Wales: Latest Posts — Folklore

The church stands in the middle of a circular graveyard, one of the most perfect specimens of the type left to us.. ..The reason why it is circular is this. In olden times, the altar in a church was a very holy place indeed; more holy than it is generally regarded now, for people believed that, on the altars of the Church, Christ was, in the strictest literal sense of the word, actually present. That being so, anyone who claimed the protection of the altar, no matter what he had done, could not be touched. He was at once protected by the altar and by God from the vengeance of man, and round the sacred altar a circle was drawn, within which a man, so long as he remained within that circle, could claim sanctuary for seven years and seven days.

The graveyard at Llanelltyd was a sanctuary circle of the church, and the limits of the circle were settled in this way: the ploughman stood at the foot of the altar,with his arm outstretched, and, in his outstretched hand, he held the yoke of his plough-team. A plough team consisted of eight oxen, yoked two abreast, and the yoke extended from the front of the first couple to the end of the plough. Holding the yoke in his hand, the ploughman, no doubt with assistance, swept it round in a circle, and all land within that circle, which was called the "erw," became holy ground. That is the origin of the phrase "God's acre," for "erw" means "acre." It was the immediate circle of God's protection, not of the dead, but of the living, however guilty.

People, I think rather fancifully, go a great deal further back than that in explaining the old Welsh circular graveyards. They associate them with the ancient stone-circles of the Druids, or whoever it was who made stone-circles.

Another object worthy of notice in the Llanelltyd church is an old stone, on the top of which there is incised a footprint, and underneath an inscription which reads in Latin, "The mark of Rhodri is on the top of this stone, which he placed there when he set out on a pilgrimage." Nothing is known about Rhodri, for that or Rhydderch appears to be the name..

..I walked across to Criccieth Station; but on my way I was directed to call at a farm house called Llwyn y Mafon Uchaf, where I was to see Mr. Edward Llewelyn, a bachelor then seventy-six years of age. He is a native of the neighbourhood, and has always lived in it; moreover, he has now been for some time blind. He had heard a good many fairy tales.

.. He told me of a man at Ystum Cegid, a farm not far off, having married a fairy wife on condition that he was not to touch her with any kind of iron on pain of her leaving him for ever. Then came the usual accident in catching a horse in order to go to a fair at Carnarvon, and the immediate disappearance of the wife. At this point Mr. Llewelyn's sister interposed to the effect that the wife did once return and address her husband in the rhyme, Os bydd anwyd arfy mab, &c.

[The landlady of Llandeilo farm-house] told me of St. Teilo's Well.. adding that it was considered to have the property of curing the whooping-cough. I asked her if there was any rite or ceremony necessary to be performed in order to derive benefit from the water. Certainly, I was told; the water must be lifted out of the well and given to the patient to drink by some member of the family: to be more accurate, I ought to say that this must be done by somebody born in the house. One of her sons, however, had told me previously, when I was busy with the inscriptions [at the church], that the water must be given to the patient by the heir, not by anybody else.

Then came my question how the water was lifted, or out of what the patient had to drink, to which I was answered that it was out of the skull. "What skull?" said I. "St. Teilo's skull," was the answer. "Where do you get the saint's skull?" I asked. "Here it is", was the answer, and I was given it to handle and examine.

I know next to nothing about skulls; but it struck me that it was a thick, strong skull*, and it called to my mind the story of the three churches which contended for the saint's corpse. You all know it, probably: the contest became so keen that it had to be settled by prayer and fasting. So, in the morning, lo and behold! there were three corpses of St. Teilo - not simply one - and so like were they in features and stature that nobody could tell which were the corpses made to order and which the old one.

I should have guessed that the skull which I saw belonged to the former description, as not having been very much worn by its owner; but this I am forbidden to do by the fact that, according to the legend, this particular Llandeilo was not one of the three contending churches which bore away in triumpth a dead Teilo each. Another view, however, is possible: namely, that the story has been edited in such a way as to reduce a larger number of Teilos into three, in order to gratify the Welsh fondness for triads.

Since my visit to the neighbourhood I have been favoured with an account of the well as it is now current there [..] that the people around call the well Ffynnon yr Ychen, or the Oxen's Well [..and] that the current story solves the difficulty as to the saint's skull as follows:- The saint had a favourite maid-servant from the Pembrokeshire Llandeilo: she was a beautiful woman, and had the privilege of attending on the saint when he was on his death-bed. As his death was approaching, he gave his maid a strict and solemn command that at the end of a year's time she was to take his skull to the other Llandeilo, and to leave it there to be a blessing to coming generations of men, who, when ailing, would have their health restored by drinking water out of it [..]

I would now only point out that we have here an instance of a well which was probably sacred before the time of St. Teilo: in fact, one would possibly be right in supposing that the sanctity of the well and its immediate surroundings was one of the causes of the site being chosen by a Christian missionary. But consider for a moment what has happened: the well-paganism has annexed the saint, and established a belief ascribing to him the skull used in the well-ritual. The landlady and her family, it is true, do not believe in the efficacy of the well, or take gifts from those who visit the well; but they continue, out of kindness, to hand the skull full of water to those who persevere in their belief in it.

In other words, the faith in the well continues in a measure intact, when the walls of the church have fallen into utter decay. Such is the great persistence of ancient beliefs; and in this particular instance we have a succession which seems to point unmistakeably to an ancient priesthood of this spring of water.

Myrddin Fardd* [..] mentioned Ffynnon Cefn Lleithfan,, or the Well of the Lleithfan Ridge, on the eastern slope of Mynydd y Rhiw, in the parish of Bryncroes, in the west of Lleyn. In the case of this well it is necessary, when going to it and coming from it, to be careful not to utter a word to anybody, or to turn to look back. What one has to do at the well is to bathe the warts with a rag or clout which has grease on it. When that is done, the clout with the grease has to be carefully concealed beneath the stone at the mouth of the well. This brings to my mind the fact that I have, more than once, years ago, noticed rags underneath stones in the water flowing from wells in Wales, and sometimes thrust into holes in the walls of wells, but I had no notion how they came there.

Hundreds of years ago they used to keep the Collection money in the Church. One time, thieves broke into Llanfaelrhys Church to steal the money. Somehow, while at their work they were seen by passers by, who went into the church. When the thieves saw this they fled for their lives and they were followed by their pursuers until they came to the top of Rhiw, there the thieves were caught, on the road by a place called Terfyn. After catching the thieves they killed them on the spot, that was the punishment in those days for thieving. The two were buried in Four Crosses Field, Rhiw, and to show where they were buried big stones mere placed on their graves and till today these stones are called Lladron Maelrhys, but few people know of them today. It's a pity that old things become lost.

[Saint] Dyfnan is reputed to have been a son of Brychan Brycheiniog, but his name is not found in either version of the Cognatio. He is the patron of Llanddyfnan, in Anglesey, where he is buried, according to tradition.

On this part of the coast of Pembrokeshire, between Tenby and the entrance to Milford Haven, is a small bay, steep in its sides, and so lashed by surf as rarely to permit a boat to land. Here is the hermitage (or chapel) of St Gawen, or Goven, in which there is a well, the water of which, and the clay near, is used for sore eyes. Besides this, a little below the chapel, is another well, with steps leading down to it, which is visited by persons from distant parts of the principality, for the cure of scrofula, paralysis, dropsy, and other complaints. Nor is it the poor alone who make this pilgrimage: a case came more immediately under my notice, where a lady, a person of some fortune, having been for some time a sufferer from a severe attack of paralysis, which prevented her putting her hand in her pocket, took up her quarters at a farm-house near the well, and after visiting it for some weeks daily, returned home perfectly cured.

From the cliff the descent to the chapel is by fifty-two steps, which are said never to appear the same number in the ascent; which might very easily be traced to their broken character. The building itself is old, about sixteen feet long by eleven wide, has three doors, and a primitive stone altar, under which the saint is said to be buried. The roof is rudely vaulted, and there is a small belfry, where, as tradition says, there was once a silver bell; and there is a legend attached, that some Danish or French pirates came by night, and having stolen the bell from its place, in carrying it down to their boat, rested it for a moment on a stone, which immediately opened and received it. This stone is still shown, and emits a metallic sound when struck by a stone or other hard substance.

One of the doors out of the chapel leads by a flight of six steps to a recess in the rock, open at the top, on one side of which is the Wishing Corner, a fissure in the limestone rock, with indentations believed to resemble the marks which the ribs of a man forced into this nook would make, if the rock were clay. To this crevice many of the country people say our Saviour fled from the persecutions of the Jews. Other deem it more likely that St. Gawen, influenced by religious mortifications, squeezed himself daily into it, as a penance for his transgressions, until at length the print of the ribs became impressed on the rock. Here the pilgrim, standing upon a stone rendered smooth by the operation of the feet, is to turn round nine times and wish according to his fancy. If the saint be propitious, the wish will be duly gratified within a year, a month, and a day. Another marvellous quality of the fissure is, that it will receive the largest man, and be only just of sufficient size to receive the smallest. This may be accounted for by its peculiar shape.
ROBERT J. ALLEN - (Vol. vi. p96)
Bosherton, Pembroke

ST. GOVEN'S BELL.
The following legend is current in Pembrokeshire. On the south-west coast of Pembrokeshire is situated a little chapel, called St. Goven's, from the saint who is supposed to have built it, and lived in a cell excavated in the rock at its east end, but little larger than sufficient to admit the body of the holy man. The chapel, though small, quite closes the pass between the rock-strewn cove and the high lands above, from which it is approached by a a long and steep flight of stone steps; in its open belfry hung a beautifully-formed silver bell. Between it and the sea, and near high-water mark, is a well of pure water, often sought by sailors, who were always received and attended to by the good saint.
Many centuries ago, at the close of a calm summer evening, a boat entered the cove, urged by a crew with piratical intent, who, regardless alike of the sanctity of the spot, and of the hospitality of its inhabitant, determined to possess themselves of the bell. They succeeded in detaching it from the chapel and conveying it to their boat, but they had no sooner left the shore than a violent storm suddenly raged, the boat was wrecked, and the pirates found a watery grave; at the same moment by some mysterious agency the silver bell was borne away, and entombed in a large and massive stone on the brink of the well. And still, when the stone is struck, the silver tones of the bell are heard softly lamenting its long imprisonment, and sweetly bemoaning the hope of freedom long deferred.

Mr. E. Perkins, of Penysgwarne, near Fishguard, wrote on Nov. 2, 1896, as follows, of a changing view to be had from the top of the Garn, which means the Garn Fawr, one of the most interesting prehistoric sites in the county, and one I have had the pleasure of visiting more than once in the company of Henry Owen and Edward Laws, the historians of Pembrokeshire:--

'May not the fairy islands referred to by Professor Rhys have originated from mirages? During the glorious weather we enjoyed last summer, I went up one particularly fine evening to the top of the Garn behind Penysgwarne to view the sunset. It would have been worth a thousand miles' travel to go to see such a scene as I saw that evening. It was about half an hour before sunset--the bay was calm and smooth as the finest mirror. The rays of the sun made a golden path across the sea, and a picture indescribable. As the sun neared the horizon the rays broadened until the sheen resembled a gigantic golden plate prepared to hold the brighter sun.

No sooner had the sun set than I saw a striking mirage. To the right I saw a stretch of country similar to a landscape in this country. A farmhouse and outbuildings were seen, I will not say quite as distinct as I can see the upper part of St. David's parish from this Garn, but much more detailed. We could see fences, roads, and gateways leading to the farmyard, but in the haze it looked more like a panoramic view than a veritable landscape. Similar mirages may possibly have caused our old to think these were the abode of the fairies.'

It is reported of a large stone near the end of the old canal, but on the left of the road from Neath to Brittonferry, that there is a charm, not yet discovered, which can compel it to speak, and for once to reveal the secret of its history: but that having once spoken it will be silent for ever.