Folk-Lore of West and Mid-WalesDavies, Jonathan Ceredig
History
Folk-Lore of West and Mid-Wales
Davies, Jonathan Ceredig
Folklore -- Wales; Wales -- Social life and customs
There used to be preserved at Llanddewi Church a remarkable fragment
of a horn called "Madcorn yr Ych Bannog," that is, the core of the
Bannog Ox's Morn, which, according to tradition, had been kept there
as a valuable relic ever since the time of St. David. This horn is
now at Llidiardau, Llanilar, kept privately. It has been pronounced
by Professor Boyd Dawkins to have belonged to "the great urns (Bos
Primigenius) that Charlemagne hunted in the forest of Aachen, and
the Monks of St. Galle ate on their feast days."
When St. David was preaching at Llanddewi at the great Synod, in
the year 519, it is said that the ground on which he stood rose up
and formed a hillock under his feet. Cressy recounts the miracle in
the following words:--"When all the fathers assembled enjoined David
to preach, he commanded a child which attended him, and had lately
been restored to life by him, to spread a napkin under his feet; and,
standing upon it, he began to expound the Gospel and the law to the
auditory. All the while that this oration continued, a snow-white
dove, descending from Heaven, sate upon his shoulders; and, moreover,
the earth, on which he stood raised itself under him till it became
a hill, from whence his voice, like a trumpet, was clearly heard and
understood by all, both near and far off, on the top of which hill
a church was afterwards built, and remains to this day."
The people of Llanddewi Brefi told me that there is another tradition
still extant in the neighbourhood, which says that as St. David
was preaching on this great occasion, a nightingale appeared on the
spot, and sang. The music of the bird was so sweet, that the people
listened to the nightingale's song, instead of continuing to give
their attention to the sermon. Seeing this, the Holy Saint David
rebuked the congregation, and informed them that the nightingale
should never again sing in the neighbourhood; and from that day
till now the bird has never been heard there. According to the
great historian George Owen, there is a different version of this
story in Pembrokeshire. "St. David, being seriouse occupied in the
night tyme in his divine orizons, was so troubled with the sweete
tuninges of the nightingales, as that he could not fasten his minde
upon heavenlie cogitacions, as at other tymes, being letted (hindered)
by the melodie of the bird, praied unto the Almightie, that from that
tyme forward there might never a nightingale sing within his Dioces,
and this saieth our women (old wives' fables), was the cause of
confininge of the bird out of this country."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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