Nooks and Corners of PembrokeshireTimmins, H. Thornhill (Henry Thornhill)
History
Nooks and Corners of Pembrokeshire
Timmins, H. Thornhill (Henry Thornhill)
Pembrokeshire (Wales) -- Description and travel
From the chapel we next scramble down to the 'holy well,' a neglected
spot of no interest save such as tradition can lend. Yet in olden times
folk were wont to gather here from far and wide, in anticipation of an
instant cure for 'those thousand natural shocks that flesh is heir to.'
Quaint legends and superstitions such as these linger, to this day,
amongst the older peasantry of this remote portion of South
Pembrokeshire. Indeed, the whole locality offers a happy hunting-ground
to anyone curious in the matter of old-time folk-lore.
For behold, is not this Gwlâd yr Hûd, the Christian Kymro's Land of
Phantasy; which, long ere the time that history had dawned, was
enveloped in Llengêl, the Veil of Mystery? Each castle-crowned headland
of this rock-bound coast, and every grass-grown rath and barrow that
furrows the surface of these immemorial hills, has formed the theme of
some half-forgotten legend or lingering tradition, long cherished among
this imaginative people.
A lonesome, sea-girt land where storms and sea-mists, sweeping from the
wide Atlantic, wreath the steadfast hills in unsubstantial vapours,
through which each beetling precipice that frowns across the ocean looms
like some weird vision of a dream. Amidst such scenes as these, the
fantastic creations of the Keltic imagination must readily have found 'a
local habitation and a name.'
Well, _revenons à nos moutons_, after this excursion into legend-land.
Seated on a mossy stone, we contemplate the age-worn cliffs whose ruddy
bastions, carved into a thousand castellated forms, range their
impregnable fronts against old Ocean's impetuous artillery. A steady
south-westerly breeze sends the green, translucent rollers vollying with
thunderous roar against the weed-fringed rocks upon the shore; while
flocks of gulls wheel overhead, drifting on motionless, angular pinions,
or sweeping across the breakers with harsh, discordant cries.
We now seek out a view-point for a sketch of the lonely hermitage, a
matter of no small difficulty owing to the tumbled nature of the ground;
but eventually we select a sheltered spot where the noontide sun,
peering downward from the cloudless vault of heaven, draws out the rich,
sweet odours of sea-pink, wild-thyme and gorse.
Mounting again to the brow of the cliffs, we ramble around the lonely
coast, which hereabouts is indented with a series of 'crankling nookes'
that penetrate, like long fingers, deep into the land.
Here is the wild and perilous abyss yclept the Huntsman's Leap, from the
story of some fabulous rider who, putting his horse to full gallop,
plunged across the unexpected chasm, only to perish from sheer fright
upon regaining his home! The nodding cliffs approach so closely upon
either hand, as to have been not inaptly likened to a pair of leviathan
vessels locked fast in collision.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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