CAIO (CARMARTHENSHIRE).
In the parish of Caio, there is a gold mine which in ancient times was worked by the Romans. It is on the estate of Dolaucothy, and the spot is known as the “Ogofau,” or caves, and part of it is a height, hardly a mountain, that has been scooped out like a volcanic crater by the Romans during their occupation. In this hollow or basin it is said that the five saints named Ceitho, Gwyn, Gwynno, Gwynnoro, and Celynin, who flourished in the sixth century, had retired in a thunderstorm for shelter. They had penetrated into the mine and had lost their way, and taking a stone for a bolster had laid their heads on it and fallen asleep. And there they would remain in peaceful slumber till the return of King Arthur, or till a more godly bishop than has hitherto been should occupy the throne of St. David. When that happens, Merlin himself is to be disenchanted and restore to liberty the dormant saints. An inquisitive woman named Gweno, who, led by the devil, sought to spy on the saintly brotherhood in their long sleep, was punished by losing her way in the passage of the mine. She, likewise, remained in an undying condition, but was suffered to emerge in storm and rain, and in the night, when her vaporous form might be seen about the old Ogofau, and her sobs and moans were heard and frightened many.
Mr. F. S. Price, in his interesting “History of Caio,” says that another legend is that one of these saints appears to have a special commemoration, but under a female appelative in “Ffynon” and “Clochdy Gwenno,” the latter an isolated rock standing up in the midst of the great gold excavations, and marking their depth in that particular place. The well had, in good old times, a high reputation for healing virtues, and that “on an unfortunate day, Gweno was induced to explore the recesses of the cavern beyond a frowning rock, which had always been the prescribed limit to the progress of the bathers. She passed beneath it and was no more seen. She had been seized by some superhuman power, as a warning to others not to invade those mysterious ‘penetralia,’ and still on stormy nights, when the moon is full, the spirit of Gweno is seen to hover over the crag like a wreath of mist.”