Caersws derives its name from a traditional Queen Swsan, that carried on a war with a prince who reigned over a tribe on the south of the Severn. One day, seeing the enemy mustered on the Llandinam Hills, she crossed the river with her forces to give battle to the foe. The prince, occupying higher ground, was able to repel the attack; and the queen, seeing that her men were routed and in full flight, rode up to the prince and demanded to be put to death, that she might be buried in a great cairn beside her braves who had fallen. The prince replied that she was too gallant to be thus slain, and that he pardoned her; and further committed himself to her hands. Thenceforth their quarrels were fought out in private.
The Roman castrum may still be traced—it covers about seven acres. Excavations made here have given up coins of Vespasian, Domitian, and of later emperors, also Samian ware. Roman soldiers must have been very regardless as to the condition of their pockets, for wherever they went they dropped their money.
The plain would seem to have been a debatable ground from hoar antiquity, for every height about it is entrenched.
It was one of the first obligations of a chief of a Celtic tribe to provide every married man who was subject to him with a farm, with seven acres of arable land, seven of pasture, seven of woodland, and a share in commons. Now as the tribe grew and multiplied he was put to great straits, and the only way out of his difficulties, where all the available land was appropriated, was for him to oust a neighbour from his territories. This obligation weighed on a chief to the eighth generation. Now suppose that a man started to found a tribe, and had three sons, and each of these sons had three, and all married, and in each generation had the same number. In the eighth, the tribe would consist of 2,673 marriageable men clamouring to be provided with farms of seven acres of arable, land, seven of forest, and seven of pasture. What could the chief do to satisfy them but lead them against a neighbour?
One way out of the difficulty was the establishment of monasteries. This explains the development of monachism on the steppes of Tartary, as well as in Wales and Ireland. On that high and sterile plateau in Central Asia, only a limited population can be maintained, and it is to keep down the growth of the population, as a practical expedient, that so large a portion of the males is consigned to celibacy. And it was this practical necessity that provoked the ascetic and celibate societies of the Druids first, and the Christian monks afterwards. When no new lands were available for colonisation, when the three-field system was the sole method of agriculture known, then the land which would now maintain three families at least, would support but one. To keep the equipoise there were migration, war, and compulsory celibacy as alternatives. That this really was a difficulty confronting the old Celtic communities we can see by a story of what occurred in Ireland in 657. The population had so increased that the arable land proved insufficient for the needs of the country. Accordingly an assembly of clergy and laity was summoned by Dermot and Blaithmac, kings of Ireland, to take the matter into consideration. It was decided that the amount of land held by any one householder should be restricted; and further the elders of the assembly directed that prayers should be offered to the Almighty to send a pestilence “to reduce the number of the lower class, that the rest might live in comfort.”
S. Fechin of Fore, on being consulted, approved of this extraordinary proposal. And the prayer was answered from heaven by a second visitation of the terrible Yellow Plague; but the vengeance of God caused the force of the pestilence to fall on the nobles and clergy, of whom multitudes, including the kings and Fechin of Fore himself, were carried off.
To this day, in Tyrol, where the farms cannot be subdivided, owing to the mountainous nature of the land, on the death of the father the sons draw lots who shall marry and take the farm. The rest work under their more fortunate brother, and remain single.
A FIFTEENTH-CENTURY STATUE AT LOCMINÉ
Llanwnog lies under the rounded, heathy mountain of Ddifed, in rear of which are some tarns lying high. The church has in it a very fine and well-preserved screen and rood-loft, and an old stained-glass representation of the patron saint and founder of the church.