When the traveller sets forth from Llangollen, he does so primed with stories of the excellence of the scenery and the road. The folded mountains, some clothed with pine and larch to their very summits, others stern and jagged with rocks, far exceed any word-picture, as do also the valleys and the glittering course of the Dee, dashing impetuously over boulders and pebbly beaches, or more rarely sliding quietly where the trout lurk in deep and darkling pools, where the Welshman still navigates that early British canoe or boat—whichever you like to call it—the “coracle,” a craft that no Saxon can master. The scenery is exquisite, the air cooler and more refreshing as you leave Llangollen, and the road broad and hard.

But as you come past Berwyn station, that picturesque little place on the railway line running so neighbourly and yet inoffensively parallel with the road and the Dee, you are conscious, whether awheel or afoot, that the road is not by any means flat. The old coachmen, indeed, knew this, although imperceptible to the casual eye, to be one of the most trying rises on the way to Holyhead; and the modern cyclist, who pedals bravely up its two miles, thinks sadly upon the debilitating air of Llangollen until its crest is reached and he perceives the true state of affairs. Telford was confronted by a dilemma here. He could do either of two things: carry the road thus steeply over the ridge of Rhysgog, or take it in more level fashion, but in three parts of a circle, following the great bend the Dee makes at this point—a bend so great that it almost coils back upon itself. He chose the first course, and so, although he saved more than a mile, has punished all travellers that have used the road since then.

Emerging from the sombre plantations that darken the greater part of the rise, the road, terraced on the shoulders of the hills, runs down to Glyndyfrdwy, passing the toll-house of that name, and coming to the village where the “Sun” inn stands on the left, on entering. This is the little “pot-house called the ‘Rising Sun,’” mentioned by Colonel Birch-Reynardson, one of the places where the Holyhead Mail changed horses when he took the reins. Across the river is Llansaintffraid, which gave a name to a toll-house here—one of the few that have been demolished.

At the other end of Glyndyfrdwy, passing that pretty, tree-shaded anglers’ house, the “Berwyn Arms,” the hills recede and the valley opens out. The Mail at one time changed here. In those days it was called the “New Inn.” Just before the scenery becomes comparatively homely, two strikingly prominent hills or tumuli, at a short distance from one another, are seen overhanging the Dee. The second of them, standing isolated and crowned with a spindly group of fir trees, is known as “Owain Glyndwr’s Mount,” and there are those among the great Owain’s worshippers who still affect to see the foundations of his house in the rolling meadow beneath.

Owain Glyndwr is one of the greatest and latest of Welsh national heroes, and the valley of the Dee is especially linked with his memory. It could scarce be otherwise, for his name of Glyndwr was a territorial one, and derived from his ancestral estate situated here at Glyndyfrdwy and for some miles along the Dee between Berwyn and Corwen.

It was in the year 1400 that Owain rose in rebellion and set all Wales aflame against the English. He was no hot-headed patriot, rising for the mere idea of throwing off a foreign yoke, but a man who had suffered wrongs and sought redress in vain. Lord Grey of Ruthin, one of the powerful Lords Marchers, had seized a portion of his land, held it by force of arms, despite the decision of the Courts in London, and represented the injured man to be a rebel who refused the feudal duty of sending help to aid the King against his opening campaign against the Scots. Hitherto he had been no rebel, but a loyal supporter of the English rule, at that time long established firmly in Wales. Not only so, but he had moved in the Court circles of that day, and was not only an educated gentleman, but a personage of wealth, consequence, and influence in his own country, and precisely one to be well treated by politic rulers.

Glyndwr was driven into rebellion, if ever man was. He was no youth, but a man of forty-two years of age when matters came to this crisis. He was also one of skill and resource, and, before the provocative Grey could do much, had burnt his town and castle of Ruthin, and, turning towards England, advanced with fire and sword up to the very walls of Shrewsbury. Fortune smiled from that time, first upon one and then upon the other side. English expeditionary forces under the young Prince of Wales drove Glyndwr back, and burnt his ancestral halls at Sycherth and Glyndyfrdwy, and yet when stress of weather warned the English to retreat, Glyndwr, unconquered, was snarling at their heels. Later, he himself assumed the title of Prince of Wales, and in royal manner entered into a tripartite alliance with Hotspur and Mortimer to dethrone Henry IV. and divide England and Wales between them. And had the Battle of Shrewsbury been decided the other way there can be little doubt of their success.

The Welsh bards and seers had been very busy with prophecies and portents even at his birth, and Shakespeare—who thought Welshmen excellent subjects to make fun of—has used these forebodings and Glyndwr’s rising arrogance with effect in that scene of Henry IV. where the allies meet at Bangor. “At my birth,” says Glyndwr—

“Why,” retorts Hotspur, “so it would have done at the same season if your mother’s cat had but kitten’d, though you yourself had never been born.”

“I can call spirits from the vasty deep,” adds Glyndwr; to which the unromantic Hotspur observes:—

It is plain, if we take the Shakespearean view, that there were never such ill-assorted allies as Hotspur and Glyndwr. The one boasts, in true Welsh style, that no man is his equal, and Hotspur is only ready to allow that no man speaks better Welsh.

Had this alliance been successful, Glyndwr’s sovereignty was to extend over Wales and to include all the territory comprised within a line drawn from the Mersey to Burton-on-Trent, and from thence to Worcester and the mouth of the Severn. But he distrusted Hotspur, even if he was frank with Mortimer, who had become his son-in-law; and when Hotspur advanced from the Scottish borders to give battle to Henry IV. at Shrewsbury, left him to fight a hopeless struggle against overwhelming numbers. Had Glyndwr been a true ally and joined forces Shrewsbury Fight would have had a different ending. But, cursed with those streaks of treachery and suspicion that mar the character of the Celt, Glyndwr let his ally be destroyed, and with that desertion wrought the eventual failure of his own ambitions. This is no place to follow his fortunes, rising and falling in a long and hopeless struggle. Successes he had in plenty, and he laid the greater part of Wales waste, but Saxon tenacity wore him down in the long run. After a romantic career, he at length became a beaten fugitive, and at the last fades out of sight, in 1416. No man knows where or when he died; but legends connect the little village of Monnington, in Herefordshire, with his obscure end.

The Welsh bards who twanged their harps in Owain’s halls, and ate his food and swilled his sack and metheglin, did him an ill service when they sang of the deeds he was to do and the glory that was to be his. His halls are gone, and only traditions and the researches of the antiquary preserve his story. His Mount stands still by the roadside, and vague stories of how he stood here and watched for the approach of his enemies are told; but one may have a shrewd suspicion that it is only your literary Welshman who nowadays knows or cares much about him.