Jones Told Her That His
Companion, The Gwr Boneddig, Meaning Myself, Had Come In Order To
See The Birth-Place Of Huw Morris, And That I Was Well Acquainted
With His Works, Having Gotten Them By Heart In Lloegr, When A Boy.
The woman said that nothing would give her greater pleasure than to
hear a Sais recite poetry of Huw Morris, whereupon I recited a
number of his lines addressed to the Gof Du, or blacksmith.
The
woman held up her hands, and a carter who was in the kitchen
somewhat the worse for liquor, shouted applause. After asking a
few questions as to the road we were to take, we left the house,
and in a little time entered the valley of Ceiriog. The valley is
very narrow, huge hills overhanging it on both sides, those on the
east side lumpy and bare, those on the west precipitous, and
partially clad with wood; the torrent Ceiriog runs down it,
clinging to the east side; the road is tolerably good, and is to
the west of the stream. Shortly after we had entered the gorge, we
passed by a small farm-house on our right hand, with a hawthorn
hedge before it, upon which seems to stand a peacock, curiously cut
out of thorn. Passing on we came to a place called Pandy uchaf, or
the higher Fulling mill. The place so called is a collection of
ruinous houses, which put me in mind of the Fulling mills mentioned
in "Don Quixote." It is called the Pandy because there was
formerly a fulling mill here, said to have been the first
established in Wales; which is still to be seen, but which is no
longer worked. Just above the old mill there is a meeting of
streams, the Tarw from the west rolls down a dark valley into the
Ceiriog.
At the entrance of this valley and just before you reach the Pandy,
which it nearly overhangs, is an enormous crag. After I had looked
at the place for some time with considerable interest we proceeded
towards the south, and in about twenty minutes reached a neat kind
of house, on our right hand, which John Jones told me stood on the
ground of Huw Morris. Telling me to wait, he went to the house,
and asked some questions. After a little time I followed him and
found him discoursing at the door with a stout dame about fifty-
five years of age, and a stout buxom damsel of about seventeen,
very short of stature.
"This is the gentleman" said he, "who wishes to see anything there
may be here connected with Huw Morris."
The old dame made me a curtsey, and said in very distinct Welsh,
"We have some things in the house which belonged to him, and we
will show them to the gentleman willingly."
"We first of all wish to see his chair," said John Jones.
"The chair is in a wall in what is called the hen ffordd (old
road)," said the old gentlewoman; "it is cut out of the stone wall,
you will have maybe some difficulty in getting to it, but the girl
shall show it to you." The girl now motioned to us to follow her,
and conducted us across the road to some stone steps, over a wall
to a place which looked like a plantation.
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