Afon Llugwy—afon being the pretty Welsh word for “river”—flows through one of the most beautiful of all pastoral valleys on its way from Capel Curig to the Swallow Falls. Every bend of the stream, every green, shady pool, every long stretch of rock impeded water has appeared again and again on the walls of the great picture exhibitions; for there is no river of Wales which is so much haunted by artists as this which we are now following to its junction with the Conway. At Pont-y-Cyfing—a modern bridge of a single tall arch—the river plunges through riven cliffs, boils round enormous masses of rock, and then tumbles over a bold cascade, to recover its quiet almost immediately; but only to be again driven into turbulence where a pretty rustic bridge strides across, to give unimpeded view of a succession of rapids above and below.
The Llugwy dreams along through pleasant meadows and by quiet woods before it comes to the famous Rhaiadr-y-Wennol (the Waterfall of the Swallow). Whence, one is driven to ask, comes such a name as this? The easy and the usual reply is that these are called Swallow Falls because of the swiftness with which the water descends. But all waterfalls are swift. The correct answer to the question suggests itself, as one continues to gaze, through a mist of fine spray, when the river comes down in an autumn flood. The ears deafened by the rush of the cataract, the eyes dazzled and fascinated by the breadth and the mass of the falling waters, a dim sense of something white, with black streaks here and there, overpowers all other impressions. As the river sweeps downward over the higher fall, it is broken and divided by dark pillars of rock. Yes, that is the idea, certainly. What these Falls suggested to the ancient inhabitants of Wales, to those who gave its name to the Rhaiadr-y-Wennol, was the swift alternation between the white gleam of the swallow’s breast and the dark shadow of its wings, as it darted to and fro between river and sky. George Borrow has a concise, vivid, and fairly correct description of the Falls, which may be quoted here because it is impossible to put the matter in fewer words. “First,” he says, “there are a number of little foaming torrents, bursting through rocks about twenty yards above the promontory on which I stood; then come two beautiful rolls of white water, dashing into a pool a little above the promontory; then there is a swirl of water round its corner into a pool below, black as death, and seemingly of great depth; then a rush through a very narrow outlet into another pool, from which the water clamours away down the glen.”
MINERS’ BRIDGE, BETTWS-Y-COED (p. [212]).
We have had the last sight of the mountains for a while when we enter the little, rock-poised wood from which the Swallow Falls are to be seen. The grand, solitary mass of Moel Siabod lies behind us, one grey, far-away peak of Snowdon exhibiting itself over the lowermost slope. Henceforth, almost to Bettws-y-Coed, the course of the Llugwy is through a deep, rocky, and finely-wooded glen. It is Matlock on a more magnificent scale. It is the High Tor repeating itself again and again, in greater grandeur of scale, and with additional beauty of surroundings. Wild nature is here clothed and softened by luxuriant foliage, which towers up to the heights. The bare rock is visible only where the river courses through the deep woods, which are to be seen to most advantage from the Miners’ Bridge, slanting far upward across the river to the opposite slope—a bridge of rough sections of tree trunk bound together, with a hand-rail of long boughs for security—a bridge erected in an emergency, and for a temporary purpose, as one might guess; a bridge of perilous slope, which has done good service to more than one generation of miners, climbing up the hillside to their daily toil.
Photo: I. Slater, Llandudno.
MOEL SIABOD, FROM THE LLUGWY (p. [211]).