Carmarthenshire

“ The patterns run round the slated steps, and, elaborate as they often are, the essential thing is that there should be no gap in them, because the evil spirits could enter into the house through the gaps. Does this custom prevail in all parts of Wales? It undoubtedly does in Carmarthenshire, Cardiganshire, Glamorgan, and Pembrokeshire. ”

“ Cadell’s son, Howell the Good (Hywel Dda) , was the first to codify the ancient laws of Wales at his palace of Ty Gwyn Ar Dâf, the White Lodge on the banks of the Tâf, near the modern Whitland. In 1080, during the troubled reign of Rhys ap Tudor, the Normans first appeared on the shores of Carmarthen Bay, and before the end of King Henry I.’s reign had constructed the great castles of Kidwelly, Carmarthen, Laugharne and Llanstephan near the coast. From this period until the death of Prince Llewelyn (1282) the history of Carmarthenshire is national rather than local. ”

“ A ghastly sequel, more frequently found in a type of the story considered later on, sometimes occurs. In Carmarthenshire it is said that a farmer going out one morning very early was lost; nor were any tidings heard of him for more than twelve months afterwards, until one day a man passing by a lonely spot saw him dancing, and spoke to him. This broke the spell; and the farmer, as if waking out of a dream, exclaimed: "Oh dear! where are my horses?" Stepping out of the magical circle, he fell down and mingled his dust with the earth. ”

“ CARMARTHEN (Caerfyrddin) , a municipal borough, contributory parliamentary borough (united with Llanelly since 1832) , and county town of Carmarthenshire, and a county of itself, finely situated on the right bank of the Towy, which is here tidal and navigable for small craft. Pop. (1901) 10,025. It is the terminal station of a branch of the London & North-Western railway coming southward from Shrewsbury, and is a station on the main line of the Great Western running to Fishguard; it is also the terminus of a branch-line of the Great Western running to Newcastle-Emlyn. ”

“ We come to the substantial gate that is the entrance to the pretty farm, and a curious and a motley group is there. We see such groups almost daily, here in Carmarthenshire; but as all the counties of England and Wales are not thoroughfares for the Irish from their country to England, we will describe these poor people as graphically as we can. ”

“ B. A., late worthy divine deceased, gives an account of several strange apparitions in Carmarthenshire, Pembrokeshire, and this county (Cardiganshire) , about that time, confirmed by divers persons of good quality and reputation the substance of whereof are as followeth. A man and his family being all in bed, he being awake about midnight, perceived by a light entering the little room where he lay, and about a dozen in the shapes of men, and two or three women with small children in their arms following, they seemed to dance, and the chamber appeared much wider and lighter than formerly. ”

“ It will be noted, therefore, that the vast mass of the inhabitants of Wales are settled in the industrial area which covers the northern districts of Glamorganshire and the south-eastern corner of Carmarthenshire; whilst central Wales, comprising the four counties of Cardigan, Radnor, Merioneth and Montgomery, forms the least populous portion of the Principality. ”

“ THE GHOST OF PONT-Y-GWENDRAETH, NEAR KIDWELY IN CARMARTHENSHIRE.
It was an old belief among the Welsh people in former times that the spirit of a suicide was doomed to walk the earth as a punishment. Several versions of the well-known Kidwely Legend have already appeared, but a book of West Wales Folk-Lore would be incomplete without it. ”

“ In August, 1862, David Evans and Evan Lewis, went from the Coast of Cardiganshire with their waggons all the way to Brecon for some timber for ship-building, which was going on at New Quay. On their return journey, through Carmarthenshire, they stopped for a short time at a place called Cwmdwr on the road leading from Llanwrda to Lampeter. It was about 2 o’clock in the afternoon, and the two men and their horses and waggons were standing opposite a farm known as Maestwynog, where the reapers were busy at work in a wheat-field close by. ”

“ The modern county has an area of 918 sq. m., and is therefore the largest in size of the South Welsh counties. Almost the whole of its surface is hilly and irregular, though the coast-line is fringed with extensive stretches of marsh or sandy burrows. Much of the scenery in the county, particularly in the upper valley of the Towy, is exceedingly beautiful and varied. On its eastern borders adjoining Breconshire rises the imposing range of the Black Mountains (Mynydd Dû) , sometimes called the Carmarthenshire Beacons, where the Carmarthen Van attains an elevation of 2632 ft. ”

“ An old man named Jenkin Williams, a native of Llangwyryfon, a parish in the same County, who is 89 years of age, informed me that he well remembered the custom observed in his native parish, about seven miles from Aberystwyth, many years ago; but it is rarely observed at the present day. There are many parts of the country nowadays, where the practice is unknown, but there are evident signs that the beautiful old custom is reviving in parts of Carmarthenshire, Cardiganshire, and Pembrokeshire. In Glamorganshire, as I have already observed, the custom is very general. ”

“ Llyn Llechwen, or Llyn Llech Owen, lies on the top of a hill near Gorslas, in Carmarthenshire. According to a local tradition there was only a small well once on the spot now occupied by the lake. The well had a stone cover which had to be removed by those who came to obtain water, and to be carefully replaced after obtaining it. But once upon a time a certain farmer in the neighbourhood sent a boy almost every day to the well to water his horse. Whenever the boy returned the farmer always asked him, “Did you put back the stone over the mouth of the well, my boy?” ”

“ Trees are rare, except in sheltered places, and where not protected, are blown out of all shape. The cottages generally crouch under some bank, or often in a ravine or quarry, and none but the smallest sheep and native cattle can live on the pastures.... The young people migrate to the eastern mining districts of Glamorgan and Monmouth. Carmarthenshire is the breeding ground of the mining population and their hospital. The population can therefore barely maintain its numbers. ”

“ It is now sometimes called Ỻandysilio’r Gynffon, or ‘Ỻandysilio of the Tail,’ from the situation of a part of the parish on a strip, as it were a tail, of Carmarthenshire land running into Pembrokeshire. ↑
25 This Aber Towy appears to have been a town with a harbour in 1042, for we read in Brut y Tywysogion of a cruel engagement fought there between Gruffyđ ab Ỻewelyn and Howel ab Edwin, who, with Irish auxiliaries, tried to effect a landing. Not long ago a storm, carrying away the accumulation of sand, laid bare a good deal of the site. ”

“ There are works for the manufacture of woollens and ropes, also tanneries, but it is as the central market of a large and fertile district that Carmarthen is most important. The weekly Saturday market is well attended, and affords interesting scenes of modern Welsh agricultural life. From the convenient and accessible position of the town, the gaol and lunatic asylum serving for the three south-western counties of Wales—Cardigan, Pembroke and Carmarthen—have been fixed here. ”

“ CAERMARTHEN,
we found unpleasantly hilly, but occasional Vallies to our left enlivened our walk. Near Caermarthen we crossed a Bridge of free-stone over the Towy. This River, running through the middle of this shire, falls into the British Sea at Caermarthen Bay, and is navigable for small vessels as far as the Bridge. Immediately over it, upon a hanging rock, stand the remains of a once renowned Castle. This Town, according to Giraldus’s authority, was anciently a place of great strength, and fortified with brick walls, which are yet partly extant, near the river. ”

“ In 1555 Bishop Farrar of St David’s was publicly burned for heresy under Queen Mary at the Market Cross, which was ruthlessly destroyed in 1846 to provide a site for General Nott’s statue. In 1646 General Laugharne took and demolished the castle in the name of the parliament, and in 1649 Oliver Cromwell resided at Carmarthen on his way to Ireland. In 1684 the duke of Beaufort with a numerous train made his state entry into Carmarthen as lord-president of Wales and the Marches. With the rise of Llanelly the industrial importance of Carmarthen has tended to decline ”

“ We do not merely leave the modern county of Essex and enter Cambridgeshire at this point, but change our soil as well, coming at once into a chalk country of bare and inhospitable downs, completely altering the nature of the road and keeping a forbidding solitude, without sign of the habitations of men, and only the occasional dull tinkle of a sheep-bell to hint even of farming interests. ”

“ As it and Pembroke were the only castles which held out during the great Welsh revolt of 1096, [939] it is evident that they were the two strongest and best defended places, therefore the most important. Carmarthen also was a Roman city, and its walls were still standing in Giraldus’ time; [940] it was therefore the place where one [Pg 285] would expect to find a Norman castle. Now Carmarthen, along with Cardiff and Pembroke, continued up till the final conquest of all Wales to be the most important seat of English power in South Wales. Moreover, Rhyd y Gors was a royal castle ”

“ The upper one is perhaps slightly the faster of the two, but from the lower there is a better view of Dynevor, and Dryslwyn Castle, and Abergwili, the palace of the bishops of St. David’s. In Carmarthen itself there are few relics left of a history that begins in the days of the Romans and has been stormy to a most unusual degree; so stormy, indeed, that one marvels the place exists at all. ”

“ We enter Cambridgeshire out of Suffolk, with all the advantage in the world; the county beginning upon those pleasant and agreeable plains called Newmarket Heath, where passing the Devil’s Ditch, which has nothing worth notice but its name, and that but fabulous too, from the hills called Gogmagog, we see a rich and pleasant vale westward, covered with corn-fields, gentlemen’s seats, villages, and at a distance, to crown all the rest, that ancient and truly famous town and university of Cambridge, capital of the county, and receiving its name from, if not, as some say, giving name to it ”

“ In 1233 he distinguished himself in the Welsh war that resulted from the revolt of the Marshals [see Marshal, Richard, third Earl of Pembroke] . Carmarthen was besieged by Rhys Grug and the Welsh, who had risen in the interests of the Marshals. ”

“ The chief difference between a shire and a lordship is that the king's writ runs to the shire, but not to the lordship. The king administers the law in the shire, through the sheriff; the lord administers the law in the lordship through his own officials.
In 1535 the marches of Wales were turned into shire ground. The bulk of them went to make seven new shires—Pembroke, Glamorgan, Monmouth, Brecon, Radnor, Montgomery, and Denbigh. The others were added to the older English and Welsh counties. ”

“ In this wise he drove her before him, in the manner in which a colt is driven, to the madhouse of the three shires, which is in the town of Carmarthen, and the distance from Manteg to Carmarthen is twenty-four miles. ”

“ After one of those common-room encounters, Carmichael used to fling himself out into the east wind and greyness of Edinburgh, fuming against the simplicity of good people, against the provincialism of his college, against the Pharisaism of his church, against the Philistinism of Scottish life. He would go down to Holyrood and pity Queen Mary, transported from the gay court of France to Knox's Scotland, divided between theology and bloodshed. ”

“ These were often attacked by the Welch, but unsuccessfully: they soon extended their territory over a great part of the county, and, in conjunction with the Normans, carried their arms as far as Llanstephan. Camden calls this district, “Little England beyond Wales;” and the difference of appearance, customs, and language, between the inhabitants of southern Pembrokeshire and their neighbours, is strikingly obvious at the present day. The tourist in Caermarthenshire p. 69will scarcely meet a peasant who speaks a word of English ”

“ The trade of the place is much facilitated by its fine river, which conveys ships of a good size up to the bridge.
Caermarthen is the Kaervyrdhin of the Britons, the Maridunum of Ptolemy, and the Muridunum of Antoninus. The ancient Britons reckoned it the capital of all Wales: here they held their Parliaments, or Assemblies of wise men, and here fixed their Chancery and Exchequer. ”

“ There is a charm about Machynlleth. Its wide central street is planted with trees. In most Welsh towns, History, though she has lived in them so long, has rather an uneasy air: tales of valour, or of treachery on a large scale, blend rather incongruously with prim grey houses and slate roofs. But in Machynlleth we are quite prepared to learn that these quaint and quiet streets—and some of the houses, even—are bound up very closely with the picturesque life of the last of the Welsh princes: so closely indeed, that Owen Glyndwr’s royal seal figures in the arms of the town. ”