, after she had lost the Battle of
Northampton.

Against this “rebel” marched Lord Herbert, who called upon David to
surrender. But David had done good work for the Lancastrian cause
abroad, and he now replied that “he had held a castle so long in France
that all the old women in Wales had talked about it; and now he was
going to hold Harlech so long that he would set the tongues of all the
old women in France wagging.”

Great was the slaughter in that siege, during which, it is said, the
“March of the Men of Harlech” was written to stir the neighbouring
vassal chieftains to revolt against the usurping Edward.

        “Fierce the beacon light is flaming,
        With its tongues of fire proclaiming
        ‘Chieftains, sundered to your shaming,
        Strongly now unite!’
        At the cry all Arfon rallies,
        War-cries rend her hills and valleys,
        Troop on troop, with headlong sallies,
        Hurtle to the fight.

        “Chiefs lie dead and wounded,
        Yet where first ’twas grounded,
        Freedom’s flag still holds the crag,
        Her trumpet still is sounded;
        O, there we’ll keep her banner flying;
        While the pale lips of the dying
        Echo to our shout defying,
        ‘Harlech for the right!’”

Even in the English words the chant is inspiring in the extreme; the
Welsh words, joined to the warlike tune, would stir the veriest coward
to play his part like a hero.

Sad to say, the brave David was forced at length to surrender, on
condition that his life was granted.

To the honour of Lord Herbert be it told that when Edward wished to
put David to death he sought him out, and demanded of him one of two
things: either he must send David back to his castle and despatch
another officer to besiege it, or he must take the life of Herbert
himself in place of that of the prisoner. Finally, the King forgave
David, and Harlech, the last to hold out for the Lancastrian cause,
submitted.




CHAPTER VIII

A BURIED VILLAGE


To-day we are going to take a glimpse at two Welsh lakes, to one of
which a most romantic story is attached.

We start from Lake Bala, or Llyn Tegid, as it was called in the days
of Taliesin. Borrow, that whimsical traveller, who walked throughout
Wales, and knew the country as few Welshmen do themselves, thus
describes it:

“I wandered to the northern shore of Llyn Tegid ... the wind was
blowing from the south, and tiny waves were beating against the shore,
which consisted of small brown pebbles. The lake has not its name,
which signifies Lake of Beauty, for nothing. It is a beautiful sheet of
water, and beautifully situated. It is oblong, and about six miles in
length. On all sides except to the north it is bounded by hills. Those
at the southern end are very lofty, the tallest of which is Aran, which
lifts its head to the clouds like a huge loaf.” Then he recalls how a
hut by the edge of this lake was in former days the refuge of Llewarch
the Aged, who lived to the age of 140, and had twenty-four sons, all
of whom were slain by the Saxon invader in the grim days of old.

In more recent times the town of Bala was noted for the knitting
industry; and a hundred years ago one might have seen the Tomen of
Bala, a great mound overlooking the valley, covered with a crowd of
knitters--men, women, and children--all plying their needles with busy
fingers.

And now we turn our backs on the old lake and its prosperous little
market-town, and set off to find a new lake, which only came into
existence in the year 1881, which yet, in many ways, has a stranger and
more romantic story than any that Llyn Tegid can boast.

Up and up climbs the steep, rough road to the top of the wild pass
on the ridge of the Berwyns; or, if we want a yet wilder walk, we
may strike off it to the left across the moorlands, steering our
way through pathless bogs and treacherous swamps, till we reach a
steep precipice guarding a valley through which rushes a torrent
of waterfalls. Along the side of this sheer rock runs a narrow
sheep-path--so narrow that we creep along on hands and feet across
chasms, where it disappears altogether, and finally drop down a
headlong descent into the valley of Lake Vyrnwy.

Five miles of peaceful grey water lie below us, fed by mountain
torrents such as that we have skirted in our perilous descent.

Scarcely a house is to be seen, for the new hotel and its surroundings
lie hidden by the bend of the shore; it seems a valley of the dead. Yet
before the year 1880, in the Valley of Llanwddyn, as it was called, a
village of 500 inhabitants existed; and a church and chapels, inn, and
village street, farms and cornfields flourished where now stands that
great expanse of water.

A quiet, secluded folk they were, knowing little English and even less
of the ambitions and needs of the great industrial cities with one of
which they were to be brought into such close touch. Quietly they lived
and quietly they went to rest under the shadow of their grey church
tower among the hills.

But meantime that great busy monster, the city of Liverpool, was
crying out for more water. A huge reservoir must be secured, and since
no other was available, some mountain valley, shut in on all sides,
must be turned into a lake for the purpose. The news fell like a
thunderbolt on the peaceful valley-dwellers. In vain they were told of
compensation, of new and more comfortable houses to be built for them
on the wooded ridge above the lake. To the old people the whole thing
came upon them as nothing less than a devastation like that which
overtook Pompeii of old. One old dame, indeed, is said to have chosen
death by drowning rather than leave the roof of her ancestors, and a
scene of actual violence occurred before she could be removed.

They tell us that a sailor, a native of Llanwddyn, returned after a
lengthy absence to visit his home. You can imagine his feelings when,
as he climbed the pass and began the steep descent, he saw his native
valley transformed into an immense lake. We, too, as we pass along its
shores and gaze into the watery depths, may see, with fancy’s eye, the
smiling cottage, the cheerful little farm, the sunny gardens, lying
buried amid the slimy water-weeds. There stood the old church, founded
in the sixth century, and rebuilt by the famous Knights of Jerusalem in
the twelfth, whose bell “jangled for loyalty with such strange noise
and good affection,” when Beaufort made his progress through Wales in
the days of James II. Now that little belfry lies silent far below the
surface.

These are thoughts that tend to sadness, however, and we may cheer
ourselves with a funny tale told of the workmen who were building the
huge dam by which the water is pent in. Mr. Baring-Gould tells it as
follows:

“Now, it fell out that when the dam was in course of construction,
there was a stone in the river called Carreg yr Ysbryd, or the Ghost
Rock, and it had to be removed. This was supposed to cover an evil
spirit that had been laid and banned beneath it. The Welsh labourers
engaged on the work would have nothing to do with shifting the block,
but the English navvies had no scruples, and they blasted the rock, and
with crowbars heaved out of place the fragments that remained.

“Then was revealed a cavity with water in it, and lo! the surface was
agitated, and something rose out of it. The Taffies took to their
heels. Then an old toad emerged, hopped on to a stone, yawned, and
passed its paws over its eyes, as though rousing itself after a long
sleep.

“‘It’s nobbut a frog,’ said the Yorkshire navvies.

“‘It’s Cynon himself,’ retorted the Welshmen. (Cynon was a wizard of
the ancient days.) ‘Look how he gapes and rubs his face. You may see by
that he has been in prison.’

“After that, whenever a Taffy was observed to yawn, ‘Ah ha!’ said his
mates; ‘clearly you have but recently come out of prison.’”




CHAPTER IX

THE SACRED RIVER


In our peeps at North Wales we have more than once had a glimpse of the
River Dee. To-day we will pretend we have taken a “coracle,” one of the
curious oval boats which were used in the very earliest days, and which
you may sometimes see a man carrying on his shoulders from one bend of
the river to another. “Carry thou me, and I will carry thee,” an old
Welsh proverb makes the coracle say to the fisherman; and it shall now
carry us down the course of the river as far as it lies within the land
of Wales. The River Dee, one of the most lovely in Wales, has always
been connected with the mysterious religion of the Druids. Its very
name in old days, _Deva_, meant the goddess, or the “divine one”;
and its modern Welsh form, _Dwy_, means the same thing. A legend
of Druid times says that the Dee springs from two fountains high up in
the mountains above Bala, called Dwy Fawr and Dwy Fach, or the Great
and Little Dee, whose waters pass through those of the Lake of Bala
without mingling with them, and come out at its northern extremity.
These fountains had their names from two individuals, Dwy Fawr and Dwy
Fach, who escaped from the Deluge when all the rest of the human
race were drowned, and the passing of the waters of the two fountains
through the lake without mingling with its flood is an emblem of the
salvation of the two individuals from the Deluge, of which the lake is
a type.

[Illustration: A DRUID PRIEST. _Page 4._]

Probably the river was worshipped as a goddess in those days, and when
Wales learnt the Christian faith, it would be but fitting that her
bank should be crowded with those who sought baptism in her waters.
Nowadays, too, it is no uncommon sight to see a little group of people
by the waterside presiding over the baptism of one or more of their
companions.

Soon after leaving the lake the Dee passes through a district that
is closely connected with the youth of that great Celtic hero, King
Arthur. There are few parts of Wales which--by their names, at
least--allow us to forget that Arthur and his Court played a famous
part in Britain in the days before history. And here we have Caer Gai,
the ancient stronghold of Sir Kay, the foster-brother of Arthur, who
could make himself as tall as the tallest tree in the forest, or lie
hidden in lake or river for nine days and nights, if needs be. Such
fire was in his nature that when they needed warmth his companions
had but to kindle the piled wood at his finger; he could walk through
torrents of rain as dry as on a summer’s day; he could go for nine
days and nights without sleep; and no doctor could heal the wounds made
by his sword.

It was in this district of Penllyn, opposite to the hill of Yr Aran,
which he calls “Rauran,” that Spenser in his great poem makes King
Arthur describe the way his boyhood was passed in the “stronghold of
Kay,” or Caer Gai:

    “Whose dwelling is low in a valley green
    Under the fort of Rauran, mossy hoar,
    From whence the River Dee, as silver clean,
    His tumbling billows rolls with gentle roar;
    There all my days he trained me up in virtuous lore.”

But, apart from legend, Caer Gai touches history itself. From its
well-preserved ramparts and “fosse,” or moat, enclosing what is now a
farm-house, we see that it must have once been a Roman fortress. Roman
urns have been dug up here, and not very many years ago a ploughman
turned up a stone with an inscription that showed it must have been
placed there by Roman soldiers about A.D. 105.

Leaving Llyn Tegid, or Bala Lake, behind us, we set off down our river
to Corwen and Llangollen. These places we have already visited, so we
will only stay to notice the lovely scenery of this part of the Dee,
so dear to fishers. Not far from where the river bends north-east to
Chester and the sea, stands Chirk Castle, and near by, in order to
reach it from Llangollen, we shall pass the line of Offa’s Dyke, a bank
with a moat below it that ran from the mouth of the Dee to the mouth of
the Wye, which was erected by a King of Mercia in the eighth century as
a barrier beyond which no Welshman might pass.

For the rest of its course, therefore, the Dee really forms part of the
boundary-line between England and Wales, and though we shall be sorely
tempted to linger when we come to the beautiful old city of Chester,
gazing down from its ancient walls upon the broad river below, we must
remind ourselves that this is English soil, and leave the sacred waters
of the Dee to empty themselves by a very long estuary into the sea some
miles below Flint Castle, the last refuge of the unhappy Richard II.
before he gave himself into the hands of Bolingbroke.




CHAPTER X

A PEEP AT PEMBROKE


To-day we will leave North Wales and travel south to take a glimpse at
Pembrokeshire, in some ways one of the most interesting counties in
Wales.

Between the northern and southern parts of the country runs a stream,
flowing into St. Bride’s Bay, which divides the Welsh Pembroke from a
district known as “Little England beyond Wales.”

Here, in this latter region, one hears nothing but English spoken.
The towns, the people, are typically English, or, at least, very far
from being typically Welsh. This is how a seventeenth-century writer
accounts for the fact:

“This same division was in ancient time inhabited wholly by Welshmen,
but a great part thereof was won from them by the Englishmen under the
conduct of Earl Strongbow, and divers others, and the same planted
with Englishmen whose posterity enjoys it to this day, and keep their
language among themselves without receiving the Welsh speech or
learning any part thereof, and hold themselves so close to the same
as to this day they wonder at a Welshman coming among them, the one
neighbour saying to the other: ‘Look! there goeth a Welshman!’”

The interesting thing about this is that these people of South Pembroke
were probably not English at all in origin, but Flemings, who came over
from Flanders many centuries ago, and settled there with their woollen
manufactures--a trade which perhaps accounts for the superiority of
“Welsh flannel” to-day.

These were, like their Welsh neighbours, a very religious and
emotional people, and more ready, perhaps, than the former to leave
the land of their adoption for the perils of the Holy War. For a
writer of the time of the early Crusades tells the story of a certain
Archbishop’s journey through Wales to rouse volunteers for the war in
far-off Palestine; and to him “it appears wonderful and miraculous
that, although he addressed the Pembroke people both in the Latin
and French tongues, these persons, who understood neither of these
languages, were much affected, and flocked in great numbers to the
cross.... They are,” he goes on to say, “a brave and robust people,
ever most hostile to the Welsh--a people well versed in commerce and
woollen manufactures, anxious to seek gain by sea or land, in defiance
of fatigue and danger, a hardy race, equally fitted for the plough or
the sword.”

Suppose we take a steamer from the charming little seaport town of
Tenby, and follow the coast-line of Pembroke up to Milford Haven.
Romantic cliffs guard the land, and limestone caverns hint at smuggling
expeditions in the good old days. Here is Caldy Island, where stood one
of the oldest of Benedictine priories; and here, at St. Gowan’s Head,
the cliff, rising to a great height above the sea, is split up into a
narrow cleft by the force of the waves.

Across this chasm is built a little cell, known as St. Gowan’s Chapel,
from which a doorway leads to a cave in the cliff, shaped exactly like
a human figure. The legend says that St. Gowan, a holy man of God, was
praying in his cell when his heathen foes came battering at the door.
He called upon the rock to be his shelter, and immediately it opened
to admit him. When his enemies had gone away baffled, and the saint
had emerged, the impression of his form was found in the cliff; and
nowadays they say that if you stand in the cavity and wish, and then
turn round without changing your mind, the wish is sure to come true.

Now we are entering Milford Haven, “the finest harbour in the United
Kingdom,” stretching ten miles inland, with its many bays, creeks,
and roadsteads. Sailing up the right-hand shore, we presently reach
Pembroke Dock, two miles from the town of Pembroke, where stand the
ruins of one of the earliest built and strongest of the many castles of
Wales.

From its huge towers and turrets Strongbow started on that adventurous
journey of his with the aim of conquering Ireland. For many years after
the conquest of Wales its grim keep, with its conical roof capped by an
enormous millstone, menaced the rebel Welsh. There, in 1456, was born
Henry Tudor, one day to be Henry VII. of England, and there he spent
the first ten years of his boyhood. There also was his landing-place
when he came to drive the usurping Richard from the throne.

Its story during the Civil War is strange enough. Pembroke Castle,
under Poyer, the Mayor of Pembroke, was the only place in Wales that
declared for the Parliament. But it looked as though this was only done
for love of opposition to the majority, for when the war was over and
troops were being sent back home, Poyer refused to give up his post
as Governor of the Castle, and roused up the whole of South Wales for
the Royalist cause, then practically dead. Great must have been the
surprise of the Puritans, but before long Cromwell himself was putting
the rebels to flight and battering at the walls of Pembroke Castle,
where so many had taken refuge.

“A very desperate enemy, very many of them gentlemen of quality,
and thoroughly resolved,” so Oliver described them. But the well
of drinking-water had been captured by him, and hunger and thirst
compelled them to surrender. Poyer and two other leaders were sent to
the Tower and condemned to death, but pardon being granted to two of
the three, lots were then drawn. “Life given by God” was written on two
slips; the third was a blank. Poyer drew the last, and, facing death
with the utmost courage, was shot at Covent Garden.

It is tempting to take a glimpse at the stately ruins of Carew Castle,
another great stronghold of old times; but we must hasten on to
the head of the estuary, and thence by land to the ancient town of
Haverfordwest, now a flourishing market-town, the most important in
the county. Again the most striking feature is the great square-walled
castle, concerning which the old Welsh historian tells an exciting
adventure.

It so happened that a certain robber-chief was imprisoned in the
dungeon of the castle at the time that the three young sons of the Earl
of Pembroke and two children of the Governor were playing together
within the walls. The game was shooting with bow and arrows, but the
latter were so badly made that the youngsters began to lament that no
one could make them well enough. Either through a chink in the wall,
or by means of his gaoler, the prisoner conveyed the information that
he was noted for the work of arrow-making, and the boys were soon his
devoted admirers. One day the too confiding gaoler went off to his
dinner, leaving the dungeon door with the key in the lock, that the
boys might visit the interesting maker of arrows. No sooner were some
of them inside, however, than the brigand locked them in with him, and
threatened those who tried to break down the door that he would kill
the children and himself unless the Governor swore to let him go free.
This was done at length, in sheer despair, and the robber was allowed
to depart to his lair in safety.

[Illustration: ST. CATHERINE’S ROCK, TENBY.]

Haverfordwest is the nearest station to St. David’s, the most famous
cathedral in Wales, once the aim of many a pilgrimage, since “two
journeys to St. David’s shrine counted as one to Rome.” And well it
might, since even now there are “sixteen miles and seventeen hills” to
traverse before we reach the sacred spot.

St. David’s Cathedral stands remote in a somewhat desolate country,
upon a strip of craggy seaboard, “the loneliest of British fanes.”
“We descend a narrow street paved with rough stones, we look through
a little gateway on the right, and stand astonished and delighted. A
wonderful prospect bursts upon us: we behold the whole cathedral rising
before us in its stern majesty, with the ruins of St. Mary’s College to
the right, and the magnificent remains of the Bishop’s palace to the
left, while the dark rocks of Carn Llidi form the background to the
striking picture.”[2]

[Footnote 2: D. T. Evans, “Welsh Pictures.”]

The loveliness of the building itself, its massive pillars and delicate
tracery, with the grey, purple, and red colours of the sandstone
from which they are formed, make it one of the most beautiful of
cathedrals; but the most thrilling memory in connection with it is
that, when most of England was still plunged in heathen darkness, a
cathedral stood in this place as the Church of West Britain and the
seat of an Archbishop of the Celtic Church.

The shrine of St. David, or Dewi, the Water-drinker, the patron saint
of Wales, is within, and with him lies the honour of transferring the
seat of the Archbishopric from its more ancient site at Caerleon in
Monmouthshire to this spot. St. David, said by one legend to have been
uncle to King Arthur, became famous by a miracle that occurred in the
sixth century, when he addressed a great meeting of the Fathers of
the early Christian Church, and laid low the false doctrines of one
Pelagius, or Morgan, who was leading the Christians of Britain and
other lands astray.

As the saint, then Abbot of St. Patrick’s Monastery, where now stands
the present cathedral, addressed a crowd composed of “the saints of
Anjou, the saints of England, and of the North, of Man and Anglesey,
of Ireland and Devonshire and Kent,” and of many other places, a white
dove descended from heaven upon his shoulder. “Upon which the ground
on which he was standing,” says the legend, “gradually rose under him,
till it became a hill, from which his voice, like a loud-sounding
trumpet, was clearly heard and understood by all, both near and far
off, seven thousand people, on the top of which hill a church was
afterwards built, and stands till this day.”

This happened farther north at Llandewi-brefi, but it was this miracle
that placed the see of the Archbishopric to which St. David was at once
raised, in Menevia, as this lonely district was called, instead of at
Caerleon, thus fulfilling the prophecy of Merlin: “Menevia shall put on
the pall of Caerleon.”




CHAPTER XI

THE VALLEY OF THE WYE


To-day let us take a journey up the course of the Upper Wye, loveliest
of Welsh rivers, from the point where it crosses the border between
England and Wales.

The course of the Upper Wye begins just below the ruins of Clifford
Castle, one of the many built upon the “Marches,” or borderland,
nominally to keep the Welshmen within bounds, actually to shelter the
robber-barons who gained their livelihood by harassing the country on
either side. The grey stones of Clifford, covered now with a wealth
of ivy, speak to us of that “fair Rosamond” with whom King Henry II.
fell so deep in love that he took the maiden from her father’s house
and made her a bower at Godstow. There, as we all know, she was forced
by Eleanor, his jealous wife, to drink a cup of poison, and never again
saw the sunny banks of the Wye.

As the river sweeps along its curving course, the slopes of the Black
Mountains rise in a broken mass of hill and dale and heathery upland.
A touch of wildness distinguishes the country from the tamer fields
of Herefordshire behind us, and rough hills, whitewashed farms,
roofed with brown stone slabs and heavy beams, take the place of the
comfortable and spacious manors of the English county.

This part of the Wye Valley, divided by the Black Mountains from that
of the Usk, is, indeed, one of the most complete solitudes to be
found in the country, rivalling that of Menevia itself. “What a wild
little block of mountain it is, this eighty square miles of complete
solitude!” says a traveller of the hill country between the two rivers.
“How dark, and deep, and sombre the gorges! How silent the hills, where
grouse lie fairly thick in the big tracts of heather! How striking the
blush of the red sandstone against the greener slope, where the teeth
or tread of hungry sheep and the downward rush of streams have scarred
the mountain-side!”

Presently a spur from these hills stretches out across our valley, and
the river turns north-west and changes its character from a broad, easy
flow to a rushing torrent, with here and there a deep salmon pool among
the rocks of its course. This is a very famous part of the river from
the fisherman’s point of view, and few save tramps and fishermen are to
be met with on the lonely valley road which we are now pursuing.

Here, at Aberedw, stands the castle which was the last refuge of the
ill-fated Llewelyn, Prince of Wales, whose story we read in a former
chapter. From this spot he set out to join his forces, was surprised
by the English, and killed in a little wood, henceforth to be known as
“the bank of the grave of Llewelyn.”

The story adds that the men of Builth, close by, refused the Prince and
his handful of followers a refuge on that occasion, and the curse of
the “Traitors of Builth” is said to have clung for many a long day to
the inhabitants.

Another lovely stretch of the river lies between Builth and Rhayader,
and again the country on either side is one great solitude; for in
old days this part of Wales offered no attraction to the great border
lords save as a fighting-ground between the Men of the South and the
Men of the North. It was the home, rather, of outlaws and bandits, who
found good cover in its woods and highlands, and who doubtless cared as
little as the English barons for the lovely river scenery amidst which
they made their home.

Rhayader, whose name means “the Falls,” is a typical Welsh market-town,
asleep save on market and fair days, when it becomes one mass of
shouting drovers, frightened cattle, buxom women with their great
baskets, and gaitered farmers eagerly discussing the latest topic.

Above this town the Wye is no longer a stately river, but a straggling
mountain stream, which makes its way through a wild and ever-rising
country from its source in a spring on the side of Plynlimmon.

The little wedge of country, some ten miles square, which lies on
its western bank and stretches away from Rhayader to the border of
Cardigan, is full of weird tales and strange points of interest.

“At Llancavan a Lord of Builth, wearied with the chase, and overtaken
by darkness, entered the church with his hounds and spent the night. In
the morning his hounds were mad and he was blind. In his remorse for
his act of sacrilege he had himself conveyed to Palestine, and there
led on horseback and fully armed in the front of the fighting-line
against the Saracens, who very promptly killed him.”[3]

[Footnote 3: Bradley, “Highways and Byways of South Wales.”]

Another legend says that once a miracle happened in Rhayader itself.
A farmer had been seized by the owner of the castle on a charge of
sheep-stealing, and was confined in the dungeon thereof. His poor wife,
knowing that the gaolers were open to bribery, but having neither money
nor goods, stole from the church the funeral bell, which it was the
ancient custom to ring at the head of the procession to the grave. She
took this to Rhayader, and offered it to the gaolers on condition that
they should release her husband. But they took the sacred bell and then
refused to let him go. That night, says the legend, the whole town was
destroyed by fire, save only the wall of the castle on which the bell
had been hung.

From Rhayader the Valley of the Elan, a tributary of the Wye, runs
westward, and becomes a scene of great importance from one point of
view. The valley is narrow, pent up among the hills, which fling down
into it their numberless mountain streams. Here a great dam has been
built, which pens up the water into two great lakes, and various
smaller reservoirs, from which the city of Birmingham draws its
water-supply. Fancy 60,000,000 gallons of water a day being carried to
Birmingham, seventy miles away! These Welsh valleys certainly do their
part towards keeping the great dirty manufacturing towns of England
clean and sweet.




CHAPTER XII

THE GREAT PLYNLIMMON


“Cardigan is a country to itself,” says one who knows Wales well.
Except, indeed, for the towns on the coast, Lampeter, with its college,
and a famous abbey in the south, the whole country has been described
as a “mountain wilderness.” But since some of us prefer such untrodden
wastes to those parts that have become merely playgrounds for the
English tourist, we will pay it a visit to-day.

At the north-eastern corner of the county stands Plynlimmon, the home
of the Severn, the Wye, and many a smaller river which ploughs its way
through the wild region we are traversing. And let us note, by the way,
that, since railways and even good roads are unknown except on the very
fringe of this district, our best method of travelling will be on foot.

[Illustration: THE WYE NEAR RHAYADER. _Page 62._]

Many years ago, when that delightful person, George Borrow, a native
of Norfolk, made a long tour all over Wales on “Shanks’s mare,” seeing
thereby far more of the country and its people than the motor-car
or railroad travellers of more modern times, he explored this part
of the country very thoroughly, and this description of his visit to
Plynlimmon is too good not to quote at length:

“The mountain of Plynlimmon, to which I was bound, is the third in
Wales for height, being only inferior to Snowdon and Cader Idris. Its
proper name is Pum or Pump Lumon, signifying the ‘five points,’ because
towards the upper part it is divided into five hills or points.

“Plynlimmon ... has been the scene of many remarkable events. In the
tenth century a dreadful battle was fought on one of its spurs between
the Danes and the Welsh, in which the former sustained a bloody
overthrow. In 1401 a conflict took place in one of its valleys between
the Welsh under Glendower and the ‘Flemings’ of Pembrokeshire, who,
angry at having their homesteads plundered and burnt by the chieftain,
the mortal enemy of their race, assembled in great numbers and drove
Glendower and his forces before them to Plynlimmon, where the Welshmen
stood at bay, and with difficulty won a victory....

“... I started about ten o’clock on my expedition, after making, of
course, a very hearty breakfast ... and went duly north till I came to
a place among hills where the road was crossed by an angry-looking
rivulet. I was just going to pull off my boots and stockings in order
to wade through, when I perceived a pole and a rail laid over the
stream at a little distance above where I was. This rustic bridge
enabled me to cross without running the danger of getting a regular
sousing, for these mountain streams, even when not reaching so high as
the knee, occasionally sweep the wader off his legs, as I know by my
own experience. From a lad I learnt that the place where I crossed the
water was called the ‘Foot of the Red Slope.’

“About twenty minutes’ walk brought me ... near a spur of the
Plynlimmon range. Here I engaged a man to show me the sources of the
rivers and the other wonders of the mountain. He was a tall, athletic
fellow, and had much more the appearance of an Irishman than the
Welshman that he was....

“After ascending a steep hill and passing over its top, we went down
its western side, and soon came to a black, frightful bog between two
hills. Beyond the bog, and at some distance to the west of the two
hills, rose a brown mountain, not abruptly, but gradually, and looking
more like what the Welsh call a slope than a mountain.

“‘That, sir,’ said my guide, ‘is the Great Plynlimmon.’

“‘It does not look much of a hill,’ said I.

“‘We are on very high ground, sir, or it would look much higher. I
question, upon the whole, whether there is a higher hill in the world.
God bless Plynlimmon Mawr!’ said he, looking with reverence towards the
hill. ‘I am sure I have a right to say so, for many is the good crown I
have got by showing gentlefolks, like yourself, to the top of him.’

“‘You talk of Plynlimmon Mawr, or the Great Plynlimmon,’ said I; ‘where
are the smaller ones?’

“‘Yonder they are,’ said the guide, pointing to two hills towards the
north--‘the Middle and the Small Plynlimmon.... Those two hills we
have just passed make up the five. That small hill connected with the
big Plynlimmon on the right is called the Hill of the Calf, or Calf
Plynlimmon, which makes the sixth summit.’

“‘Very good,’ said I, ‘and perfectly satisfactory. Now let us ascend
the big Plynlimmon.’

“In about a quarter of an hour we reached the summit of the hill, where
stood a large cairn, or heap of stones. I got up on the top and looked
around me.

“A mountainous wilderness extended on every side, a waste of
russet-coloured hills, with here and there a black, craggy summit. No
signs of life or cultivation were to be discovered, and the eye might
search in vain for a grove, or even a single tree. The scene would
have been cheerless in the extreme had not a bright sun lighted up the
landscape.

“‘This does not seem to be a country of much society,’ I said to my
guide.

“‘It is not, sir. The nearest house is the inn we came from, which is
now three miles behind us. Straight before you there is not one for at
least ten, and on either side it is a wilderness to a vast distance.
Plynlimmon is not a sociable country, sir; nothing to be found in it,
but here and there a few sheep or a shepherd.’

“‘Now,’ said I, descending from the cairn, ‘we will proceed to the
sources of the rivers’ (the Severn, the Wye, and the Rheidol). The
source of the Rheidol is a small, beautiful lake, about a quarter of
a mile in length. It is overhung on the east and north by frightful
crags, from which it is fed by a number of small rills. The water is
of the deepest blue, and of very considerable depth. The banks, except
to the north and east, slope gently down, and are clad with soft and
beautiful moss. The river, of which it is the head, emerges at the
south-eastern side, and brawls away in the shape of a considerable
brook amidst moss and rushes down a wild glen to the south. If few
rivers have a more wild and wondrous channel than the Rheidol, fewer
still have a more beautiful and romantic source.

“After kneeling down and drinking freely of the lake, I followed my
guide over a hill into a valley, at the farther end of which I saw a
brook streaming to the south.

“‘That brook,’ said the guide, ‘is the young Severn.’

“The brook came from round the side of a very lofty rock, singularly
variegated, black and white, the northern summit presenting somewhat
the appearance of the head of a horse. Passing round this crag, we came
to a fountain, surrounded with rushes, out of which the brook, now
exceedingly small, came murmuring.

“‘The crag above,’ said my guide, ‘is called the Rock of the Horse, and
this spring at its foot is generally called the Source of the Severn.
However, drink not of it, master, for the source is higher up. Follow
me.’

“I followed him up a steep and very narrow dingle. Presently we came
to some beautiful little pools of water in the turf, which is here
remarkably green.

“‘These are very pretty pools, aren’t they, master?’ said my companion.
‘Now, if I was a false guide I should bid you stoop and drink, saying
that these were the sources of the Severn; but the true source is
higher up. Don’t fret, however, but follow me, and we shall be there in
a minute.’

“So I did as he bade me, following him, without fretting, higher up.

“Just at the top he halted, and said: ‘Now, master, I have conducted
you to the source of the Severn. I have considered the matter deeply,
and have come to the conclusion that here, and here only, is the true
source. Therefore stoop down and drink, in full confidence that you are
taking possession of the Holy Severn.’

“The source of the Severn is a little pool of water some 20 inches
long, 6 wide, and about 3 deep. It is covered at the bottom with small
stones, from between which the water gushes up. Turf-heaps, both large
and small, are in abundance near by.

“After taking possession of the Severn by drinking at its source, I
said: ‘Now let us go to the fountain of the Wye.’

“The source of the Wye, which is a little pool, not much larger than
the source of the Severn, stands near the top of a grassy hill which
forms part of the Great Plynlimmon.

“The stream, after leaving its source, runs down the hill towards the
east, and then takes a line to the south.

“The fountains of the Severn and the Wye are in close proximity to
one another. That of the Rheidol stands somewhat apart from both,
as if, proud of its own beauty, it disdained the other two for its
homeliness.”




CHAPTER XIII

THE VALE OF TEIFY


Welshmen call the county of Cardigan the Shire Aber Teivi, or the
shire of the River Teify. The valley of this river forms the boundary
between the shire and those of Pembroke and Carmarthen, and then turns
north-east to the famous monastery of Strata Florida, which is well
worth a visit to those who love to remember that Wales was the home of
the Christian faith in days when England lay in heathen darkness.

We saw in the last chapter that Cardigan is a lonely county, cut off
from its neighbours by mountains and hills all the way from Plynlimmon
to Lampeter, and by steep slopes, forming the Valley of the Teify, on
the Carmarthen side. Hence its position has made it in bygone days “the
last refuge of the beaten and the first landing-place of returning
exiles.”

Its people, because of this fact, are not quite like the rest of their
countrymen, but form something like a separate tribe, known to their
neighbours as “Cardys.” The men are generally very dark as to eyes,
hair, and complexion, with “round heads, thick necks, and sturdy
frames.”

You remember that Borrow took his guide for an Irishman at first, and
in many ways the “Cardy” does resemble his Celtic cousin across the
Channel of St. George. But he differs in the fact that he is very
industrious and independent, and always on the lookout to better
himself. So that, though nearly all the population is composed of
small farmers and their labourers, the county is said to produce more
teachers, parsons, and preachers than any other in Wales.

We have heard something already of the tremendous battles that took
place in this region--battles which we can easily account for, since
the loneliness of the district made it a favourite refuge for all lost
causes. The story of one of these battles, the joy of the Welsh bards
in the twelfth century, tell us how North and South Wales joined in
1135 in an attack upon the town of Cardigan, at the mouth of the Teify,
then held by ruthless English barons, who advanced beyond the walls
upon them. The advantage falling to the Welsh, the English retreated to
their castle, but the Welshmen cut the supports of the bridge over the
Teify as they crossed it, so that three thousand perished in the river.

“The green sea-brine of Teife thickened. The blood of warriors and the
waves of ocean swelled its tide. The red-stained sea-mew screamed with
joy as it floated on a sea of gore.”[4]

[Footnote 4: The quotation is taken from Bradley’s “Highways and Byways
of South Wales.”]

From Cardigan the River Teify winds through a hilly country to Cenarth,
whose castle is the scene of a story all too common in the days when
Henry I. was King of England.

[Illustration: CARDIGAN BAY]

Nest, the daughter of Rhys ap Tudor, the last Prince of Wales who was
actually quite independent of English rule, was the fairest maiden in
all the land.

When her father died, he left her in the charge of Henry I., and the
King gave her in marriage to the Norman Gerald, Lord of Pembroke, who
had just built this castle at Cenarth as a protection against the
hostile Welsh on both sides of the river. There he lived happily with
his beautiful wife and children for some years, until Cadogan, Prince
of Cardigan, took it into his head to give a great banquet at Cardigan
Castle.

Now, at this feast the one topic of conversation and song was the
beauty of Nest, the wife of the Norman baron, and at length the wild
son of Cadogan, Owen by name, arose and declared that he would carry
her off and bring her back to her own people.

So one dark night, Owen and his band of followers forced their way into
Pembroke Castle, where the Earl and his wife were then living, and into
the room where Gerald and Nest lay asleep.

The baron barely saved his life by escaping down a drain, while his
wife and children were carried off and the castle fired. The unhappy
Nest was hidden, they say, in a romantic old house near Llangollen, and
meantime all Wales was in an uproar about the ears of the daring robber.

The wrath of Henry of England fell hot upon Cadogan, who had tried in
vain to persuade his son to restore his prisoner. Most of his land was
taken from him by jealous neighbours as well as by the English barons
of the border, and at length the turbulent Owen was forced to flee to
Ireland, and Nest returned to her husband.

Many years later, says the tale, Owen returned, an outlaw, to his
native land, and before very long found himself fighting in a quarrel
on the same side as the injured Gerald. No sooner did the latter
discover this than, mindful of the ancient feud, he sought out his
rival and challenged him to single conflict, putting him at last to
death. And still they show below that old manor-house at Eglyseg, the
hiding-place and prison of poor Nest, the path that climbs the steep
glen, and claim it to have been the way by which Owen set out upon his
wild quest and returned with his terrified captives.

But we must hasten along the deep and rocky valley of our river, past
the little town of Lampeter, noted for its training college for those
who are going to be clergymen, and through a fair country of meadows
and hills till we turn aside to a very ancient village, with a still
more ancient church. This is Llan-Dewi-Brefi, or the Church of St.
David on the Brefi. We have heard of it in a former chapter, for it
was the scene of St. David’s triumph over the heretics in the sixth
century, and the church stands on the site of that which was built in
memory of that triumph on the hill which rose under him as he stood to
give his message to the assembly.

The word “Brefi” means a “bellowing,” and legend accounts for the name
of the little stream which flows by the hill in this fashion.

Two mighty oxen were dragging stones from the river-bed wherewith
to build the church, when they came to a very steep hill, up which
they found it most difficult to pull the huge stone. At last, in
his struggle to do so, one of the animals fell down dead. When this
happened, its mate stood and bellowed nine times with force so terrific
that the valley shook, and the hill fell down flat, so that the stone
could be drawn easily to the site of the church. Once on a time the
traveller would be shown an immense horn, said to have fallen from the
head of one of these oxen, which gave its name of the “Bellowing One”
to the stream below.

To the left of the Teify Valley, some miles farther up its course, lies
the great Bog of Tregaron, six miles long and one broad, and far more
like an Irish bog than any other quagmire in this country.

Picture to yourself a vast flat, brownish expanse, with pools of
gleaming black water here and there, dotted by hillocks formed by
stacks of black turf cut from its surface. It is loneliness itself, in
spite of a brown-smocked turf-cutter here and there at work; and over
it the only sound that echoes is the cry of the wild-duck, the peewit,
or grouse.

Farther up still we find the Teify among the mountains, flowing in a
valley, at the head of which stand the ruins of Strata Florida. Most
solitary is this, perhaps, of all the lonely spots which those old
Cistercian monks chose out in the wilderness, and “made to blossom like
the rose.”

The monastery was probably founded by Rhys ap Griffith in 1164--“My
Lord Rhys, the head, and shield, and strength of the south and of all
Wales,” as the chronicler calls him. It became the darling of the
Welsh chieftains, who showered lands and money upon the monks, until
they found themselves the owners of the mountain-range above, and of
most of the wide valley in which stand the ruins, and the most noted
sheep-farmers in Wales.

In one of these cells was preserved the parchment, still in existence,
upon which was kept, every day for one hundred and thirty years, a
“chronicle” of the Welsh history of the time, which only ends with the
death of Llewelyn.

Here, too, lies buried beneath the great yew-trees of the graveyard a
famous Welsh poet of the fourteenth century, named Dafydd ap Gwilym
(David, son of William).

Welsh literature is full of the love-poems addressed by this poet to
Morfydd, his loved one, “Maid of the glowing form and lily brow beneath
a roof of golden tresses.”

She was above him in birth, and was sent to a convent in Anglesey to
be out of his way. Ap Gwilym, disguised as a monk, followed her to a
monastery close by, but only to hear that she had been married to a
husband much older than herself. In desperation the bard tried to carry
her off, but was seized and thrown into a Glamorgan prison until he
could pay a large fine. But his fellow-poets would not let the “chief
bard of Glamorgan” languish in a dungeon; they paid his fine, and set
the prisoner free to sing again of Nature and of love.

Ap Gwilym died in the year of Glendower’s revolt, still grieving for
his lost Morfydd, and, with her name on his lips, passed away, and was
buried under the walls of the great abbey that had sheltered his last
years.




CHAPTER XIV

THE DEVIL’S BRIDGE


Central Wales is a land of hills and breezy uplands, enclosed by low
mountain-ranges full of romantic gorges and hidden valleys.

It includes the north of Cardiganshire and part of the shire of
Montgomery, and is famous in history as the battle-ground upon which
many a struggle between the Men of the South and the Men of the North
was fought out.

The first place of interest on its coast-line is Aberystwith. Here you
will find the moated mound, which is all that is left of a castle,
built by Gilbert de Clare, one of the barons of Henry I., to guard his
newly acquired province of Cardigan or Ceredigion; the southern part
being guarded by the castle we have already seen at Cardigan itself, on
the mouth of the Teify.

The much more important ruins of a castle that stand near the College,
and overlook the sea, are the remains of a later building in the days
of Edward I.

Close by, the fine grey building of the University College brings
us back to the present day, and reminds one of the fashion in which
Wales, so long supposed to be behind-hand in the march of progress,
led the way by founding her own University, with noble colleges at
Bangor, Aberystwith, and Cardiff, where her sons and daughters might
complete the education begun in the intermediate and primary schools
throughout the Principality. Not only may Wales pride herself on her
University, but also on her boldness in first making the experiment
of teaching boys and girls, young men and women together on precisely
equal terms--an experiment in co-education which England herself has
hesitated to make.

There are many interesting expeditions to be made round this pretty
seaside town. Near by is Llanbadarn, the Church of St. Paternus, a
Breton monk, who, in the sixth century, brought the Christian faith to
this region. This church developed into a monastery in later days, and
became a refuge in the twelfth century for an unusually studious Bishop
of those days, who was driven from St. David’s by the rough Norman
barons and their favourite priests, and who found at Llanbadarn leisure
and peace to write his record of the Welsh saints in older times, and
to keep a valuable “chronicle,” or history, of his own day.

Along the coast is Borth, and on the beach there, “between the Dovey
and Aberystwith,” may have been that Weir of Gwyddno, of which we read
in the first chapter. There, you will remember, the unfortunate youth
Elphin found a leathern bag with a child inside, who told him that he
would be to him “in the days of his distress better than any three
hundred salmon.” And you shall hear now how, on one occasion alone,
Taliesin, the child-bard, was as good as his word.

[Illustration: OLD ROMAN BRIDGE NEAR SWANSEA. _Page 4._]

Elphin had been made prisoner by the cruel King Maelgwn, who cast him
into a dungeon, barred by thirteen locked doors. After some attempts
had been made in vain to win his freedom, Taliesin bade Elphin wager
the King that he had a horse both better and swifter than the King’s
horses. The King accepted the challenge, promised him his freedom if he
should win the race, and fixed day, and time, and place for the trial
of the steeds.

When all was ready, the King went thither with all his Court and four
and twenty of his swiftest horses; while Elphin could only muster a
sorry nag ridden by a barefoot boy.

The course was marked out and the horses placed ready, when Taliesin
came running with twenty-four sprigs of holly, burnt black, in his
hand, and he bade the barefoot boy place the twigs in his belt. Then,
as he did so, he whispered and bade him let all the King’s horses
get before him, and as each overtook him, to strike the horse with a
holly-twig over the crupper, and then let that twig fall, and then
to take another twig and do the same to every one of the horses as he
was overtaken by each.

He also told the boy to watch carefully when his own horse should
stumble, and to throw down his cap on the spot.

All this was done, and every one of the King’s horses, when he was
struck by the holly-twig, began to lag behind, so that the horse of
Elphin, ridden by the barelegged boy, won the race with ease.

So the King was forced to release Elphin, and when this was done,
Taliesin took his master to the spot where his horse had stumbled, and
bade workmen dig a hole there, and when they had dug deep enough they
found a cauldron full of gold. Then said Taliesin:

“Elphin, take thou this as a reward for having taken me out of the
weir, and reared me from that time until now.” So Elphin went home a
rich man to his father.

Borth is not the only place in the neighbourhood which is connected
with this wonderful bard of the sixth century. His grave is said to lie
among the hills above the village of Taliesin, and anyone who lies in
that hollow for a night alone is said to awake next morning either a
poet or a madman.

Exactly the same thing is said of the man who is bold enough to spend
the night on the top of Cader Idris, the home of a giant bard who is
said to have invented the harp, and which is also known to us as the
second highest mountain in Wales.

If we want to take a long excursion from Aberystwith, we can visit
the famous Devil’s Bridge in the Plynlimmon district, which is called
one of the wonders of Wales. This, of course, was visited by the
indefatigable Borrow, who thus describes the spot:

“To the north, and just below the hospice, is a profound hollow, with
all the appearance of the crater of an extinct volcano. At the bottom
of this hollow the waters of two rivers unite--those of the Rheidol
from the north, and those of the Afon-y-Mynach, or ‘Monk’s River,’ from
the south-east.

“The Rheidol, falling over a rocky precipice at the northern side
of the hollow, forms a cataract very pleasant to look upon from the
window of the inn. Those of the Mynach, or Rhyddfant, which pass under
the celebrated Devil’s Bridge, are not visible, though they generally
make themselves heard. The waters of both, after uniting, flow away
through a romantic glen towards the west. The sides of the hollow are
beautifully clad with wood.

“Penetrate now into the hollow. You descend by successive flights of
steps, some of which are very slippery and insecure. On your right is
the Monk’s River, roaring down its dingle in five successive falls, to
join its brother, the Rheidol. Each of the falls has its own peculiar
basin, one or two of which are said to be of awful depth. The length
which these falls, with their basins, occupy is about five hundred feet.

“On the side of the basin of the last but one is the cave, or the site
of the cave, said to have been occupied in old times by the Wicked
Children, two brothers and a sister, robbers and murderers. At present
it is nearly open on every side, having, it is said, been destroyed to
prevent its being the haunt of other evil people....

“Of all the falls, the fifth or last is the finest. You view it from
a kind of den, to which the last flight of steps, the ruggedest and
most dangerous of all, has brought you. Your position here is a wild
one. The fall, which is split in two, is thundering beside you; foam,
foam, foam is flying all about you; the basin or cauldron is boiling
frightfully below you; grim rocks are frowning terribly above you,
and above them forest trees, dank and wet with spray and mist, are
distilling drops in showers from their boughs.

“But where is the bridge--the celebrated Bridge of the Evil One?

“From the bottom of the first flight of steps leading down into the
hollow you see a modern-looking bridge bestriding a deep chasm or
cleft to the south-east, near the top of the dingle of the Monk’s
River. That, however, is not the Devil’s Bridge, but about twenty
feet below that bridge, and completely overhung by it, don’t you see
a shadowy, spectral object, something like a bow, which likewise
bestrides the chasm? You do? Well, that shadowy, spectral object is the
celebrated Devil’s Bridge. It is now quite inaccessible except to birds
and the climbing, wicked boys of the neighbourhood....

“To view it properly and the wonders connected with it you must pass
over the bridge above it and descend a dingle till you come to a small
platform on a crag. Below you now is a frightful cavity, at the bottom
of which the waters of the Monk’s River, which comes tumbling from a
glen to the east, whirl, boil, and hiss in a horrid pot or cauldron in
a manner truly tremendous.

“On your right is a slit, through which the waters, after whirling
in the cauldron, escape. The slit is wonderfully narrow, considering
its height, which is considerably over a hundred feet. Nearly above
you, crossing the slit, which is partially wrapped in darkness, is the
far-famed bridge, the Bridge of the Evil One--a work which, though
crumbling and darkly grey, does much honour to the hand that built it,
whether it was the hand of Satan or of a monkish architect, for the
arch is chaste and beautiful, far superior in every respect to the one
above it.

“Gaze on these objects--the horrid seething pot or cauldron, the gloomy
slit, and the spectral, shadowy Devil’s Bridge for about three minutes,
allowing a minute to each, then scramble up the bank, for you have seen
enough.

“And if pleasant recollections do not haunt you through life of the
noble falls and the beautiful wooded dingles to the west of the Bridge
of the Evil One, and awful and mysterious ones of the monk’s boiling
cauldron, the long, savage, shadowy cleft, and the grey, crumbling
spectral bridge, I say boldly that you must be a very unpoetical person
indeed!”[5]

[Footnote 5: Borrow, “Wild Wales.”]




CHAPTER XV

THE GLOWING MOUNTAIN


Our last peep shall be taken in the busy region of South Glamorgan,
where the hills and valleys present a very different scene from
those amongst which we have lately wandered. For here is the home of
coal--that powerful material which produces the force required for
most of the machinery of the world.

Above the vales of Dowlais, Neath, and Taff, over the Rhondda Valley
and the towns of Merthyr Tydvil and Aberdare, hangs a perpetual
smoke-cloud from the vast furnaces which are always busy smelting iron
and steel from the neighbouring coal-fields, or, west of Swansea,
copper imported from abroad. Some of these valleys are simply a
succession of mining villages, the home of strenuous toilers who
all day and all night are working their turns, or “shifts,” some
underground in the mines, some at the furnaces, some sending off the
coal, and iron, and copper to the great port of Cardiff, or the lesser
ones at Swansea or Barry.

There is nothing very picturesque about this region, although it can
boast of the ruins of many strong castles, some interesting churches,
and the beautiful Vale of Glamorgan--a region of meadows and grassy
slopes, upon which feed fat cows and oxen to their hearts’ content.

But this is, perhaps, too tame to be attractive; nor, apart from the
almost terrible interest attached to all coal-mines, is there anything
to keep us lingering in the blackened valleys of the district.

There is one curious feature, however, at which you will like to take
a peep. Borrow, of course, found it out, and called it the Glowing
Mountain.

He was on his way to Merthyr Tydvil when, as it began to grow dark,
he came to the beginning of a vast moor. In the distance he could see
weird blazes and hear “horrid sounds”; and, as he went on up hills and
down dales, night set in, very black and still. Having toiled to the
top of a steep ascent, he stopped to take breath, and saw a glow on all
sides in the heavens except in the north-east quarter.

“Turning round a corner at the top of the hill, I saw blazes here and
there, and what appeared to be a Glowing Mountain in the south-east. I
went towards it down a descent, which continued for a long, long way.
So great was the light cast by the blazes and that wonderfully glowing
object, that I could distinctly see the little stones upon the road.

“After walking for about half an hour, always going downwards, I saw
a house on my left hand, and heard a noise of water opposite to it. I
went to the waterfall, drank greedily, and then hurried on, more and
more blazes and the glowing object looking more terrible than ever.

“It was now above me at some distance to the left, and I could see
that it was an immense quantity of heated matter, like lava, occupying
the upper and middle parts of a hill, and descending here and there
almost to the bottom in a zigzag and winding manner. Between me and the
Glowing Mountain lay a deep ravine. After a time I came to a house,
against the door of which a man was leaning.

“‘What is all that burning stuff above, my friend?’

“‘Dross from the iron forges, sir.’”

“I now perceived a valley below me, full of lights, and, descending,
reached houses and a tramway. I had blazes now all around me ... and
finally found myself before the Castle Inn at Merthyr Tydvil.”

In the morning he revisits the scene.

“The mountain of dross which had startled me on the preceding night
with its terrific glare, looked now nothing more than an immense dark
heap of cinders. It is only when the shades of night have settled
down that the fire within manifests itself, making the hill appear an
immense glowing mass.”

And so, with Borrow, we will turn our backs on the great Welsh
coal-field, and say good-bye for the present to Wild Wales.


BILLING AND SONS, LTD. PRINTERS GUILDFORD




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