RIVER LEGENDS.
“Hafren ag Wy, hyfryd eu gwedd
A Rheidol fawr ei hanrhydedd.”
(How beautiful are the Severn and Wye
And Rheidol is held in honour they say.)
The Severn, the Wye, and the Rheidol rise on Plinlimon Mountain. These rivers, which are called three sisters, agreed to make a visit to the sea in the morning. Severn rose up very early, and took compass through Shropshire, Worcestershire, and Gloucestershire. Wye rose later and took her journey through the counties of Radnorshire and Hereford, falling in with her sister near Chepstow, and went hand in hand to the ocean. Rheidol indulged in her dreams and lay so late that she was forced to take the nearest road to Aberystwyth. According to another version of this legend five sister fountains are mentioned, namely, Wye, Severn, Rheidol, Llyfnant and the Dulas.
There is another interesting old legend having close connection with the Severn, the following version of which is given by Milton in his History of Britain:—“After this Brutus in a chosen place, built Troja Nova, changed in time to Trimovantum, now London; and began to enact laws (Heli being then High Priest in Judea); and having governed the whole isle twenty-four years died, and was buried in his new Troy. Three sons—Locrine, Albanact, and Camber—divided the land by consent. Locrine had the middle part, Loegria; Camber possessed Cambria or Wales; Albanact, Albania, now Scotland. But he in the end, by Humber, King of the Hums, who, with a fleet, invaded that land, was slain in fight, and his people driven back into Loegria. Locrine and his brother go out against Humber; who now marching onward was by these defeated, and in a river drowned, which to this day retains his name. Among the spoils of his camp and navy were found certain maids, and Estrilidis, above the rest, passing fair, the daughter of a King in Germany, from whence Humber, as he went wasting the sea-coast, had led her captive; whom Locrine, though before, contracted to the daughter of Corineus, resolves to marry. But being forced and threatened by Corineus, whose authority and power he feared, Gwendolen, the daughter, he yields to marry, but in secret loves the other; and ofttimes retiring as to some sacrifice, through vaults and passages made underground, and seven years thus enjoying her, had by her a daughter equally fair, whose name was Sabra. But when once his fear was off by the death of Corineus, not content with secret enjoyment, divorcing Gwendolen, he makes Estrilidis his queen. Gwendolen, all, in rage, departs into Cornwall; where Pladan, the son she had by Locrine, was hitherto brought up by Corineus, his grandfather; and gathering an army of her father’s friends, and subjects, gives battle to her husband by the river Sture, wherein Locrine, shot with an arrow, ends his life. But not so ends the fury of Gwendolen, for Estrilidis and her daughter Sabra she throws into a river, and, to have a monument of revenge proclaims that the stream be thenceforth called after the damsel’s name, which by length of time is changed now to Sabrina or Severn.” The Poet in his “Mask of Comus” makes the nymph Sabrina “that with moist curb sways the smooth Severn stream” the goddess of the river, but still retaining her maiden gentleness, and the shepherds, at their festivals, “Carol her goodness loud in their rustic lays, and throw sweet garland wreaths into her stream of pansies, pink, and gaudy daffodils. And, as the old swain said, she can unlock the clasping charm, and thaw the number spell, if she be right invoked in warbling song; for maidenhood she loves, and will be swift to aid a virgin, such as was herself, in hard-besetting need.” In the year 1634 when this “Comus” was presented at Ludlow Castle before the Lord President of Wales, the President’s own daughter, Lady Alice Egerton, when only a little girl, acted in it; and it is an interesting fact that this same Lady Alice, some years afterwards, became the wife of the Earl of Carbery, Golden Grove, Carmarthenshire, who entertained Jeremy Taylor during the time of the Commonwealth.