{145} This river is now called Dovey.
{146} From Llanbadarn our travellers directed their course towards
the sea-coast, and ferrying over the river Dovey, which separates
North from South Wales, proceeded to Towyn, in Merionethshire, where
they passed the night. [Venedotia is the Latin name for Gwynedd.]
{147} The province of Merionyth was at this period occupied by
David, the son of Owen Gwynedd, who had seized it forcibly from its
rightful inheritor. This Gruffydd - who must not be confused with
his great-grandfather, the famous Gruffydd ap Conan, prince of
Gwynedd - was son to Conan ap Owen Gwynedd; he died A.D. 1200, and
was buried in a monk's cowl, in the abbey of Conway.
{148} The epithet "bifurcus," ascribed by Giraldus to the river
Maw, alludes to its two branches, which unite their streams a little
way below Llaneltid bridge, and form an aestuary, which flows down
to the sea at Barmouth or Aber Maw. The ford at this place,
discovered by Malgo, no longer exists.
{149} Llanfair is a small village, about a mile and a half from
Harlech, with a very simple church, placed in a retired spot, backed
by precipitous mountains. Here the archbishop and Giraldus slept,
on their journey from Towyn to Nevyn.
{150} Ardudwy was a comot of the cantref Dunodic, in
Merionethshire, and according to Leland, "Streccith from half Trait
Mawr to Abermaw on the shore XII myles." The bridge here alluded
to, was probably over the river Artro, which forms a small aestuary
near the village of Llanbedr.
{151} The Traeth Mawr, or the large sands, are occasioned by a
variety of springs and rivers which flow from the Snowdon mountains,
and, uniting their streams, form an aestuary below Pont Aberglaslyn.
{152} The Traeth Bychan, or the small sands, are chiefly formed by
the river which runs down the beautiful vale of Festiniog to
Maentwrog and Tan y bwlch, near which place it becomes navigable.
Over each of these sands the road leads from Merionyth into
Caernarvonshire.
{153} Lleyn, the Canganorum promontorium of Ptolemy, was an
extensive hundred containing three comots, and comprehending that
long neck of land between Caernarvon and Cardigan bays. Leland
says, "Al Lene is as it were a pointe into the se."
{154} In mentioning the rivers which the missionaries had lately
crossed, our author has been guilty of a great topographical error
in placing the river Dissennith between the Maw and Traeth Mawr, as
also in placing the Arthro between the Traeth Mawr and Traeth
Bychan, as a glance at a map will shew.
{155} To two personages of this name the gift of prophecy was
anciently attributed: one was called Ambrosius, the other
Sylvestris; the latter here mentioned (and whose works Giraldus,
after a long research, found at Nefyn) was, according to the story,
the son of Morvryn, and generally called Merddin Wyllt, or Merddin
the Wild. He is pretended to have flourished about the middle of
the sixth century, and ranked with Merddin Emrys and Taliesin, under
the appellation of the three principal bards of the Isle of Britain.
{156} This island once afforded, according to the old accounts, an
asylum to twenty thousand saints, and after death, graves to as many
of their bodies; whence it has been called Insula Sanctorum, the
Isle of Saints. This island derived its British name of Enlli from
the fierce current which rages between it and the main land. The
Saxons named it Bardsey, probably from the Bards, who retired
hither, preferring solitude to the company of invading foreigners.
{157} This ancient city has been recorded by a variety of names.
During the time of the Romans it was called Segontium, the site of
which is now called Caer Seiont, the fortress on the river Seiont,
where the Setantiorum portus, and the Seteia AEstuarium of Ptolemy
have also been placed. It is called, by Nennius, Caer Custent, or
the city of Constantius; and Matthew of Westminster says, that about
the year 1283 the body of Constantius, father of the emperor
Constantine, was found there, and honourably desposited in the
church by order of Edward I.
{158} I have searched in vain for a valley which would answer the
description here given by Geraldus, and the scene of so much
pleasantry to the travellers; for neither do the old or new road,
from Caernarvon to Bangor, in any way correspond. But I have since
been informed, that there is a valley called Nant y Garth (near the
residence of Ashton Smith, Esq. at Vaenol), which terminates at
about half a mile's distance from the Menai, and therefore not
observable from the road; it is a serpentine ravine of more than a
mile, in a direction towards the mountains, and probably that which
the crusaders crossed on their journey to Bangor.
{159} Bangor. - This cathedral church must not be confounded with
the celebrated college of the same name, in Flintshire, founded by
Dunod Vawr, son of Pabo, a chieftain who lived about the beginning
of the sixth century, and from him called Bangor Dunod. The Bangor,
i.e. the college, in Caernarvonshire, is properly called Bangor
Deiniol, Bangor Vawr yn Arllechwedd, and Bangor Vawr uwch Conwy. It
owes its origin to Deiniol, son of Dunod ap Pabo, a saint who lived
in the early part of the sixth century, and in the year 525 founded
this college at Bangor, in Caernarvonshire, over which he presided
as abbot. Guy Rufus, called by our author Guianus, was at this time
bishop of this see, and died in 1190.
{160} Guianus, or Guy Rufus, dean of Waltham, in Essex, and
consecrated to this see, at Ambresbury, Wilts, in May 1177.
