Legend has been busy with the deposed king. It is said that in his camp he suffered tortures from rheumatism and wild-fire, and that he sought relief from S. Cynhafal, patron of Llangynhafal hard by, who refused it to him, as he was a renegade to paganism. Then Benlli in his pain sought ease in the cooling waters of the River Alun, but the stream likewise refused its aid, and dived underground. Again Benlli plunged in, and the water dived again. He tried a third time, and the river a third time retreated below the surface. The story has been invented to explain the fact that the Alun actually does thrice disappear in its bed.
At Derwen, in the church, there is a good screen, but the finest of all in this district is that of Llanrwst. In most of the Welsh screens the openings are rectangular, with some dainty tracery introduced at the top. But at Llanrwst the openings are pointed. In the Devon and Cornish and Somersetshire screens these openings are mere Perpendicular windows, and all in each screen are alike in tracery, and this tracery is very much the same in all. But at Llanrwst the design in each window of the screen is different; there are, however, no mullions. The face of the rood-loft is also rich, and only needs the filling in of the niches with figures to make it complete.
Llandegla is interesting only on account of its spring, now all but choked up, on Gwern Degla, about two hundred yards from the church. Pennant in his Tours writes:—
“The water is under the tutelage of the Saint (S. Tecla); and to this day is held to be extremely beneficial in the clwyf Tegla, S. Tecla’s disease, or the falling sickness. The patient washes his limbs in the well, makes an offering into it of fourpence, walks round it three times, and thrice repeats the Lord’s Prayer. These ceremonies are never begun till after sunset. If the afflicted be of the male sex, he makes an offering of a cock; if of the fair sex, of a hen. The fowl is carried in a basket, first round the well, after that into the churchyard, when the same orisons, and the same circumambulations are performed round the church. The votary then enters the church, gets under the Communion Table, lies down with the Bible under his or her head, is covered with the carpet or cloth, and rests there till break of day; departing after offering sixpence, and leaving the fowl in the church. If the bird dies, the cure is supposed to have been effected, and the disease transferred to the devoted victim.”
This is now a thing of the past. But the oblation of cocks and hens still goes on in Brittany. At Carnoet, near Carhaix, is a chapel of S. Gildas. At his pardon in January the peasants bring fowls, and in the chapel are three ranges of hutches, in which they are placed, and where they remain clucking and crowing during Mass, so that often the voice of the celebrant is drowned. After service the fowls are sold by auction, and the money obtained goes for the maintenance of the chapel. On the floor of the chapel is a stone sarcophagus, in which sick people were wont to lie in the hopes of thereby recovering. It was, one would suppose, kill or cure. They also offered a cock or hen, but this has gone out of use in Brittany as in Wales. No one now sleeps under the altar at Llandegla, or in the stone coffin at Carnoet.
LLANGOLLEN