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Hillfort
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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.
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Posted by Rhiannon
26th April 2007ce
Edited 26th April 2007ce
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