Wales -- Description and travel; Wales -- Social life and customs
In South Wales also is situated the bishopric of Landaff, near the Severn
sea, and near the noble castle of Caerdyf; bishop Teilo being its patron.
It contains five cantreds, and the fourth part of another, namely,
Senghennyd.
In North Wales, between Anglesey and the Eryri mountains, is the see of
Bangor, under the patronage of Daniel, the abbot; it contains about nine
cantreds.
In North Wales also is the poor little cathedral of Llan-Elwy, or St.
Asaph, containing about six cantreds, to which Powys is subject.
CHAPTER V
OF THE TWO MOUNTAINS FROM WHICH THE NOBLE RIVERS WHICH DIVIDE WALES
SPRING
WALES is divided and distinguished by noble rivers, which derive their
source from two ranges of mountains, the Ellennith, in South Wales, which
the English call Moruge, as being the heads of moors, or bogs; and Eryri,
in North Wales, which they call Snowdon, or mountains of snow; the latter
of which are said to be of so great an extent, that if all the herds in
Wales were collected together, they would supply them with pasture for a
considerable time. Upon them are two lakes, one of which has a floating
island; and the other contains fish having only one eye, as we have
related in our Itinerary.
We must also here remark, that at two places in Scotland, one on the
eastern, and the other on the western ocean, the sea-fish called mulvelli
(mullets) have only the right eye.
The noble river Severn takes its rise from the Ellennith mountains, and
flowing by the castles of Shrewsbury and Bridgenorth, through the city of
Worcester, and that of Gloucester, celebrated for its iron manufactories,
falls into the sea a few miles from the latter place, and gives its name
to the Severn Sea. This river was for many years the boundary between
Cambria and Loegria, or Wales and England; it was called in British
Hafren, from the daughter of Locrinus, who was drowned in it by her
step-mother; the aspirate being changed, according to the Latin idiom,
into S, as is usual in words derived from the Greek, it was termed
Sarina, as hal becomes _sal_; hemi, _semi_; hepta, _septem_.
The river Wye rises in the same mountains of Ellennith, and flows by the
castles of Hay and Clifford, through the city of Hereford, by the castles
of Wilton and Goodrich, through the forest of Dean, abounding with iron
and deer, and proceeds to Strigul castle, below which it empties itself
into the sea, and forms in modern times the boundary between England and
Wales. The Usk does not derive its origin from these mountains, but from
those of Cantref Bachan; it flows by the castle of Brecheinoc, or
Aberhodni, that is, the fall of the river Hodni into the Usk (for Aber,
in the British language, signifies every place where two rivers unite
their streams); by the castles of Abergevenni and Usk, through the
ancient city of Legions, and discharges itself into the Severn Sea, not
far from Newport.
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