A Book of North Wales

CHAPTER VII

LLEYN

LLEYN is the promontory of Carnarvon that serves, with the Pembrokeshire headlands of Strumble and S. David’s, to form the Cardigan Bay. It bears a curious resemblance in outline to Cornwall. It has its Land’s End at Braich-y-pwll, its Mount’s Bay, Porth Nigel, and its Lizard Point at Pencilan. Bardsey may also be assumed as representing the Scilly group. The general aspect of Lleyn is also like that of Cornwall, no trees except in combes, heathery moors, and little ports between rocky crags.

Curiously enough, a number of Cornish saints settled here. But Cornwall can show no such bold heights as Yr Eifl (the Rivals) and Carn Fadryn. Their elevation is not great. Yr Eifl, rising into three peaks, is only 1,850 feet and Carn Fadryn less – 1,200 feet – but their shapes are finer than those of the tors of the Cornish moors.

Lleyn has several watering-places on the south coast, as Portmadoc, Criccieth, and Pwllheli, and those preferring the more bracing air on the north coast find what they desire at Nevin.

The peninsula was a stronghold of the Irish, who tyrannised over the British as the Roman’s grip on Britain relaxed. Their camps remain at Tre’r Ceiri, Pen-y-gaer, and Carn Bentyrch. The first of these occupied one of the summits of Yr Eifl, and is the finest specimen in Wales. From being situated so high and so far from building sites, it has not been molested, and the walls are in places fifteen feet high. It stands 1,500 feet above the sea, and towers precipitously above the village of Llanaelhaiarn in a valley below. There was a walk around the wall on the top protected by a parapet, which is perfect in several parts. The enclosure is of an oblong shape with outer defences where the side of the mountain was least steep, and the interior is crowded with cytiau, or hut-circles. The entrance is well defended, and is quite distinct, as is also a sally-port.

The situation is extremely wild and picturesque. The camp cries out to be scientifically and laboriously explored. It is now menaced by the terrible tripper coming over in char-à-bancs from Criccieth and Pwllheli, who respects nothing, and may amuse his empty mind by throwing down the venerable walls that are set up without mortar, the stones kept in position by their own weight alone.

What has stood in the way of the work of exploration has been the solitude and height at which stands the stone castle. Those undertaking the excavation would have to camp in it, and snatch the chances of bright days.

Below Yr Eifl is Nant Gwrtheyrn, the Valley of Vortigern, with some mounds indicating the site of the wooden hall of this unfortunate king. Hither he retired as his last place of refuge.

Unable effectively to resist the incursions of the Picts and Scots, he invited the Germans to come to his aid. But he did not venture on this upon his own initiative. He summoned a great national council to devise a remedy for the distress of Britain when an appeal to Rome had failed. The unanimous voice of the assembly authorised Vortigern to call to his assistance the Teutonic rovers. Hengest and his brother Horsa, with three tribes of Jutes and Angles, were accordingly invited over, and they landed in the Isle of Thanet in 449. With their aid Vortigern successfully rolled back the tide of northern barbarians, and then assigned Thanet to his new auxiliaries, in the fond belief that this would content them. He further undertook to furnish them with provisions in proportion to their numbers. Tempted by the alluring reports sent home by these adventurers, fresh tribes of Angles now poured in, and on the plea of insufficient remuneration, Hengest and Horsa led their countrymen to plunder the neighbouring Kent.

At the same time the beautiful Rowena, daughter of Hengest, arrived, and Vortigern, who met her at a banquet, was so fascinated by her charms that to gain her hand he consented to assign Kent to Hengest.

The Angles still pressed on; several battles were fought with various success. In one of these Vortimer, the gallant son of the king, was wounded, and, when he died, the exasperated Britons declared that he had been poisoned by Rowena. Still the invaders advanced, and the Britons met with a crushing defeat at Ebbsfleet.

Vortigern was doubtless incapable, vacillating, and weak. The anger of the Britons, now in deadly alarm, was concentrated on him. A general revolt against him ensued, and, headed by Ambrosius Aurelius and encouraged by S. Germanus – not he of Auxerre, but a nephew of S. Patrick – he was driven from his throne, and took refuge under the old Irish fortress of Tre’r Ceiri. Germanus pursued him, and the wooden structure was set on fire. Tradition varies as to what became of him. Some supposed that he perished in the flames, others asserted that he managed to escape and wandered about with a few followers from place to place, and finally died of a broken heart. In the palace at the time was his granddaughter Madryn, wife of Ynyr, king of Gwent, with her little son. She was allowed to pass out of the fire, and she fled to the fortified hilltop that now bears her name – Carn Fadryn. Thence at the earliest opportunity she took boat, and found a home for the rest of her days in Cornwall. Her son embraced the ecclesiastical profession, and built himself a church under the shadow of the mountain to which his mother had fled for refuge.

In Madryn Hall, the seat of the Jones-Parry family, is a beautiful marble statue of her by an Italian artist, representing her flying from the burning palace with her babe in her arms.

Below Tre’r Ceiri, as already mentioned, is the village of Llanaelhaiarn, with a remarkable spring. It consists of a tank with stone seats about it for the bathers who awaited the “troubling of the waters.” This troubling consists in the sudden welling up of a gush of water charged with sparkling bubbles, first in one place and then in another.

The well has been closed and locked, as it adjoins the highway and is liable to contamination. To this was attributed an outbreak of diphtheria in the village a few years ago, when an order was made for the closing of the well doors, and the water is now conducted into the village by a pipe.

Aelhaiarn, “the Iron Brow,” was, according to the legend, an over-curious servant of S. Beuno. The saint was wont to go in the dead of night from Clynnog to Llanaelhaiarn to say his prayers on a stone in the midst of the river. Aelhaiarn one night, to gratify his curiosity, followed him, and was rewarded by being torn to pieces by wild beasts. Beuno picked up the poor fellow’s bones, and pieced them together, but “part of the bone under the eyebrow was wanting.” This he supplied with the iron on his pikestaff.

Llangybi was the foundation of S. Cybi when he escaped from the wreck of his boat, after crossing over from Ireland. His holy well and bath are in good preservation. This latter is also a tank, and there are niches in the wall for the seats of those who desired to bathe in the salutary waters. On the rocky height above is shown his chair, a natural throne in the rock, where he is supposed to have sat whilst instructing his disciples, who crouched among the fern and against the oak trees around.

There are several cromlechs about Criccieth, but not of any great size. Criccieth Castle was erected by Edward I. on the site of a prehistoric caer. It is now in the last condition of ruin.

Llanarmon must have been founded by, or in commemoration of, S. Germanus when he smoked Vortigern out of his last place of refuge.

At Castell March it is fabled that King March, one of Arthur’s warriors, resided, who had horse’s ears. The same story is told of him as of Midas. In order to conceal the fact, he killed every barber who trimmed his hair, and then buried him in a swamp. A piper happened to cut the reeds that grew there, but the pipe would play but one tune, “Mae clustiau march i Farch ab Meirchion,” and the attendants on the king, regarding this as an insult, fell on the piper and killed him. But when one of them put the pipe to his lips, again it would play no other tune. It was then discovered where the reed had been cut, and the whole story came out.

March was the husband of the fair Iseult, who eloped with Tristan, his nephew. Twenty-eight knights were sent in pursuit, but failed to catch the runaways. However, at last they were taken and brought before King Arthur, who decided that Iseult should spend half the year with Tristan and half with March, and it was left to the latter to decide whether he should have his wife with him whilst foliage was on the trees or when they were bare.

He chose the latter, whereupon Iseult exultantly exclaimed, “Blessed be the judgment of Arthur, for the holly and the ivy never drop their leaves, but are ever green; so farewell for ever to King March.”

An odd story is told of Irddw, great-grandson of March. He amused himself with taming wild fowl, by holding meat in the air, and they came for it to his hand, and he taught them to carry it off in pairs. He went to the Holy Land to fight the infidels, and was taken prisoner, but was allowed by the Sultan to walk in the open air, and he offered to show how he fed the wild birds. So meat was given to him, and he called, and multitudes of birds came, and he caught them by means of the meat, and they in their efforts to escape soared into the air, carrying Irddw along with them, and they flew over land and sea, and did not drop him till they reached his native Wales. In commemoration of his escape he added a flying griffin to his arms.

The little tarn of Glasfryn has a story connected with it that is found in connection with other sheets of water in Wales, in Ireland, and Brittany.

There was once a well there, but no lake, called Ffynnon Grassi, or Grace’s Well, that was walled about, and had several holes in the wall for the overflow to issue thence. Over the well was a door always kept shut, and it was placed under the charge of Grassi, who was bidden never leave the door open, but shut it down after drawing from it the supply required for domestic purposes. But one day she forgot to do this, and the well overflowed, and the water spread and formed a lake.

So as punishment for neglect she was changed into a swan, and in that form she continued to swim on the lake for successive years. Then, at length, she died; but still it is reported that at times her plaintive cry may be heard over the water that has swallowed up her home and its fair fields.

It is also reported that a mysterious Morgan, a monster, dwells at the bottom of the lake, and naughty children are threatened with being given to “Old Morgan” unless they amend their ways.

At Llanengan is a fine screen with rood-loft. The carving is coarse but effective. It is remarkable that in Wales it is the exception to find a screen without a loft, whereas among the hundred and fifty screens in Devon there are only two with the ancient loft left undemolished. The reason is this. The Devon rood-galleries were supported on fan vaulting, which, if beautiful, is not overstrong to support much weight. In Wales it is sustained by three, in some cases four, parallel rows of posts.

In the church is a huge oak chest, supposed to have been the coffin of Einion, king of Lleyn, but actually it was the chest for receiving the offerings made by pilgrims. Over the tower door is still to be seen an inscription, which reads “Eneanus Rex Walliae fabricavit;” it is, however, very much weather-worn. The present church was erected many centuries subsequent to his time. It was this prince who founded Penmon, and placed his brother Seiriol there. He also gave up the Isle of Enlli or Bardsey to S. Cadfan.

Bardsey became the Holy Isle of Wales, and the saints thought it profitable to retire to it for death and burial. It is said that so many as twenty thousand repose in it.

The island belonged to the late Lord Newborough, who erected a cross upon it, with the following inscriptions on three sides: —

When the Bollandist Fathers undertook to write their great work on the Saints of Christendom, they were staggered when they found that Ireland and Wales claimed to have had as many as all the rest of Christendom put together. They say of the Irish, “They would not have been so liberal in canonising dead men in troops whenever they seemed to be somewhat better than usual, if they had adhered to the custom of the Universal Church throughout the world.”

The total number of Welsh saints whose names are known as founders is about five hundred, but there are the twenty thousand whose bones lie in Bardsey, and Bishop Gerald of Mayo is said to have had three thousand three hundred saints under him.

But the fact is, a saint in the Celtic mind was something very different from one as conceived in the Latin Church. He was one who had entered the ecclesiastical profession, and was counted a saint, whatever his moral qualities were. Piro, Abbot of Caldey, tumbled into a well when drunk, and was drowned, but he was regarded as a saint all the same. The title of saint has changed its significance. S. Paul addressed the “saints” at Corinth, but he lets us understand that a good many of them were very disreputable characters, and a scandal even to the heathen. They were saints by vocation, but not by manner of life. In precisely the same way the Welsh called all those saints who took up the religious profession. Whether they were decent, well-conducted saints, that was another matter.

Not one of the old Irish saints was canonised, not even S. Patrick. None of the Welsh saints have been canonised except S. David.

Canonisation is of comparatively recent introduction. Originally the names of the dead, good and moderately good, were read out by the priest at the altar. Then the bishops took it on them to decide what names were to be read. Next the metropolitans claimed to determine this; and lastly, the sole right to canonise, that is to say, to include a name in the canon of the Mass was reserved to themselves by the popes.

Bardsey is not very easy of access, as a strong current runs between it and the mainland. A boat has to be taken at Aberdaron, but now it is best to go by steamer, which occasionally takes an excursion party from Pwllheli.

Another isle is that of S. Tudwal. To this a Roman Catholic priest retired a few years ago, and lived there the life of a solitary. It would seem to have been part of the pre-Celtic religion to believe in a spirit-land beyond the waters of the west; and this belief was taken up by Brython and Goidel alike. They looked west and saw the sun go down in a blaze of glory into the sea. Whither went it? What mysterious land did it go to illumine? Hy Brasil the Irish call the wondrous land to the present day, and the fishermen on the Galway and Clare coast imagine that at times they can see it above the rim of the ocean.

This it was which induced the Celtic saints to hasten, as death approached, to some isle that commanded an unbroken view of the sea to the sunset; they could die in peace looking over the waste of waters to the land of delight whither angels would transport their souls. That was the true Avallon to which the mysterious barge conveyed King Arthur —

It was in quest of this land that Brendan, the Navigator, set forth on his seven years’ voyage; and Madog, the Welshman, sailed in quest of it, when life at home became too troubled for his peace-loving spirit.

Dafydd ab Owen Gwynedd had obtained the throne in 1171 by killing his brother Hywel, but fearing every kinsman lest he should become a rival, he set himself to pick quarrels with his surviving brothers and cousins on one plea or other, and to crush or expel them.

Madog is described by the poet Llywarch ab Llewelyn as “the placid one.” He was a brother of the ambitious and unscrupulous Dafydd. He embarked with a picked crew of faithful followers in Cardigan Bay, and in the year 1170 started on an exploring excursion to the far west, far beyond Ireland, “in trouble great and immeasurable.”

Dafydd was alarmed; he feared that his brother had gone to obtain assistance in Ireland, and knowing that the bard, Llywarch, was his intimate friend, he tortured him with hot irons to wring from him the secret as to whither and for what purpose Madog had departed. Llywarch composed a poem whilst undergoing the ordeal, which is extant.

It was said that after a year Madog returned, and gathered to him other followers, to the number of three hundred men in ten ships, and again departed in 1172 for the wondrous land beneath the sunset, from which he never returned. Consequently he has been esteemed a forerunner of Columbus. But nothing is certainly known about him more than that he sailed away to the west.

Southey’s delightful epic Madoc is based on this story. The expeditions of Madog are spoken of by three contemporary poets, and also by Meredydd ab Rhys, in a poem written before Columbus was heard of.

In 1790 a young Welshman, John Evans, a native of Carnarvonshire, fired with these allusions and traditions of the extensive discoveries of Madog, made an expedition to America in the hopes of discovering traces there of the colony from Wales settled in the twelfth century. He ascended the Missouri for some 1,300 miles, but without success, and returned to S. Louis on the Mississippi to organise another expedition. However, he was prostrated by a fever, and died without accomplishing his object in 1797.

Catlin, in his Manners and Condition of the North-American Indians, convinced himself that he had found the descendants of the Welsh colony in the Mandans, but he has convinced no one else; and no other travellers have found a trace of Madog and his settlers from Wales.

The Celtic saints were children of light, and they followed the light. It was this that took them to Iceland in their wicker-work coracles, pursuing the summer sun.

When, in 870, the Norse refugees, deserting Norway rather than submit to Harold Fairfair, colonised Iceland, they found Irish and perhaps Welsh monks there, and the new-comers called them Papar. These eventually abandoned the island, as they did not care to live among heathen; but left behind them bells, croziers, and books.

Aberdaron, the little port whence pilgrims started for Bardsey, has a church of some interest that was ruinous, but has been recently put in order, and is empty, swept, but not garnished.

Here, at this harbour, in the house of the Dean of Bangor, David Daron, took place that meeting which has been represented by Shakespeare, where those united against Henry IV. contrived the partition of the land between them that they had, as yet, not conquered.

Shakespeare was not historically correct. Harry Hotspur had fallen at Shrewsbury in 1403, and the meeting did not take place till 1406. Those who met were the fugitive Earl of Northumberland, the father of Hotspur, Owen Glyndwr, and Edmund Mortimer.

Northumberland had, in fact, twice revolted against Henry IV., and had escaped to Scotland; he had lost nerve, as he saw tokens, or suspected them, of an inclination on the part of the Scots to exchange him with the English king for Lord Douglas, and he took ship and fled for France, but put in at the headland of Lleyn on his way, for conference with Glyndwr, who doubtless desired to send messages to France through the earl. The assembly took place on February 28th, 1406, and at it the Indenture of Assent was signed by the three contracting parties.

Owen had his bard with him, Iolo Goch, and the harper sang the prophecy of Merlin, which declared that the “mole accursed of God” should come to destruction, that a dragon and a wolf should have their tails plaited together and prevail, and that with them should unite the lion, and these three would divide the kingdom possessed by the mole.

The three who met at Aberdaron applied the prophecy to themselves. Owen was the dragon, Percy the lion, and Mortimer the wolf, and the mole was none other than the burrowing, crafty Henry Bolingbroke. Little came of this agreement. Percy after two years spent partly in France, partly in Wales, played his last stake in 1408, was taken on Bramham Moor and was executed.

Clynnog possesses a fine and interesting church, in which is Beuno’s chest.

Beuno had been residing near Welshpool, but as he was walking on a certain day near the Severn, where there was a ford, he heard some men on the further side inciting dogs in pursuit of a hare, and he made sure they were Englishmen, for one shouted “Kergia!” (Charge!) to the hounds. When Beuno heard the voice of the Englishman he immediately turned back, and said to his disciples, “My sons, put on your garments and your shoes, and let us abandon this place, for the nation of the man with the strange language, whose voice I heard beyond the river inciting his dogs, will invade this place, and it will be theirs.” Beuno left and went to Meifod, where he remained but forty days and nights with Tyssilio, and then went on into the territory of Cadwallon, king of Gwynedd, who gave him land on which to settle, far away from the hated Saxon. And he and his monks began to enclose an area with a mound and a moat. Whilst thus engaged, a woman came up with a child in her arms, and asked Beuno to bless it. “Wait a while,” said the abbot, “till we have done a bit of banking.” Then the child began to cry, so that it distracted the monks, and Beuno bade her still it.