Note 7 — Chapter VIII · Welsh Cave Legends

To return to Owen Lawgoch, for we have by no means done with him: on the farm of Cil yr Ychen there stands a remarkable limestone hill called y Đinas, ‘the Fortress,’ hardly a mile to the north of the village of Ỻandybïe, in Carmarthenshire. This dinas and the lime-kilns that are gradually consuming it are to be seen on the right from the railway as you go from Ỻandeilo to Ỻandybïe. It is a steep high rock which forms a very good natural fortification, and in the level area on the top is the mouth of a very long cavern, known as Ogo’r Đinas, ‘the Dinas Cave.’ The entrance into it is small and low, but it gradually widens out, becoming in one place lofty and roomy with several smaller branch caves leading out of it; and it is believed that some of them connect Ogo’r Đinas with smaller caves at Pant y Ỻyn, ‘the Lake Hollow,’ where, as the name indicates, there is a small lake a little higher up: both Ogo’r Đinas and Pant y Ỻyn are within a mile of the village of Ỻandybïe7. Now I am informed, in a letter written in 1893 by one native, that the local legend about Ogo’r Đinas is that Owen Lawgoch and his men are lying asleep in it, while another native, Mr. Fisher, writing in the same year, but on the authority of somewhat later hearsay, expresses himself as follows:—‘I remember hearing two traditions respecting Ogo’r Đinas: (1) that King Arthur and his warriors lie sleeping in it with their right hands clasping the hilts of their drawn swords ready to encounter anyone who may venture to disturb their repose—is there not a dinas somewhere in Carnarvonshire with a similar legend? (2) That Owen Lawgoch lived in it some time or other: that is all that I remember having heard about him in connection with this ogof.’ Mr. Fisher proceeds, moreover, to state that it is said of an ogof at Pant y Ỻyn, that Owen Lawgoch and his men on a certain occasion took refuge in it, where they were shut up and starved to death. He adds that, however this may be, it is a fact that in the year 1813 ten or more human skeletons of unusual stature were discovered in an ogof there8.