“Shame, that a prince like this should lie
An outcast, in captivity.
And oh! what years of ceaseless shame,
Should cloud the Lord of Snowdon’s name!”
Professor O. M. Edwards, in his book called “Wales,” describes Dolbadarn as the last home of Welsh independence.
Hundreds of years before the sad, peace-loving life of Llewelyn had played its great part in Welsh history, in the valley that runs from the head of the pass along the low margin of beautiful Gwynant Lake, by a little river that talks gayly in all weathers but most gayly in the stormiest, past Llyn (lake) Dinas to Beddgelert,—in this valley is situated on Dinas Emrys some fragments and traces of one of the oldest and most important strongholds in Great Britain. This was the fort of Merlin who “called up spirits from the vasty deep.” There is melancholy and romantic interest to be found on the summit of Dinas Emrys, tracing what still remains. Something there is, perhaps enough for the archæologist to re-create all that has been lost. On this same road, some thirteen miles beyond, lies Carnarvon Castle, of whose history and beauty I have written in “The City of the Prince of Wales.”
In the “Mabinogion” there are wild-wood touches showing aspects of the life the Cymru had lived. The redactor of the old story of Branwen says: “Then they went on to Harlech … and there came three birds and began singing unto them a certain song, and all the songs they had ever heard were unpleasant compared thereto; and the birds seemed to them to be at a great distance from them over the sea, yet they appeared as distinct as if they were close by.” And again, “In Harlech you will be feasting seven years, the birds of Rhiannon singing unto you the while.” Just as the “Dream of Maxen Wledig” is in a sense the story of Carnarvon Castle, so is this tale of Branwen, the “fair-bosomed,” full of pictures and suggestions of Harlech Castle, Bendigeid Vran (the blessed) sitting on a rock and looking out to sea,—across that enchanted bay, on the other side of which lies Criccieth Castle, while the King of Ireland, Matholwch, his ships flying pennants of satin, comes wooing the sister of Branwen. A strange story this which has come out of that old castle stronghold, its royal Irish lover, its good Bendigeid Vran, its beautiful Branwen, the tame starlings and the singing-birds of Rhiannon, and that cry of Branwen, “Alas, woe is me that I was ever born”; and after that cry, the heart that broke and was buried in the four-sided grave on the banks of the Alaw.
Harlech Castle was probably originally built about the middle of the sixth century by a British prince. Edward I constructed the present castle on the ruins of the former one. It was finished in the thirteenth century and became the seat of many conflicts between Owen Glendwr and the English. Thither heroic Margaret of Anjou fled, following the battle of Northampton. It was the last of the castles to hold out for Charles. The whole life of this stronghold has been heroic, stupendous in size, gallant in its human figures, impressive in its human sorrows, indomitable in its human courage. Here, and in the other castles of North Wales, many of those strange prophecies of Taliessin have been fulfilled or in part fulfilled, something at least of
“All the angels’ words