Bachwen Burial Chamber

Adjoining the church is the chapel of St. Beuno. The passage to it is a narrow vault covered with great flat stones, and of far greater antiquity than either church or chapel; which seem nearly coeval. [...] In the midst is the tomb of the saint, plain, and altar-shaped. Votaries were wont to have great faith in him, and did not doubt but that by means of a night's lodging on his tomb, a cure would be found for all diseases. It was customary to cover it with rushes, and leave on it till morning sick children, after making them first undergo ablution in the neighbouring holy well; and I myself once saw on it a feather bed, on which a poor paralytic from Meirioneddshire had lain the whole night, after undergoing the same ceremony.

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.

Near Clynog, in Carnarvonshire, there is a place called Llwyn y Nef, (the Bush of Heaven,) which thus received its name: In Clynog lived a monk of most devout life, who longed to be taken to heaven. One evening, whilst walking without the monastery by the riverside, he sat down under a green tree and fell into a deep reverie, which ended in sleep and he slept for thousands of years. At last he heard a voice calling unto him, 'Sleeper, awake and be up.' He awoke. All was strange to him except the old monastery, which still looked down upon the river. He went to the monastery, and was made much of. He asked for a bed to rest himself on and got it. Next morning when the brethren sought him, they found nothing in the bed but a handful of ashes.