Note 4 — Chapter VII · Triumphs of the Water-world

On this coast is another piece of water in point, namely Crymlyn, or ‘Crumlin Pool,’ now locally called the Bog. It appears also to have been sometimes called Pwỻ Cynan, after the name of a son of Rhys ab Tewdwr, who, in his flight after his father’s defeat on Hirwaen Wrgan, was drowned in its waters4. It lies on Lord Jersey’s estate, at a distance of about one mile east of the mouth of the Tawe, and about a quarter of a mile from high-water mark, from which it is separated by a strip of ground known in the neighbourhood as Crymlyn Burrows. The name Crymlyn means Crooked Lake, which, I am told, describes the shape of this piece of water. When the bog becomes a pool it encloses an island consisting of a little rocky hillock showing no trace of piles, or walling, or any other handiwork of man5. The story about this pool also is that it covers a town buried beneath its waters. Mr. Wirt Sikes’ reference to it has already been mentioned, and I have it on the evidence of a native of the immediate neighbourhood, that he has often heard his father and grandfather talk about the submerged town. Add to this that Cadrawd, to whom I have had already (pp. 23, 376) to acknowledge my indebtedness, speaks in the columns of the South Wales Daily News for February 15, 1899, of Crymlyn as follows:—