Treffie
05-16-2009, 10:15 AM
In the early days of the land of the Cymry there was a realm to the west of the Land of the Compatriots called Meirionydd which, unlike most of the neighbouring lands was flat and fertile. Lord of this realm was Gwyddno Garanhir, son of Gwrin Farfdrwch of Meirionydd. Gwyddno's main Llys (his chief court) was situated within the richest and most fertile part of his realm, a region to the far west. It so happened that this cantref was the most fertile in the entire realm with each acre being the equivalent of any four acres elsewhere. Unfortunately, however, the entire cantref lay beneath the level of the sea. Each year it seemed as if the ocean would threaten to inundate the land and a giant dyke known as Sarn Badrig was constructed to keep the waves at bay. However, so that the farmers could go out at low tide to collect seaweed as fertilizer two great doorways were build into the dyke: a northern and a southern entranceway. During low tide these became means of ingress and commerce but at high tide they were closed to keep the sea at bay.
http://1.2.3.11/bmi/www.celtnet.org.uk/images/cantref.gif
The entire region prospered until Cantre'r Gwaelod numbered sixteen towns and numerous little hamlets within its confines. Gwyddno was a benevolent ruler and his people prospered. So much so that fame of Gwyddno's riches and the abundance of his realm spread far and wide.
As the sea crept closer year by year and at high tide it began to seep through the walls. A network of ditches were built to stop the salt-water from poisoning the land. However, these ditches had to be drained and sluice gates were built in the walls to alow the water to drain away at low tide. Though the great main doors were closed, the sluice gates had to be opened at low tide once a day. To protect his lands from flooding and salt-water poisoning Gwyddno appointed a single watchman to be in charge of the great sluices. This honour was given to Seithennin, who had served Gwyddno Garanhir well in his various campaigns in the north.
Initially Seithennin performed his duties well. He had a regular rota of watchmen set upon the walls of the great dyke. The watchmen were to keep a look-out for breaches in the wall and warn the inhabitants. Eventually Seithennin had a special watchtower built that housed a great bell. If he saw a breach a watchman had only to run to the bell tower and ring the bell and the local inhabitants would all rush out to plug the breach. The only thing that Seithennin insisted upon was that he be present whenever the giant sluice-gates were opened and closed. After all the care of the cantref and its security from the sea was his responsibility.
Because of Seithennin's reforms and his diligent care of the dyke his stock at the Llys of Gwyddno rose and he was invited to more and more of the Llys' revelries. Over time, Seithennin succumbed to the pleasures of the court and slowly he gained a reputation as a carouser and a drunkard. After all, hadn't he done the hard work? Wasn't the Cantref and its encircling, protective, dyke secure? It certainly seemed that way to Seithennin and though he maintained his daily supervision of the opening and closing of the dyke it somehow seemed more and more like a ritual rather than something which had to be done for any real reason. Seithenin simply roused himself at the appointed hour, gave some orders to open the sluice gates. Then, the tide turned he would walk out once more and give fresh orders to close the sluice gates. As the months slowly passed the watchers along the wall noticed Seithennin grow more and more distant short-tempered in his task. He barked orders and stayed for as little time as he could. Though he was the man who had kept them safe for many a year and no-one said anything of this changing behaviour.
For his part, Seithennin spent more and more time in Gwyddno's Llys even joining it as it underwent its circuit of the seven cantrefs of Gwyddno's realm. Whilst at the Llys he spent as much time as he could partaking of the pleasures on offer: especially those of the wine cup and the mead horn.
The situation could not continue and matters came to a head one stormy spring evening. Gwyddno was having his spring feast at his second Llys in Aberystwyth (which lay near enough the center of his realm) and wishing little more than to join the revelries Seithennin saddled his best rowan stallion and vaulting onto its back he headed towards the dyke. It was already six and darkening, and though the sea was only an hour into its ebb and still lapping at the sea wall he shouted an order for the sluice gates to be opened. Still seeing the sea so close the watchman hesitated but Seithennin barked up at him to follow his orders. Turning his steed smartly on its heels Seithenin headed for the road to the east. Behind him he heard the grind of metal on metal as the sluice gates were opened. But he had already vanished into the gloom by the time a single surge of sea water rushed through the sluices before draining away to sea.
An hour and a half's hard riding later brought Seithennin to Gwyddno's court and seeing the lights and hearing the music emanating from Gwyddno's fortress he spurred his flagging horse onwards once again. After all the quicker he reached the great hall, the more time he would have to join the revelries and it would be a full six hours before he had to return to the dyke of Cantref Gwaelod. Entering the keep he leapt from his steed and throwing its reins to a stable-boy he strode through the main doorway and into the great hall. Grabbing a mead horn from a page he quaffed the drink and eased himself onto the long seat of a nearby bench.
But, as Seithennin sat drinking and carousing with his companions a storm slowly crept across the sea from Ireland. This brought with it row upon row of crashing waves which rolled and surged beneath the gleam of a full moon. A moon that was inducing a larger than usual spring tide. Seithennin, however, was fat too busy enjoying the mead and the company of the court's wenches that he did not hear the howling of the winds outside. He did not hear the rain and the hail as it battered against the shutters of the llys. He did not notice the great candle as it burned the hours away, so intent was he on the great torches flickering in their alcoves.
Far away, on the walls of the dyke, the watchers were getting worried as the storm passed overhead and the the wind-whipped waves drew closer and closer. But they had been trained well and without orders from Siethennin they dare not close the dyke. But Seithennin was drunk and somnolent safe within the Llys of Gwyddno as the hours burnt away. It was not until well past midnight that one of Seithennin's companions nudged him awake and with an arm, heavy with drink, pointed towards the clock-candle burning behind the high table. Seithennin roused himself drunkenly and focussed his eyes on the great candle's flickering flame. It was only slowly that he realized how little candle was left. It was almost one! This realization made adrenaline course through his frame and he jolted from his stupor. Finally the sounds of the storm and the rain impinged on his consciousness and casting his empty mead horn aside he jumped from the bench and began running towards the stable block. Grabbing his unsaddled steed he vaulted onto the animal's back and kicking at the stallion's flanks he urged the steed forwards, out of the Llys and into the teeth of the gale. Despite the driving wind and the stinging rain he rode like a man possessed. A man who somehow knew that fate rode upon his shoulders and that he followed the raven path. Cursing himself and his folly he spurred his steed onwards across the causeway and through the darkness.
Were it not for the wind and the driving rain he would have heard it sooner, but even with the roar of the gale, as he reached the mod-point of his journey (on the outskirts of Caer Genedr he heard the a sound the likes of which he had never heard before. There was a rushing and whooshing noise, like the sound of blood rushing through the head but magnified many thousand times. Within this overwhelming noise there was a susurration as of waves clawing at shingles on a beach. But Siethennin was so intent on his purpose that the unusual sound did not register. Not until the clouds parted for an instant and Seithennin saw himself faced with an advancing wall of water higher than any building he had seen in his life. Petrified, Seithennin halted his steed with a quick tug of the reins but as he horse halted and pranced in its own terror Seithennin could only sit and stare uncomprehendingly at the scene before him. Finally, terrible realization dawned and with a cry of anguish Seithennin wheeled the head of his steed around and began riding back the way he had come. But that terrible wall or water with its roaring advance was faster than him and Seithennin was lost within its inexorable advance. Warrior and soldier sucked in and swept away, just as the land that Seithenin had promised to protect was swept away by his own negligence.
Half an hour earlier and the advancing seas, whipped by the gale had reached the walls of Cantre'r Gwaelod. Finally realizing what was happening to them the watchers on the dyke walls sought desperately to close the sluices but it was too late. The combination of the high tide and the storm brought the water up to and through the sluices. Wave upon pounding wave tossed against the dyke walls and now that there was a breach at the sluice-gates the see inexorably broke through the dyke. A single massive wave, accelerated by the downward slope of the land advanced across the entire country, drowning all the land and the sixteen towns of Cantref Gwaelod.
Inexorably the wave rolled onwards across the entire cantref, drowning Seithennin in its wake and though the ground sloped upwards towards Aberystwyth, still the wave rolled on, bearing down on the Llys of Gwyddno. Finally the wave broke, crashing down on the Llys and drowning most of the inhabitants. Only Gwyddno and a few of his men survived. Managing, somehow, to drag themselves to high ground. But they had lost, forever, the best of their men. Gwyddno himself reached land near what is today, Pwllheli in Llŷn, at a place that is now Called Penychain but which was originally called Pen-ochain after the sigh Gwyddno uttered upon the loss of his lands and peoples. From that day Gwyddno and the remnants of his peoples were forced to scratch a living in the remote fastnesses of Gwynedd. No more could they dwell in the fertile lowlands. Even today people say that on a quiet moonlit night they can hear the bells of Cantref Gwaelod pealing beneath the surf.
The following is a famous modern poem/song about Cantre'r Gwaelod:
Clychau Cantre'r Gwaelod - JJ Williams (1869–954)
O dan y môr a'i donnau
Mae llawer dinas dlos,
Fu'n gwrando ar y clychau
Yn canu gyda'r nos.
Trwy ofer esgeulustod
Y gwiliwr ar y tŵr
Aeth clychau Cantre'r Gwaelod
O'r golwg dan y dŵr.
Pan fyddo'r môr yn berwi
A'r corwynt ar y don,
A'r wylan wen yn methu
Cael disgyn ar ei bron,
Pan dyr y don ar dywod
A tharan yn ei stŵr,
Mae clychau Cantre'r Gwaelod
Yn ddistaw dan y dŵr.
Ond pan mae'r môr heb awel
Ar don heb ewyn gwyn,
Ar dydd yn marw'n dawel
Dros ysgwydd bell y bryn;
Mae nodau pêr yn dyfod,
A gwn yn ddigon siwr
Fod clychau Cantre'r Gwaelod
I'w clywed dan y dŵr.
O! cenwch glych fy mebyd
Ar waelod llaith y lli,
Daw oriau bore bywyd
Yn sŵn y gân i mi:
Hyd fedd mi gofia'r tywod
Ar lawer nos ddi-stŵr,
A chlychau Cantre'r Gwaelod
Yn canu dan y dŵr.
The Bells of Cantre'r Gwaelod
Translated by Dyfed Lloyd Evans
Beneath the wave-swept ocean
Are many pretty towns
That hearkened to the bell-rings
Set pealing through the night
Through negligent abandon
By a watcher on the wall
The bells of Cantre'r Gwaelod
Submerged beneath the wave
When the sea was surging
with gales upon the wave
The gull, so pale, was failing
to settle on their crest
When waves crashed on the sea-shore
with thunder in its wake
The bells of Cantre'r Gwaelod
are silent 'neath the wave
But when the sea is quiet
with waves that aren't foam-flecked
and day is gently slipping
behind the far-hill's slope
sweet tones are heard a-rising
and this I know as truth
The bells of Cantre'r Gwaelod
are sounding 'neath the wave
O! ring-out bells of childhood
on ocean's salty floor
for early strains of living
sound in their song for me
Whilst live the shore I'll think of
on many quiet nights
and bells of Cantre'r Gwaelod
still ringing 'neath the wave
http://www.celtnet.org.uk/legends/cantrer_gwaelod.html
http://1.2.3.11/bmi/www.celtnet.org.uk/images/cantref.gif
The entire region prospered until Cantre'r Gwaelod numbered sixteen towns and numerous little hamlets within its confines. Gwyddno was a benevolent ruler and his people prospered. So much so that fame of Gwyddno's riches and the abundance of his realm spread far and wide.
As the sea crept closer year by year and at high tide it began to seep through the walls. A network of ditches were built to stop the salt-water from poisoning the land. However, these ditches had to be drained and sluice gates were built in the walls to alow the water to drain away at low tide. Though the great main doors were closed, the sluice gates had to be opened at low tide once a day. To protect his lands from flooding and salt-water poisoning Gwyddno appointed a single watchman to be in charge of the great sluices. This honour was given to Seithennin, who had served Gwyddno Garanhir well in his various campaigns in the north.
Initially Seithennin performed his duties well. He had a regular rota of watchmen set upon the walls of the great dyke. The watchmen were to keep a look-out for breaches in the wall and warn the inhabitants. Eventually Seithennin had a special watchtower built that housed a great bell. If he saw a breach a watchman had only to run to the bell tower and ring the bell and the local inhabitants would all rush out to plug the breach. The only thing that Seithennin insisted upon was that he be present whenever the giant sluice-gates were opened and closed. After all the care of the cantref and its security from the sea was his responsibility.
Because of Seithennin's reforms and his diligent care of the dyke his stock at the Llys of Gwyddno rose and he was invited to more and more of the Llys' revelries. Over time, Seithennin succumbed to the pleasures of the court and slowly he gained a reputation as a carouser and a drunkard. After all, hadn't he done the hard work? Wasn't the Cantref and its encircling, protective, dyke secure? It certainly seemed that way to Seithennin and though he maintained his daily supervision of the opening and closing of the dyke it somehow seemed more and more like a ritual rather than something which had to be done for any real reason. Seithenin simply roused himself at the appointed hour, gave some orders to open the sluice gates. Then, the tide turned he would walk out once more and give fresh orders to close the sluice gates. As the months slowly passed the watchers along the wall noticed Seithennin grow more and more distant short-tempered in his task. He barked orders and stayed for as little time as he could. Though he was the man who had kept them safe for many a year and no-one said anything of this changing behaviour.
For his part, Seithennin spent more and more time in Gwyddno's Llys even joining it as it underwent its circuit of the seven cantrefs of Gwyddno's realm. Whilst at the Llys he spent as much time as he could partaking of the pleasures on offer: especially those of the wine cup and the mead horn.
The situation could not continue and matters came to a head one stormy spring evening. Gwyddno was having his spring feast at his second Llys in Aberystwyth (which lay near enough the center of his realm) and wishing little more than to join the revelries Seithennin saddled his best rowan stallion and vaulting onto its back he headed towards the dyke. It was already six and darkening, and though the sea was only an hour into its ebb and still lapping at the sea wall he shouted an order for the sluice gates to be opened. Still seeing the sea so close the watchman hesitated but Seithennin barked up at him to follow his orders. Turning his steed smartly on its heels Seithenin headed for the road to the east. Behind him he heard the grind of metal on metal as the sluice gates were opened. But he had already vanished into the gloom by the time a single surge of sea water rushed through the sluices before draining away to sea.
An hour and a half's hard riding later brought Seithennin to Gwyddno's court and seeing the lights and hearing the music emanating from Gwyddno's fortress he spurred his flagging horse onwards once again. After all the quicker he reached the great hall, the more time he would have to join the revelries and it would be a full six hours before he had to return to the dyke of Cantref Gwaelod. Entering the keep he leapt from his steed and throwing its reins to a stable-boy he strode through the main doorway and into the great hall. Grabbing a mead horn from a page he quaffed the drink and eased himself onto the long seat of a nearby bench.
But, as Seithennin sat drinking and carousing with his companions a storm slowly crept across the sea from Ireland. This brought with it row upon row of crashing waves which rolled and surged beneath the gleam of a full moon. A moon that was inducing a larger than usual spring tide. Seithennin, however, was fat too busy enjoying the mead and the company of the court's wenches that he did not hear the howling of the winds outside. He did not hear the rain and the hail as it battered against the shutters of the llys. He did not notice the great candle as it burned the hours away, so intent was he on the great torches flickering in their alcoves.
Far away, on the walls of the dyke, the watchers were getting worried as the storm passed overhead and the the wind-whipped waves drew closer and closer. But they had been trained well and without orders from Siethennin they dare not close the dyke. But Seithennin was drunk and somnolent safe within the Llys of Gwyddno as the hours burnt away. It was not until well past midnight that one of Seithennin's companions nudged him awake and with an arm, heavy with drink, pointed towards the clock-candle burning behind the high table. Seithennin roused himself drunkenly and focussed his eyes on the great candle's flickering flame. It was only slowly that he realized how little candle was left. It was almost one! This realization made adrenaline course through his frame and he jolted from his stupor. Finally the sounds of the storm and the rain impinged on his consciousness and casting his empty mead horn aside he jumped from the bench and began running towards the stable block. Grabbing his unsaddled steed he vaulted onto the animal's back and kicking at the stallion's flanks he urged the steed forwards, out of the Llys and into the teeth of the gale. Despite the driving wind and the stinging rain he rode like a man possessed. A man who somehow knew that fate rode upon his shoulders and that he followed the raven path. Cursing himself and his folly he spurred his steed onwards across the causeway and through the darkness.
Were it not for the wind and the driving rain he would have heard it sooner, but even with the roar of the gale, as he reached the mod-point of his journey (on the outskirts of Caer Genedr he heard the a sound the likes of which he had never heard before. There was a rushing and whooshing noise, like the sound of blood rushing through the head but magnified many thousand times. Within this overwhelming noise there was a susurration as of waves clawing at shingles on a beach. But Siethennin was so intent on his purpose that the unusual sound did not register. Not until the clouds parted for an instant and Seithennin saw himself faced with an advancing wall of water higher than any building he had seen in his life. Petrified, Seithennin halted his steed with a quick tug of the reins but as he horse halted and pranced in its own terror Seithennin could only sit and stare uncomprehendingly at the scene before him. Finally, terrible realization dawned and with a cry of anguish Seithennin wheeled the head of his steed around and began riding back the way he had come. But that terrible wall or water with its roaring advance was faster than him and Seithennin was lost within its inexorable advance. Warrior and soldier sucked in and swept away, just as the land that Seithenin had promised to protect was swept away by his own negligence.
Half an hour earlier and the advancing seas, whipped by the gale had reached the walls of Cantre'r Gwaelod. Finally realizing what was happening to them the watchers on the dyke walls sought desperately to close the sluices but it was too late. The combination of the high tide and the storm brought the water up to and through the sluices. Wave upon pounding wave tossed against the dyke walls and now that there was a breach at the sluice-gates the see inexorably broke through the dyke. A single massive wave, accelerated by the downward slope of the land advanced across the entire country, drowning all the land and the sixteen towns of Cantref Gwaelod.
Inexorably the wave rolled onwards across the entire cantref, drowning Seithennin in its wake and though the ground sloped upwards towards Aberystwyth, still the wave rolled on, bearing down on the Llys of Gwyddno. Finally the wave broke, crashing down on the Llys and drowning most of the inhabitants. Only Gwyddno and a few of his men survived. Managing, somehow, to drag themselves to high ground. But they had lost, forever, the best of their men. Gwyddno himself reached land near what is today, Pwllheli in Llŷn, at a place that is now Called Penychain but which was originally called Pen-ochain after the sigh Gwyddno uttered upon the loss of his lands and peoples. From that day Gwyddno and the remnants of his peoples were forced to scratch a living in the remote fastnesses of Gwynedd. No more could they dwell in the fertile lowlands. Even today people say that on a quiet moonlit night they can hear the bells of Cantref Gwaelod pealing beneath the surf.
The following is a famous modern poem/song about Cantre'r Gwaelod:
Clychau Cantre'r Gwaelod - JJ Williams (1869–954)
O dan y môr a'i donnau
Mae llawer dinas dlos,
Fu'n gwrando ar y clychau
Yn canu gyda'r nos.
Trwy ofer esgeulustod
Y gwiliwr ar y tŵr
Aeth clychau Cantre'r Gwaelod
O'r golwg dan y dŵr.
Pan fyddo'r môr yn berwi
A'r corwynt ar y don,
A'r wylan wen yn methu
Cael disgyn ar ei bron,
Pan dyr y don ar dywod
A tharan yn ei stŵr,
Mae clychau Cantre'r Gwaelod
Yn ddistaw dan y dŵr.
Ond pan mae'r môr heb awel
Ar don heb ewyn gwyn,
Ar dydd yn marw'n dawel
Dros ysgwydd bell y bryn;
Mae nodau pêr yn dyfod,
A gwn yn ddigon siwr
Fod clychau Cantre'r Gwaelod
I'w clywed dan y dŵr.
O! cenwch glych fy mebyd
Ar waelod llaith y lli,
Daw oriau bore bywyd
Yn sŵn y gân i mi:
Hyd fedd mi gofia'r tywod
Ar lawer nos ddi-stŵr,
A chlychau Cantre'r Gwaelod
Yn canu dan y dŵr.
The Bells of Cantre'r Gwaelod
Translated by Dyfed Lloyd Evans
Beneath the wave-swept ocean
Are many pretty towns
That hearkened to the bell-rings
Set pealing through the night
Through negligent abandon
By a watcher on the wall
The bells of Cantre'r Gwaelod
Submerged beneath the wave
When the sea was surging
with gales upon the wave
The gull, so pale, was failing
to settle on their crest
When waves crashed on the sea-shore
with thunder in its wake
The bells of Cantre'r Gwaelod
are silent 'neath the wave
But when the sea is quiet
with waves that aren't foam-flecked
and day is gently slipping
behind the far-hill's slope
sweet tones are heard a-rising
and this I know as truth
The bells of Cantre'r Gwaelod
are sounding 'neath the wave
O! ring-out bells of childhood
on ocean's salty floor
for early strains of living
sound in their song for me
Whilst live the shore I'll think of
on many quiet nights
and bells of Cantre'r Gwaelod
still ringing 'neath the wave
http://www.celtnet.org.uk/legends/cantrer_gwaelod.html