Peeps at many lands: WalesWilmot-Buxton, E. M. (Ethel Mary)
History
Peeps at many lands: Wales
Wilmot-Buxton, E. M. (Ethel Mary)
Wales -- Description and travel
Many years ago, when that delightful person, George Borrow, a native
of Norfolk, made a long tour all over Wales on “Shanks’s mare,” seeing
thereby far more of the country and its people than the motor-car
or railroad travellers of more modern times, he explored this part
of the country very thoroughly, and this description of his visit to
Plynlimmon is too good not to quote at length:
“The mountain of Plynlimmon, to which I was bound, is the third in
Wales for height, being only inferior to Snowdon and Cader Idris. Its
proper name is Pum or Pump Lumon, signifying the ‘five points,’ because
towards the upper part it is divided into five hills or points.
“Plynlimmon ... has been the scene of many remarkable events. In the
tenth century a dreadful battle was fought on one of its spurs between
the Danes and the Welsh, in which the former sustained a bloody
overthrow. In 1401 a conflict took place in one of its valleys between
the Welsh under Glendower and the ‘Flemings’ of Pembrokeshire, who,
angry at having their homesteads plundered and burnt by the chieftain,
the mortal enemy of their race, assembled in great numbers and drove
Glendower and his forces before them to Plynlimmon, where the Welshmen
stood at bay, and with difficulty won a victory....
“... I started about ten o’clock on my expedition, after making, of
course, a very hearty breakfast ... and went duly north till I came to
a place among hills where the road was crossed by an angry-looking
rivulet. I was just going to pull off my boots and stockings in order
to wade through, when I perceived a pole and a rail laid over the
stream at a little distance above where I was. This rustic bridge
enabled me to cross without running the danger of getting a regular
sousing, for these mountain streams, even when not reaching so high as
the knee, occasionally sweep the wader off his legs, as I know by my
own experience. From a lad I learnt that the place where I crossed the
water was called the ‘Foot of the Red Slope.’
“About twenty minutes’ walk brought me ... near a spur of the
Plynlimmon range. Here I engaged a man to show me the sources of the
rivers and the other wonders of the mountain. He was a tall, athletic
fellow, and had much more the appearance of an Irishman than the
Welshman that he was....
“After ascending a steep hill and passing over its top, we went down
its western side, and soon came to a black, frightful bog between two
hills. Beyond the bog, and at some distance to the west of the two
hills, rose a brown mountain, not abruptly, but gradually, and looking
more like what the Welsh call a slope than a mountain.
“‘That, sir,’ said my guide, ‘is the Great Plynlimmon.’
“‘It does not look much of a hill,’ said I.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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