“May lightnings never lay thee low
Nor archer cut from thee his bow.”
Mr. Baring-Gould tells us how these two bards were constantly in a state of feud and bitter rivalry, till an ingenious friend put an end to their quarrels by simply telling each of them that the other was dead, and was to be buried at Strata Florida on such-and-such a day—mentioning the same day in both cases. Each of the poets, in the glow of generosity consequent on the death of a hated rival, composed a beautiful ode in praise of his enemy, and proceeded to the churchyard to read it beside the grave. There, of course, they met; and each, determined to read his ode at any cost, forthwith read it to the hero of it, and buried his enmity instead of his enemy.
It was somewhere within that “meanely waullid” cemetery that this quaint scene took place; and it was somewhere within these precincts that a thousand frightened children crowded together long ago, waiting to be carried away from their parents and homes in Cardiganshire to the exile in England to which Henry IV. had doomed them. That is an ill-omened name in Ystradfflur—the name of Henry Bolingbroke—for in his fury at the rebellion of Glyndwr he fell upon this sacred place and ruined it, and drove out its monks, and stabled his horses at its High Altar.
To reach Machynlleth, which is our object, we must return to Aberystwith—but we may do this by a slightly different road, diverging at Trawscoed. The surface is better than that of the other, and the road is wider, but there is one bad hill, with a nominal gradient of 1 in 7. As we approach Aberystwith we see, beyond the river, a little place called Llanbadarn Fawr. Here, in very early times, long before the great days of Ystradfflur, there was a famous monastery, founded by St. Padarn, a contemporary of St. David. Like St. David’s own monastery, it was laid waste by the Danes.
ARCHWAY AT STRATA FLORIDA.
NEAR GLANDOVEY.
Passing through Aberystwith we climb out of it on the further side by a long hill. Except the wide view from this hill there is nothing of special attraction in any way till we have passed Tal-y-bont. Then suddenly there comes into sight the headland beyond the Dyfi (Dovey). Far away on the left is the sea, and between us and it lies a wide and absolutely level plain, with Borth showing darkly on the shore. Soon we pass Tre-Taliesin, named from the great bard of Arthur’s day, whose grave is said by some to lie on this hillside to the right, and by others to be beside the waters of Geirionydd. Beyond this village we climb through lovely woods of birch and larch, and then we run down, leaving the trees behind us, into the beautiful estuary of the Dyfi. A wide sea of gorse is at out feet; the river winds through the shallows beyond; and, bounding the valley and the view, rises the mighty wall of North Wales.