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.