Ystumcegid

Also known as:
Coetan Arthur, Ystum Cegid Isaf, Ystum-Cegid and Ystymcegid
Nearest town:
Criccieth (3km SSE)
OS reference:
SH498413
OS sheet:
123
Latitude:
52° 56' 51.49 N
Longitude:
4° 14' 8.78 W

Images

Image of Ystumcegid (Dolmen / Quoit / Cromlech) by CoralJackz

Two antique line engravings by J. Basire. Published in 1851.
Ystum Cegid Isaf – Neolithic Cromlech in Wales

Image credit: Two antique line engravings by J. Basire. Published in 1851. Ystum Cegid Isaf - Neolithic Cromlech in Wales
CoralJackz
CoralJackz Oct 10, 2024
Image of Ystumcegid (Dolmen / Quoit / Cromlech) by postman

Just a touch higher, a touch higher, too much, take it back.

Image credit: Chris Bickerton
postman
postman Apr 22, 2019
Image of Ystumcegid (Dolmen / Quoit / Cromlech) by Rhiannon

From Edward Pugh’s ‘Cambria Depicta’ (1816).

Artistic license explained in ‘folklore’ entry.

Image credit: E Pugh and T Cartwright
Rhiannon
Rhiannon May 15, 2016
Image of Ystumcegid (Dolmen / Quoit / Cromlech) by GLADMAN

Under an angry North Walian sky... 22/10/03

Image credit: Robert Gladstone
GLADMAN
GLADMAN Mar 19, 2016
Image of Ystumcegid (Dolmen / Quoit / Cromlech) by GLADMAN

With the Nantlle Ridge peaking through beneath..... 22/10/03

Image credit: Robert Gladstone
GLADMAN
GLADMAN Jul 2, 2010
Image of Ystumcegid (Dolmen / Quoit / Cromlech) by postman

Lovely pink sky as the sun is about to rise behind me

Image credit: chris bickerton
postman
postman Feb 4, 2007
Image of Ystumcegid (Dolmen / Quoit / Cromlech) by postman

Sunshine on the underside of the capstone, cool !

Image credit: chris bickerton
postman
postman Feb 3, 2007
Image of Ystumcegid (Dolmen / Quoit / Cromlech) by postman

The farm in the background has plenty of room to park, I was on my bike this time though , maybe next time .

Image credit: chris bickerton
postman
postman Feb 3, 2007

Articles

The remains of a larger monument?

In this video we explore Ystum Cegid Isaf and cover the history and archaeology of the site. We hope you enjoy!

CoralJackz
CoralJackz Oct 22, 2024

Ystumcegid

postman
postman Feb 4, 2007

Directions. From the A487 head south on single track lane if youv’e no desire to walk far look for Ynys-ddu small farm and turn right, pass the farm, down the lane and a small group of houses and another farm are reached ask at one of the dwellings for parking, and go through gate into field pass through hedge and the chamber is on the high ground to the right.
Looking at Julian Copes directions I put off coming here for a while but I brought my bike and parked the car on the B4411 which made it a lot easier and more fun.
This place is really cool, I got here before sunrise and moonset and witnessed something I felt was not often seen the full moon setting in the Llyns mountains and behind me the sun rising . the capstone would be better discribed less as a piano more as an arrow or spear head, supported on four upright stones one has a chock stone presumably for increased stability (dubious though i prefer the show off factor) and another stone only barely touches the capstone .
A fantatsic place where hardly anyone goes sunset would be awesome

Ystumcegid

mort
mort Jan 16, 2001

What a size!!!
Set in a secluded site, I see how Mr Cope had a great journey to get there, very difficult to see until your nearly on top of it. The view looking along the Llyn is impressive, and as I went there on a very cold but sunny day, managed to have some lunch there.
From looking at the OS map, there seems to be many other stones and chambers within a short distance of this site, which I hope to visit soon.
If there are any other gazeteers out there thinking of visiting, do go, its well worth it, the capstone itself is one of the largest pieces I’ve ever seen in this part of Britain, how they managed to get it up is one of the most unexplained mysteries to which we can still wonder about today.

Folklore

Ystumcegid
Dolmen / Quoit / Cromlech
Rhiannon
Rhiannon May 15, 2016

Having gratified my curiosity at [Coeten Arthur], I made for a farm, a mile off, called Ystym Cegid, where I had the pleasure of beholding another, the most beautiful of any I had seen in my journey; the farmer, however, through a natural propensity to render any thing useful that may lie on the ground, has converted it into a sheepfold, by filling up the interstices with stones, very dissimilar to those originally erected to support the coping-stone, of the Cromlech: I have left them out, and the annexed print will shew its prior appearance. The coping-stone takes a triangular form, its thickness is about eighteen inches every where, and it measures thirty-six feet round; it is raised so high as to allow a person on horseback to go underneath. This also is called Arthur’s Quoit: which (to carry on the story [at Coeten Arthur]) we may suppose to have been thrown by the same hand; but, owing to a slip of the foot, in the moment of exertion, it went wide of the mark at least one mile.

From Edward Pugh’s ‘Cambria Depicta’ (1816).

Folklore

Ystumcegid
Dolmen / Quoit / Cromlech
Rhiannon
Rhiannon Mar 26, 2007

..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.

From chapter three of
Celtic Folklore Welsh And Manx
by John Rhys
[1901] (online at the sacred texts archive).
sacred-texts.com/neu/cfwm/cf105.htm#page_44

Surely the fairies had something to do with the cromlech – it can’t be coincidence that the husband came from that farm?

The ‘usual incident’ is that the husband had tried to throw a bridle over his horse, but accidentally touched his fairy wife with it. The rhyme is some motherly advice for the children she’d left behind:
“If my son should feel it cold,
Let him wear his father’s coat;
If the fair one feel the cold,
Let her wear my petticoat.”

Sites within 20km of Ystumcegid

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