But there is something to be added.
Conan Meriadoc has figured largely in fabulous Breton history. At the beginning of the eighteenth century a priest of Lamballe, named Gallet, wrote a history for the glorification of the dukes of Rohan, and he spun a wonderful tale that imposed on later serious historians. According to him, Conan or Cynan Meiriadog, disappointed at not getting Ursula, married Darerca, the sister of S. Patrick, and from this union descended the kings of Brittany and the dukes of Rohan. This he achieved by identifying Cynan with Caw, the father of Gildas, entirely regardless of chronology, for Gildas, son of Caw, king in Strathclyde, died in 570, and Cynan was contemporary with Maximus, who was killed in 388, and Patrick was born about 410.
Dom Morice, whose History of Brittany was published in 1750, reproduces this absurd and impossible pedigree, and further identifies Conan with Cataw, son of Geraint, and uncle of S. Cybi, who died about 554.
There is a holy well, Ffynnon Fair, in the parish of Cefn, in a beautiful situation, once very famous, but the chapel is in ruins, though the spring flows merrily still. It was the “Gretna Green” of the district, for here clandestine marriages were wont to take place, celebrated by one of the vicars choral of the cathedral, till all such marriages were put a stop to by the Act of Lord Hardwicke in 1753. The chapel was of the fifteenth century, and is now overgrown with ivy, and in a clump of trees. Mrs. Hemans made this, “Our Lady’s Well,” the subject of one of her poems. In the unpretending-looking house just across the Elwy was written one of the earliest printed Welsh grammars (1593).
The Cefn caves are in an escarpment of mountain limestone high above the river, and have been carefully explored. They yielded bones of extinct animals—the cave bear, wolf, elephas antiquus, bos longifrons, reindeer, the hyæna, and the rhinoceros—but very scanty traces of man. The bones are preserved at Plas-yn-Cefn, the residence of Mrs. Williams-Wynn, on whose property the caves are. The caves are worth visiting more for the view from the rocks than for any intrinsic interest in themselves.
A quaint Elizabethan mansion, Plas Newydd, has in its wainscoted hall an inscription to show that it was built by one Foulk ab Robert in 1583 when he was aged forty-three. It is said to have been the first house in the neighbourhood covered with slates. A giant, Cawr Rhufoniog, used to visit there, and a crook is shown high up near the cornice, on which he was wont to suspend his hat. Giants, it would appear, were in days of yore pretty plentiful in this neighbourhood. The grave of one is pointed out close by, and another, Edward Shôn Dafydd, otherwise called Cawr y Ddôl, lived at an adjoining farm. His walking-stick was the axle-tree of a cart, with a huge crowbar driven into one end and bent for a handle. He and Sir John Salusbury (of the double thumbs) once fell to testing their strength by uprooting forest trees.
Between Plas Newydd and Plas-yn-Cefn, in a field, is a “covered avenue,” only it has lost all its coverers. It was in a mound called Carnedd Tyddyn Bleiddyn, with some trees on the top. When these were blown down in a storm, a little over thirty years ago, the cromlech within was exposed. It was found to contain several skeletons, in a crouching position, of what have been called the Platycnemic Men of Denbighshire.
Between S. Asaph and Rhyl is Rhuddlan with its castle in ruins. Formerly the tide washed its walls. The marsh, Morfa Rhuddlan, was the scene of a great battle, fought against the Saxons in 796, in which the Welsh, under their King Caradog, were defeated with great slaughter, and the prisoners taken were all put to the sword. The beautiful melody “Morfa Rhuddlan” has been supposed to pertain to a lament composed on that occasion; but the character of the melody is not earlier than the seventeenth century, and it apparently owes its name to the verses adapted to it by Iean Glan Geirionydd, who lived a thousand years after the event of this battle.
Welsh melodies require to be taken in hand by some musical antiquary and thoroughly investigated and sifted. It will be found that along with many noble airs that are genuinely Welsh, a goodly number are importations from England. This was inevitable, so mixed up were the Welsh with English families in the great houses and castles. Edward Jones published his Musical and Poetical Relicks of the Welsh Bards in 1784. He collected the tunes from harpers and singers, but he knew nothing of old English music, and was incapable of discriminating what was of home production from what was an importation; consequently, in his collection, a goodly percentage consist of English melodies.