Situation—The castle—Bronwen—Bronwen’s tomb—Dafydd ab Ifan—“March of the Men of Harlech”—Prehistoric remains—Llanfair—Ellis Wynne—Visions of the Sleeping Bard—Sam Badrig—The drowned land—Ardudwy—Fight of the men—Roman Steps—Owen Pughe—Fires and destruction of Welsh MSS.

THE situation of Harlech is fine—a rock rising almost vertically from the level tract of sandy flats that fringes the sea, surmounted by a castle, and with the little town clustering behind it and slipping down the sides.

The castle consists of a rude quadrangle, with round towers at each angle, and to the east a gateway flanked by two more. It is not a particularly picturesque ruin, and before it fell into ruin must have been positively ugly. It is not comparable to Conway in size or in beauty of outline, but Henry de Elreton, the architect, built for use, and looked to make it an impregnable stronghold, and did not consider the picturesque.

The castle occupies the site of Twr Bronwen.

Bran the Blessed was king of Britain, and he had a beautiful sister called Bronwen.

One day he was in his fortress at Harlech when, looking west, he saw a fleet approach. It was that of Matholwch, king of Ireland, who came to ask for Bronwen to be his wife. He was well received, and the wedding was appointed to be kept at Aberffraw, in Anglesey. So Bran and all his warriors went thither by land, and the Irish king by sea, and at Aberffraw a great marriage feast was held.

Now Bran and Bronwen had a half-brother named Evnyssien, who had not been consulted in the matter, and out of spite during the night he went to the horses brought over by the Irish king and “cut off their lips to the teeth, and their ears close to their heads, and their tails close to their backs, and their eyelids to the very bone.”

Matholwch was furious at the insult, and was with difficulty appeased by Bran giving him a silver rod as tall as himself and a plate of gold as wide as his face, and by assuring him that the outrage had been committed without his knowledge and against his wishes.

Then Matholwch sailed away with his bride. In the course of a year she bore him a son, whom she called Gwern. Now the story of the insult offered to their king circulated in Ireland, and this produced very bitter feeling against the queen, and Matholwch was himself so turned against her that he degraded her to be cook in his palace.

Bronwen reared a starling in the cover of the kneading trough, and wrote a letter telling her woes, and tied it to a feather of the bird’s wing, and let it fly. The bird departed and reached Caer Seiont, or Carnarvon, where King Bran then was, lighted on his shoulder and ruffled its plumes, and, discovering the letter, he detached and read it. Then, in great wrath, he collected a force and manned a fleet, and sailed to Ireland to revenge the wrongs offered to his sister.

Matholwch, unprepared to resist, invited him to a conference and a banquet, and in compensation for the wrongs offered to raise his own son Gwern to the throne, and to abdicate.

Now at the banquet the boy Gwern entered the hall, and for his beauty and courtesy was by all admired and fondled save by the malevolent Evnyssien, who, when the lad came before him, suddenly grasped him by head and feet and flung him into the fire that burned before them. When Bronwen saw her child in the flames she endeavoured to spring in after him, but was restrained by her brother Bran and another, between whom she was seated.

This shocking act of violence caused a general fight between the Welsh and the Irish. Evnyssien fell and many others on the side of Bran, who was obliged to retreat to his ships and escape over the sea to Britain, wounded in the foot in the fray by a poisoned dart.

On reaching Wales Bran felt that he was death-struck, and he commanded that his head should be cut off and taken to London, and buried on the White Mount, where is now the Tower, and that the face should be set towards France. Bronwen, who had escaped, soon after died of a broken heart. “Woe is me!” she said, “that ever I was born; for two islands have been destroyed because of me!”

She was buried in Anglesey, in a spot since called Ynys Bronwen. In 1813 the traditional grave was opened.

“A farmer, living on the banks of the Alaw, having occasion for stones to make some addition to his farm-buildings, and having observed a stone or two peeping through the turf of a circular elevation on a flat not far from the river, was induced to examine it, where, after paring off the turf, he came to a considerable heap of stones, or carnedd, covered with earth, which he removed with some degree of caution, and got to a cist formed of coarse flags canted and covered over. On removing the lid, he found it contained an urn placed with its mouth downwards, full of ashes and half-calcined fragments of bone.”

In the Mabinogion the grave is thus described:—

“A square grave was made for Bonwen, the daughter of Llyr, on the banks of the Alaw, and there she was buried.”

The urn that contained the ashes and bones was of the well-known Bronze Age type.

According to the traditional pedigrees of the Welsh, Bronwen was the aunt of the celebrated Caractacus who so gallantly resisted the Romans, and who was taken prisoner and conveyed to Rome. But these very early pedigrees are untrustworthy.

The Bronwen Tower of Harlech Castle is that on the left of the sea-front as we enter the courtyard.

In 1404 Owen Glyndwr got possession of the castle and held a parliament in it.

During the Wars of the Roses, the Earl of Pembroke and his brother, Sir Richard Herbert, laid siege to the fortress. It was defended by the governor, Davydd ab Ifan, who there offered an honourable asylum to Margaret of Anjou, queen of Henry VI., and the Prince of Wales, after the battle of Northampton. When summoned to surrender, he replied that he had held a fortress in France till all the old women in Wales had heard of it, and he now purposed holding out in Harlech till all the old women in France heard of it.

According to a contemporary bard, there was great slaughter; he says that six thousand men fell, but this shows him to have been able to draw the long-bow as well as to finger the lyre. Eventually, after a blockade, Harlech was forced to capitulate, and the whole district was then subjected to Edward IV. The famous air, “The March of the Men of Harlech,” is said to have been composed during this siege, more probably long after, in commemoration of it.

Harlech is not a good watering-place, as the sea is at some distance from the town, separated from it by tedious sand-flats. But it commands a magnificent view of the promontory of Lleyn, with Yr Eifl—in English the Rivals—rising from it, then Moel Siabod, Snowdon, and the Glyders; and many pleasant excursions may be made from it. The view is blocked before the principal hotel by the huge bulk of the castle.

The railroad to Barmouth runs under what were sea-cliffs, but the sea has retreated, and at the mouth of the Nant Col and Artro, and between that of the mouth of the brook Afon Ysgethin, is an exclusive stretch of Morfa, or sand-dune. So also between Harlech and the estuary of the Afon Glaslyn.

Near Harlech are several of the Cytiau’r Gwyddelod, circular stone habitations dating back from the Irish occupation of the country, if not more ancient still. But a more interesting monument of prehistoric antiquity is the Caer on Moel Goedog, standing 1,210 feet above the sea, where is a stone fort, and there also are stone circles. Other relics of a remote antiquity lie to the south, about Llyn Irddyn, to be reached by ascending the valley of the Ysgethin. Here are camps, remains of a prehistoric village, and cairns.

At Llanfair, in the church, is a stained-glass window to the memory of Ellis Wynne, and his birthplace, Glasynys, is about a mile and a half from Harlech. Ellis Wynne was born there in 1671. Some twenty-five years before he saw the light Harlech Castle had been the scene of many a fray between Roundheads and Cavaliers, and of the last stand made by the Welsh for King Charles. The remembrance of these events must have been fresh as he grew up.

In 1703 he published The Visions of the Sleeping Bard, which has ever since been regarded as a classic work in Welsh prose. It was not original in its inception. In 1668 Sir Robert l’Estrange had published his translations of Gomez de Quevedo’s Dreams, and this must have fallen into the hands of Ellis Wynne. Quevedo had his visions of the World, of Death, and Hell, and Wynne followed in having the same.

The same characters are represented in both, the same classes are satirised, and the same punishments are meted out.

Wynne had also composed a Vision of Heaven, but when it was detected that he was a plagiarist, he was so annoyed that he threw his manuscript into the fire.

Nevertheless, The Visions of the Sleeping Bard remains, and ever will remain, a Welsh classic.

“No better model exists of the pure idiomatic Welsh of the last century, before writers became influenced by English style and method. Vigorous, fluent, crisp, and clear, it shows how well our language is adapted to description and narration. It is written for the people, and in the picturesque and poetic strain which is always certain to fascinate the Celtic mind.”[5]

On a summer day the bard ascends one of the Welsh mountains “spy-glass in hand. Through the clear, tenuous air and the calm, shimmering heat, I beheld far, far away over the Irish Sea many a fair scene.” So he falls asleep, dreams, and finds himself among the fairies, whom he approaches, and of whom he requests permission to join their society. They snatch him up forthwith and fly away with him over lands and seas, till they reach the Castle Delusive, where an Angel of light appears, and delivers him from their hands.

With the angel as his guide he visits the City of Destruction, and its streets, Pride, Lucre, Pleasure. Then he soars to the City of Emmanuel.

The whole is allegorical and far-fetched, and absolutely intolerable to modern taste; but there was a time, and that not far distant, when allegory was much appreciated in Wales. In England also, Bishop Wilberforce, with his Agathos, and Munro, with his Dark River and other tales of like character, were the last of a school that has, happily, passed away for ever.

Ellis Wynne and his guide traverse the Well of Repentance and come to the Catholic Church, on the roof of which sit various princes brandishing their swords as her protectors.

Over the transept of the Church of England sits Queen Anne, holding the Sword of Justice in the left hand, and the Sword of the Spirit in the right. “Beneath the left sword lay the Statute Book of England, and beneath the other a big Bible. At her right hand I observed throngs clad in black—archbishops, bishops, and learned men upholding with her the Sword of the Spirit, whilst soldiers and officials, with a few lawyers, supported the other sword.”

He does not paint the Welsh Church as in a satisfactory condition in his day. The angel seats him in the rood-loft of one of them, “and we saw some persons whispering, some laughing, some staring at pretty women, others prying at their neighbours’ dress from top to toe, others showing their teeth at one another, others dozing, others assiduous at their devotion, but many of these latter dissimulating”; and he points out the irreverence and sacrilege caused by the law that required a man to be a communicant before he could receive office.

Ellis Wynne died in 1734, and is buried under the altar at Llanfair.

Mochras Spit, a grand field for finding shells, is the starting-point of the Sarn Badrig, a reef that runs for something like twenty miles into the Cardigan Bay, and is about four yards wide. At ebb tide about nine miles are exposed, but the foam about the rest can be traced far out to sea. Traditionally it was one of the embankments that enclosed the Cantref y Gwaelod, the low-lying hundred, well peopled, that contained twelve fortified towns, but which was submerged in the fifth century through the folly of the drunken Seithenin, who neglected to keep up the sea-wall. The story has been told already.

A short poem attributed to Gwyddno, whose territory was overwhelmed, has been preserved, in which he laments:—

“Stand forth, Seithenyn, and behold the dwelling of heroes, the plain of Gwyddno is whelmed in the sea,

Accursed be the sea-warden, who, after his carousal, let loose the destroying fountain of the raging deep.

Accursed be the watcher, who, after drunken revelry, let loose the fountain of the desolating sea.

A cry from the sea rises above the ramparts; to heaven does it mount,—after fierce excess comes a long lull.

A cry from the sea arouses me in the night season.

A cry from the sea rises above the winds.

A cry from the sea drives me from my bed at night.”

Llanaber Church, which has been restored, deserves a visit from either Harlech or Barmouth. It was built in the thirteenth century, and is in the pure Early English style. In the east end is a single lancet. The nave has a clerestory. The exterior is plain, and all the enrichment is within. An inscribed stone is inside that was rescued from serving as a footbridge over the Ceilwart. It bears on it, “CÆlexti Monedorigi.”

All the district from Barmouth to the Aber Glaslyn comprises Ardudwy, and the mountains are of Cambrian grit, “an immense block of mountains running from Maentwrog to Barmouth, and separating the Harlech country from all the eastern portion of Merionethshire. Although they all constitute the same group without a single break, they are called by different names according to the most prominent points” (Murray). They are strewn with small tarns that are interesting, though not enclosed by craggy walls, and abound in fish.

The story goes that the men of Ardudwy, like the early Romans, finding themselves short of women, made an incursion into the Vale of Clwyd and brought away a number of the fairest damsels, whom they conveyed into their own country. They were pursued and overtaken at a place called Beddau Gwyr Ardudwy, where a fight ensued. Instead of the women acting as did the Sabine damsels, rushing between the combatants and separating them, the maidens, seeing their ravishers get the worst of it, precipitated themselves into the lake that now bears the name of Llyn-y-Morwynion, where they were drowned, rather than return to their homes.

The mountains are traversed by an ancient paved road, called the Roman Steps, that comes from the valley of the Afon Erbu at Pont Grible, and strikes past the Llyn-y-Morwynion to Llyn Cwm Bychan, and thence to Talsarnau (the Head of the Roads), whence passage was made across the Traeth Bach to Mynffordd. It would seem to have been a branch from the Sarn Helen, which followed very nearly the course of the modern road, as straight as an arrow, from Dolgelley to Maentwrog.

At Egryn, between Llanaber and Llanddwywe, was formerly an abbey, but of that nothing now remains, and its site is occupied by a farmhouse. Here lived in his early days William Owen Pughe, an enthusiastic antiquary and lover of all things Celtic. In 1785 he laid the foundation of his great work, a Welsh-English Dictionary, which was printed and published in London in 1803. Some idea of the richness of the Welsh language may be gained from the fact that, whereas Johnson’s English Dictionary, as enlarged by Todd, contains about 61,000 words, the first edition of Dr. Pughe’s Welsh Dictionary contained as many as 100,000 words.

Another great work in which he was engaged was the transcription and editing of the three volumes of the Myvyrian ArchÆology of Wales, a mine of information on the early history of Wales. It was published in 1801-7.

As a number of the MSS. printed have been since destroyed by the fires that have consumed so many Welsh houses and their libraries, we may well be thankful that the publication was then made.

One of the most disastrous of the fires which have caused so much of Welsh literature to perish was that of Llwyd’s collection. Edward Llwyd, born in 1660, devoted his life to the accumulation of materials relative to Wales. He visited Ireland, Cornwall, Brittany, and Scotland in quest of MSS., and formed a compilation of his collections in forty volumes in folio, ten in quarto, and above a hundred in smaller size. These were offered, after his death, to Jesus College, Oxford, but owing to Dr. Wynne, then Fellow of Jesus, having been on bad terms with Llwyd, the college, by his advice, refused the offer.

They were then purchased by Sir Thomas Seabright, of Beechwood, in Hertfordshire, in whose library they remained till 1807, when they were sold to Sir Watkyn Williams Wynn, Bart. Some years afterwards the greater and more valuable portion of these priceless documents was transmitted to London to a binder. His premises caught fire, and the result of Llwyd’s life-labours was consumed.

Another disastrous fire was that of Hafod, near Aberystwyth. This was a residence of the Johnes family, and in the library was a large collection of Welsh manuscripts on various subjects—history, medicine, poetry, and romance. The house and library were both destroyed in a conflagration that broke out.

“The fire,” says George Borrow, “is generally called the great fire of Hafod, and some of those who witnessed it have been heard to say that its violence was so great that the burning rafters mixed with flaming books were hurled high above the summits of the hills. The loss of the house was a matter of triviality compared with that of the library. The house was soon rebuilt—but the library could never be restored.”

Again, in 1858, the fine collection of Welsh MSS. at Wynnstay was destroyed by fire. Thus a literature perishes, and every effort should be made to print what remains.