Some time in the forties, when I was at the College at Llandovery, my sister, Madam —— speaking of our old property Glanbran, at that time mortgaged, said, there is an old Welsh saying attributed to Merlin to the effect that the Gwynnes should be at Glanbran until a man standing at Dover could speak to another at Calais. Years after, when I was in India, about the year when the telephone or telegraph was perfected between France and England, a document was sent out to me for my signature, which was my final release to the Glanbran Estate as the youngest son of the late Col. Sackville Gwynne of Glanbran Park.
Yours sincerely,
NADOLIG GWYNNE.
According to Giraldus Cambrensis, Merlin had prophesied that a King of England and Conqueror of Ireland, should die in crossing “Llechllafar,” a stone of great size which was placed across the stream dividing the cemetery of St. David’s from the north side of the Church to form a bridge. When Henry II. passed over it on his return from Ireland a frantic woman called upon Llechllafar to kill him according to Merlin’s prophecy.
“The King, who had heard the prophecy, approaching tie stone, stopped for a short time at the foot of it, and, looking earnestly at it, boldly passed over; then, turning round, and looking towards the stone, thus indignantly inveighed against the prophet: ‘Who will hereafter give credit to the lying Merlin?’ A person standing by, and observing what had passed, in order to vindicate the injury done to the prophet, replied, with a loud voice, ‘Thou art not that King of whom Ireland is to be conquered, or of whom Merlin prophesied!’”
According to an ancient tradition, this stone spoke or groaned once when a corpse was carried over it.
I was informed by many persons who live in the neighbourhood of Abergwili, near Carmarthen, that Merlin was such a giant that he could jump over the Vale of Towy.
MERLIN’S HILL, ABERGWILI.