Yr Owain hwn yw Harri ’r Nawfed
Syđ yn trigo ’ngwlad estronied, &c.
This Owen is Henry the Ninth,
Who tarries in a foreign land, &c.
But this Owen Lawgoch, the national deliverer of our ancient race of Brythons, did not, according to the Troed yr Aur people, tarry in a foreign land, but somewhere in Wales, not far from Offa’s Dyke. They used to say that one Dafyđ Meirig of Bettws Bledrws, having quarrelled with his father, left for Ỻoegr[4], ‘England.’ When he had got a considerable distance from home, he struck a bargain with a cattle dealer to drive a herd of his beasts to London. Somewhere at the corner of a vast moor Dafyđ cut a very remarkable hazel stick; for a good staff is as essential to the vocation of a good drover as teeth are to a dog. So while his comrades had had their sticks broken before reaching London, Dafyđ’s remained as it was, and whilst they were conversing together on London Bridge a stranger accosted Dafyđ, wishing to know where he had obtained that wonderful stick. He replied that it was in Wales he had had it, and on the stranger’s assuring him that there were wondrous things beneath the tree on which it had grown, they both set out for Wales. When they reached the spot and dug a little they found that there was a great hollow place beneath. As night was spreading out her sable mantle, and as they were getting deeper, what should they find but stairs easy to step and great lamps illumining the vast chamber! They descended slowly, with mixed emotions of dread and invincible desire to see the place. When they reached the bottom of the stairs, they found themselves near a large table, at one end of which they beheld sitting a tall man of about seven foot. He occupied an old-fashioned chair and rested his head on his left hand, while the other hand, all red, lay on the table and grasped a great sword. He was withal enjoying a wondrously serene sleep; and at his feet on the floor lay a big dog. After casting a glance at them, the wizard said to Dafyđ: ‘This is Owen Lawgoch, who is to sleep on till a special time, when he will wake and reign over the Brythons. That weapon in his hand is one of the swords of the ancient kings of Prydain. No battle was ever lost in which that sword was used.’ Then they moved slowly on, gazing at the wonders of that subterranean chamber; and they beheld everywhere the arms of ages long past, and on the table thousands of gold pieces bearing the images of the different kings of Prydain. They got to understand that it was permitted them to take a handful of each, but not to put any in their purses. They both visited the cave several times, but at last Dafyđ put in his purse a little of the gold bearing the image of one of the bravest of Owen’s ancestors. But after coming out again they were never able any more to find Owen’s subterranean palace.
Those are, says Gwynionyđ, the ideas cherished by the old people of Troed yr Aur in Keredigion, and the editor adds a note that the same sort of story is current among the peasantry of Cumberland, and perhaps of other parts of Britain. This remark will at once recall to the reader’s mind the well-known verses[5] of the Scottish poet, Leyden, as to Arthur asleep in a cave in the Eildon Hills in the neighbourhood of Melrose Abbey. But he will naturally ask why London Bridge is introduced into this and Iolo’s story, and in answer I have to say, firstly, that London Bridge formerly loomed very large in the popular imagination as one of the chief wonders of London, itself the most wonderful city in the world. Such at any rate was the notion cherished as to London and London Bridge by the country people of Wales, even within my own memory. Secondly, the fashion of selecting London Bridge as the opening scene of a treasure legend had been set, perhaps, by a widely spread English story to the following effect:—A certain pedlar of Swaffham in Norfolk had a dream, that if he went and stood on London Bridge he would have very joyful news; as the dream was doubled and trebled he decided to go. So he stood on the bridge two or three days, when at last a shopkeeper, observing that he loitered there so long, neither offering anything for sale nor asking for alms, inquired of him as to his business. The pedlar told him his errand, and was heartily laughed at by the shopkeeper, who said that he had dreamt that night that he was at a place called Swaffham in Norfolk, and that if he only dug under a great oak tree in an orchard behind a pedlar’s house there, he would find a vast treasure; but the place was utterly unknown to him, and he was not such a fool as to follow a silly dream. No, he was wiser than that; so he advised the pedlar to go home to mind his business. The pedlar very quietly took in the words as to the dream, and hastened home to Swaffham, where he found the treasure in his own orchard. The rest of the story need not be related here, as it is quite different from the Welsh ones, which the reader has just had brought under his notice[6].
To return to Owen Lawgoch, for we have by no means done with him: on the farm of Cil yr Ychen there stands a remarkable limestone hill called y Đinas, ‘the Fortress,’ hardly a mile to the north of the village of Ỻandybïe, in Carmarthenshire. This dinas and the lime-kilns that are gradually consuming it are to be seen on the right from the railway as you go from Ỻandeilo to Ỻandybïe. It is a steep high rock which forms a very good natural fortification, and in the level area on the top is the mouth of a very long cavern, known as Ogo’r Đinas, ‘the Dinas Cave.’ The entrance into it is small and low, but it gradually widens out, becoming in one place lofty and roomy with several smaller branch caves leading out of it; and it is believed that some of them connect Ogo’r Đinas with smaller caves at Pant y Ỻyn, ‘the Lake Hollow,’ where, as the name indicates, there is a small lake a little higher up: both Ogo’r Đinas and Pant y Ỻyn are within a mile of the village of Ỻandybïe[7]. Now I am informed, in a letter written in 1893 by one native, that the local legend about Ogo’r Đinas is that Owen Lawgoch and his men are lying asleep in it, while another native, Mr. Fisher, writing in the same year, but on the authority of somewhat later hearsay, expresses himself as follows:—‘I remember hearing two traditions respecting Ogo’r Đinas: (1) that King Arthur and his warriors lie sleeping in it with their right hands clasping the hilts of their drawn swords ready to encounter anyone who may venture to disturb their repose—is there not a dinas somewhere in Carnarvonshire with a similar legend? (2) That Owen Lawgoch lived in it some time or other: that is all that I remember having heard about him in connection with this ogof.’ Mr. Fisher proceeds, moreover, to state that it is said of an ogof at Pant y Ỻyn, that Owen Lawgoch and his men on a certain occasion took refuge in it, where they were shut up and starved to death. He adds that, however this may be, it is a fact that in the year 1813 ten or more human skeletons of unusual stature were discovered in an ogof there[8].
To this I may append a reference to the Geninen for 1896, p. 84, where Mr. Ỻeufer Thomas, who is also a native of the district, alludes to the local belief that Owen Lawgoch and his men are asleep, as already mentioned, in the cave of Pant y Ỻyn, and that they are to go on sleeping there till a trumpet blast and the clash of arms on Rhiw Goch rouse them to sally forth to combat the Saxons and to conquer, as set forth by Howells: see p. 381 above. It is needless to say that there is no reason, as will be seen presently, to suppose Owen Lawgoch to have ever been near any of the caves to which allusion has here been made; but that does not appreciably detract from the fascination of the legend which has gathered round his personality; and in passing I may be allowed to express my surprise that in such stories as these the earlier Owen has not been eclipsed by Owen Glyndwr: there must be some historical reason why that has not taken place. Can it be that a habit of caution made Welshmen speak of Owen Lawgoch when the other Owen was really meant?
The passage I have cited from Mr. Fisher’s letter raises the question of a dinas in Carnarvonshire, which that of his native parish recalled to his mind; and this is to be considered next. Doubtless he meant Dinas Emrys formerly called Din Emreis[9], ‘the Fortress of Ambrosius,’ situated near Beđgelert, and known in the neighbourhood simply as y Dinas, ‘the Fort.’ It is celebrated in the Vortigern legend as the place where the dragons had been hidden, that frustrated the building of that king’s castle; and the spot is described in Lewis’ Topographical Dictionary of Wales, in the article on Bethgelart (Beđ-Celert), as an isolated rocky eminence with an extensive top area, which is defended by walls of loose stones, and accessible only on one side. He adds that the entrance appears to have been guarded by two towers, and that within the enclosed area are the foundations of circular buildings of loose stones forming walls of about five feet in thickness. Concerning that Dinas we read in the Brython for 1861, p. 329, a legend to the following effect:—Now after the departure of Vortigern, Myrđin, or Merlin as he is called in English, remained himself in the Dinas for a long time, until, in fact, he went away with Emrys Ben-aur, ‘Ambrosius the Gold-headed’—evidently Aurelius Ambrosius is meant. When he was about to set out with the latter, he put all his treasure and wealth into a crochan aur, ‘a gold cauldron,’ and hid it in a cave in the Dinas, and on the mouth of the cave he rolled a huge stone, which he covered up with earth and sods, so that it was impossible for any one to find it. He intended this wealth to be the property of some special person in a future generation, and it is said that the heir to it is to be a youth with yellow hair and blue eyes. When that one comes near to the Dinas a bell will ring to invite him to the cave, which will open of itself as soon as his foot touches it. Now the fact that some such legend was once currently believed about Beđgelert and Nanhwynain is proved by the curious stories as to various attempts made to find the treasure, and the thunderstorms and portents which used to vanquish the local greed for gold. For several instances in point see the Brython, pp. 329–30; and for others, showing how hidden treasure is carefully reserved for the right sort of heir, see p. 148 above. To prove how widely this idea prevailed in Carnarvonshire, I may add a short story which Mrs. Williams-Ellis of Glasfryn got from the engineer who told her of the sacred eel of Ỻangybi (p. 366):—There was on Pentyrch, the hill above Ỻangybi, he said, a large stone so heavy and fixed so fast in the ground that no horses, no men could move it: it had often been tried. One day, however, a little girl happened to be playing by the stone, and at the touch of her little hand the stone moved. A hoard of coins was found under it, and that at a time when the little girl’s parents happened to be in dire need of it. Search had long been made by undeserving men for treasure supposed to be hidden at that spot; but it was always unsuccessful until the right person touched the stone to move. The failure of the wrong person to secure the treasure, even when discovered, is illustrated by a story given by Mr. Derfel Hughes in his Antiquities of Ỻandegai and Ỻanỻechid, pp. 35–6, to the effect that a servant man, somewhere up among the mountains near Ogwen Lake, chanced to come across the mouth of a cave with abundance of vessels of brass (pres) of every shape and description within it. He went at once and seized one of them, but, alas! it was too heavy for him to stir it. So he resolved to go away and return early on the morrow with a friend to help him; but before going he closed the mouth of the cave with stones and sods so as to leave it safe. While thus engaged he remembered having heard how others had like him found caves and failed to refind them. He could procure nothing readily that would satisfy him as a mark, so it occurred to him to dot his path with the chippings of his stick, which he whittled all the way as he went back until he came to a familiar track: the chips were to guide him back to the cave. So when the morning came he and his friend set out, but when they reached the point where the chips should begin, not one was to be seen: the Tylwyth Teg had picked up every one of them. So that discovery of articles of brass—more probably bronze—was in vain. But, says the writer, it is not fated to be always in vain, for there is a tradition in the valley that it is a Gwyđel, ‘Goidel, Irishman,’ who is to have these treasures, and that it will happen in this wise:—A Gwyđel will come to the neighbourhood to be a shepherd, and one day when he goes up the mountain to see to the sheep, just when it pleases the fates a black sheep with a speckled head will run before him and make straight for the cave: the sheep will go in, with the Gwyđel in pursuit trying to catch him. When the Gwyđel enters he sees the treasures, looks at them with surprise, and takes possession of them; and thus, in some generation to come, the Gwyđyl will have their own restored to them. That is the tradition which Derfel Hughes found in the vale of the Ogwen, and he draws from it the inference which it seems to warrant, in words to the following effect:—Perhaps this shows us that the Gwyđyl had some time or other something to do with these parts, and that we are not to regard as stories without foundations all that is said of that nation; and the sayings of old people to this day show that there is always some spite between our nation and the Gwyđyl. Thus, for instance, he goes on to say, if a man proves changeable, he is said to have become a Gwyđel (Y mae wedi troi’n Wyđel), or if one is very shameless and cheeky he is called a Gwyđel and told to hold his tongue (Taw yr hen Wyđel); and a number of such locutions used by our people proves, he thinks, the former prevalence of much contention between the two sister-nations. Expressions of the kind mentioned by Mr. Hughes are well known in all parts of the Principality, and it is difficult to account for them except on the supposition that Goidels and Brythons lived for a long time face to face, so to say, with one another over large areas in the west of our island.
The next story to be mentioned belongs to the same Snowdonian neighbourhood, and brings us back to Arthur and his Men. For a writer who has already been quoted from the Brython for 1861, p. 331, makes Arthur and his following set out from Dinas Emrys and cross Hafod y Borth mountain for a place above the upper reach of Cwmỻan, called Tregalan, where they found their antagonists. From Tregalan the latter were pushed up the bwlch or pass, towards Cwm Dyli; but when the vanguard of the army with Arthur leading had reached the top of the pass, the enemy discharged a shower of arrows at them. There Arthur fell, and his body was buried in the pass so that no enemy might march that way so long as Arthur’s dust rested there. That, he says, is the story, and there to this day remains in the pass, he asserts, the heap of stones called Carneđ Arthur, ‘Arthur’s Cairn’: the pass is called Bwlch y Saethau, ‘the Pass of the Arrows.’ Then Ogof Ỻanciau Eryri is the subject of the following story given at p. 371 of the same volume:—After Arthur’s death on Bwlch y Saethau, his men ascended to the ridge of the Ỻiweđ and descended thence into a vast cave called Ogof Ỻanciau Eryri, ‘the young Men of Snowdonia’s Cave,’ which is in the precipitous cliff on the left-hand side near the top of Ỻyn Ỻydaw. This is in Cwm Dyli, and there in that cave those warriors are said to be still, sleeping in their armour and awaiting the second coming of Arthur to restore the crown of Britain to the Kymry. For the saying is:—