It is not possible to re-create that olden castle life in Wales. A fragment here and a fragment there one finds, and when the broken life has been put together again, as in the “Mabinogion,” the Norman influence is more than a varnish to its ancient surface,—it is often colour, with occasionally an entirely new figure painted in. Glimpses of the palace life do we get, of the sleeping-rooms and halls and chambers, of beautiful buildings, of youths and pages, of vestures of silk and gold and yellow robes of shining satin. Pictures of maidens, too, there are, who live for us still as if they had not vanished from within walls which Time has partially destroyed. One maiden there was who was made from the blossoms of the oak and of the broom and of the yellow meadow sweet, and whom they called Blodeuwedd or Flower-face. Another, not Blodwen, but Olwen, she who was clothed in a “robe of flame-coloured silk … more yellow was her head than the flower of the broom, and her skin was whiter than the foam of the wave, and fairer were her hands and her fingers than the blossoms of the wood anemone amidst the spray of the meadow fountain.… Four white trefoils sprung up wherever she trod. And therefore was she called Olwen.” Pictures, too, there are in the “Mabinogion” and elsewhere of the castles in which these maidens embroidered, sitting in golden chairs and clad in yellow satin. One description there is in “The Lady of the Fountain,” which is a vivid picture of a Welsh castle: “And at length it chanced that I came to the fairest valley in the world, wherein were trees of equal growth; and a river ran through the valley, and a path was by the side of the river. And I followed the path until midday, and I continued my journey along the remainder of the valley until the evening: and at the extremity of a plain I came to a large and lustrous castle, at the foot of which was a torrent.” The fair valley, the path by the riverside, the lustrous castle, the torrent—all are still a part of the life of Wales to-day. Again, for the mere opening of a book, we may see knights in their encounters as of old: the horse that pricks forward, the furious blows upon the faces of the shields, the broken armour and bursting girths, and then the battle on foot, their arms striking sparks, and blood and sweat filling their eyes. Nowhere in all literature is there a more beautiful picture of a horse than in Kilhwch and Olwen: “And the youth pricked forth upon a steed with head dappled gray, of four winters old, firm of limb, with shell-formed hoofs, having a bridle of linked gold on his head, and upon him a saddle of costly gold. And in the youth’s hand were two spears of silver, sharp, well-tempered, headed with steel, three ells in length, of an edge to wound the wind, and cause blood to flow, and swifter than the fall of the dewdrop from the blade of reed-grass upon the earth when the dew of June is at the heaviest. A gold-hilted sword was upon his thigh, the blade of which was of gold, bearing a cross of inlaid gold of the hue of the lightning of heaven; his war-horn was of ivory. Before him were two brindled, white-breasted greyhounds, having strong collars of rubies about their necks, reaching from the shoulder to the ear. And the one that was on the left side bounded across to the right side, and the one on the right to the left, and like two sea-swallows sported around him. And his courser cast up four sods with his four hoofs, like four swallows in the air, about his head, now above, now below. About him was a four-cornered cloth of purple, and an apple of gold was at each corner, and every one of the apples was of the value of an hundred kine. And there was precious gold of the value of three hundred kine upon his shoes, and upon his stirrups, from his knee to the tip of his toe. And the blade of grass bent not beneath him, so light was his courser’s tread as he journeyed towards the gate of Arthur’s Palace.”
Charming pictures of friendship there are, too, lived within castle and abbey; and descriptions of the love of birds and journeys taken upon sea and land; and harsh and barbaric touches to remind us of a past still more ancient and of a cruelty still more primitive. Possible flashes do we get of the humour of this olden life: the refreshing gentleman in Branwen, the daughter of Llyr, whom no house could ever contain; Bendigeid Vran, the brother of Branwen, that good brother who sat upon the rock of Harlech looking over the sea, and all unconsciously welcoming those who were to break the heart of the sister he loved. Poetry and wisdom also there are in this ancient life: the Coranians, who, however low words might be spoken, if the wind met that speech, it was made known to them; and Arthur granting a boon in words which are a poem in themselves,—“as far as the wind dries, and the rain moistens, and the sun revolves, and the sea encircles, and the earth extends.” “There is no remedy for that which is past, be it as it may,” said Luned. And in the “Mabinogion,” as in every life, there was one door which when those who were bearing the head of Bendigeid Vran to London opened and looked through, “they were as conscious of all the evils they had ever sustained, and of all the friends and companions they had lost, and of all the misery that had befallen them, as if it had all happened in that very spot.”
South from Flint and south from Hawarden, yet near the windings of the river Dee, is Castle Dinas Bran, “Crow Castle,” as the English call it, mistakenly turning “Bran,” a word whose actual meaning is unknown, into “Crow.” Scarcely a stone of this very famous and ancient old castle situated on a high hill is left intact. The very rubble of its walls is exposed. Of the castle there is not enough left to repay any one for a visit, except a lover of desolation. Here, in another land, are walls like those of Balclutha, and desolate are they. Here the fox looks out of the window and the rank grass waves about its head, and here on the wind the song of mourning lifts itself bewailing the days that are gone. Yet from the valley below, with its quaint old town of Llangollen, its wonderful Abbey of Valle Crucis, and the shimmering of the running waters of the river Dee, the present is a reassuring one. Smoke curls up cheerfully from scores of household chimneys. The sun shines down upon the abbey walls, upon the chapter house, still intact, and upon the broken walls of the church itself.
“Ivy’d Valle Crucis; time decay’d
Dim on the brink of Deva’s wandering floods,
Your ivy’d arch glittering through the tangled shade,
Your gray hills towering o’er your night of woods;
Deep in the vale recesses as you stand,
And, desolately great.”