Looking approx west from the head of Cwm Ceulan as the light begins to fade descending from Moel y Llyn. I’ve attempted to highlight (very approx since the stones are so diminutive) the placement of this wondrous stone circle within Pumlumon’s outer fold... to the best of my ability.
Although this image greatly exaggerates the size of the orthostats of this truly diminutive ‘circle – many barely break the turf, some indeed don’t – what a superb monument this is! There are cairns upon Mynydd Y Llyn and Llechwedd-Llwyd, too. Need to get up there one day..
Visited 5th June 2003: Cylch Derwyddol from the north west, looking out towards the Cambrian Mountain range.
Taken 5th June 2003: Alfie next to the largest stone in the circle, on it’s northern side. He’s waving!
Taken 5th June 2003: The southern side of the circle, from the south east, with Landranger map for scale.
Taken 5th June 2003: I’ve ‘digitally enhanced’ this photograph so that the stones are more visible. It’s taken from the south west, with cairn capped Moel y Llyn in the background.
Visited 5th June 2003: I asked permission to park at Caer-Arglwyddes, the farmhouse to the north west of the circle (the circle is on a public footpath so no need to ask about access). With Alfie in the baby back-pack I headed off up in approximately the right direction for the circle.
The weather was all over the place. It had been raining when I left the car, and during the walk up the hill it had cycled through a variety of conditions. The grid reference I used to get to this site is probably too far south because I got to the circle much quicker than I’d bargained for (my GPS gave me SN6965491183). The stones are very low to the ground, so it was largely luck that I found them. Up by the circle the sun came and went, and when it shone the light on the wet grass around it was beautiful.
What a tiny little thing Cylch Derwyddol is! I don’t know how much stone is hidden under the soil, or how much exposed stone has been eroded away, but this site can’t have consisted of anything very large when it was built. Stone circles are very unusual in Ceredigion, so I got excited about it despite the size of it. It crossed my mind that this could be a cairn kerb, but the stones are very small, and there’s no sign of any cairn material (it’s listed as a circle on the NMRW).
According to the Collins Welsh Dictionary ‘derwyddol’ means ‘druidic(al)’ from ‘derwydd’ meaning ‘druid’. Deri is a group of oak trees, derwen is a single oak tree, dôl is meadow
As happens often in languages the -r- gets moved for ease of pronunciation, cf. Old English ‘brid’ became modern English ‘bird’, Catalan ‘cabra’ meaning goat became ‘craba’ in Aranese/Gascon.
Without a Welsh-English dictionary to hand I had a go at translating the name Cylch Derwyddol and came up with ‘circle of the oak meadow’. I based this on the assumption that ‘derwyddol’ was derived from the words ‘derw’ meaning ‘oak’, and ‘ddol’ meaning ‘meadow’. [Judging by Tollvên’s post, I got this entirely wrong].
Cylch Derwyddol lies on the eastern slopes of a mountain called Moel y Garn, which translates as ‘bare or rounded mountain of the cairn’.
It’s confusing up here, there are lots of sites in the same vicinity. The circle was investigated in 2009. The Trust thought it might not be prehistoric at all.
