Note 351 — Chapter II · (continued 2)

Ord. Vit. u. s. “Clamor vulgi Robertum meridie dormitantem excitavit, eique hostilem discursum per terram suam nuntiavit. Ille vero, ut jacebat, impiger surrexit, et mox præcones ad congregandum agmen armatorum per totam regionem direxit. Porro ipse cum paucis bellatoribus imparatus Guallos prosecutus est, et de vertice montis Hormohevæ, qui nimis arduus est, captivos a piratis ligari, et in naves cum pecoribus præcipitari speculatus est.”

Orderic must surely have confounded the Orm’s Head itself with the lower hill of Dwyganwy. It is there, in or near his own castle, that we must conceive Robert sleeping, not on the Orm’s Head itself, or on any casual point of the flat ground between the two. To climb the higher of the two peaks of Dwyganwy would be perfectly natural, and would give him a wide enough view over the whole country. But to conceive him first crossing the flat, and then climbing a huge mountain for no particular object, seems quite out of the question.