From Cardigan the River Teify winds through a hilly country to Cenarth, whose castle is the scene of a story all too common in the days when Henry I. was King of England.
CARDIGAN BAY
Nest, the daughter of Rhys ap Tudor, the last Prince of Wales who was actually quite independent of English rule, was the fairest maiden in all the land.
When her father died, he left her in the charge of Henry I., and the King gave her in marriage to the Norman Gerald, Lord of Pembroke, who had just built this castle at Cenarth as a protection against the hostile Welsh on both sides of the river. There he lived happily with his beautiful wife and children for some years, until Cadogan, Prince of Cardigan, took it into his head to give a great banquet at Cardigan Castle.
Now, at this feast the one topic of conversation and song was the beauty of Nest, the wife of the Norman baron, and at length the wild son of Cadogan, Owen by name, arose and declared that he would carry her off and bring her back to her own people.
So one dark night, Owen and his band of followers forced their way into Pembroke Castle, where the Earl and his wife were then living, and into the room where Gerald and Nest lay asleep.
The baron barely saved his life by escaping down a drain, while his wife and children were carried off and the castle fired. The unhappy Nest was hidden, they say, in a romantic old house near Llangollen, and meantime all Wales was in an uproar about the ears of the daring robber.
The wrath of Henry of England fell hot upon Cadogan, who had tried in vain to persuade his son to restore his prisoner. Most of his land was taken from him by jealous neighbours as well as by the English barons of the border, and at length the turbulent Owen was forced to flee to Ireland, and Nest returned to her husband.
Many years later, says the tale, Owen returned, an outlaw, to his native land, and before very long found himself fighting in a quarrel on the same side as the injured Gerald. No sooner did the latter discover this than, mindful of the ancient feud, he sought out his rival and challenged him to single conflict, putting him at last to death. And still they show below that old manor-house at Eglyseg, the hiding-place and prison of poor Nest, the path that climbs the steep glen, and claim it to have been the way by which Owen set out upon his wild quest and returned with his terrified captives.