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Wales: Latest Posts — Folklore

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Dinas Gynfor (Hillfort)

One stormy night St Patrick was said to have been ship wrecked on the island of middle mouse below Dinas Gynfor. Being a very strong swimmer (!) he swam across strong currents to a cave beneath the present church of Llanbadrig (Badrig=patrick) finding refuge there and fresh water. He stayed and set up a Llan-thus bringing Christianity to these shores.

The church does date from the 6th century and there is a cave just below the graveyard with a spring running through it, so you never know this tale may have some truth in it.
skins Posted by skins
3rd May 2007ce

St Govan's Well and Chapel (Sacred Well)

A Wishing Cell. -- At St. Govain in Pembrokeshire there is a "wishing cell" in the rock. It is said that any one who turns round inside wishing for the same thing all the time, will get it before the end of the year. The place is still visited by young people who are in love.
p157 in
Notes on Welsh Folklore
Jonathan Ceredig Davies
Folklore, Vol. 30, No. 2. (Jun. 30, 1919), pp. 156-157.
Rhiannon Posted by Rhiannon
2nd May 2007ce

Harold's Stones (Standing Stones)

This must link to the idea that Harold fought a battle here (and hence erected the memorial stones):
We have many place-names, whose folk-etymology recalls the long-past border wars and commemorates real or imaginary battles. [..] At Trelleck (Mon.) is the Bloody Field, on which no crops will grow, nothing but gorse. "Eh, but it have been ploughed again and again, but 'tis no use; because of the blood spilt there, 'tis no use."
[..]
Legend said [the stones Jacky Kent threw] could never be moved, but alas! gunpowder has accounted for one at least on the English side of the Wye.
p163 in Folk-Lore of the Wye Valley
Margaret Eyre
Folklore, Vol. 16, No. 2. (Jun. 24, 1905), pp. 162-179.
Rhiannon Posted by Rhiannon
27th April 2007ce

This story is known in similar forms around Britain, for example Llanymynech Hill and Fiddler's Hill. It seems odd that although this one's based in Trelleck, the stones themselves aren't mentioned. Unless of course it was obvious to the teller and implied, but not known to the recorder.
There was a tradition at Trelleck, [so says Mrs Perrett or Bevan at Tregagle], of a fiddler having been lost in a cave; he was heard playing underground for years afterwards. Another story of the same sort, or possibly an explanation of the above, is that some people passing through a certain meadow used to hear lovely music. Several times they heard it, and at least they collected some folk together to investigate it. They traced the music to a certain spot, and there they dug in the ground, disclosing at last an underground cave wherein were two old men, hermit-like, playing, one a violin, the other a harp. They had been there many years, and used to take it in turns to go out at night and fetch food. Very old and decrepit they were, and soon after they were taken from underground they died.
p64 in Miscellaneous Notes from Monmouthshire
Beatrix A. Wherry
Folklore, Vol. 16, No. 1. (Mar. 25, 1905), pp. 63-67.
Rhiannon Posted by Rhiannon
27th April 2007ce

Llyn Fawr

Craig y Llyn towers above the lake, and it..
..had a green lady in the seventeenth century. Every seven years she came and sat on one of the rocks, making chains and necklaces of wild berries. The rowan or mountain-ash was her favourite tree, and she could be seen wandering about gathering an apronful of the bright red berries, which she conveyed to her favourite rock. Once when a man wished to follow her, but stood irresolute, she beckoned to him and smiled. He went towards her, and she gave him a handful of red rowan-berries.

He thanked her, and put them in his pocket. Then there came a crash, and the lady disappeared. She wore a green robe and green jewels. The berries changed to gold coins.
From chapter 15 of Mary Trevelyan's 'Folk lore and folk stories of Wales' (1909). Online at V-Wales:
http://vwales.co.uk/Folklore/trevelyan/welshfolklore/chapt15.htm
Rhiannon Posted by Rhiannon
26th April 2007ce

Foel Offrwm (Hillfort)

There are two walled enclosures on the summits of Moel Offrwm, and the traces of many small round structures (surely roundhouses, though Coflein does not commit the site to any particular period).

It's not connected with the forts*, but is a very local story: There was an oak just beneath the mountain on the west side, known as Derwen Ceubren yr Ellyll, 'the goblin's hollow tree'. It must have been quite crowded in there as it was also supposed to have been haunted by a compatriot of Owain Glyndwr, Howel Sele. The two men had been enemies but had allegedly made up, and were hunting deer together. Sele took a crafty shot at Glyndwr, but was rather surprised when his arrow bounced off the armour he was cunningly wearing underneath his vest. Gyndwr was understandably angry. Years later a skeleton 'resembling Howel Sele in stature' was discovered in the hollow tree. The tree met a natural fate in the early 1800s.

From: 'Llanvachreth - Llanvagdalen', A Topographical Dictionary of Wales (1849), pp. 111-15.
http://www.british-history.ac.uk/report.asp?compid=47858

*unless you'd like to think that Sele had his stronghold in one of the forts.
Rhiannon Posted by Rhiannon
26th April 2007ce

Garth Hill (Round Barrow(s))

"An old story about a witch living near the Ogmore River, in Glamorgan, describes a man listening to the muttering of a woman, and instantly giving her chase, with the result that in the "twinkling of an eye" he found himself on the top of the Garth Mountain, near Whitchurch."

from chapter 16 of Marie Trevelyan's "Folk-lore and folk-stories of Wales", published in 1909. Online at V-Wales:
http://vwales.co.uk/Folklore/trevelyan/welshfolklore/chapt16.htm
Rhiannon Posted by Rhiannon
26th April 2007ce

Gumfreston (Sacred Well)

Look, I know it's a well, but this has got a stone (kind of) connected with it. I just report these things. You'll have to see if it's still there, if you're passing.
Welsh Folk-lore Items. -- At the Archaeological Association Congress at Tenby some interesting notes were given. The party having halted at Gumfreyston church it was noted that on the hillside, below the church, there is one of the holy wells which are not infrequent in Wales.

Some curious old customs connected with the parish were given in a paper prepared by Miss Bevan, from which it appears that within the last fifty years on Easter Day the villagers used to repair to a well called "the Pinwell," and throw a crooked pin into the water. This was called "throwing Lent away." The field in which this well is situate is called "Verwel"[..]

On Lammas Sunday little houses, called "Lammas Houses," were set up on "corse." They were made of sods, reeds, and sticks, and a fire was lighted inside them, and apples roasted, people paying a penny to go in and have a roasted apple.

At the bottom of the street, near the brook, is a large upstanding stone with a small round hole in the top, and there is a saying that until you have put your finger in this hole you cannot say you have been in St. Florence* church.
(*This is surely St Lawrence's church.)
From Notes and Queries
The Folk-Lore Journal, Vol. 2, No. 11. (Nov., 1884), pp. 348-351.

A Topographical Dictionary of Wales (S. Lewis, 1833), as quoted on the Genuki pages, mentions the 'highly medicinal properties' of the iron-rich springs, and the likelihood of Gumfreston being able to become a fashionable spot.
http://www.genuki.org.uk/big/wal/PEM/Gumfreston/index.html

Some more info and pics on the Cistercian Way pages, here
http://cistercian-way.newport.ac.uk/place.asp?PlaceID=123
Rhiannon Posted by Rhiannon
2nd April 2007ce
Edited 3rd April 2007ce

Castell Dinas Bran (Hillfort)

More fairies at Castell Dinas Bran: Llandyn Hall is on the south-east slope of the hill.
Fairies under Trees.-- One of our readers has forwarded us an old document, dated Nov. 30th, 1817, containing a quaint description of a walnut tree of extraordinary dimensions. It grew on a rock of limestone at Llanddyn Farm, near Llangollen; its height was about twenty-five yards, and its boughs covered a space of ground about thirty yards diameter. According to a story in the neighbourhood, this tree was very old. A man 95 years of age said that he remembered a bough of it being broken by the snow when he was a child, and that his grandfather used to tell the family that, in olden times, fairies used in the dead of night to celebrate their marriages under this walnut tree. ---Shrewsbury Chronicle, 3 Nov. 1882. From
Notes and Queries
The Folk-Lore Journal, Vol. 1, No. 3. (Mar., 1883), pp. 90-93.
Rhiannon Posted by Rhiannon
1st April 2007ce

Pendinas (Aberystwyth) (Hillfort)

On Pen Dinas, a very high and steep hill, near the bridge over the Rheidiol, is a large entrenchment, still in a good state of preservation, and where, Caradoc informs us, Rhys ap Grufydd, in 1113, encamped his forces, which, by a manoeuvre of the English, were enticed from the hill over the bridge, to besiege Aberystwyth castle, where they were surrounded and cut off almost to a man.

The tradition of the town attributes this entrenchment to the forces employed by Cromwell to beseige the castle.
p16 of 'Excursions in North Wales', ed. by John Hicklin, 1847. Online at google books.
Rhiannon Posted by Rhiannon
29th March 2007ce
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