03.09.2006
Dear Nantlle Citizens,
Many congratulations on
your fascinating and expertly created website, it is
a feast for
anyone who knows and loves your glorious countryside
and active communities. I'm
sure I shall often return to it again in the future.
I
discovered your site when looking for information
re. the following e-mail, recently
received from a correspondent:
Many thanks for the copies of Pendragon Magazine the material has helped me in
my research into Helen 'Elen' Luyddog.
Please find enclosed several pictures of Lake Nantlle (a double lake site / 'Baladeulyn')
in Snowdonia, which appears to be the location for
the wizard Gwydion's finding of the grievously wounded
Lleu Llaw Gyffes:
"Grows an oak between
two lakes.
Darkly shadowed sky and glen,
If I speak not falsely,
From Lleu's feathers this doth come…"
This raised causeway between
the lakes, then, would be the very path Gwydion followed
y mochyn du, to discover Lleu's agonised refuge.
Sadly, the causeway is padlocked off from the public,
although
a listed Right of Way, and its final section towards
the southern shore is missing. I have petitioned
Gwynedd Council to restore and reopen this historic
'lost way',
and received some moral support, but nothing is actually
being done. The petty bickering of landowners will
see this unique causeway fade into oblivion, I fear,
unless the council step in to preserve it for posterity?
Thanks again for your
help and as is said in free and wild north Wales,
Hwyl fawr
I am the chairman
of The Pendragon Society, an
international organisation founded nearly fifty
years ago in the West Country and still
surviving and producing a quarterly journal on
the never-ending quest for King Arthur
and all aspects of his possible history, legend
and myth.
The message referenced
above is the response to my having copied a back-number
of
our
journal Pendragon from the 1980's which featured
articles on the theme of Ellen/Helen.
I understand this London-based man is hoping
to make a documentary film of some
kind and he enclosed the following photographs labelled
'Baladeulyn
Causeway':
Photos courtesy of Ric Kemp.
I hope you will find this
information interesting, I make no comment or judgement
on the claim that this causeway is a listed right
of way now padlocked or the legal
rights of local landowners. My main interest
is that the letter locates the finding of
the wounded Lleu Llaw Gyffes to this location.
Is this an identification known and
acknowledged by your local scholars and readers
of The Mabinogion, I wonder?
With kind regards,
Fred Steadman-Jones, M.A.
Chairman Pendragon Society.
E-Mail
me
Reply
Dear Nantlle.com,
Re: the above message on the noticeboard
and
"
I understand this London-based man is hoping to make
a documentary film of some kind and he enclosed the
following photographs labelled 'Baladeulyn Causeway' "
That
London-based man is I, and my name is Ric Kemp, and
I should be grateful if my authorship of these
photographs could be acknowledged please? I am indeed
working on an experimental short film, based on the
Fourth Branch of the Mabinogion, which will feature
scenes from the beautiful Dyffryn Nantlle. The personage
of Elen Luyddog has been central to private research
that I have been carrying out for several years now,
into British and comparative mythology, the results
of which will appear on the internet, in due course.
I
feel strongly that Baladeulyn should be officially
recognised as 'a site likely to be associated with
the Mabinogion', and spent several years corresponding
with Gwynedd Council, and other authorities, over
this matter, to no avail: perhaps it is time for
the good
people of Baladeulyn to stand up and be counted,
over this issue? Welsh culture and language go
hand in hand,
I feel; either treated lightly will have dire consequences,
ultimately, for the future of Welsh identity and
rightful heritage.
Diolch,
Ric.
E-Mail
me
ffilmiau: http://uk.youtube.com/megalith6
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