Besides the above honours conferred upon him, he was constable of Chester Castle; had Dwyfor and others, the king’s mills, to farm; with a grant of the weirs and fisheries on the coast, and many other offices of great trust and profit. Between Criccaeth and Penmorva you pass Stumllyn, formerly the seat of the Wynnes, now the seat of — Jones, Esq. of Machynlleth. Near Clenenney, on Bwlch Craig Wenn, is a fine Druidical circle, consisting at present of thirty-eight stones; and about a mile from this, above Penmorva, is another. On Llysdin farm some small urns, containing human bones and ashes, have lately been discovered. At a small distance is Brynkir, where Lord Lyttleton took up his residence when he visited this part of the principality. This part of the country was formerly the seat of dreadful feuds, and appears to have been inhabited by a most ferocious and irascible set of beings. They were of two clans, one descended from Owen Gwynedd, Prince of North Wales; the other was derived from Collwyn ap Tangno. The history of Evionedd, or Eifionydd, is during that period one of revenge, perfidy, and slaughter; and to such extent was it carried, that Meredith ap Jevan preferred taking up his residence in Dolwyddelan Castle, at that time surrounded by robbers and freebooters, to residing in this district, giving to his friends the following decisive reason: “If,” said he, “I live in my own house in Evionedd, I must either kill my own kinsmen, or submit to be murdered by them.” He, therefore, rather chose to fight with thieves and outlaws than with his own immediate relatives. “They would quarrel,” says Sir John Wynne, “if it was but for the mastery of the country, and the first good morrow. John Owen, ap John, ap Meredydd, and Howel ap Madoc Vychan, fell out for no other reason. Howel and his people fought valiantly: when he fell, his mother placed her hand on his head, to prevent the fatal blow, and had half her hand and three of her fingers cut off, by some of her nearest kindred. An attempt was made to kill Howel ap Rhys, in his own house, by the sons of John ap Meredith, for no other reason than that their servants had quarrelled about a fishery. The first set fire to the mansion with great bundles of straw:—the besieged, terrified with the flames, sheltered themselves under forms and benches, while Rhys, the old hero, stood sword in hand, reproaching his men with cowardice, and telling them he had often seen a greater smoke in that hall on Christmas even. “These flagitious deeds seldom met with any other punishment than what resulted from private revenge, and too often composition was made for the most horrible murders. There was a _gwerth_, or price of blood, from the slaughter of a king, to the cutting off one of his subject’s little fingers.”—_Williams’s Caernarvon_. PENMORFA,