fable, as also the miraculous origin of the spring, must be admitted by every rational man.

On the death of Cadfan, king of Gwynedd, Beuno entered into communication with his son Cadwallon.

We are now on historic ground. Cadfan had been elected king of all Britain, in a congress at Chester, and died about 616, being succeeded by Cadwallon. His inscribed tombstone is in Anglesey, at Llangadwaladr. Cadwallon and Edwin, king of Northumbria, were contemporaries, had been friends, but became rivals, and Edwin was killed in battle in 633 fighting against Cadwallon. Cadwallon himself was killed in 634 near Hexham.1 Beuno visited the king, and made him a present of a gold sceptre that had been given to him by Cynan son of Brochwel, and in return Cadwallon assigned to Beuno a patch of land at Gwredog in Arfon. The saint went thither, and erected a church, and began to throw up a bank to enclose his sanctuary. As he was thus engaged, a woman came to look on, carrying a babe in her arms, and asked Beuno to bless it.

this job is out of hand."

"Presently," replied he, "when

Whilst he and his monks were engaged on the bank, the child cried lustily and disturbed him. "Ha! woman," said Beuno," why is the babe squealing so?" 'He has good reason to cry," replied the mother," for you are enclosing land and appropriating it that belonged to his father, and is properly his."

When Beuno heard this, he shouted to his monks, "Take your hands from the work; and whilst I baptize the child, make ready my chariot. We will go to the king with this woman and babe."

So they set out for Caersaint (Carnarvon) where Cadwallon then was, and Beuno said to the king, "Why didst thou give me the land when it was not thine to give, but belonged to this child? Give me other land, or else return to me the gold sceptre worth sixty cows that I presented to thee."

"I will give you nothing else," replied the king; "and as to the sceptre, I have already given it away."

Then Beuno, in great wrath, cursed Cadwallon, "I pray to God that thou mayest not long possess the land."

So he departed, and when he had crossed the river Saint, he seated himself on a stone, still foaming with rage and disappointment, when a cousin of Cadwallon came after him, whose name was Gwyddaint, and "for his own soul, and that of Cadwallon," offered him his

1 Bede, Hist. Eccl., iii, cc. I, 2.

own township at Clynnog, "without tribute or service, or any one having any claim on it." 1

This Beuno gladly accepted, and thenceforth Clynnog became his principal residence; but that he had grants made him as well in Anglesey would appear from his having foundations there, at Tretdraeth and Aberffraw, though they can have been only small.

Clynnog is beautifully situated on the north coast of Lleyn, under the mountains of Bwlch Mawr and Gyrn Ddu, and when Beuno settled there it was probably dense with rude stone monuments. Two cromlechs remain, one, the most important, between the village and the sea.

Now it happened that there was a skilful carpenter who lived at Aberffraw, a young and handsome man, who was invited to Caerwent, to build a palace there.

Whilst he was engaged on this work at Caerwent, he was seen and loved by Tigiwg, or Tegiwg, daughter of Ynyr the king, and sister of Iddon, his successor, and she eloped with him, or "was given in marriage to the young man, lest she should have him in some other way."

But the carpenter was not particularly amorous, and was a little ashamed of his having to bring a princess to his native hovel, and on the way back to Anglesey-according to the legend-he murdered her; probably all he actually did was to desert her, when she was asleep. She was found by Beuno's shepherds, who reported the matter to their master, and the saint (after having resuscitated her) induced her to embrace the religious life, and live near him.2

After a while rumour of what had taken place reached Caerwent, and Iddon, her brother, came in quest of her, and arrived at Clynnog, saw Beuno, and asked to have his sister restored to him. Tegiwg, however, declined to return. She had made a great fool of herself, was sore over her desertion by the young carpenter, and shrank from the jests to which she would be subjected among her own people. Iddon was probably content that so it should be, and pressed her no further, but

1 The donation of Clynnog is to be found in a confirmatory charter of Edward I in Harleian MSS. 696 and 4776, printed in the Record of Carnarvon, p. 257 (Rolls Series, 1838). It was given" sine censu Regali, et sine consule, sine proprietate alicui, quamdiu fuerit lapis in terra." The stone, over which the gift was ratified, formerly stood at Bryn Seiont, Carnarvon, but is now at Bodwyn. It bears an incised cross. For a cut and description of it, see Relics of S. Beuno," by John H. Pollen, S.J., in The Month for February, 1894. This instance of immunity from tribal exactions is cited in Seebohm, Ibid., pp. 172–4, 178.

2 Ffynnon Digiwg at Penarth in Clynnog is still known, but the name is locally pronounced Digwy. See under S. Tegiwg.

asked Beuno to accompany him to Aberffraw to support his demand for the restoration of the "horses and gold and silver," which the carpenter had carried off along with his sister.

Beuno agreed to this, and they went together to the court of Cadwallon at Aberffraw, but no sooner did Iddon set eyes on the gay young carpenter, than he drew his sword on him and would have killed him, but for the interference of those who stood by. The story goes that Iddon cut off the carpenter's head, but that Beuno replaced it, and he was none the worse. But this is an embellishment. Cadwallon demurred to the restoration of the goods, but Beuno insisted, and the king, afraid of incurring another curse, and perhaps seeing that the request was reasonable, gave way. He did more, he "gave to Beuno the palace in which is Aelwyd Feuno" (his hearth).1

Beuno returned

to Clynnog, well content, and remained there the rest of his days.

And as the lifetime of Beuno was ending, and his last day drew nigh, on the seventh day after Easter, he saw heaven open, and the angels descending and ascending again. And Beuno said, 'I see the Trinity, and Peter, and Paul, and David the innocent, and Daniel, and the saints, and the prophets, and the Apostles and the Martyrs appear. And I see seven angels standing before the throne of the most high Father, and all the fathers of heaven singing their songs, and saying, Blessed is he whom thou hast chosen, and taken, and who does for ever dwell with Thee.'

He was buried at Clynnog, where his shrine and fountain were in repute for many centuries.

The Iolo MSS. state that Beuno, in his earlier days, was a saint or monk of the Bangor of Catwg, his uncle, and that he afterwards became Pen rhaith Gwynedd,3 which implies that he exercised some sort of ecclesiastical supremacy there, but it merely means that he was Abbot of Clynnog, which was "great in learning and science "—indeed," the most celebrated of all the Bangors of Gwynedd for knowledge and for piety." 4 The foundation is variously called Bangor Clynnog and Bangor Beuno in Clynnog Fawr in Arfon.5 Leland described it as

1 P. 126 of the Anecdota Oxoniensia text. The Cambro-British Saints text is here (p. 20) corrupt, as generally.

2 The Cambro-British Saints text reads here Diudevirion, a meaningless bungle. The Anec. Oxon. text has duid wirion. The first word is a scribe's error for dauid.

3 P. 107.

4 Ibid., pp. 113, 130.

5 There is a beautiful old tradition about a devout monk of Bangor, Beuno, who slept for hundreds of years without waking in a wooded dingle hard by, called Llwyn y Nef, i.e. Heaven's Grove (Y Brython, 1860, p. 110; Cymru Fu, P. 183). It is a variation of "Yr Hen Wr o'r Coed" (the Old Man from the

being, in his day, "the fayrest Chirch yn al Cairarvonshire, as better then Bangor . . . almost as bigge as S. Davides, but it is of a new Worke. The old Chirch wher S. Bennow liyth is hard by the new."1 Pennant pronounced it "the most magnificent structure of its kind in North Wales." 2

Capel Beuno, or as it is still popularly called, Eglwys y Bedd, the Church of the Grave or Shrine, is built on the south-west side of the church. It was here that S. Beuno was buried. There is nothing of the shrine now remaining, but a plain altar-tomb stood there, a little to the east of the chapel, in the latter part of the eighteenth century. 3 Its destruction is said to have been the result of a search for the saint's relics. The chapel is connected with the church by a narrow, dark cloister or passage of about five yards long. It is said that the glass in the large east window of the chapel formerly delineated the legends of SS. Beuno and Winefred. Another account, however, written in the beginning of the eighteenth century, says that it contained a figure of S. Beuno, but that his "miracles and history," as well as S. Winefred's, were to be seen in some fragments of glass in the windows of the church. There was a belief that scrapings off the pillars in the chapel, dissolved in water, were good for sore eyes.

Ffynnon Feuno, his holy well, is about 200 yards from the church, on the roadside, and is enclosed by high walls. Round the well are seats, and there are steps to go down into it. In the well were formerly dipped rickety and epileptic children, as well impotent folk generally, after which they were carried into the chapel and put to lie over night on rushes on the tombstone. If they slept it was believed their cure would be certain. Pennant saw on the stone a feather bed, on which a poor paralytic from Merionethshire had lain the whole night," after having previously undergone ablution in the well.5

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Wood) legend, the Welsh counterpart of the Seven Sleepers, etc. There is another legend connected with this grove. It is said that when the Bangor was being built a certain bird, to which the people to-day give the name of Y Durtur (by which is usually meant the turtle-dove), sang there with such sweetness that the workmen became spell-bound, and could not proceed with their work. In answer to Beuno's prayer the bird was removed, and was never heard there again. "The men of Clynnog had a tradition that S. Beuno caused the materials that were used in building the church to be landed on the shore just below it" (Browne Willis, Survey of Bangor, 1721, p. 304).

1 Itin., v, ff. 49, 13.

2 Tours, ed. 1883, ii, p. 384.

3 Gough speaks of it as being whitened over" (Sepulchral Monuments, ed. 1796, ii, pt. i, p. cxcii). For its destruction see the Gentleman's Magazine for November, 1793.

4 Browne Willis, Bangor, p. 299.

5 Tours, ed. 1883, ii, p. 385.