Welsh Cave Legends (Folklore History Series)

John Rhys. Welsh Cave Legends (Folklore History Series) John Rhys Welsh Cave Legends By John Rhys WELSH CAVE LEGENDS Here. Front Cover.
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He adds that, however this may be, it is a fact that in the year ten or more human skeletons of unusual stature were discovered in an ogof there.

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ILeufer Thomas, who is also a native of the district, alludes to the local belief that Owen Lawgoch and his men are asleep, as already mentioned, in the cave of Pant y ILyn, and that they are to go on sleeping there till a trumpet blast and the clash of arms on Rhiw Goch rouse them to sally forth to combat the Saxons and to conquer, as set forth by Howells: It is needless to say that there is no reason, as will be seen presently, to suppose Owen Lawgoch to have ever been near any of the caves to which allusion has here been made; but that does not appreciably detract from the fascination of the legend which has gathered round his personality; and in passing I may be allowed to express my surprise that in such stories as these the earlier Owen has not been eclipsed by Owen Glyndwr: Can it be that a habit of caution made Welshmen speak of Owen Lawgoch when the other Owen was really meant?

The passage I have cited from Mr. Fisher's letter raises the question of a dinas in Carnarvonshire, which that of his native parish recalled to his mind; and this is to be considered next. He adds that the entrance appears to have been guarded by two towers, and that within the enclosed area are the foundations of circular buildings of loose stones forming walls of about five feet in thickness. Concerning that Dinas we read in the Brython for , p. When he was about to set out with the latter, he put all his treasure and wealth into a crochan aur, 'a gold cauldron,' and hid it in a cave in the Dinas, and on the mouth of the cave he rolled a huge stone, which he covered up with earth and sods, so that it was impossible for anyone to find it.

He intended this wealth to be the property of some special person in a future generation, and it is said that the heir to it is to be a youth with yellow hair and blue eyes. When that one comes near to the Dinas a bell will ring to invite him to the cave, which will open of itself as soon as his foot touches it.

For several instances in point see the Brython , pp. To prove how widely this idea prevailed in Carnarvonshire, I may add a short story which Mrs. Williams-Ellis of Glasfryn got from the engineer who told her of the sacred eel of ILangybi p. One day, however, a little girl happened to be playing by the stone, and at the touch of her little hand the stone moved.

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A hoard of coins was found under it, and that at a time when the little girl's parents happened to be in dire need of it. Search had long been made by undeserving men for treasure supposed to be hidden at that spot; but it was always unsuccessful until the right person touched the stone to move. The failure of the wrong person to secure the treasure, even when discovered, is illustrated by a story given by Mr.


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He went at once and seized one of them, but, alas! So he resolved to go away and return early on the morrow with a friend to help him; but before going he closed the mouth of the cave with stones and sods so as to leave it safe.

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While thus engaged he remembered having heard how others had like him found caves and failed to refind them. He could procure nothing readily that would satisfy him as a mark, so it occurred to him to dot his path with the chippings of his stick, which he whittled all the way as he went back until he came to a familiar track: So when the morning came he and his friend set out, but when they reached the point where the chips should begin, not one was to be seen: So that discovery of articles of brass—more probably bronze—was in vain.

That is the tradition which Derfel Hughes found in the vale of the Ogwen, and he draws from it the inference which it seems to warrant, in words to the following effect: Expressions of the kind mentioned by Mr.

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Hughes are well known in all parts of the Principality, and it is difficult to account for them except on the supposition that Goidels and Brythons lived for a long time face to face, so to say, with one another over large areas in the west of our island. The next story to be mentioned belongs to the same Snowdonian neighbourhood, and brings us back to Arthur and his Men.

For a writer who has already been quoted from the Brython for , p. From Tregalan the latter were pushed up the bwlch or pass, towards Cwm Dyli; but when the vanguard of the army with Arthur leading had reached the top of the pass, the enemy discharged a shower of arrows at them. There Arthur fell, and his body was buried in the pass so that no enemy might march that way so long as Arthur's dust rested there.

This is in Cwm Dyli, and there in that cave those warriors are said to be still, sleeping in their armour and awaiting the second coming of Arthur to restore the crown of Britain to the Kymry. For the saying is: There was light within; he looked in and beheld a host of warriors without number all asleep, resting on their arms and ready equipped for battle.

Seeing that they were all asleep, he felt a strong desire to explore the whole place; but as he was squeezing in he struck his head against the bell hanging in the entrance. It rang so that every corner of the immense cave rang again, and all the warriors woke uttering a terrible shout, which so frightened the shepherd that he never more enjoyed a day's health; nor has anybody since dared as much as to approach the mouth of the cave. Thus far the Brython, and I have only to remark that this legend is somewhat remarkable for the fact of its representing the Youths of Eryri sleeping away in their cave without Arthur among them.

As to the exact situation of that cairn, I may say that my attention was drawn some time ago to the following lines by Mr. William Owen, better known as Glaslyn, a living bard bred and born in the district: These words recall an older couplet in a poem by Rhys Goch Eryri, who is said to have died in the year From this it is clear that Rhys Goch meant that the cairn on the top of Snowdon covered the remains of the giant whose name has been variously written Ricca, Ritta, and Rhita.

It is possible to trace Arthur's march from Dinas Emrys up the slopes of Hafod y Borth, over the shoulder of the Aran and Braich yr Oen to Tregalan—or Cwm Tregalan, as it is now called—but from Tregalan he would have to climb in a north-easterly direction in order to reach Bwlch y Saethau, where he is related to have fallen and to have been interred beneath a cairn. This may be regarded as an ordinary or commonplace account of his death.

But the scene suggests a far more romantic picture; for down below was ILyn ILydaw with its sequestered isle, connected then by means only of a primitive canoe with a shore occupied by men engaged in working the ore of Eryri. Nay with the eyes of Malory we seem to watch Bedivere making, with Excalibur in his hands, his three reluctant journeys to the lake ere he yielded it to the arm emerging from the deep. We fancy we behold how 'euyn fast by the banke houed a lytyl barge wyth many fayr ladyes in hit,' which was to carry the wounded Arthur away to the accompaniment of mourning and loud lamentation; but the legend of the Marchlyn bids us modify Malory's language as to the barge containing many ladies all wearing black hoods, and take our last look at the warrior departing rather in a coracle with three wondrously fair women attending to his wounds.

Another of my informants speaks of several hillocks or boncyns as forming one side of this little cwm ; but he has heard from geologists, that these green mounds represent moraines deposited there in the glacial period. From the bottom of the Clogwyn Du it is about a mile to Bwlch y Saethau. Then Elis o'r Nant's story represents it shutting after them, and only opening to the shepherd in consequence of his having trodden on a particular sod or spot.

He then slid down unintentionally and touched the bell that was hanging there, so that it rang and instantly woke the sleeping warriors. No sooner had that happened than those men of Arthur's took up their guns—never mind the anachronism—and the shepherd made his way out more dead than alive; and the frightened fellow never recovered from the shock to the day of his death.


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    6. When these warriors take up their guns they fire away, we are told, without mercy from where each man stands: To swell the irrelevancies under which this chapter labours already, and to avoid severing cognate questions too rudely, I wish to add that Elis o'r Nant makes the name of the giant buried on the top of Snowdon into Rhitta or Rhita instead of Ricca. That is also the form of the name with which Mrs. Rhys was familiar throughout her childhood on the ILanberis side of the mountain.

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    She often heard of Rhita 13 Gawr having been buried on the top of Snowdon, and of other warriors on other parts of Snowdon such as Moel Gynghorion and the Gist on that moel. He replies that his father was bred and born in the little glen called Ewybrnant, 14 between Bettws y Coed and Pen Machno, and that his grandfather also lived there, where he appears to have owned land not far from the home of the celebrated Bishop Morgan.

    For under the year we are told that he was interred at Meifod, as it was there his tomb or the vault of his family, the one intended also for him y 6ydua 16 , happened to be. Against the evidence just given, that tradition places Rhita's grave on the top of Snowdon, a passing mention by Derfel Hughes p. In the ILwyd letter printed in the Cambrian Journal for , pp. Its sole interest here is that a later version 18 identifies the Hairy Man with Owen Lawgoch, after modifying the former's designation y Gwr Blew , which literally meant 'the Hair Man,' into y Gwr Blewog,.

    Some of these cave stories, it will have been seen, reveal to us a hero who is expected to return to interfere again in the affairs of this world, and it is needless to say that Wales is by no means alone in the enjoyment of imaginary prospects of this kind. The same sort of poetic expectation has not been unknown, for instance, in Ireland. In the summer of , I spent some sunny days in the neighbourhood of the Boyne, and one morning I resolved to see the chief burial mounds dotting the banks of that interesting river; but before leaving the hotel at Drogheda, my attention was attracted by a book of railway advertisement of the kind which forcibly impels one to ask two questions: But on turning the leaves of that booklet over I was inclined to a suaver mood, as I came on a paragraph devoted to an ancient stronghold called the Grianan of Aileach, or Greenan-Ely, in the highlands of Donegal.

    Here I read that a thousand armed men sit resting there on their swords, and bound by magic sleep till they are to be called forth to take their part in the struggle for the restoration of Erin's freedom. At intervals they awake, it is said, and looking up from their trance they ask in tones which solemnly resound through the many chambers of the Grianan: That is the substance of the words I read, and they called to my mind the legend of such heroes of the past as Barbarossa, with his sleep interrupted only by his change of posture once in seven years; of Dom Sebastian, for centuries expected from Moslem lands to restore the glories of Portugal; of the Cid Rodrigo, expected back to do likewise with the kingdom of Castile; and last, but not least, of the O'Donoghue who sleeps beneath the Lakes of Killarney, ready to emerge to right the wrongs of Erin.

    With my head full of these and the like dreams of folklore, I was taken over the scene of the Battle of the Boyne; and the car-driver, having vainly tried to interest me in it, gave me up in despair as an uncultured savage who felt no interest in the history of Ireland. However he somewhat changed his mind when, on reaching the first ancient burial mound, he saw me disappear underground, fearless of the Fomhoraigh; and he began to wonder whether I should ever return to pay him his fare.

    This in fact was the sheet anchor of all my hopes; for I thought that in case I remained fast in a narrow passage, or lost my way in the chambers of the prehistoric dead, the jarvey must fetch me out again. So by the time I had visited three of these ancient places, Dowth, Knowth, and New Grange, I had risen considerably in his opinion; and he bethought him of stories older than the Battle of the Boyne. So he told me on the way back several bits of something less drearily historical.

    Among other things, he pointed in the direction of a place called Ardee in the county of Louth, where, he said, there is Garry Geerlaug's enchanted fort full of warriors in magic sleep, with Garry Geerlaug himself in their midst. Once on a time a herdsman is said to have strayed into their hall, he said, and to have found the sleepers each with his sword and his spear ready to hand. But as the intruder could not keep his hands off the metal wealth of the place, the owners of the spears began to rouse themselves, and the intruder had to flee for his life.

    But there that armed host is awaiting the eventful call to arms, when they are to sally forth to restore prosperity and glory to Ireland. I was still more exercised by the name of Garry Geerlaug, as I recognized in Garry an Anglo-Irish pronunciation of the Norse name Godhfreydhr, later Godhroedh, sometimes rendered Godfrey and sometimes Godred, while in Man and in Scotland it has become Gorry, which may be heard also in Ireland.

    I thought, further, that I recognized the latter part of Garry Geerlaug's designation as the Norse female name Geirlaug. There was no complete lack of Garries in that part of Ireland in the tenth and eleventh centuries; but I have not yet found any historian to identify for me the warrior named or nicknamed Garry Geerlaug, who is to return blinking to this world of ours when his nap is over. Leaving Ireland, I was told the other day of a place called Tom na Hurich, near Inverness, where Finn and his following are resting, each on his left elbow, enjoying a broken sleep while waiting for the note to be sounded, which is to call them forth.

    What they are then to do I have not been told: It appears, to come back to Wales, that King Cadwaladr, who waged an unsuccessful war with the Angles of Northumbria in the seventh century, was long after his death expected to return to restore the Brythons to power. At any rate so one is led in some sort of a hazy fashion to believe in reading several of the poems in the manuscript known as the Book of Taliessin. One finds, however, no trace of Cadwaladr in our cave legends: Now concerning Arthur one need at this point hardly speak, except to say that the Welsh belief in the eventual return of Arthur was at one time a powerful motive affecting the behaviour of the people of Wales, as was felt, for instance, by English statesmen in the reign of Henry II.

    But by our time the expected return of Arthur— rexque futurus —has dissipated itself into a commonplace of folklore fitted only to point an allegory, as when Elvet Lewis, one of the sweetest of living Welsh poets, sings in a poem entitled Arthur gyda ni , 'Arthur with us': At any rate Mr. He traces these scraps to a booklet entitled Merlin's Prophecy, 19 together with a brief history of his life, taken from the Book of Prognostication.

    This little book bears no date, but appears to have been published in the early part of the nineteenth century. It is partly in prose, dealing briefly with the history of Merlin the Wild or Silvaticus, and the rest consists of two poems. The other poem is of a more general character, and is entitled the Second Song of Merlin's Prognostication, and consists of twenty-six stanzas of four lines each like the previous one; but the third stanza describes Arthur's bell and Caerlleon, 'Caerleon,' ringing with great vigour to herald the coming of Owen; and the seventh stanza begins with the following couplet: It closes with the date in verse at the end, to wit, , which takes us back to very troublous times: So it is a matter of no great surprise if some people in Wales had a notion that the power of England was fast nearing its end, and the baledwyr thought it opportune to refurbish and adapt some of Merlin's prophecies as likely to be acceptable to the peasantry of South Wales.

    At all events we have no reason to suppose that the two poems which have here been described from Mr. She established a community of holy women and the church, built in , still holds her relics and flourishes as a centre for healing and counsel. Twmbarlwm or The Twmp near Cwmcarn is metres above sea level with glorious views of the Severn Estuary.

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    Head to the Early Bronze Age cairn, near the summit and the motte, where a buried giant possibly the body of Bran from T he Mabinogion and some buried treasure are supposedly guarded by a swarm of bees. In fact — during the s, a huge swarm of battling bees and wasps was reported above Twmbarlwm. Strange and alluring subterranean music is sometimes heard emanating from the hill. The historic coastal town of Fishguard was home to Jemima Nicholas , a formidable local woman who in , armed only with a pitchfork, reputedly single-handedly rounded up a dozen invading French soldiers.

    Owain Glyndŵr (c1359–c1415)

    They surrendered shortly afterwards and the peace treaty was signed in The Royal Oak pub, where Lord Cawdor, commander of the British forces, had his HQ at the time. This rather bizarre Battle of Fishguard part of the last invasion of Britain by a foreign power , is recalled in a wonderful metre-long tapestry in the Town Hall. Jemima became a Welsh heroine and was awarded a lifetime pension - her grave is in the churchyard over the road.

    Before Castell Coch was transformed into the fairytale castle you can explore today, it was a medieval fortress reputedly built by nobleman Ifor Bach. When Ifor died, he was said to have been buried deep within the castle in a secret chamber. Worried about being disturbed in the afterlife, he supposedly turned two of his men to stone eagles, positioning them by his burial chamber entrance to guard him for eternity. When two thieves attempted to break into his chamber, they were chased off as the two stone eagles suddenly sprang to life.

    Castell Coch is managed by Cadw. Rhys and Meinir , who both grew up in the Nant, were childhood sweethearts. On the morning of their wedding at Clynnog Church, Meinir followed tradition and hid from the guests. However, the fun turned sour, as friends, family and Rhys searched frantically for Meinir but to no avail. Rhys died of a broken heart. One story tells of an island which floated on Llyn Nantlle 'Nantlle Lake'. This great national hero was born around into a noble Welsh family, and served the English crown as a soldier.

    In he held his first parliament in Machynlleth , where he was crowned Prince of Wales - the last native Welshman to bear the title. He came from noble lineage: In Llywelyn led his army south, to rally support in Mid Wales. He was killed by English soldiers near Builth Wells; today he is commemorated by a stone monument at Cilmeri. The stories collected in the Mabinogion or to give them their correct title, the Four Branches of the Mabinogi are the earliest surviving works of British prose literature.

    They were passed on orally for centuries before finally being written down in Welsh in the 11th century. Branwen plays a starring role in the second Branch as the sister of Bendigeidfran, the giant king of Britain, who marries her off to the king of Ireland. We meet our heroine Blodeuwedd in the fourth Branch of the Mabinogi. A man named Lleu has been cursed: They couple settle down at a castle near Trawsfynydd until Blodeuwedd has an ill-advised fling with the lord of Penllyn modern-day Bala.