LLANDDEWI BREFI.
This parish is celebrated for its legendary lore; and no wonder for it is a spot of great historic interest.
There is a tradition current in the neighbourhood to the effect that it was originally intended to build the Church of Llanddewi Brefi in a field on Godregarth farm, and that the work was actually commenced on that spot, but the attempt to build there was constantly frustrated, for that which was set up during the day was pulled down in the night by a Spirit, and all the material removed or carried to the spot where the Parish Church now stands. The field pointed out by tradition is about a mile away from the village, and yew trees are still to be seen there.
According to another most ancient tradition, when the Church was in process of construction, two oxen known as the “Ychain Bannog” were employed to draw the stone required for the building. The load was so heavy that one of the two oxen died in the attempt to drag it forward; but before falling down dead he bellowed nine times, and so powerful was the echo that the hill, which before presented itself as an obstacle, divided or split in two. The other ox alone was then able to bring the load unassisted to the site of the Church.
“Llanddewi Brefi fraith,
Lle brefodd yr ych naw gwaith,
Nos hollti craig y Foelallt.”
(Llanddewi Brefi the spotted,
Where the ox bellowed nine times,
Till Foelallt rock split in two.)
According to another version of the story, it was the ox which survived was the one that bellowed, and not the one that died. According to another story given in Meyrick’s History of Cardiganshire, these two Bannog Oxen were on one occasion used to draw “away a monstrous beaver dead”; but this is only a version of a legend which is to be found in several parts of Wales, and is founded on the older story of Hu Gadarn, or Hu the Mighty, who, with his Bannog Oxen, drew to land the avanc out of Llyn Llion, so that the lake burst out no more to deluge the earth. See “Legend of Llyn y ddau Ychain” in Folk-Lore of North Wales, by the late Rev. E. Owen, page 132.
St David’s. Llanddewi-Brefi. Cardiganshire
The two Ychain Bannog of Llanddewi were sometimes called “dau ychain Dewi” (St. David’s two oxen). In a poem written in the Twelfth Century, the Welsh Bard Gwynfardd Brycheiniog alludes to the old tradition as follows:—
“Dau ychan Dewi, deu odidawe,
Dodyssant eu gwar dan garr kynawe,
Dau ychen Dewi ardderchawe oeddynt.”
There used to be preserved at Llanddewi Church a remarkable fragment of a horn called “Madcorn yr Ych Bannog,” that is, the core of the Bannog Ox’s Morn, which, according to tradition, had been kept there as a valuable relic ever since the time of St. David. This horn is now at Llidiardau, Llanilar, kept privately. It has been pronounced by Professor Boyd Dawkins to have belonged to “the great urns (Bos Primigenius) that Charlemagne hunted in the forest of Aachen, and the Monks of St. Galle ate on their feast days.”
When St. David was preaching at Llanddewi at the great Synod, in the year 519, it is said that the ground on which he stood rose up and formed a hillock under his feet. Cressy recounts the miracle in the following words:—“When all the fathers assembled enjoined David to preach, he commanded a child which attended him, and had lately been restored to life by him, to spread a napkin under his feet; and, standing upon it, he began to expound the Gospel and the law to the auditory. All the while that this oration continued, a snow-white dove, descending from Heaven, sate upon his shoulders; and, moreover, the earth, on which he stood raised itself under him till it became a hill, from whence his voice, like a trumpet, was clearly heard and understood by all, both near and far off, on the top of which hill a church was afterwards built, and remains to this day.”
The people of Llanddewi Brefi told me that there is another tradition still extant in the neighbourhood, which says that as St. David was preaching on this great occasion, a nightingale appeared on the spot, and sang. The music of the bird was so sweet, that the people listened to the nightingale’s song, instead of continuing to give their attention to the sermon. Seeing this, the Holy Saint David rebuked the congregation, and informed them that the nightingale should never again sing in the neighbourhood; and from that day till now the bird has never been heard there. According to the great historian George Owen, there is a different version of this story in Pembrokeshire. “St. David, being seriouse occupied in the night tyme in his divine orizons, was so troubled with the sweete tuninges of the nightingales, as that he could not fasten his minde upon heavenlie cogitacions, as at other tymes, being letted (hindered) by the melodie of the bird, praied unto the Almightie, that from that tyme forward there might never a nightingale sing within his Dioces, and this saieth our women (old wives’ fables), was the cause of confininge of the bird out of this country.”
At Llanio Isaf, in the parish of Llanddewi Brefi are the remains of Loventium, which was a large Roman city. About half a mile from Gogoyan, in the same parish, was once a holy well called Ffynon Ddewi, or St. David’s Well, the water of which, according to tradition, flowed up miraculously when St. David restored to life the son of a widow. The well has now been closed up, and a house stands on the spot. There is another “Ffynon Ddewi,” on the road-side between Aberaeron and Cardigan.