Note 9 — Chapter VIII · Welsh Cave Legends

The passage I have cited from Mr. Fisher’s letter raises the question of a dinas in Carnarvonshire, which that of his native parish recalled to his mind; and this is to be considered next. Doubtless he meant Dinas Emrys formerly called Din Emreis9, ‘the Fortress of Ambrosius,’ situated near Beđgelert, and known in the neighbourhood simply as y Dinas, ‘the Fort.’ It is celebrated in the Vortigern legend as the place where the dragons had been hidden, that frustrated the building of that king’s castle; and the spot is described in Lewis’ Topographical Dictionary of Wales, in the article on Bethgelart (Beđ-Celert), as an isolated rocky eminence with an extensive top area, which is defended by walls of loose stones, and accessible only on one side. He adds that the entrance appears to have been guarded by two towers, and that within the enclosed area are the foundations of circular buildings of loose stones forming walls of about five feet in thickness. Concerning that Dinas we read in the Brython for 1861, p. 329, a legend to the following effect:—Now after the departure of Vortigern, Myrđin, or Merlin as he is called in English, remained himself in the Dinas for a long time, until, in fact, he went away with Emrys Ben-aur, ‘Ambrosius the Gold-headed’—evidently Aurelius Ambrosius is meant. When he was about to set out with the latter, he put all his treasure and wealth into a crochan aur, ‘a gold cauldron,’ and hid it in a cave in the Dinas, and on the mouth of the cave he rolled a huge stone, which he covered up with earth and sods, so that it was impossible for any one to find it. He intended this wealth to be the property of some special person in a future generation, and it is said that the heir to it is to be a youth with yellow hair and blue eyes. When that one comes near to the Dinas a bell will ring to invite him to the cave, which will open of itself as soon as his foot touches it. Now the fact that some such legend was once currently believed about Beđgelert and Nanhwynain is proved by the curious stories as to various attempts made to find the treasure, and the thunderstorms and portents which used to vanquish the local greed for gold. For several instances in point see the Brython, pp. 329–30; and for others, showing how hidden treasure is carefully reserved for the right sort of heir, see p. 148 above. To prove how widely this idea prevailed in Carnarvonshire, I may add a short story which Mrs. Williams-Ellis of Glasfryn got from the engineer who told her of the sacred eel of Ỻangybi (p. 366):—There was on Pentyrch, the hill above Ỻangybi, he said, a large stone so heavy and fixed so fast in the ground that no horses, no men could move it: it had often been tried. One day, however, a little girl happened to be playing by the stone, and at the touch of her little hand the stone moved. A hoard of coins was found under it, and that at a time when the little girl’s parents happened to be in dire need of it. Search had long been made by undeserving men for treasure supposed to be hidden at that spot; but it was always unsuccessful until the right person touched the stone to move. The failure of the wrong person to secure the treasure, even when discovered, is illustrated by a story given by Mr. Derfel Hughes in his Antiquities of Ỻandegai and Ỻanỻechid, pp. 35–6, to the effect that a servant man, somewhere up among the mountains near Ogwen Lake, chanced to come across the mouth of a cave with abundance of vessels of brass (pres) of every shape and description within it. He went at once and seized one of them, but, alas! it was too heavy for him to stir it. So he resolved to go away and return early on the morrow with a friend to help him; but before going he closed the mouth of the cave with stones and sods so as to leave it safe. While thus engaged he remembered having heard how others had like him found caves and failed to refind them. He could procure nothing readily that would satisfy him as a mark, so it occurred to him to dot his path with the chippings of his stick, which he whittled all the way as he went back until he came to a familiar track: the chips were to guide him back to the cave. So when the morning came he and his friend set out, but when they reached the point where the chips should begin, not one was to be seen: the Tylwyth Teg had picked up every one of them. So that discovery of articles of brass—more probably bronze—was in vain. But, says the writer, it is not fated to be always in vain, for there is a tradition in the valley that it is a Gwyđel, ‘Goidel, Irishman,’ who is to have these treasures, and that it will happen in this wise:—A Gwyđel will come to the neighbourhood to be a shepherd, and one day when he goes up the mountain to see to the sheep, just when it pleases the fates a black sheep with a speckled head will run before him and make straight for the cave: the sheep will go in, with the Gwyđel in pursuit trying to catch him. When the Gwyđel enters he sees the treasures, looks at them with surprise, and takes possession of them; and thus, in some generation to come, the Gwyđyl will have their own restored to them. That is the tradition which Derfel Hughes found in the vale of the Ogwen, and he draws from it the inference which it seems to warrant, in words to the following effect:—Perhaps this shows us that the Gwyđyl had some time or other something to do with these parts, and that we are not to regard as stories without foundations all that is said of that nation; and the sayings of old people to this day show that there is always some spite between our nation and the Gwyđyl. Thus, for instance, he goes on to say, if a man proves changeable, he is said to have become a Gwyđel (Y mae wedi troi’n Wyđel), or if one is very shameless and cheeky he is called a Gwyđel and told to hold his tongue (Taw yr hen Wyđel); and a number of such locutions used by our people proves, he thinks, the former prevalence of much contention between the two sister-nations. Expressions of the kind mentioned by Mr. Hughes are well known in all parts of the Principality, and it is difficult to account for them except on the supposition that Goidels and Brythons lived for a long time face to face, so to say, with one another over large areas in the west of our island.