cornerofmadness

I was supposed to meet my friend SA today but the weather wasn't cooperating. The parentals and I went out for a late lunch/early dinner and somehow the day just frittered away (and the weather didn't go bad until about 530 so we could have made it to the mill after all.

I got this banner from

allbingo which was cool.

Wales Day Two It was a less than stellar start to the day because sleeping wasn’t good on a mattress that had a spring through and was on a slant. (Apparently the owners are newish and desperately trying to update). We first went to St. Mary’s church, a small thing right there in Llanfair next to the hotel. It is arguably the church by the well in the name of the town which means The Church of Mary in the Hollow of the White Hazel Near the Fierce Whirlpool and the Church of Llantysilio by the red cave. So, this was the Church of St Mary, there could potentially be a whirlpool in the tidal waters right off the church and there WAS a spring in it (didn’t find the cave or that church). There was a memorial in it to all the people who died building a nearby bridge. Yes, we did put our hands in the spring and got out a couple pieces of medieval (potentially) tile chunks. And oh, did I mention that there’s a graveyard all around the well so holy water and decomposing bodies for the win.

From there we went back to Bryn Celli Ddu (well first time for ELD). It’s a passage grave with a carved entrance way. We crawled inside it. Modern day pagans have been leaving stuff inside which rather takes away from it. These are not your people, these were not druids or Wiccans and we don’t even know what the true purpose of this place was supposed to be. Still I do like the site. In theory, it’s aligned with the solstice, so the light gleams on the lingam rock once a year. You can definitely tell it had had to be more than merely a grave or somehow, they linked birth and death together because you have the penis lingam inside and the opening looks like a stone vulva.

We had planned to go to the Bonesetters of Angelesy’s memorial but it’s just a plaque in a church, one without a vicar so we weren’t sure it was open. And it would have been nearly 2 hours there and back again, so I said skip it. I can get that info online.

We went into the medieval village of Conwy and saw Conway Castle from the outside. We didn’t have time to go inside. We did however walk a distance on the town walls (again to keep the Welsh out and the Normans in) and took some pics. I should have had the sense to use the video camera on some of these villages. My brain didn’t come up with that until like the last day. Geez.

The centerpiece of today’s trip was St. Gwenfreddi ( St. Winifride’s ) holy well and chapel. There are probably two conflated stories here. Basically, one story is probably an older pagan story, but it goes like this, Gwenfreddi was studying with Beuno (a saint) so she’s a pious young woman. Prince Caradog decided to rape her and she raced for the church and sanctuary. He cut off her head and the well sprung from her bleeding neck. Beuno put her head back on and she lived for another 15 years or saw and Caradog melted into the earth. The more likely story is when he tried to rape her, she managed to get to safety and her brother killed him

The shrine was beautiful. There were several families of Irish Travelers there (similar in culture and in how they are received but genetically not the same as the Romani). They take wading in the holy well very serious (they are very Catholic but a different version of it than most). ELD and I did walk in and out three times as is the custom but did not walk the entire pool (because you’d need a swim suit for that). I did pick up a book (and a St Winifred medallion and some holy water) for the research materials. There was also Winifred’s chapel there, another 1200 a.d. structure which I’m wondering if it was minus a roof at one point because of how weathered the rock sculptures were. The stained glass depicted her beheading.

We had lunch there (giant scone with jam and clotted cream) and found a pamphlet to multiple religious places and one was nearby, St. Michael’s church in Caerwys. It had a grave of someone who might have been the wife of Dafydd Prince of Wales but on the effigy there in the church was a note about how in the middle ages people would break off bits of effigies to be ground into medicine so that’s good to know, a neat and weird tidbit for the paper.

We drove through a town called Mold on the scenic path to our hotel. We drove forever it felt like in the rain. We went past Dinas Bran, the ruins of a castle on a hill ( it’s a long walk up and we’re pushed for time, so we didn’t stop) that was rumored to be Arthur’s (and Merlin’s) but certainly not really (because it’s still in doubt if Arthur was ever real) but it was an ancient welsh castle.

We did stop at the Pontcysyllte Aqueduct , a world heritage site than had canal boats running through it. It would have been fun to tour that. Instead we walked out onto the aqueduct and shot some pics. It was built between 1795 and 1805 and is the highest canal aqueduct in the world at 126 feet up (now I know how far I would have fallen…) After that we drove and drove and drove. We were in Shropshire England for a while and within 20 miles of Shrewsbury (had we time I would have loved to have gone there because that’s where the Brother Cadfael mysteries were set).

We got to the Red Lion inn which is a cute hotel with a bell tower bonging away outside our window (it sounds pretty at least). Yet again the tv doesn’t work and neither do some of the plugs but it is so cute and the owner (it’s more of B&B) came to the rooms and showed us everything, too bad he did it in the tour guide’s room or else we might have had functioning tv. We ate at the Banc, beef and ale pie and I had a sticky toffee pudding. It was very tasty all of it.