MAESYFELIN.
The most popular tradition associated with Lampeter is that known as the “Curse of Maesyfelin.” Maesyfelin was a stately mansion on the banks of the river Dulas, on the east side of the town of Lampeter. It was once a place of consequence, and an ancient family of Lloyds lived there. About the beginning of the 17th Century the famous Vicar Pritchard of Llandovery, author of “Canwyll y Cymry” had a son named Samuel. Tradition has it that this young Samuel was an intimate friend of Sir Francis Lloyd, Knight of Maesyfelin, who was a wicked man. At last, so the story goes, the two quarrelled over some love affair, and young Samuel was stifled to death between two feather beds. The body, tied in a sack and placed on horse-back, was conveyed over the mountain in the depth of night and thrown into the river Towy in Carmarthenshire. When the body of his lamented son was discovered in the river, the broken-hearted father pronounced a curse on Maesyfelin in the following words:—
“Melldith Duw ar Maesyfelin—
Ar bob carreg, ar bob gwreiddyn—
Am daflu blodau tref Llan’ddyfri
Ar ei ben i Dywi i foddi.”
(The curse of God on Maesyfelin!
On every stone, and root therein,
For throwing the flower of Llandovery town
To Towy’s water, there to drown.)
People believe to this day that the judgment of God fell on the family and mansion of Maesyfelin. The palace delapsed and no longer exists. Materials from its ruins were carried away to repair Ffynonbedr, another mansion in the neighbourhood; but that place is also in ruin now, so that it is believed that the curse of Maesyfelin followed the material to Ffynonbedr.