Llan Ddewi Brefi—Pelagian Heresy—Hu Gadarn—God of Agriculture—The Silver
Cup—Rude Tablet.
It was about eleven o’clock in the morning when I started from Tregaron;
the sky was still cloudy and heavy. I took the road to Lampeter, distant
about eight miles, intending, however, to go much farther ere I stopped
for the night. The road lay nearly south-west. I passed by Aber Coed, a
homestead near the bottom of a dingle down which runs a brook into the
Teivi, which flows here close by the road; then by Aber Carvan, where
another brook disembogues. Aber, as perhaps the reader already knows, is
a disemboguement, and wherever a place commences with Aber there to a
certainty does a river flow into the sea or a brook or rivulet into a
river. I next passed through Nant Derven, and in about three quarters of
an hour after leaving Tregaron reached a place of old renown called Llan
Ddewi Brefi.
Llan Ddewi Brefi is a small village situated at the entrance of a gorge
leading up to some lofty hills which rise to the east and belong to the
same mountain range as those near Tregaron. A brook flowing from the
hills murmurs through it and at length finds its way into the Teivi—an
ancient church stands on a little rising ground just below the hills,
multitudes of rooks inhabit its steeple and fill throughout the day the
air with their cawing. The place wears a remarkable air of solitude, but
presents nothing of gloom and horror, and seems just the kind of spot in
which some quiet pensive man, fatigued but not soured by the turmoil of
the world, might settle down, enjoy a few innocent pleasures, make his
peace with God and then compose himself to his long sleep.
It is not without reason that Llan Ddewi Brefi has been called a place of
old renown. In the fifth century, one of the most remarkable
ecclesiastical convocations which the world has ever seen was held in
this secluded spot. It was for the purpose of refuting certain doctrines
which had for some time past caused much agitation in the Church, and
which originated with one Morgan, a native of North Wales, who left his
country at an early age and repaired to Italy, where having adopted the
appellation of Pelagius, which is a Latin translation of his own name
Morgan, which signifies “by the seashore,” he soon became noted as a
theological writer. It is not necessary to enter into any detailed
exposition of his opinions; it will, however, be as well to state that
one of the points which he was chiefly anxious to inculcate was that it
is possible for a man to lead a life entirely free from sin by obeying
the dictates of his own reason without any assistance from the grace of
God—a dogma certainly to the last degree delusive and dangerous. When
the convocation met there were a great many sermons preached by various
learned and eloquent divines, but nothing was produced which was
pronounced by the general voice a satisfactory answer to the doctrines of
the heresiarch. At length it was resolved to send for Dewi, a celebrated
teacher of theology at Mynyw in Pembrokeshire, who from motives of
humility had not appeared in the assembly. Messengers therefore were
despatched to Dewi, who after repeated entreaties was induced to repair
to the place of meeting, where after three days’ labour in a cell he
produced a treatise in writing in which the tenets of Morgan were so
triumphantly overthrown that the convocation unanimously adopted it and
sent it into the world with a testimony of approbation as an antidote to
the heresy, and so great was its efficacy that from that moment the
doctrines of Morgan fell gradually into disrepute. {529}
Dewi shortly afterwards became primate of Wales, being appointed to the
see of Minevai or Mynyw, which from that time was called Ty Ddewi or
David’s House, a name which it still retains amongst the Cumry, though at
present called by the Saxons Saint David’s. About five centuries after
his death, the crown of canonisation having been awarded to Dewi, various
churches were dedicated to him, amongst which was that now called Llan
Ddewi Brefi, which was built above the cell in which the good man
composed his celebrated treatise.
If this secluded gorge or valley is connected with a remarkable
historical event it is also associated with one of the wildest tales of
mythology. Here according to old tradition died one of the humped oxen
of the team of Hu Gadarn. Distracted at having lost its comrade, which
perished from the dreadful efforts which it made along with the others in
drawing the avanc hen or old crocodile from the lake of lakes, it fled
away from its master, and wandered about till coming to the glen now
called that of Llan Ddewi Brefi it fell down and perished after excessive
bellowing, from which noise the place probably derived its name of Brefi,
for Bref in Cumric signifies a mighty bellowing or lowing. Horns of
enormous size, said to have belonged to this humped ox or bison, were for
many ages preserved in the church.
Many will exclaim who was Hu Gadarn? Hu Gadarn in the Gwlad yr Haf or
summer country, a certain region of the East, perhaps the Crimea, which
seems to be a modification of Cumria, taught the Cumry the arts of
civilised life, to build comfortable houses, to sow grain and reap, to
tame the buffalo and the bison, and turn their mighty strength to
profitable account, to construct boats with wicker and the skins of
animals, to drain pools and morasses, to cut down forests, cultivate the
vine and encourage bees, make wine and mead, frame lutes and fifes and
play upon them, compose rhymes and verses, fuse minerals and form them
into various instruments and weapons, and to move in masses against their
enemies, and finally when the summer country became over-populated led an
immense multitude of his countrymen across many lands to Britain, a
country of forests in which bears, wolves and bisons wandered, and of
morasses and pools full of dreadful efync or crocodiles, a country
inhabited only by a few savage Gauls, but which shortly after the arrival
of Hu and his people became a smiling region, forests being thinned,
bears and wolves hunted down, efync annihilated, bulls and bisons tamed,
corn planted and pleasant cottages erected. After his death he was
worshipped as the God of agriculture and war by the Cumry and the Gauls.
The Germans paid him divine honours under the name of Heus, from which
name the province of Hesse in which there was a mighty temple devoted to
him derived its appellation. The Scandinavians worshipped him under the
name of Odin and Gautr, the latter word a modification of Cadarn or
mighty. The wild Finns feared him as a wizard and honoured him as a
musician under the name of Wainoemoinen, and it is very probable that he
was the wondrous being whom the Greeks termed Odysses. Till a late
period the word Hu amongst the Cumry was frequently used to express
God—Gwir Hu, God knows, being a common saying. Many Welsh poets have
called the Creator by the name of the creature, amongst others Iolo Goch
in his ode to the ploughman:—
The Mighty Hu who lives for ever,
Of mead and wine to men the giver,
The emperor of land and sea,
And of all things that living be,
Did hold a plough with his good hand,
Soon as the Deluge left the land,
To show to men both strong and weak,
The haughty-hearted and the meek,
Of all the arts the heaven below
The noblest is to guide the plough.
So much for Hu Gadarn or Hu the Mighty, whose name puts one strangely in
mind of the Al Kader Hu or the Almighty He of the Arabians.
I went to see the church. The inside was very rude and plain—a rough
table covered with a faded cloth served for an altar—on the right-hand
side was a venerable-looking chest.
“What is there in that box?” said I to the old sexton who attended me.
“The treasure of the church, sir,” he replied in a feeble quaking voice.
“Dear me!” said I, “what does the treasure consist of?”
“You shall see, sir,” said he, and drawing a large key out of his pocket
he unlocked the chest and taking out a cup of silver he put it into my
hand saying:—“This is the treasure of the church, sir!”
I looked at the cup. It was tolerably large and of very chaste
workmanship. Graven upon it were the following words:—
“Poculum Eclesie De LXXN Dewy Brefy 1574.”
“Do you always keep this cup in that chest?” said I.
“Yes, sir! we have kept it there since the cup was given to us by de
godly Queen Elizabeth.”
I said nothing, but I thought to myself:—“I wonder how long a cup like
this would have been safe in a crazy chest in a country church in
England.”
I kissed the sacred relic of old times with reverence and returned it to
the old sexton.
“What became of the horns of Hu Gadarn’s bull?” said I after he had
locked the cup again in its delapidated coffer.
“They did dwindle away, sir, till they came to nothing.”
“Did you ever see any part of them?” said I.
“O no, sir; I did never see any part of them, but one very old man who is
buried here did tell me shortly before he died that he had seen one very
old man who had seen of dem one little tip.”
“Who was the old man who said that to you?” said I.
“I will show you his monument, sir,” then taking me into a dusky pew he
pointed to a small rude tablet against the church wall and said:—“That is
his monument, sir.”
The tablet bore the following inscription, and below it a rude englyn on
death not worth transcribing:—
Coffadwriaeth am
Thomas Jones
Diweddar o’r Draws Llwyn yn y Plwyf hwn:
Bu farw Chwefror 6 fed 1830
Yn 92 oed.
To the Memory of
Thomas Jones
Of Traws Llwyn (across the Grove) in this
parish who died February the sixth, 1830.
Aged 92.
After copying the inscription I presented the old man with a trifle and
went my way.