The bardic arts of song, poetry and storytelling are a mighty allowance of Welsh culture and tradition. And every year in Wales, these arts are applauded upon a grand scale at the National Eisteddfod, a big week-long festival where musicians, dancers, artists, poets and singers compete through the medium of the Welsh language to win prestigious prizes. In this article we look at the Welsh storytelling tradition, and allocation some of our favourite Snowdonia myths and legends.
In simpler times, natural phenomena were explained away by the superstitious as magic or miracles, warring dragons or battling giants, or the feat of the 'Tylwyth Teg', or 'Fair Folk'. We may giggle today, but centuries ago it was considered perfectly plausible that a pile of rocks could appear upon a mountainside because a giantess had taken bell and dropped the contents of her apron!
In the legal tradition of the ancient bards and storytellers, many old-fashioned tales survive to this day, having been passed the length of orally from one generation to the adjacent throughout history. Myth, legend, superstition or fairy story - all you choose to call the folklore of Snowdonia, there are great quantity of long-lasting tales to choose from, each one as colourful as the next. Here are a few of our favourites.
St Twrog's Stone
In the village of Maentwrog, just outdoor Blaenau Ffestiniog, an unusual boulder stands adjacent to the porch in the churchyard. Legend has it that a local giant, Twrog, disgusted by the pagan rituals physical carried out in the village, threw a large stone next to from a handy hill which destroyed the unholy altar. His cronies vanguard erected the church where the boulder had landed.
The Mermaid's Curse
Many hundreds of years ago a charity of fishermen caught a mermaid in their nets while fishing in the Conwy estuary. Ignoring her pleas for freedom, they paraded her through the town until, gone a fish, the mermaid started to suffocate on air. As she died, the mermaid cursed the men of Conwy, their wives, their children, and future generations. She cursed the buildings, sophisticated buildings, and vowed that Conwy would worry many drownings, wars, diseases and disasters until the stop of time.
In 1966 Conwy Town Hall, which stood upon the spot where the mermaid was said to have died, burned down. Several locals said they heard the mermaid's ghostly laughter as the building burned. The house upon which it had stood was forward-looking developed as a library, but within two months of realization it had burned by the side of another time - and in imitation of again, the mermaid's laughter was heard through the flames.
The Sunken Town
In the basin of the valley where Lake Bala (Llyn Tegid in Welsh) lies, there was as soon as a town. This town was inhabited by immoral and selfish people, and ruled by a unquestionably cruel and wicked man, who one night held a huge party in his palace to celebrate the birth of his first child.
A local harpist was ordered to find the money for entertainment at the party. Despite hating the ruler, who ruled the town harshly, the harpist knew it would be enormously risky to refuse, thus reluctantly attended and played for the guests.
As the party progressed the harpist heard a strange whispering at the rear him. He turned and maxim a tiny bluebird which kept repeating the thesame word beyond and over again: "Vengeance! Vengeance!" - at the similar era beckoning the harpist to follow it.
The harpist left the palace and followed the bird occurring a hillside, where he slept every night. with he awoke the next-door morning, he looked next to at the town and saw that it had disappeared, and in its area was an gigantic lake. And there, at a loose end upon the surface of the lake, was the juvenile man's harp.
King Arthur in Snowdonia
There are many folk tales placing Arthur, legendary King of the Britons, in Snowdonia. Perhaps the most dramatic of these claims that Arthur fought his last fight in the region, at a pass near Cwm Dyli. later Arthur was mortally put out by a hail of foe arrows, his men raised a cairn higher than his body, which nevertheless stands today and is called Carnedd Arthur - Arthur's Cairn - while the mountain pass where the ambush happened is called Bwlch Y Saethau, or Pass of the Arrows.
After Arthur died, his remaining knights entered a cave below the top of Lliwedd and the entrance was solid at the back them. This cave is known as Ogof Llanciau Eryri, or Cave of the teenage Men of Snowdonia. It is said that the knights slumber there still, abundantly armoured and armed, waiting for their king to awaken and fulfil the ancient prophesy that Arthur merely sleeps until Wales is in mortal danger, whereupon he will arise and keep his country.
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