<g>Striguil.</g>--The whole frontier of this interesting country--the land of Gwent--is sprinkled over with picturesque ruins,--the crumbling remains of those warlike strongholds raised by the Norman barons, as a defence to their newly-acquired possessions, which were brought into frequent jeopardy by the martial and reluctant subjects of the new dynasty. To these we can only advert in passing--for the plan on which this work is conducted, does not admit of their being noticed in detail. In the second century after the Conquest, six of these strongholds were erected near the British forest of Wentwood[100]--a still venerable chase of between two and three thousand acres in extent, and associated with many events in the history and traditions of the Welsh frontiers. The grand object of these castles was to form a chain of garrisoned forts for the protection of Norman interests against the incursions of a people who, although compelled to pass under a foreign yoke, still gloried in their independence, and embraced every occasion to prove that their martial spirit, though bowed, was not broken. One of the strongest of these embattled fastnesses was <g>Castell-glyn-y-Striguil</g>,[101] erected, according to Doomsday-book, by the Norman warrior so often named in this work, William Fitzosborne. In Hammer’s Irish Chronicle,[102] however, its erection is ascribed to Gilbert Strongbow, whose life and family we have already noticed in the account of Tinterne Abbey. The remains of this castle, though inadequate to convey any just notion of its original strength, are still sufficiently marked with regard to its size and proportions. Its outworks have mouldered down into shapeless masses, over which nature has thrown so dense a matting of underwood, that the traces of art have been almost obliterated. The form “was that of an oblong square, the angles of which, as usual in such cases, were defended by octagonal towers;”[103] at one extremity was the donjon, or keep, the situation of which is indicated by the shapeless mound of vegetation, which draws nutriment from its débris. The walls were encircled by a deep moat, supplied by two mountain rivulets, which unite at this point to form the <g>Troggy</g>, one of the silver tributaries of the river Usk. The other castles Avhich deserve a cursory notice, are, Llanvair, Llanvaches, Pencoed, Dinham, and Penhow.[104] The latter, an ancient seat of the <g>Seymours</g>, occupies a bold and romantic situation. The acclivity which forms the direct approach to it, is nearly perpendicular. The view which it commands consists of a valley, or rather wooded ravines, in the foreground; and in the distance, a range of barren hills that bound the horizon-- Hills that, giving birth To circling fountains, glad the parent earth; And from their bosom, framed for martial toil, Sent forth the guardian heroes of the soil.