APPENDIX K THE CASTLE OF YALE

In the year 1693, the antiquary Edward Llwyd was sitting on the motte of Tomen y Rhoddwy engaged in making a very bad plan of the castle [published in Arch. Camb., N.S., ii., 57]. His guide told him that he had heard his grandfather say that two earls used to live there. Llwyd called the guide an ignorant fellow. Modern traditions are generally the work of some antiquary who has succeeded in planting his theories locally; but here we have a tradition of much earlier date than the time when antiquaries began to sow tares, and such traditions have usually a shred of truth in them. Is it possible that this castle of Tomen y Rhoddwy and the neighbouring one of Llanarmon were built by the earls of Chester and Shrewsbury, who certainly went on expeditions together against Wales, and appear to have divided their conquests? It is to be noted that the township is called Bodigre yr Yarll, the township of the earls.