Wales: Latest Posts — Folklore

The only relic of antiquity of much interest hereabouts is the Roman mine, a deep trench cut right through the hill, instead of a shaft being made, as in more recent times. This mine is on the side of Castell Cawr, a raised modern pathway having been formed across it. The ancient trench is, in some parts, of amazing depth. It is, or was, called by the Welsh, Ffos-y-bleiddiaid, or the ditch of the wolves. According to a local guidebook, -- "In driving a level into the mountain, some years ago, the miners discovered that the Romans had been deep in the bowels of the earth before them. They had followed the vein, where it was large enough to admit of a small man, and where it opened out into a larger chamber, they had cleared it quite away. When the vein became too small to admit a man, they were obliged to relinquish the ore. Some curious hammers and tools, but almost decayed into dust, were found in these chambers; also the golden hilt of a Roman sword."

About two miles and a half further on is the pass of Bwlch y Ddwyfaen, formerly distinguished by two large stone pillars fixed upright in the ground at about a hundred yards' distance from each other. Only one of them, that to the left of the road, is now standing. It is a block of stone, about ten feet high, quadrilateral at bottom and tapering to a point at top. It has tthe appearance of having been originally a huge boulder, partially and rudely cut on the sides, and then placed upright in the ground.

The other stone, a little further on to the right of the road, has fallen down, and has evidently been partially cut by rude workmen. These stones once probably belonged to a large circle.

Near them, to the left, is a mutilated cairn of loose stones. All these stones, according to local tradition, came there in somewhat an odd manner. A giant and his wife, many centuries ago, were travelling along this route to Anglesea. At this spot, they met a rustic of whom they enquired the distance. The poor fellow shook his head, and lifting up his feet, protected only by the remnants of what were evidently once thick wooden clogs, informed his astonished hearers that these were quite new when he quitted the island, and that he had walked direct from it ever since. The giant's wife was so discouraged by this that she gave the whole matter up as a bad job, and in her despair let fall the contents of her apron, these identical stones.

If these roads in ancient times were anything like what they now are, we can readily believe in the state of the rustic's clogs. They are quite rough enough to wear out soles of any thickness, whether of leather or of wood. Ours were in a rare state by the time we got to the station in Aber, between five and six miles further on.

One hundred yards from the church, adjoining the turnpike road, is St. Beuno's well, eight feet square, inclosed with a wall, no doubt, erected by himself, eight feet high, uncovered, and each side about the same dimension, with an entrance from the road.

The well itself is six feet square, the residue of the space is taken up with seats and conveniences for dipping.

The place is now exposed to ruin, and the vilest filth. The spring is suffered to grow up, and the water is not more than a foot deep. I could not perceive it spring up within, and the discharge without would not fill a tube half an inch diameter.

The process observed in the cure was dipping the patient in the well at evening, wrapping him in blankets, and letting him remain all night upon the Saint's tomb [..]

"If a person looks upon this well, and can see the water spring, good luck will attend him; but if he cannot, bad?" What then must become of the half blind! or even of me, whose eyes have been in wear seventy-seven years? [..]

Some ladies have drank at a favorite spring to procure conception; but the slippery damsels of the ten last centuries, have privately drank at St. Beuno's to prevent it.

[The Skirrid] is isolated, arising abruptly from the plain: the north-eastern side is a ridge, of a barren russet hue; towards the south the declivity is less; and towards the botom terminates in a gentle cultivated slope. The base is ornamented with wood, and enriched with luxuriant corn-fields and pasture; which form a gratifying contrast to the brown and dark aspect of its summit, covered with heath and ling.

Seen in different directions, it assumes a variety of forms: from one point it seems like a large long barrow; from another it appears globular; from others like a truncated cone..

..[on the NE summit] formerly stood a small chapel, the site of which is traceable in a circular hollow; but no vestiges of the building remains. The chapel was dedicated to St. Michael, whence the hill is denominated St. Michael's Mount. It is at times the scene of superstitious folly. The catholic, and ignorant persons among the lower classes, annually repair, on Michaelmas Eve, to pay their devoirs to the saint, and still consider the soil as sacred; quantities of which they carry away to strew over the coffins and graves of their deceased friends. Formerly it was considered as endued with miraculous efficacy for the curing of certain diseases; but the age of such gross blindness, it is hoped, for ever is past...

.. [on the rent in the mountain] Various have been the conjectures respecting the cause of this horrid yawning chasm. Ignorance, ever ready to cut the knot it is unable to untie; and credulity, as ready to credit the surmises of superstition, have trumped up the legendary story, that the mountain was rent asunder by the earthquake which happened at the crucifixion of the Saviour: hence it has obtained the appellation of Holy Mount, a name under which it is best known among the inhabitants of the county.

King Arthur's Cromlech, or as it is usually called, King Arthur's stone, stands on a high and bleak hill..

..Some authors who have described this Cromlech, say it has but eight columns: but Pedestres examined the whole very minutely, and on getting under it, he discovered that on the east side, there are two blocks of stone placed close together, thereby making nine, out of what had been noticed as only eight....

...We are told that a spring of clear water rises from beneath it, known by the name of Our Lady's Well.. .. there was not one drop however there at six o'clock P.M. on the 11th of June, 1833.. [he thought] he might discover an indication by grubbing downwards a little among the bones of mother Earth. But no:- it was all dry. He then looked at the sea - he cast his eye towards the mouth of the river, and the line of coast: - the tide was out.*..

..It is called the Stone of Sketty:-- and "like the work of the Stone of Sketty," has passed into a Welsh proverb to express an undertaking of vast difficulty.

.. occupying a romantic situation on a rocky promontory called Twryn y Witch (or the Witch's Nose).. [was] the Castle of Dundrivan (Castle of the Three Halls) where, according to tradition, Caradoc formerly kept his summer court.

If we may give credit to another story, a more recent possessor of Dunraven Castle [a 1700s mansion destroyed in the 1960s], Vaughan by name, was in the habit of alluring vessels to the coast by putting out false lights, that he might profit by the wrecks driven ashore, to which he was entitled as lord of the manor. In the very midst of his crimes, however, he lost his own three sons in one day, and, looking on this event as a judgement from heaven on his iniquities, he sold the estate to the family of Wyndham.

Some curious caverns are worn by the sea in the rock beneath the castle. Through one of them, called the Wind Hole, the sea is forced at times in lofty jets.

A curious legend connects the Five Saints with a large block of sandstone at Cynwyl Gaio called Carreg Pumpsaint. It stands upright at the foot of the hill below the Ogofau, the old Roman gold mines, and is shaped like a basalt column, with large artificial oval basin-shape hollows on its sides. It is three and a half feet high and a little over two feet in width.

The legend says that, time out of mind, there lived in the neighbourhood five saints who had a wide reputation for sanctity, and were objects of ill-will to a wicked magician who dwelt in caverns near. He had in vain tried to bring them into his power, until one day they happened to be crossing the Ogofau, and he, by his wicked enchantments, raised a terrific storm of thunder, lightning and hail, which beat upon and bruised the saints, and they laid their heads against a large boulder standing near for shelter. So great was the force of the hail that the impression of their heads can be seen to this day upon the four sides of the stone.

The enchanter transported the saints into his caverns (the Ogofau) where they sleep. Tradition says they will awake, and come back to the light of day, when King Arthur returns, or when the Diocese is blessed with a truly pious and apostolic prelate!

According to another version they were five young pilgrims on their way to the shrine of S. David, who, exhausted with fatique, reposed on this pillow their weary heads which a violent storm of rain and hailstones affixed to the stone. A malignant sorcerer appeared and carried them off to his cavern, where they are destined to remain asleep until the happy day mentioned.

The block, supposed to have on it the impression of the five heads on each of its four sides, has been extracted from the mine, and was originally horizontal. The hollows are actually mortars in which the quartz was crushed for gold.

It appears.. from the ancient and authentic records, that during the time St. Elwitus led the life of a hermit at Llanhamelach, the mare that used to carry his provisions to him was covered by a stag, and produced an animal of wonderful speed, resembling a horse before and a stag behind.

"suffered martyrdom upon a hill near Brecon, called Pen-ginger. This hill is now generally known by the name of Slwch, though part of it still retains its old appelation. Pen-ginger is a corruption of Pen cefn y Gaer, i.e., the summit of the ridge of the fortification, from an old British camp, the remains of which are still visible.

Not far from the camp stood the monastic house, which Giraldus Cambrensis calls a stately edifice, where Almedha is supposed to have officiated as principle, or lady abbess. It is now completely ruinated, and can only be traced by tradition to a spot where a heap of stones and an aged yew tree, with a wall at its root, marks its site.

.. [according to a Dr. Owen Pughe,] "The day of her solemnity is celebrated every year on the first day of August."* He then proceeds to record the miracles of the saint, and the faith and religious frenzy of her votaries; upon which his annotator is a little waggish, and hints that they might now and then have taken a cup too much.

There are many churches in Wales distinguished by their names [the names of St Breinioch's children], one of which, situated on the summit of a hill, near Brecheinoc, and not far from the castle of Aberhodni, is called the church of St. Almedda, after the name of the holy virgin, who, refusing there the hand of an earthly spouse, married the Eternal King, and triumphed in a happy martyrdom; to whose honour a solemn feast is annually held in the beginning of August, and attended by a large concourse of people from a considerable distance, when those persons who labour under various diseases, through the merits of the Blessed Virgin, received their wished-for health.

The circumstances which occur at every anniversary appear to me remarkable. You may see men or girls, now in the church, now in the churchyard, now in the dance, which is led round the churchyard with a song, on a sudden falling on the ground as in a trance, then jumping up as in a frenzy, and representing with their hands and feet, before the people, whatever work they have unlawfully done on feast days; you may see one man put his hand to the plough, and another, as it were, goad on the oxen, mitigating their sense of labour, by the usual rude song: one man imitating the profession of a shoemaker; another, that of a tanner. Now you may see a girl with a distaff, drawing out the thread, and winding it again on the spindle; another walking, and arranging the threads for the web; another, as it were, throwing the shuttle, and seeming to weave.

On being brought into the church, and led up to the altar with their oblations, you will be astonished to see them suddenly awakened, and coming to themselves. Thus, by the divine mercy, which rejoices in the conversion, not in the death, of sinners, many persons from the conviction of their senses, are on these feast days corrected and mended.