Note 11 — Chapter VI · The Folklore of the Wells

The next legend was kindly communicated to me by Mr. Wm. Davies already mentioned at p. 147 above: he found it in Cyfaiỻ yr Aelwyd11, “The Friend of the Hearth,” where it is stated that it belonged to David Jones’ Storehouse of Curiosities, a collection which does not seem to have ever assumed the form of a printed book. David Jones, of Trefriw, in the Conwy Valley, was a publisher and poet who wrote between 1750 and 1780. This is his story: ‘In 1735 I had a conversation with a man concerning Tegid Lake. He had heard from old people that near the middle of it there was a well opposite Ỻangower, and the well was called Ffynnon Gywer, “Cower’s Well,” and at that time the town was round about the well. It was obligatory to place a lid on the well every night. (It seems that in those days somebody was aware that unless this was done it would prove the destruction of the town.) But one night it was forgotten, and by the morning, behold the town had subsided and the lake became three miles long and one mile wide. They say, moreover, that on clear days some people see the chimneys of the houses. It is since then that the town was built at the lower end of the lake. It is called Y Bala12, and the man told me that he had talked with an old Bala man who had, when he was a youth, had two days’ mowing of hay13 between the road and the lake; but by this time the lake had spread over that land and the road also, which necessitated the purchase of land further away for the road; and some say that the town will yet sink as far as the place called Ỻanfor—others call it Ỻanfawđ, “Drown-church,” or Ỻanfawr, “Great-church,” in Penỻyn …. Further, when the weather is stormy water appears oozing through every floor within Bala, and at other times anybody can get water enough for the use of his house, provided he dig a little into the floor of it.’