He Built Himself A House Or Castle On The Edge
Of The Forest, Where He Lived With His Wife And Two Little
Daughters Who Were His Chief Delight.
It happened that one
day when he was absent the two little girls with their female
attendant went into
The wood in search of flowers, and that
meeting a wild boar they turned and fled, screaming for help.
The savage beast pursued, and, quickly overtaking them,
attacked the hindermost, the youngest of the two little girls,
anal killed her, the others escaping in the meantime. On the
following day the father returned, and was mad with grief and
rage on hearing of the tragedy, and in his madness resolved to
go alone on foot to the forest and search for the beast and
taste no food or drink until he had slain it. Accordingly to
the forest he went, and roamed through it by day and night,
and towards the end of the following day he actually found and
roused the dreadful animal, and although weakened by his long
fast and fatigue, his fury gave him force to fight and conquer
it, or else the powers above came to his aid; for when he
stood spear in hand to wait the charge of the furious beast he
vowed that if he overcame it on that spot he would build a
chapel, where God would be worshipped for ever. And there it
was raised and has stood to this day, its doors open every
Sunday to worshippers, with but one break, some time in the
sixteenth century to the third year of Elizabeth, since when
there has been no suspension of the weekly service.
That the tradition is not true no one can say. We know that
the memory of an action or tragedy of a character to stir the
feelings and impress the imagination may live unrecorded in
any locality for long centuries. And more, we know or
suppose, from at least one quite familiar instance from
Flintshire, that a tradition may even take us back to
prehistoric times and find corroboration in our own day.
But of this story what corroboration is there, and what do
the books say? I have consulted the county history, and no
mention is made of such a tradition, and can only assume that
the author had never heard it - that he had not the curious
Aubrey mind. He only says that it is a very early church
- how early he does not know - and adds that it was built "for
the convenience of the inhabitants of the place." An odd
statement, seeing that the place has every appearance of
having always been what it is, a forest, and that the
inhabitants thereof are weasels, foxes, jays and such-like,
and doubtless in former days included wolves, boars, roe-deer
and stags, beings which, as Walt Whitman truly remarks, do not
worry themselves about their souls.
With this question, however, we need not concern ourselves.
To me, after stumbling by chance on the little church in that
solitary woodland place, the story of its origin was accepted
as true; no doubt it had come down unaltered from generation
to generation through all those centuries, and it moved my
pity yet was a delight to hear, as great perhaps as it had
been to listen to the beautiful chimes many times multiplied
from the wooded hill.
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