Celtic Folklore: Welsh and Manx (Volume 1 of 2)

Here, for the sake of comparison with the Northwalian stories in which the fairy wife runs away from her husband in consequence of his having unintentionally touched or hit her with the iron in the bridle, the fetter, or the stirrup, as on pp. 35, 40, 46, 50, 54, 61. I wish to cite the oldest recorded version, namely from Walter Mapes’ curious miscellany of anecdotes and legends entitled De Nugis Curialium Distinctiones Quinque. Mapes flourished in the latter part of the twelfth century, and in Distinctio ii. 11 of Thomas Wright’s edition, published in the year 1850, one reads the following story, which serves the purpose there of giving the origin of a certain Trinio, of whom Mapes had more to say:—

Aliud non miraculum sed portentum nobis Walenses referunt. Wastinum Wastiniauc secus stagnum Brekeinauc [read Brecheinauc], quod in circuitu duo miliaria tenet, mansisse aiunt et vidisse per tres claras a luna noctes choreas fæminarum in campo avenæ suæ, et secutum eum eas fuisse donec in aqua stagni submergerentur, unam tamen quarta vice retinuisse. Narrabat etiam ille raptor illius quod eas noctibus singulis post submersionem earum murmurantes audisset sub aqua et dicentes, ‘Si hoc fecisset, unam de nobis cepisset,’ et se ab ipsis edoctum quomodo hanc adepta [read -us] sit, quæ et consensit et nupsit ei, et prima verba sua hæc ad virum suum, ‘Libens tibi serviam, et tota obedientiæ devotione usque in diem illum prosilire volens ad clamores ultra Lenem [read Leueni] me freno tuo percusseris.’ Est autem Leueni aqua vicina stagno. Quod et factum est; post plurimæ prolis susceptionem ab eo freno percussa est, et in reditu suo inventam eam fugientem cum prole, insecutus est, et vix unum ex filiis suis arripuit, nomine Triunem Uagelauc.

‘The Welsh relate to us another thing, not so much a miracle as a portent, as follows. They say that Gwestin of Gwestiniog dwelt beside Brecknock Mere, which has a circumference of two miles, and that on three moonlight nights he saw in his field of oats women dancing, and that he followed them until they sank in the water of the mere; but the fourth time they say that he seized hold of one of them. Her captor further used to relate that on each of these nights he had heard the women, after plunging into the mere, murmuring beneath the water and saying, “If he had done so and so, he would have caught one of us,” and that he had been instructed by their own words, as to the manner in which he caught her. She both yielded and became his wife, and her first words to her husband were these: “Willingly will I serve thee, and with whole-hearted obedience, until that day when, desirous of sallying forth in the direction of the cries beyond the Ỻyfni, thou shalt strike me with thy bridle”—the Ỻyfni is a burn near the mere. And this came to pass: after presenting him with a numerous offspring she was struck by him with the bridle, and on his returning home, he found her running away with her offspring, and he pursued her, but it was with difficulty that he got hold even of one of his sons, and he was named Trinio (?) Faglog.’

The story, as it proceeds, mentions Trinio engaged in battle with the men of a prince who seems to have been no other than Brychan of Brycheiniog, supposed to have died about the middle of the fifth century. The battle was disastrous to Trinio and his friends, and Trinio was never seen afterwards; so Walter Mapes reports the fact that people believed him to have been rescued by his mother, and that he was with her living still in the lake. Giraldus calls it lacus ille de Brecheniauc magnus et famosus, quem et Clamosum dicunt, ‘that great and famous lake of Brecknock which they also call Clamosus,’ suggested by the Welsh Ỻyn Ỻefni, so called from the river Ỻefni, misinterpreted as if derived from ỻef ‘a cry.’ With this lake he connects the legend, that at the bidding of the rightful Prince of Wales, the birds frequenting it would at once warble and sing. This he asserts to have been proved in the case of Gruffuđ, son of Rhys, though the Normans were at the time masters of his person and of his territory29. After dwelling on the varying colours of the lake he adds the following statement:—Ad hæc etiam totus ædificiis consertus, culturis egregiis, hortis ornatus et pomeriis, ab accolis quandoque conspicitur, ‘Now and then also it is seen by the neighbouring inhabitants to be covered with buildings, and adorned with excellent farming, gardens, and orchards.’

It is remarkable as one of the few lakes in Wales where the remains of a crannog have been discovered, and while Mapes gives it as only two miles round, it is now said to be about five; so it has sometimes30 been regarded as a stockaded island rather than as an instance of pile dwellings.

In the Brython for 1863, pp. 114–15, is to be found what purports to be a copy of a version of the Legend of Ỻyn Syfađon, as contained in a manuscript of Hugh Thomas’ in the British Museum. It is to the effect that the people of the neighbourhood have a story that all the land now covered by the lake belonged to a princess, who had an admirer to whom she would not be married unless he procured plenty of gold: she did not care how. So he one day murdered and robbed a man who had money, and the princess then accepted the murderer’s suit, but she felt uneasy on account of the reports as to the murdered man’s ghost haunting the place where his body had been buried. So she made her admirer go at night to interview the ghost and lay it. Whilst he waited near the grave he heard a voice inquiring whether the innocent man was not to be avenged, and another replying that it would not be avenged till the ninth generation. The princess and her lover felt safe enough and were married: they multiplied and became numerous, while their town grew to be as it were another Sodom; and the original pair lived on so astonishingly long that they saw their descendants of the ninth generation. They exulted in their prosperity, and one day held a great feast to celebrate it; and when their descendants were banqueting with them, and the gaiety and mirth were at their zenith, ancestors and descendants were one and all drowned in a mighty cataclysm which produced the present lake.

Lastly may be briefly mentioned the belief still lingering in the neighbourhood, to the effect that there is a town beneath the waters of the lake, and that in rough weather the bells from the church tower of that town may be heard ringing, while in calm weather the spire of the church may be distinctly seen. My informant, writing in 1892, added the remark: ‘This story seems hardly creditable to us, but many of the old people believe it.’

I ought to have mentioned that the fifteenth-century poet Lewis Glyn Cothi connects with Syfađon31 Lake an afanc legend; but this will be easier to understand in the light of the more complete one from the banks of the river Conwy. So the reader will find Glyn Cothi’s words given in the next chapter.