The bridge consisted of a couple of planks and a
pole flung over a chasm about ten feet wide, on the farther side of
which was a precipice with a path at least quite as steep as the
one down which I had come, and without any trees or shrubs by which
those who used it might support themselves. The torrent rolled
about nine feet below the bridge; its channel was tortuous; on the
south-east side of the bridge was a cauldron, like that on which I
had looked down from the bridge over the river of the monks. The
man passed over the bridge and I followed him; on the other side we
stopped and turned round. The river was rushing and surging, the
pot was boiling and roaring, and everything looked wild and savage;
but the locality, for awfulness and mysterious gloom, could not
compare with that on the east side of the Devil's Bridge, nor for
sublimity and grandeur with that on the west.
"Here you see, sir," said the man, "the Bridge of the Offeiriad,
called so, it is said, because the popes used to pass over it in
the old time; and here you have the Rheidol, which, though not so
smooth nor so well off for banks as the Hafren and the Gwy, gets to
the sea before either of them, and, as the pennill says, is quite
as much entitled to honour:-
"'Hafren a Wy yn hyfryd eu wedd
A Rheidol vawr ei anrhydedd.'
Good rhyme, sir, that. I wish you would put it into Saesneg."
"I am afraid I shall make a poor hand of it," said I; "however, I
will do my best:-
"'Oh pleasantly do glide along the Severn and the Wye;
But Rheidol's rough, and yet he's held by all in honour high.'
"Very good rhyme that, sir! though not so good as the pennill
Cymraeg. Ha, I do see that you know the two languages and are one
poet. And now, sir, I must leave you, and go to the hills to my
sheep, who I am afraid will be suffering in this dreadful weather.
However, before I go, I should wish to see you safe over the
bridge."
I shook him by the hand, and retracing my steps over the bridge,
began clambering up the bank on my knees.
"You will spoil your trousers, sir!" cried the man from the other
side.
"I don't care if I do," said I, "provided I save my legs, which are
in some danger in this place, as well as my neck, which is of less
consequence."
I hurried back amidst rain and wind to my friendly hospice, where,
after drying my wet clothes as well as I could, I made an excellent
dinner on fowl and bacon. Dinner over, I took up a newspaper which
was brought me, and read an article about the Russian war, which
did not seem to be going on much to the advantage of the allies.
Soon flinging the paper aside, I stuck my feet on the stove, one on
each side of the turf fire, and listened to the noises without.
The bellowing of the wind down the mountain passes and the roaring
of the Rheidol fall at the north side of the valley, and the
rushing of the five cascades of the river Mynach, were truly awful.
Perhaps I ought not to have said the five cascades of the Mynach,
but the Mynach cascade, for now its five cascades had become one,
extending from the chasm over which hung the bridge of Satan to the
bottom of the valley.
After a time I fell into a fit of musing. I thought of the Plant
de Bat; I thought of the spitties or hospitals connected with the
great monastery of Ystrad Flur or Strata Florida; I thought of the
remarkable bridge close by, built by a clever monk of that place to
facilitate the coming of pilgrims with their votive offerings from
the north to his convent; I thought of the convent built in the
time of our Henry the Second by Ryce ab Gruffyd, prince of South
Wales; and lastly, I thought of a wonderful man who was buried in
its precincts, the greatest genius which Wales, and perhaps
Britain, ever produced, on whose account, and not because of old it
had been a magnificent building, and the most celebrated place of
popish pilgrimage in Wales, I had long ago determined to visit it
on my journey, a man of whose life and works the following is a
brief account.
CHAPTER LXXXVI
Birth and Early Years of Ab Gwilym - Morfudd - Relic of Druidism -
The Men of Glamorgan - Legend of Ab Gwilym - Ab Gwilym as a Writer
- Wonderful Variety - Objects of Nature - Gruffydd Gryg.
DAFYDD AB GWILYM was born about the year 1320, at a place called
Bro Gynnin in the county of Cardigan. Though born in wedlock he
was not conceived legitimately. His mother being discovered by her
parents to be pregnant, was turned out of doors by them, whereupon
she went to her lover, who married her, though in so doing he acted
contrary to the advice of his relations. After a little time,
however, a general reconciliation took place. The parents of Ab
Gwilym, though highly connected, do not appear to have possessed
much property. The boy was educated by his mother's brother
Llewelyn ab Gwilym Fychan, a chief of Cardiganshire; but his
principal patron in after life was Ifor, a cousin of his father,
surnamed Hael, or the bountiful, a chieftain of Glamorganshire.
This person received him within his house, made him his steward and
tutor to his daughter. With this young lady Ab Gwilym speedily
fell in love, and the damsel returned his passion.
