Thence it rapidly spread throughout England. The banks of the Severn
were, however, the focus of the malady, and a fetid mist was thought to
hang over the river, “which mist,” says a writer of the time, “in the
countrie wher it began, was sene flie from towne to towne, with such a
stincke in morninges and evenings, that men could scarcely abide it.”
It lasted from 15th April to 30th September.
To return to Deganwy, from which we have wandered. It was struck by
lightning in 812, but was speedily restored. Hugh the Fat, Earl of
Chester, made it his stronghold, but it was taken and demolished by
Llewelyn ab Gruffydd in 1260.
Llandudno, on the neck of land connecting the Great Orme’s Head,
or Pen y Gogarth, with the mainland, has grown into a fashionable
watering-place. The Head rises to the height of nearly 680 feet above
the sea; on the Conway side was an ancient monastic settlement at
Gogarth. In the first half of the sixth century a low-lying tract of
land, now overflowed by the sea, formed a hundred called Cantref y
Gwaelod, in Cardigan Bay. It was probably a portion of land that had
been reclaimed by the Romans from the waves by strong sea walls. This
district was ruled by two chiefs, Gwyddno and Seithenin. The story goes
that owing to the neglect of Seithenin, who was a drunkard, and whose
duty it was to see to the repairs of the walls, one stormy night the
rollers coming in with an unusually high tide and wind, the dykes were
overleaped, and the whole _cantref_ was covered with sea.
With difficulty did the sons of Gwyddno escape with their lives, and
as they had lost their lands and tribal rights, nothing was open to
them save to enter religion and found ecclesiastical tribes. Among
the sons of the tipsy Seithenin was Tudno, who settled on the Orme’s
Head. But here also was a great inundation, as we shall see presently.
The church, which is of the twelfth century with a fifteenth-century
chancel, was for some time left in ruins, but it has been restored,
and service is now held in it in summer. In the interior is an early
circular font.
In 1881 a cave in the limestone was discovered behind Mostyn Street in
Llandudno, which had been inhabited in prehistoric times, for beside
the bones of cave bears, were found skeletons of men, and a necklace
of pierced teeth of beasts. These were the relics of that primeval race
which began to settle in the land as the Ice Age came to an end and the
glaciers disappeared.
There are many caves in the limestone rock of the Head, one fitted up
as a summer-house, by some of the Mostyn family, with stone seats and
tables. A small cromlech and some rude stone remains on the headland
may be seen, but the relics are sadly mutilated.
Pen y Ddinas overhangs the town, and on it is a logan rock, the Maen
Sigl, which is also called S. Tudno’s cradle.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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