CHAPTER XI
LLANGOLLEN
The Vale of Llangollen—S. Collen—A Breton Llangollen—Dinas Bran—Maelor—The old maids—The church—Vale Crucis—The pillar of Eliseg—Plas Eliseg—Owen ab Cadwgan and Nest—End of Owen—Corwen—Church rebuilt—English and French capitals to pillars—Inscribed stones—Cup-markings—Caer Drewyn—Owen Gwynedd and Henry II.—Rûg—Gruffydd ab Cynan—Image of Derfel Gadarn—Burning of Friar Forest—Pennant Melangell—Patroness of hares—The Welsh harper—Different kinds of harps—Satire on harpers.
THE Vale of Llangollen is proverbial for its beauty, and possibly because it has been so spoken, written, and sung about, it disappoints at first sight, but it is only at first sight that it does disappoint. Its beauties grow on one. The really finest portion is at Berwyn, which is the next station on the line to Bala, and not at the town that gives its name to the vale.
The mountains are not very lofty, rising only to 1,650 feet, but the Eglwyseg rocks redeem them from being regarded as hills. Llangollen owes its name to a founder named Collen in the seventh century. He descended from Caradog Freichfras who drove the Irish out of Brecknock, and whose wife, the beautiful and virtuous Tegau Eurfron, has been made famous by the ballad of “The Boy and Mantle,” which is in Percy’s Reliques.
A wonderful Life of Collen exists in Welsh that has not as yet been translated. It relates how that he went abroad and studied at Orleans, then he returned to Britain and settled at Glastonbury, where he was elected abbot. This post he soon resigned for another that was “heavier and harder,” which consisted principally in going about preaching. He again got tired of this, and returned to Glastonbury, where everything went on smoothly for five years, when he happened to quarrel with the monks, for he was a peppery Welshman; and cursing them, he left for Glastonbury Tor, and made for himself a cell under a rock, where he could grumble to himself unmolested.
As he was in his cell one day, he heard two men talking about Gwyn ab Nudd, and saying that he was king of the under-world and of the fairies. Collen put his head out, and told them to hold their peace and not speak about these beings as if they were deities, for in fact they were only devils.
“You had best not use any disrespectful words about Gwyn,” retorted they, “or he will serve you out for doing so.”
Now at dead of night Collen heard some raps at the door of his habitation, and in answer to a call, “Who is there?” received the reply, “It is I. Gwyn ab Nudd, king of the nether world, has sent me, his messenger, to bid you meet him at the top of the hill.”
“I won’t go,” retorted the saint.
