“Red for fire, blue for cold,” replied Collen, and he dashed the pot of holy water in the king’s face and the liquid was splashed about on all sides. Instantly everything disappeared, and Collen was alone on the tor and the stars were shining down on him out of a frosty sky. That is the story as he told it to the monks of Glastonbury, and it was a dream and nothing more, but so vivid that he believed in its reality. Collen passed into Brittany, and there is a Llangollen there, near Quimper, by no means as lovely a spot as his Llangollen in Wales. Long before Collen settled here the conical hill that commands the vale, called Dinas Bran, had been crowned by a fort, and a fort it remained throughout the Middle Ages till the fifteenth century, when it was demolished. Flintshire was the great doorway, or main gate, of entrance into North Wales, watched from the strong fortress of Chester, but the postern was the Vale of Dee, and to command this Dinas Bran must have been all-important. On looking at the map it will be seen that there is a portion of Flintshire detached from the rest, with no great town in it, but including Overton and Hanmer and Penley. It is hardly ten miles long by five miles broad; it forms a break between Shropshire and Cheshire, and its Welsh name is Maelor Saesneg (Saxon Maelor), whereas Welsh Maelor is on the west side of the Dee. This was placed by Edward I. under the jurisdiction of the Sheriff of Flint by the Statute of Rhuddlan in 1284. Why this was done is hard to understand, yet there must have been purpose in it. Mr. Godsal explains it thus:-- “Since Maelor Saesneg, as we find it to-day, originated in a time of war, it is evident that military principles are likely to prove the best guides to the answers to these questions. The chief, in fact the dominating military feature on the eastern side of Maelor Saesneg, is a morass more than four miles long, and a mile or more wide, that is impassable to this day except by individuals on foot who know the ways across. From this morass runs a brook down the Wych Valley which protects the northern flank of Maelor, and which must have been very difficult to pass before the days of roads and bridges. The morass is called on the Maelor side the Fenns Moss; on the Shropshire side Whixall Moss. In ancient times it was covered by a forest.” [Illustration: BERWYN FROM CASTELL DINAS BRAN] It had been a stronghold of the British protected by the fens. Yet we do not see why it was not placed under the Earl of Shrewsbury instead of under the Sheriff of Flint, unless it were, in the event of an attack up the valley of the Dee, that the Sheriff might hold this portion in check whilst the Dee valley was entered. To return to Dinas Bran.