A Book of North Wales

by S. Baring-Gould

Rûg, near Corwen, is the scene of the treacherous seizure of Gruffydd ab Cynan, king of Gwynedd, in 1080, by Hugh the Fat, Earl of Chester. He invited the king to come unattended and unarmed to a friendly conference here, and when he arrived had him loaded with chains and carried off to Chester, where he remained a prisoner for twelve years. He owed his release to a young man of Corwen, who on some plea obtained access to him in prison, and carried him forth on his back, chains and all, on a night when the garrison was keeping high revel and his guards were drunk. On his return into Gwynedd, he lurked for some time among the mountains till he had rallied sufficient men about him, when he swooped down on castle after castle of the Normans, took and burnt them and drove the invaders out of his lands.

Llandderfel is noted as having been a foundation of Derfel Gadarn, son of Hywel ab Emyr of Brittany. Before the Reformation there was a huge wooden image of him in the church, which was held in so great esteem that hundreds resorted to it daily with their offerings of cows, horses, and money. It was believed to have power to fetch souls out of Purgatory. Dr. Ellis Price was sent by Cromwell as Commissary to get rid of it. He found that on the day when he visited Llandderfel between five and six hundred pilgrims had been there. Price was ordered to send the image to London; the people were angry, and offered £40 to have it left. When the image arrived in London it was resolved to turn it to a signal purpose.

Friar Forest, a Franciscan, had been chaplain and confessor to Catherine of Aragon, and he declared that he “owed a double obedience, first to the King by the law of God, and secondly to the Bishop of Rome by his rule and profession.”

He was ordered to be burnt at the stake in 1538, and Latimer was appointed to preach before him on the occasion. The letter in which the Reformer accepted this commission is not pleasant reading. He was ready, since Cromwell desired it, “to play the fool after his customable manner when Forest should suffer,” and he complained that the unfortunate man was treated with too great leniency by his gaolers, and that he was even suffered to hear Mass and receive the Sacrament.

In Smithfield the pyre was built up, and the wooden statue of Derfel Gadarn placed on it; above all was a pair of gallows from which Forest was suspended in chains to be slowly burnt to death, whilst Latimer was haranguing from his pulpit, which at Latimer’s own request was placed close to the pyre.

In the church still remains a portion of a wooden horse, or rather stag, popularly called Ceffyl Derfel, and a wooden crozier, his Ffon, that formed part of the subject. “The common people used to resort from all parts at Easter in order to have a ride on Derfel’s horse. The horse was fixed to a pole, which was placed in a horizontal position, and attached to another, which stood perpendicularly and rested on a pivot. The rider, taking hold of the crozier, which was fastened to the horse, was wheeled round and round, as children are wheeled when they mount a wooden horse at a fair.”

From Llandderfel the old Sarn Helen, or Elen’s Road, runs to Llandrillo; and with a visit to this place may be combined one to the Pennant of Melangell, who was descended from this Elen and her husband Maximus. Her mother was an Irishwoman.

The story goes that her father desired to marry her to a chief under him, but either she disliked the man or the thought of marriage, and determined to run away. Accordingly she found an opportunity to escape, and secreted herself at Pennant, a lonely and lovely spot at the head of the Tanat. Her story is represented on the cornice of the carved oak screen of the church.

In this spot, sleeping on bare rock, she remained for fifteen years. One day Brochwel, prince of Powys, was hunting and in pursuit of a hare, when puss escaped into a thicket and took refuge under the robe of a virgin of great beauty, whom the huntsman discovered. She faced and drove back the hounds. The huntsman then put his horn to his lips, and there it stuck as if glued. Upon this, up came the prince, and he at once granted a parcel of land to the saint, to serve as a sanctuary, and bade her found there a convent. This she did, and she lived in a cell, which still remains, though somewhat altered, at the east end of the church.

She was buried there, and fragments of her beautiful shrine, as it is believed, remain built into the walls, sufficient to allow of its reconstruction. The cell of S. Melangell is, as said, to the east of the church, and has no communication with it. It goes by the name of Cell-y-Bedd, or Cell of the Grave, and has a door and a window, and in this cell formerly stood her shrine.