A Book of North Wales

by S. Baring-Gould

From Carnarvon Llanddwyn may best be visited. To the south-east of Anglesey is a tract of blown sand from Newborough—in Welsh Rhosyr. A spit of land runs out into the sea, and bears a lighthouse that sheds its warning ray over the southern entrance to the Menai Straits. It encloses a bay, and the sands extend thence to the Straits.

On this tongue of land stand the ruins of a church founded by S. Dwyn or Dwynwen, daughter of Brychan, the Irish king of Brecknock. The place is not easily reached from Newborough without a guide, as the sands are over ankle, and in places half-way up the calf, deep, and the labour of reaching it is great to anyone who does not know the track. Yet the place was at one time greatly resorted to. Dwynwen was the Venus of Wales. She and one Maelor Dafodril fell desperately in love with each other, but when he paid her his addresses, in a spirit of caprice or levity she flouted him, and he retired deeply offended. She constantly expected him to return, but he did not; instead, he published libels about her. She was miserable, partly because of these slanders, partly because she loved him still. Then in her distress she prayed to be relieved of her passion, and an angel appeared and administered to her some drops of a heavenly liquid, and at once her heart was cured of love-sickness.

Next the angel administered the same medicine to Maelor, and he was congealed to ice. God now gave to Dwynwen three requests which He undertook to fulfil. So she asked to have Maelor thawed, and he was so; then she asked that all lovers who invoked her aid might obtain the object of their desires, or become indifferent; then, lastly, she asked that she might never again hanker after the married estate.

At Llanddwyn was a holy well that is now choked by sand, but till it was smothered up was in much resort for its oracular answers to questions put to it. The following is an account of the ceremony from the pen of William Williams, of Llandegai, written about 1800:—

“There was a spring of clear water, now choked up by the sand, at which an old woman from Newborough always attended and prognosticated the lover’s success from the movements of some small eels, which waved out of the sides of the well on spreading the lover’s handkerchief on the surface of the water. I remember an old woman saying that when she was a girl she consulted the woman at the well about her destiny with respect to a husband. On spreading her handkerchief, out popped an eel from the north side of the well, and soon after another crawled from the south side, and they both met on the bottom of the well. Then the woman told her that her husband would be a stranger from the south part of Carnarvonshire. Soon after, it happened that three brothers came from that part and settled in the neighbourhood where this young woman was, one of whom made his addresses to her, and in a little time married her. So much of the prophecy I remember. This couple was my father and mother.”

A maxim attributed to the saint is, “There is no amiability like cheerfulness”; i.e. Nothing is so attractive as a cheerful spirit. S. Dwynwen was also regarded as patroness of the cattle in Anglesey. The same writer adds:—

“I remember hearing an instance which happened, I believe, about one hundred and fifty years ago. The ploughing oxen at Bodeon, on April 25th, took fright when at work, and ran over a steep rock and perished in the sea. This being S. Mark the Evangelist’s Day, it was considered that having done work on it was a transgression of a divine ordinance, and to prevent such accident for the future the proprietor of the farm ordered that this festival of S. Mark should be for the future invariably kept a holy day, and that two wax candles should annually on that day be kept burning in the church porch of Llanddwyn, which was the only part of the building that was covered in, as an offering and memorial of this transgression and accident, and as a token that S. Dwynwen’s aid and protection was solicited to prevent such catastrophe any more. This was only discontinued about eighty years ago, i.e. 1720.”

The Penrhyn slate quarries are reached by a branch line from Bangor to Bethesda. The quarrying is carried on upon a vast scale, and the place is interesting to the geologist on account of the presence, in the midst of a great dyke of greenstone, of an eruptive rock which has traversed the beds, and which has been left untouched.

The slates are cut to various sizes. Duchesses are the largest; then come Countesses and Ladies. About the beginning of last century a slate merchant of the name of Docer, going through the quarry with Lord Penrhyn, advised him that the slates should be made of such-and-such a size, and this is the origin of the name of “Docer.” By this time the skill of the quarryman and of the slater found some new plan continually. One wanted to do this, and another that. His lordship failed to please everybody. His lady, seeing him in this plight, and in continual trouble, advised him to call the slates after the names of the degrees in the aristocracy. He took up the suggestion, and called the 24 by 12 slate a Duchess, the 20 by 10 a Countess, and the 16 by 8 a Lady.