Up in the Montgomeryshire mountains, three or four miles from the
shores of Lake Vyrnwy, is the little village of Melangell, named after
a saint who for fifteen years, so the story goes, lived a lonely life
in the midst of the wild hills, sleeping on the bare rock, rather than
marry the man her father had designed for her.
St. Melangell was the daughter of a Welsh chieftain, and when she
ran away, to avoid the undesirable bridegroom, she hid herself in a
remote but lonely spot at the head of the Tanant. Every effort to make
her return to her father’s home failed and she continued to live her
secluded life, choosing the birds and the animals for friends.
After some fifteen years of this solitary existence, they say,
Brochwel, Prince of Powis, was hare hunting up in the hills and ran
his quarry into a dense thicket. He entered in pursuit and soon found
himself face to face with a woman of marvellous beauty beneath whose
robes the frightened hare had taken refuge.
This strange woman raised her hands in supplication, and begged the
Prince and his party to depart and spare the life of the animal that
had come to her for succour. It was one of her friends, she said. The
Prince, much impressed by this incident, halted, unable at first to
understand what was happening, but his attendant huntsman, ignoring the
gentle plea and anxious only to be on with the chase, raised his horn
to his lips to rally the hounds.
Then a strange thing happened. No sound issued from the horn, nor could
he remove it from his mouth to which it remained stuck fast.
In terror, the man fell upon his knees, and tried to beg forgiveness,
but he could not articulate. Then Prince Brochwel, realizing at once
that he was in the presence of a very holy woman, stepped forward and
asked her pardon, promising that the hare should receive no hurt from
him. The holy woman smiled and the huntsman regained his speech, his
horn dropping to the ground.
The Prince then asked Melangell what he could do to serve her.
Melangell asked for a grant of a small piece of land to serve as a
sanctuary. The Prince immediately gave her far more than she asked and
besought her to found upon it a convent.
So the good woman proceeded to carry out his wishes and lived the rest
of her holy life in a cell, which you may see to-day at the east end of
Melangell Church. And upon the cornice of the oak screen of the church
you will find carved many scenes from her life story.
St. Melangell ever retained her love for wild animals and is considered
to have taken hares, which she called her “lambs,” under her particular
protection. They say that even now, if you call upon St. Melangell to
aid a hare pursued by hounds, the animal will escape; consequently, the
holy woman is not greatly beloved of huntsmen.
Her lonely hill-side bed, upon which she slept for fifteen years,
still survives near the church. It is a recess in the rock now
overgrown with bushes, but is there for all the world to see, to prove
conclusively--if you require proof--the truth of this charming legend
of the solitary lady of the hills.
Melangell and the lovely country of hill and stream, and glittering
waterfalls, thickly wooded little valleys, and bare upstanding
mountains, that stretches all about it, is best reached from Llandrillo
Station on the picturesque line that runs from Corwen to Bala by
the valley of the Dee. This is a fine sporting country, where the
red grouse flourishes and where the streams and lakes hold trout in
abundance. “The Welsh Highlands” it is aptly called.
The Berwyn Mountains, that here divide Merioneth and Montgomeryshire,
rise to over 2,000 feet in Moel Ferna near Corwen, from which
station there is a motor car service in summer to Bettws-y-Coed, a
place, perhaps, more famed than any in Wales for the beauty of its
surroundings.
[Illustration: _Lake Vyrnwy._]
[Illustration: an old man pointing out a pile of gold to a younger man,
while others sleep on the floor.]