“A farmer, living on the banks of the Alaw, having occasion for stones to make some addition to his farm-buildings, and having observed a stone or two peeping through the turf of a circular elevation on a flat not far from the river, was induced to examine it, where, after paring off the turf, he came to a considerable heap of stones, or _carnedd_, covered with earth, which he removed with some degree of caution, and got to a _cist_ formed of coarse flags canted and covered over. On removing the lid, he found it contained an urn placed with its mouth downwards, full of ashes and half-calcined fragments of bone.” In the _Mabinogion_ the grave is thus described:-- “A square grave was made for Bonwen, the daughter of Llyr, on the banks of the Alaw, and there she was buried.” The urn that contained the ashes and bones was of the well-known Bronze Age type. According to the traditional pedigrees of the Welsh, Bronwen was the aunt of the celebrated Caractacus who so gallantly resisted the Romans, and who was taken prisoner and conveyed to Rome. But these very early pedigrees are untrustworthy. The Bronwen Tower of Harlech Castle is that on the left of the sea-front as we enter the courtyard. In 1404 Owen Glyndwr got possession of the castle and held a parliament in it. During the Wars of the Roses, the Earl of Pembroke and his brother, Sir Richard Herbert, laid siege to the fortress. It was defended by the governor, Davydd ab Ifan, who there offered an honourable asylum to Margaret of Anjou, queen of Henry VI., and the Prince of Wales, after the battle of Northampton. When summoned to surrender, he replied that he had held a fortress in France till all the old women in Wales had heard of it, and he now purposed holding out in Harlech till all the old women in France heard of it. [Illustration: BRONWEN’S URN] According to a contemporary bard, there was great slaughter; he says that six thousand men fell, but this shows him to have been able to draw the long-bow as well as to finger the lyre. Eventually, after a blockade, Harlech was forced to capitulate, and the whole district was then subjected to Edward IV. The famous air, “The March of the Men of Harlech,” is said to have been composed during this siege, more probably long after, in commemoration of it. Harlech is not a good watering-place, as the sea is at some distance from the town, separated from it by tedious sand-flats. But it commands a magnificent view of the promontory of Lleyn, with Yr Eifl--in English the Rivals--rising from it, then Moel Siabod, Snowdon, and the Glyders; and many pleasant excursions may be made from it. The view is blocked before the principal hotel by the huge bulk of the castle.