Here I engaged a
man to show me the sources of the rivers and the other wonders of
the mountain. He was a tall, athletic fellow, dressed in brown
coat, round buff hat, corduroy trousers, linen leggings and
highlows, and, though a Cumro, had much more the appearance of a
native of Tipperary than a Welshman. He was a kind of shepherd to
the people of the house, who, like many others in South Wales,
followed farming and inn-keeping at the same time.
CHAPTER LXXXVIII
The Guide - The Great Plynlimmon - A Dangerous Path - Source of the
Rheidol - Source of the Severn - Pennillion - Old Times and New -
The Corpse Candle - Supper.
LEAVING the inn, my guide and myself began to ascend a steep hill
just behind it. When we were about halfway up I asked my
companion, who spoke very fair English, why the place was called
the Castle.
"Because, sir," said he, "there was a castle here in the old time."
"Whereabouts was it?" said I.
"Yonder," said the man, standing still and pointing to the right.
"Don't you see yonder brown spot in the valley? There the castle
stood."
"But are there no remains of it?" said I. "I can see nothing but a
brown spot."
"There are none, sir; but there a castle once stood, and from it
the place we came from had its name, and likewise the river that
runs down to Pont Erwyd."
"And who lived there?" said I.
"I don't know, sir," said the man; "but I suppose they were grand
people, or they would not have lived in a castle."
After ascending the hill and passing over its top, we went down its
western side and soon came to a black, frightful bog between two
hills. Beyond the bog and at some distance to the west of the two
hills rose a brown mountain, not abruptly, but gradually, and
looking more like what the Welsh call a rhiw, or slope, than a
mynydd, or mountain.
"That, sir," said my guide, "is the grand Plynlimmon."
"It does not look much of a hill," said I.
"We are on very high ground, sir, or it would look much higher. I
question, upon the whole, whether there is a higher hill in the
world. God bless Pumlummon Mawr!" said he, looking with reverence
towards the hill. "I am sure I have a right to say so, for many is
the good crown I have got by showing gentlefolks like yourself to
the top of him."
"You talk of Plynlimmon Mawr, or the great Plynlymmon," said I;
"where are the small ones?"
"Yonder they are," said the guide, pointing to two hills towards
the north; "one is Plynlimmon Canol, and the other Plynlimmon Bach
- the middle and the small Plynlimmon."
"Pumlummon," said I, "means five summits.
