Closyd well with royall glas:
Fulfullyd it was with ymagery,
Every windowe by and by,
On each side had ther a gynne
Sperde with manie a dyvers pynne.”
It matters not now whether this was a place of prayer or place in
which the Queen arrayed herself. Pennant, when he made his famous “Tour
in Wales,” described Conway as castle of matchless magnificence, and a
matchlessly magnificent Castle it still is.
It takes but a single effort of the imagination to see again the
life within that ancient harp-shaped town as it must have been even
so recently as seventy-five years ago: the varying colours of the
peasants’ dresses, their large market-baskets and umbrellas, their
bright handkerchiefs, the tall North Walian beaver hats and frilled
caps peeping out beneath, the bright cheeks and even brighter pink
cotton jackets worn by the girls. Healthy, well-made peasants those,
neat of garb and gay of heart, good-looking, both men and women. Again
the old market-place, beyond Plas Mawr and the church, rings with their
laughter and their lively barter, and the clatter of their ponies’
hoofs; again the soft voices of the women are heard and the heavier
voices of the men; again they mount their horses, sometimes double, and
ride away out of the lively town to the silent hills beyond, through
Gyffin, where the colours in the old barrel vault of the church must
have been even brighter than they are now; perhaps they go as far as
some hillside like that on which Llangelynin still keeps its gray
sanctuary. Again down upon the old town settles a double silence. The
day’s work is done; twilight has come, and over all reigns a stillness
which is as that of a Welsh Sabbath.
Through the Vale of Conway, past Trevriw and Llanrwst with its Gwyder
Castle, past beautiful Bettws-y-Coed and Capel Curig, and on to the
Pass of Llanberis, a walk of unrivalled beauty, there appears at last,
as one travels down to Pen-y-Pass (the head of the pass), the single
tower of the ruined castle of Dolbadarn. A Welsh triad says there are
three primary requisites for poetry: an eye that can see nature, a
heart that can feel nature, and a resolution that dares follow nature.
No one can come down from this road over the towering summits of
Snowdon to the little green valley in which Dolbadarn lies without, for
the time, becoming a poet, even to the resolution that dares follow
the spiritual counsels which come from sky and mountain and rushing
stream and the very rocks that fill this valley. “Nature has here,”
says Camden, “reared huge groups of mountains, as if she intended
to bind the island fast to the bowels of the earth, and make a safe
retreat for Britons in the time of war. For here are so many crags and
rocks, so many wooded valleys, rendered impassable by so many lakes,
that the lightest troops, much less an army, could never find their way
among them. These mountains may be truly called the British Alps; for,
besides that they are the highest in the whole island, they are, like
the Alps, bespread with broken crags on every side, all surrounding one
which, towering in the centre, far above the rest, lifts its head so
loftily, as if it meant not only to threaten, but to thrust it into the
sky.”
[Illustration: THE SUMMIT OF SNOWDON
_From an old print_]
The better one comes to know the castles of North Wales, the more is
one impressed with the extraordinary ability shown in fortifying every
access into the country. Dolbadarn itself is ancient; whether it dates
from before or after the Roman Conquest is doubtful; it was with the
thought of Llanberis Pass in mind that Tennyson wrote his “Golden
Year”; it was there that he heard
“the great echo flap
And buffet round the hill from bluff to bluff.”
Here in this castle Owen Goch was imprisoned by his brother Llewelyn.
To this prisoner a bard, Howel Voel ap Griffi ap Pwyll Gwyddel,
composed his Welsh awdl, or ode, called “The Captive of Dolbadarn.” The
feeling in this poem is still quick even after all the changes of the
centuries and even with all the loss from translation:--
“His palace gates no more unclose,
No harp is heard within his hall,
His friends are vassals to his foes,
Grief and despair have vanquished all.
He, the defender,--he, the good and just,--
Is gone; his name, his honour, in the dust!
“He prized but treasures to bestow,
He cherish’d state but to be free;
None from his walls unsped might go,
To all he gave, but most to me!
“Ruddy his cheeks as morning’s light,
His ready lance was firm and bright,
The crimson stains that on it glow
Tell of the Saxon’s overthrow.
“Shame, that a prince like this should lie
An outcast, in captivity.
And oh! what years of ceaseless shame,
Should cloud the Lord of Snowdon’s name!”
Professor O. M. Edwards, in his book called “Wales,” describes
Dolbadarn as the last home of Welsh independence.
Hundreds of years before the sad, peace-loving life of Llewelyn had
played its great part in Welsh history, in the valley that runs from
the head of the pass along the low margin of beautiful Gwynant Lake,
by a little river that talks gayly in all weathers but most gayly in
the stormiest, past Llyn (lake) Dinas to Beddgelert,--in this valley is
situated on Dinas Emrys some fragments and traces of one of the oldest
and most important strongholds in Great Britain. This was the fort of
Merlin who “called up spirits from the vasty deep.” There is melancholy
and romantic interest to be found on the summit of Dinas Emrys,
tracing what still remains. Something there is, perhaps enough for the
archæologist to re-create all that has been lost. On this same road,
some thirteen miles beyond, lies Carnarvon Castle, of whose history and
beauty I have written in “The City of the Prince of Wales.”
In the “Mabinogion” there are wild-wood touches showing aspects of
the life the Cymru had lived. The redactor of the old story of Branwen
says: “Then they went on to Harlech … and there came three birds and
began singing unto them a certain song, and all the songs they had ever
heard were unpleasant compared thereto; and the birds seemed to them
to be at a great distance from them over the sea, yet they appeared as
distinct as if they were close by.” And again, “In Harlech you will
be feasting seven years, the birds of Rhiannon singing unto you the
while.” Just as the “Dream of Maxen Wledig” is in a sense the story
of Carnarvon Castle, so is this tale of Branwen, the “fair-bosomed,”
full of pictures and suggestions of Harlech Castle, Bendigeid Vran
(the blessed) sitting on a rock and looking out to sea,--across that
enchanted bay, on the other side of which lies Criccieth Castle, while
the King of Ireland, Matholwch, his ships flying pennants of satin,
comes wooing the sister of Branwen. A strange story this which has
come out of that old castle stronghold, its royal Irish lover, its
good Bendigeid Vran, its beautiful Branwen, the tame starlings and the
singing-birds of Rhiannon, and that cry of Branwen, “Alas, woe is me
that I was ever born”; and after that cry, the heart that broke and was
buried in the four-sided grave on the banks of the Alaw.
Harlech Castle was probably originally built about the middle of
the sixth century by a British prince. Edward I constructed the
present castle on the ruins of the former one. It was finished in
the thirteenth century and became the seat of many conflicts between
Owen Glendwr and the English. Thither heroic Margaret of Anjou fled,
following the battle of Northampton. It was the last of the castles
to hold out for Charles. The whole life of this stronghold has been
heroic, stupendous in size, gallant in its human figures, impressive
in its human sorrows, indomitable in its human courage. Here, and in
the other castles of North Wales, many of those strange prophecies of
Taliessin have been fulfilled or in part fulfilled, something at least
of
“All the angels’ words
As to peace and war.”
THE END
_Appendix_
APPENDIX
_Suggestions for Some Tours_[2]
At the junction of the Llugwy and Conway valleys, embowered in
trees, cut by rushing streams, surrounded by mountains, among them
Siabod, the Glyders, and some of the lesser hills of Snowdonia, is
Bettws-y-Coed, one of the most beautiful and, be it said, the most
comfortable villages in all North Wales. There are good inns, good
lodgings, excellent train-service, coaches,--all that mankind in a
holiday humour can desire. This little “chapel in the woods” is a place
rich in beautiful legend, near the sea, in the midst of mountains, for
the sportsman blessed with good fishing and good hunting. Artists go
there, and where artists go, others can afford to follow. The Lledr
Valley, which meets the Conway just outside of Bettws, Ruskin called
the most beautiful valley in the world. At Bettws-y-Coed, I think, are
as fine headquarters as any in North Wales for a series of tours. The
Waterloo Hotel, the Royal Oak, the Gwydir are all good hotels, well
run, sanitary, and with excellent food. In Bettws, too, there is a
first-rate garage from which you can get good cars at any time.
Repeated experience of life in North Wales in its most isolated,
tiny hamlets, where the tourist had never been before and where it
was impossible to secure lodging; experience in the small towns like
Conway and Carnarvon, full of association, quiet and yet prosperous;
and experience in the larger centres of Welsh life, have given me a
perspective which is, perhaps, uncommon. The great advantage of Bettws
is that you can not only get everywhere from that delightful place, but
that you can also be most comfortable at a reasonable rate.
If you are touring in an automobile you will find each one of the tours
which I suggest food merely for a day of comfortable delight. If you
are walking, or driving, these tours can be broken up and shortened or
extended indefinitely.
* * * * *
For the FIRST DAY go up the Vale of Conway, stopping at Trefriw.
On your way to Trefriw, you will pass through Llanrwst, which, dear
old market-town that it is, will for liveliness on a market-day
suggest Piccadilly rather than a little Welsh town. There from miles
around--and if you wish to see a Welsh market you cannot do better
than to go to Llanrwst, for during centuries it has had a great
reputation as a place of barter--there from miles around, the Welsh
peasants gather, and there you will see Welsh household articles
which you could not find in any shop. There is much in Llanrwst worth
taking a glimpse at, the old bridge built by Inigo Jones which would
be enough to send a well-regulated motor car to the madhouse, but
from the artist point of view is still useful; the little cottage by
the bridge, Gwydir Castle just beyond the cottage, not a tumble-down
castle either, but resplendent with gorgeously carved furniture and
Spanish-leather-covered walls and relics too many and too old to
enumerate.
But on to Trefriw and from Trefriw climb the hill on foot,--it is only
a short hill,--to see Llanrhychwyn Church, a double-aisled church of
the most primitive simplicity, where Prince Llewelyn used in tumultuous
days to worship. One aisle is considerably older than the other,
dating, as its architecture, the details of its rafters, the windows
and doors show, perhaps back as far as the eighth century, surely the
ninth. And now to Conway, stopping by the way at Caerhûn for just a
glimpse of the old church there and a long enough time to realize that
you are standing on the foundations of what was once the ancient Roman
city of Canovium. Do not stay there so long that you will not have
time to turn on a road just about a mile and a half outside of Conway
that leads up the hill to Llangelynin Church, also one of the oldest
foundations in all Great Britain, a poor, stricken, old place tended by
a woman scarcely strong enough to creep around, apart from any village
or any cottages, remote, pathetic in its semi-decay, and containing
still the old pulpit, some of the old glass, and a leper’s window
through which lepers used in the Middle Ages to receive the sacrament
and to listen to the services.
And now you are almost within the harp-shaped castle walls of Conway
itself--old Conway with its cobbled streets, its beautiful Plas Mawr,
its ancient hostelries, its massive castle with the oratory of Queen
Eleanor still looking out upon the sea, and--treasure not to be
despised--near the castle the tiniest cottage in all Great Britain.
There are good hotels in Conway where an excellent luncheon or dinner
may be found, and if there is time for sight-seeing, perhaps the
best thing to do would be to buy one of Abel Heywood’s penny guides,
for in these penny guides is found a wealth of reliable information.
Enough, this, for one day’s joy, and I have discovered for you what
no guide-book would do--two, and perhaps three, of the sweetest old
churches of primitive Wales.
* * * * *
Leaving Bettws-y-Coed on the SECOND DAY, you will go through Capel
Curig, stopping on the way for a glimpse of the Swallow Falls. Now,
down through the valley past Llyn Ogwen, from which you can visit, if
you wish, the Devil’s Kitchen or Twll Ddu, the “black hole,” as the
Welsh call it, where, every year, foolish young collegians lose their
lives in scaling the walls. In its lack of verdure, in its stupendous
rocky mountain summits, in its gigantic boulders of stone thrown hither
and yon, this valley is a veritable valley of the shadow of death,
gray, desolate, rock-strewn. You will pass through Bethesda on your
way to Bangor, seeing, as you go along, hillsides covered with rubbish
from slate quarries. And now to Bangor, where Dr. Samuel Johnson over
one hundred years ago found the inn, together with a great deal else
in Wales, “very mean.” Although the good Doctor was tremendously
interested in his food, despite the very meanness of the inns, he found
Bangor, its Beaumaris Castle, and its cathedral, interesting. But they
have changed the “meanness” of their inns now, for this Welsh town has
become a university town and you will find good food and good inns.
Only a few miles beyond is Carnarvon,--that old town which North
Walians claim as the most interesting of all their towns,--and
Carnarvon Castle, in the words of Pennant, “the most magnificent badge
of our subjection to the English.” There in Carnarvon the investitures
of the Princes of Wales have taken place. Carnarvon Castle is, with the
exception of Alnwick, the finest of all Great Britain and possessed of
the romantic grace--its casements looking out upon the sea and the dim
romantic shores of Anglesey and its towers back upon the rocky sides
of Snowdon--of any European castle. Within the walls of this castle,
begun by Edward I and completed by his son, the first English Prince
of Wales, and within the walls of the town,--for Carnarvon is a city
of the early Middle Ages founded upon the ancient city of the Romans
called Segontium,--many hours, even days, might be spent.
Homewards now to Bettws through Llanberis, up the long, beautifully
graded road to Pen-y-Pass (which means simply the head of the pass),
where you will find an inn for mountaineers in whose attractive
dining-room you can have delicious tea and a view unrivalled in all
North Wales. From Pen-y-Pass one of the easiest ascents of Snowdon can
be made, and, with Bettws as a centre, it would be a very simple thing
to run down to Pen-y-Pass for an ascent. You are within a few miles of
Bettws now and will reach there in time for supper or dinner at seven
o’clock.
* * * * *
On the THIRD DAY go through Capel Curig again, turning at
Pen-y-Gwryd,--where Charles Kingsley, the novelist, and Tom Hood spent
so many happy days and where there is an excellent inn,--to go to
Beddgelert. You will run down one of the most beautiful roads in Great
Britain, wide, smooth, with all Snowdonia at your right-hand side,
and on the left, mountains that roll away towards the jagged summit
of Cynicht; down past beautiful Lake Gwynant; past beautiful country
places; past Dinas Lake where a remarkable creature of mythological
times is supposed to have lived--fairy tale seems to have made a sort
of crocodile out of what was probably a beaver;--past Dinas Emrys,
on which there are still remains of a Roman stronghold and where the
magician Merlin Ambrosius worked many a spell and Arthur has often
been; still on, past Aran, a mountain only less high than Snowdon, from
whose side leaps a little waterfall; along a road with a turbulent
Welsh river on one side and fawn-like, mottled beach trees on the
other; now on to the outskirts of the village, where one begins to
see signboards announcing lodgings, and finally, into the village of
Beddgelert, set sheltered and surrounded in its cup of mountains, and
where, if you have a heart for legend, you may see a dog’s grave and
believe the beautiful old tale; and where, if you have an eye for
beauty, you may have your eyes filled--eat your cake, indeed, and take
some of it away with you;--and where, if you have a mind to rest, you
may stay on indefinitely, finding each day more peaceful and more
lovely than the last in that little mountain-cupped village, with the
sound of its running rivers and its tumbling mountain streams and the
day-long cawing of its rooks. If you want a welcome from some one who
loves Americans and who will do all that she can for them, you could
not do better than go to Mrs. Howell Griffith Powell, who will give you
excellent simple food and, if it is a cold day or you happen merely
to want it as an added pleasure, an open fire. There are good hotels
there, too, the Royal Goat Hotel and the Prince Llewelyn.
Then in the afternoon you will go on down through Aberglaslyn Pass.
Perhaps you will stand on the old bridge for a few minutes and read or
listen to the story of how the Devil--always a singularly active figure
in Wales and the Welsh imagination--tried to get an unjust toll for
the building of that bridge and was outwitted. The Welsh mind--and the
revival is a point in proof--takes a singular delight in outwitting
the Devil. Now, on to Tremadoc, where on the right-hand side of the
road you will see the house in which Shelley, the poet, lived for a
year with poor unhappy Harriet. From Portmadoc you can take a short
détour to Harlech and its castle, a tremendous old pile of a fortress,
scarcely beautiful, but very impressive as it stands upon its vast rock
looking out over the sea and the mountains, and down over the little
cottages sheltered at its foot. As you look across the sea, you are
gazing upon the land where King Mark is supposed to have had his palace
and upon Criccieth, where you may still see an old stub of a castle.
Perhaps you will be even more interested to know that Lloyd George has
his summer home in Criccieth, and that not far from Harlech, Bernard
Shaw has spent a good deal of his time preparing his next delightfully
wicked laugh at the expense of himself and mankind. Just opposite
Harlech Castle is a good inn where one can get an ample dinner or
luncheon or tea; and a car or one’s walking-traps may be left.
Retracing a few miles from Harlech, follow the road through the
beautiful Vale of Maentwrog. It was in the Vale of Maentwrog that Lord
Lyttleton said, “One might with the woman one loves pass an age in this
vale and think it but a day.” Up through this wonderful vale you will
see a tiny narrow-gauge railway making its way. Sharp is the contrast
between the country at Festiniog, from which one looks down upon the
Vale of Maentwrog, and the country about Blaenau Festiniog, which is
the next town beyond. Blaenau Festiniog--high up on the mountain side,
with the peaks of gray rock summits towering high above the village
and rocks everywhere coming down to the backs of the houses, miles of
slate rubbish within sight of every street in the village--has for its
proud boast the fact that it contains the largest slate quarries in the
world. Here are quarried the beautiful blue slates of which Wales is
proud, and which, alas, the cheaper French slates have been driving out
of the market. It is well worth the trouble to climb the quarry steps
up the Oakeley Quarry. Then on through the Lledr Valley, with every
turn of the road near the Lledr River, through plantations of pines,
past little houses, down this beautifully graded road until the Lledr
River joins the Conway, past the Fairy Glen, and so home once more to
Bettws.
* * * * *
A FOURTH DAY should be spent in a more fertile part of the country
following the Cerrig-y-Druidion road through to Corwen. A few miles
farther on, along the river Dee, one comes to Llangollen, a sweet old
town, where lived those two dear, high-spirited, quaint old ladies of
Llangollen; where there are excellent inns in a fertile valley, good
shops, a town Welsh to its finger tips, and an old abbey called Valle
Crucis. One hears so much of Tintern Abbey on its southern English
river, yet there is something about Valle Crucis which I think is no
less lovely. More of a ruin it is, and in some ways more of a treasure.
On the whole, it has fallen into greater dilapidation, but there are
parts of it from which one can read much of a life that is past.
There is a charming old chapter house almost intact; a delightful old
fishpond from which the monks, who had an eye for what was good to
eat, took their carp; and there are such graceful Norman chimneys and
fireplaces as I do not remember having seen any place else; and there,
too, the old blind rector shows one the things which he cannot see any
more, saying over and over as he guides one around, “I never destroy
anything that is old.” The restoration of this abbey is his work, his
life, and before his sight went he had put into print such records of
its past life that he had identified himself with its history for all
time to come. Americans he loves, too, and you will give as well as get
pleasure.
* * * * *
In conclusion, a few general suggestions. You would find it amply
worth your while to motor over to Bala, or, if you are not motoring,
to take the train over there. The lake is beautiful, accommodations
are good, and one can, from Bala as a centre, make several short and
most interesting trips:--one to Dolgelly, where Tennyson spent so
many of his vacations; another up to the quaint little town of Ruthin
in which Dr. Johnson and Mrs. Piozzi (Mrs. Thrale) spent some little
time and of which Mrs. Piozzi tells the charming story which I have
repeated elsewhere. She was discussing with the caretaker of one of
the little churches in the possession of the Thrale family her plans
for her journey and mentioned that she was going to Ruthin. “Ruthin,
mum,” he said, “my wife came from Ruthin, and when she died I made up
my mind I’d go with the body to Ruthin, for I thought I would find it a
pleasant journey, and indeed, mum, I found it a very pleasant journey.”
[2] Buy anywhere you happen to be in Wales, _The Gossiping Guide to
Wales_; its maps, big and small, and its text answer all questions.
Price, one shilling.
The Riverside Press
CAMBRIDGE . MASSACHUSETTS
U . S . A
End of Project Gutenberg's Gallant Little Wales, by Jeannette Augustus Marks