Alex Deans

Dunkeld Larches

Fat glossy pheasants catch the light between fields of greylag geese. Others are dead in the road, having made it through the shooting season only to find their snapped tail feathers nodding in the slipstream of passing cars. Then Nigel spots a red squirrel in the roadside canopy. Perthshire in early April. We’ve come here to transcribe a handful of Thomas Pennant’s letters at Blair Castle, but also to pick up his trail in a part of Scotland that neither of us know well. And then there’s the chance to walk Schiehallion, the long mountain that aligns Stob Dearg on the other side of the watershed with the sweeping river valleys of Tayside.

Dunkeld Cathedral

This part of the map is thick with names that drew eighteenth-century tourists: Blair Atholl, Killiecrankie, Birnam wood and Dunsinane, and the rivers Tummel, Lyon, Garry, Braan and Tay. The modern roads here tend to follow the military routes set down by Wade and Caulfeild, so we find ourselves intermittently crossing the paths of earlier travellers on their way to completing the section of ‘petit-tour’ that ran through Dunkeld and Loch Tay to Breadalbane. People passing this way often described the defile where the newly mixed rivers race out of the Highlands towards Perth in rapturous terms, a dark chasm whose sides seemed to close above their heads. The crags are now thick with conifer plantations, including deciduous larch, which at this time of year hangs above the valley like a rust-coloured mist. This part of Perthshire is larch country, the legacy of the 4^th Duke of Atholl, who dreamed of establishing a lucrative industry supplying the navy with home-grown timber — a story told in Fredrik Albritton Jonsson’s book, Enlightenment’s Frontier. Nigel mentions that the less accessible crags were planted by loading cannon with larch seeds, conjuring up a slightly unsettling image of landscape improvement as aristocratic autocthony. In any case, these valleys must have been used to the ring of gunpowder by the 18^th century. When we stop in Dunkeld for coffee and cake, information boards describe the street skirmishes that took place here between Jacobites and covenanters, as the vicious epilogue to the nearby battle of Killiecrankie.

We walk to the ruined cathedral, scanning the walls for pits left by musket balls. When Pennant first visited here it was without Moses Griffith, so the building is illustrated in the 1769 Tour with a view by Paul Sandby. In the cathedral grounds a board points out the 300 year old ‘Parent Larch’, the last remaining ancestor of the trees now crowding the hills around. It seems to have a second trunk growing straight up from one of its branches, like a new tree ready to be deposited — a living picture of its own legacy. As we discovered from reading the correspondence at Blair Castle the next day, Pennant’s characteristically brief account of Dunkeld and the Atholl estate in the 1769 Tour was taken as something of a slight by the Duke, and Pennant had to patch things up in advance of his second visit in 1772.

Tay Bridge, Aberfeldy

Eager to begin our hill walk while the weather still looked good, we don’t linger long in Dunkeld, and also decide to leave the town’s favourite tourist destination for another trip— the Hermitage with its waterfalls and mirror-covered Ossian’s hall. After driving by fields of lambs getting fat on the grassy valley floors we arrive in Aberfeldy, where we stop for a view of the famous Wade Bridge across the Tay. The bridge is a monument to Hanoverian power as much as a piece of infrastructure, its central span flanked by obelisks and inset with a relief of the initials ‘G II R’  between a crown and crossed swords. I didn’t catch the bridge’s famous Latin inscription, which hammers the point home:

Admire this military road stretching on this

side and that 250 miles beyond the limits of the

Roman one, mocking moors and bogs, opened

up through rocks and over mountains, and, as

you see, crossing the indignant Tay.[1]

Tree near Wade’s bridge

Like Dunkeld and the pass of Killiecrankie nearby, this place is stamped with its history as an insurgent landscape of armed rebellions and braided rivers gradually thinned away. On the riverbank just above the bridge, something else catches my eye. The bright orange of a willow trunk almost severed at its base. I remember a running controversy about a population of escaped beavers that have made a home in the Tay and its tributaries, gnawing through trees, damming up streams and ditches and flooding fields. Farmers and landowners here see them as a pest, but others have welcomed their enlivening effect on these valleys and their ecosystems, and are keen for them to stay. Though not native European beavers, I wonder if this landscape will one day be as hard to imagine without their influence as it is without the larch. The ‘G II R’ on the bridge faces our first glimpse of snow across the floodplain, where it lines out the ridges of Schiehallion’s neighbours, Meall Liath,  and Meall na Aighean. The air here is getting cold, and we decide to cross the Tay and head for the mountain.

View across the Tay from Aberfeldy

I’ve climbed Scheihallion once before — in almost total cloud cover — and been lucky enough to glimpse a ptarmigan making for cover among the boulders of the upper slopes. Pennant calls them ‘silly birds, and so tame as to suffer a stone to be flung at them without rising.’ He’s more sympathetic of the ptarmigan’s mountain neighbour, the White Hare, which is described as ‘full of frolick’ and ‘fond of honey and carraway confits’.[2] When I was last here the mountain lived up to its Gaelic name, which translates as ‘The Fairy Hill of the Caledonians,’ the sheets of cloud racing by gave a confusing feeling of forward movement while I stood still on its rocky top. The good weather has put paid to any chance of mountain hares and ptarmigans today, but it’s hard to begrudge the bright procession of walkers we pass on the way up and down the hill, taking in the clear views and open sky.

Pennant mentions passing a ‘rocky hill called shei-hallen or the paps’ in 1769, but as a memorial at its base reminds us, it found a different source of fame in the eighteenth century as a scientific test site.[3] Scheihallion’s shape, isolation and east-west alignment recommended it to the Astronomer Royal,  Nevil Maskelyne, as a place to observe the ‘attraction of mountains’.[4] Using an instrument called a zenith sector, Maskelyne observed the deflection of a silver plumb line bisecting a telescope view of the celestial meridian. Measured against the positions of the stars at a certain time, tiny movements in the line revealed the gravitational pull of the mountain itself. Between the astronomical observations and a survey of Schiehallion’s shape and composition, the experiment provided evidence of Newton’s theory of gravitation, and of the density and shape of the entire Earth. Apparently the footprints of Maskelyne’s parallel observatories on the north and south slopes of the mountain can still be found by those who know where to look, but we stick to the path, spotting only sheep fanks and the spreading cairns built-up by walkers.

As we climb, the mountains around begin to rise up around us, gathering into blue and white heaps towards Breadalbane, marked by the twin ridges of Ben More and Stob Binnein. We spot a few clusters of frogspawn in the path-side ditches, covered by water that might have fallen as snow a few weeks ago — though we’re both struck by how little snow there is on the mountain for this time of year. As we make our way up the long ridge we can see down to the bright blue Lochs of Rannoch and Tummel in the North, and onto a web of burns and springs catching the sunlight in the south — like snail trails, says Nigel. In the distance what looks like smoke from late-season muirburn rises in front of a windfarm. At our feet there are cow or blaeberry leaves tucked between the heather, sphagnum, and occasional hare droppings.

I’m reminded that Nigel and I have different feelings about ledges and heights, as I watch him peering down to the valley floor, sometimes adjusting his backpack or camera while standing next to a long fall. I prefer to stay a body’s length away from any drops when I can, and there’s a moment near the very top when this looks like a wise philosophy, as Nigel almost loses his footing on a piece of broken quartzite. I hear a shout and a flurry of footsteps chasing their balance behind me, but he manages to stay upright. We agree that he’s been tripped up by the fairies, pulled off-centre like Maskelyne’s silver plumb line.

Towards Creag a’ Mhadaidh

At the summit the view into the west suddenly opens over the blue-bronze haze of Rannoch Moor to Glencoe. From those hills Schiehallion takes on a conical shape, its long body hidden behind its steep western aspect. We stay as long as we can at the top, and on the way back down a grey partridge breaks cover on the path in front of us, before fluttering away into the heather. At the foot of the mountain the low sun brings out the declivities on a cup-marked stone. An information board nearby marks Allt Creag a’ Mhadaidh — the Burn of the Crag of the Wolves — winding its way between grouse butts and the remains of shielings: it’s a name like Schiehallion, that remembers somebody else’s world. As we drive away we spot an eagle slowly orbiting a cluster of Sitka spruce, Scots pine, and bright orange larch.

Cup-marked stone

We arrive at the Atholl Arms in time for a drink in the beer garden, as the train from Inverness to London passes by on the adjacent track. We’re a stone’s throw away from the gates to Blair Castle, and the hotel is similarly decked-out in fading baronial style. We eat under high wooden beams and coats of arms in the hotel dining room. At the side is a display of stuffed game birds, including a huge Capercaillie. In what feels like a quiet act of care, someone has written a note giving the bird its name and the story of its reintroduction.

After dinner we wander around the village, where we can hear barn owls calling from the castle grounds. There’s a footbridge here across the River Garry. Pennant called it ‘an outrageous stream, whose ravages have greatly deformed the vally, by the vast beds of gravel which it has left behind.’[5] It seems to be confined to a single channel now, with the railway on one side and the main road rushing along the other. As we stand in the middle of the bridge with the black water flowing beneath, the pinprick glow of a satellite drops across the night sky and behind the trees.

Some photos from day 2: Blair Castle and the Falls of Bruar

[1] https://canmore.org.uk/event/1016831

[2] Thomas Pennant, A Tour in Scotland 1769, (Chester: 1771), p.79.

[3] Ibid, p.84.

[4] Nicky Reeves, ‘“To demonstrate the exactness of the instrument”: Mountainside Trials of

Precision in Scotland, 1774’, Science in Context, 22:03, 2009, pp.323-340.

[5] Pennant, p.97.

Marged Pendrell

Continuing with my chosen place, Dinas Emrys in Nantgwynant, and following on from my small ‘Book of Earths’ using the earths collected from the land, I made two larger drawings based on the circular Pool, and the Tower, both places which play an important part in this legend.

I decided to refresh my memory of the Sygun Copper mine which I had visited only once many years ago and hadn’t realized how much water is constantly running throughout the mines. The leaching of the minerals within the depths of these caverns gives rise to rich red pools.

Returning to the site of the hill fort and more specifically to the pool that still exists below the tower foundations, I found myself unable to stop thinking of the connections between the legend of the red and white dragons fighting and the geological colours of the land. The red pools in the depths of the copper mines and the strong white quartz veins that run through as tributaries within the rocks, became the source of the sculptural idea to express my response to this place.

The pool or cistern, as it is called, lies within a hollow on the hill fort and it is possible that it had a particular status or numinous quality, a pagan shrine or a place of inaugural ritual. Bowls, being the first form made by humans, were not uncommon within the process of such rituals and it is a form that has become a strong element of my work. I decided to work with this one form and to express the two energies of the Welsh (Britons) and the English (Saxons) that, according to legend still lie beneath the pool.

White bowl symbolizing the White Dragon

Red earth bowl symbolizing the Red Dragon

Working with the different earth pigments found in the area, the installation ‘Y Pwll’ was created.

‘Y Pwll’   –  installation of 26 white bowls and 27 red.

“The boy, Merlin, prophesied that the Britons would rise again and push the Saxons back”.

Barbara Matthews

I am exploring the area from Mallwyd to Dinas Mawddwy and the road up towards Dolgellau and then from Cross Foxes down to Tal-y-Llyn. I have tried to follow in Thomas Pennant’s footsteps but have found that I do not have completely free access as Pennant did, and this is an aspect I would like to explore further. In a similar vein, I am looking at the way in which the beauty of a place and its desirability can make it seem unwelcoming and how the character of a place can be changed by tourism.

By following in Thomas Pennant’s footsteps I have found places hidden within the landscape, which has been fascinating; remnants of the eighteenth-century world. I plan to use pieces of text with imagery to illustrate these.

I am also struck by the drama and cragginess of the landscape and the number of military aircraft which shatter the tranquillity.

Thomas Pennant writes of this area: ‘Leave Dinas [Mawddwy], and take the road towards Dolgellau. Pass by some deserted lead mines; which, as yet, have never been worked with success. I may here mention an earth, which this place is noted for, a bluish ochre, which the shepherds wet, and pound in a mortar, then form into balls, and use in marking their sheep. An old proverb of the three things which Mowddwy wishes to send out of the country, shews their long knowledge of it.

O Fowddy ddu ni ddaw, dim allan

A ellir i rwystraw,

Ond tri pheth helaeth hylaw

Dyn atgas, nod glas, a gwlaw.*

* Detested people, blue-marking earth, and rain.

I continue to search for the elusive Blue Ochre of Dinas Mawddwy and have found the Yew Trees in St Tydecho’s church yard which were burnt as symbol of the biblical Palms and used to mark the heads of parisioners on Ash Wednesday. If I am able to, I would lie to incorporate both these elements in my work.

This is my current thinking and though I don’t yet have a clear idea of my completed artwork, I am inching towards it.

www.barbaralmatthews.co.uk

Stuart Evans, 1^st June 2016

Paratoi:

Consider this, oh curious traveller:

Inspired by the thought of north Wales, mountains and Thomas Pennant, we get up early and luckily find it to be a sunny day.  Before we start on our journey from Borth to Penmachno in Gwynedd my travelling companion selects a box-set of Harry Potter CDs to listen to in the car.

The journey takes two hours. As we sit in comfort, views of Corris, Cader Idris, Dolgellau, Trawsfynydd, Blaenau Festiniog, and its dramatic industrial spoil, are accompanied by a tale of wizards, spells, dragons and life threatening beasts. Thrilled and excited in our magic, isolated bubble we stop at Dolbadarn Castle.

Cerrig:

‘Drud iawn oedd adeildau a cherrig: arwyddo gyfoeth ac o rym’.

(to build in stone was expensive, a symbol of wealth and power)

CADW

Llewelyn the Great built this dominating rectangular tower

and laid claim to the land, displaying his power.

What were the needs of Llewelyn to mark out his territory?

Today this is a destination, a place to ‘pull in’, pay £3.00, climb up the steep craggy incline and read about the history of the stone fortification on a laminated text panel. With a mind filled with young wizarding adventures it is difficult to focus on the hardship of living in this barren landscape, until my son asks, ‘where did they go to the toilet?’

We peer down some rectangular holes at the back of the tower.

We journey on.

Cyfarfod:

‘Nothing makes the earth seem so spacious as to have friends at a distance; They make the latitudes and longitudes’.

Henry David Thoreau.

Thomas Pennant had a network of knowledgeable and artistic friends that he could call upon to help him ‘see’, record and understand the landscape while he travelled through Wales.

Today we have arranged to meet an artist and good friend from north Wales, Rorik Smith (http://www.roriksmith.co.uk/). He arrives at central Penmachno from Llandudno at the allotted time, in his white van.  But we have decided to view the landscape from a different perspective.

We are going to travel by horse.

Diod:

But first, we picnic in the old church of St Tudclud’s , the church, at the centre of the village. It has recently been reopened, after a fifteen year gap, by the efforts of local people. It now acts as a community centre as well as a house of prayer. It has a coffee machine, which offers cappuccino, expresso, latte or hot chocolate to the weary traveller.

Here too stand five ancient inscribed stones.

Drwyndwn:

The most visually interesting is the long narrow stone said to mark the burial place of Iorwerth ab Owen Gwynedd (11-45-1174). The ancient stone has a symbol very similar to the London underground logo, a circle with a horizontal bar through it. It dates from the 13^th century.

He was also known as Iorwerth Drwyndwn, ‘he with the broken nose’. Apparently he was so ugly that he was not allowed to inherit the crown. It is claimed that he was killed in battle near Penmachno.

His son was more successful and became the man to unite Wales- Llywelyn the Great, presumably he looked OK!

Ceffylau:

We make our way to the remote valley of Wybnant following the clear signs to Ty Mawr, National Trust Property and packaged history location, another destination, where Bishop William Morgan (1588-1620) is said to have lived and translated the Bible into Welsh.

But before we get there we stop at Gwydyr Stables and take to our steeds.

Our guide for the journey into the region is a tattooed lady adorned with images of Pegasus, flanked by equally impressive images of parents Poseidon and Medusa, which cover her entire back. If I remember the Greek legends correctly the rider of the winged horse falls off while pursuing a monster! For the next three hours we follow the undulating blue and green illustrations. I hold onto the reins of my horse in fear of tumbling and grip firmly with my knees.

Tawelwch:

The sounds of the countryside and rhythm of the moving horses change my perception. My mind wanders and along a wooded hillside we ascend. Surrounded by mosses, pools, ferns, creeping ivy and glimpsing the distance crags and rocky mountains. I am reminded of the story of the beast who once was said to dominate the lives of those who lived here.

Wibernant:

‘Y Wiber’, or flying snake, was so terrible that a reward was offered to anyone who could rid the area of this threat.

A handsome young farm boy named Owen ap Gruffydd took up the challenge. After three separate warnings, from a local wizard, that he would face mortal danger Owen remained fearless.

He searched the valley and was caught by surprize. The flying creature suddenly appeared from above and bit him, causing him to stumble and fall onto the jagged outcrop below. His neck snapped like a branch. He tumbled into the swirling river below and drowned. His blood flowed swiftly downstream. The monster drank its fill before resting nearby.

With hundreds of arrows and sharpened spears Owens family and friends came and destroyed the creature.

It was never seen again. The valley retains the name Wibernant.

But today the peaceful valley is filled with sunshine.

Teithio:

Allowing ourselves the luxury of riding this route on horseback gives us the opportunity to really appreciate our surroundings.

These horses know the route and the incline of the land, I begin to relax:

‘Llawn o nerth, llyna ei nod

Llew rhudd unlliw a’r hyddod.

Da rhed deubarc, craed dibau

Do iawn ei duth yn dwyn dau.

Nid arbed, er dalled wyf

Ŵr neu wal, ern a welwyf.’

Guto Glyn (poem 51.39-44)  

(Full of strength, that is his characteristic,
a red lion of the same colour as stags.
He runs well over two parks, sure his footing,
very good is his trot carrying a blind man.
He won’t shy away from, even though I’m so blind,
a man or a wall, although I cannot see. Guto Glyn)

This is about the journey and not the destination.

Taking our time gives us the chance to feel what it is like to work with the animal and travel together, to feel and see thing differently. No wonder Pennant spent time appreciating what he found.

I wonder if Bishop Morgan, his house stands below us, ever thought of the flying snake and the young Owen when he translated the story of Adam and Eve being threatened by another serpent.

Languages can forge friendships, or create enemies.

What does speaking Welsh mean to me? my mother tongue. Welsh  seems to live in this valley I can hear it in the river. Pennant had the motto ‘ Heb Duw, heb dim’ (Without God, without anything)  inscribed on his family home, so how strong were his religious and Welsh beliefs?

Wal:

As we steer our way along the well-worn path we follow a dry stone wall covered in thick moss buried in layers of growth.

Does this keep us in or keep us out?

Ancient boundaries are formed and our lives are ruled by established barriers, but these can be broken and changed. Sometimes the old walls fall down and the stones tumble to the ground.

‘Mending Wall:

‘ ………..and on a day we meet to walk the line

And set the wall between us once again

We keep the wall between us as we go……’

Robert Frost

This landscape is covered in miles of meandering walls and each so considered and carefully made. They are such beautiful and special constructions but hardly noticed as they become part of the landscape, nestling into the greenery. Like lines drawn on a map they mark the land but also keep the order of a network of old established boundaries.

Thomas Pennant must surely have walked or ridden past many of these walls, farms, dwellings, castles. He collected as much information on all manner of topics to try to understand his surroundings.

What were his thoughts about encouraging visitors to Wales?

Diwedd:
Walls shape, not only the landscape, but the cultural identity of the area. When we think of the way in which people move from one place to another crossing farms, parishes, estates, and counties they carry with them their own stories of the past.

The curious traveller will observe and absorb as much as possible to try to make sense of the world. Our short journey ends where it began, in the twenty-first century: time past is so hard to understand.

Time present is difficult too. We return to the speed of our car and two hours later watch the stars in a clear sky back in Borth, pointing out Pegasus in the northern sky and wondering what stories other cultures have about the creation of the universe.  

Stuart Evans

By Jan Woods

As soon as I started to read Thomas Pennant’s account of journeying through Wales in the eighteenth century, I was hooked. Every page bore witness to his lively and enquiring mind and the diversity of his interests and investigations. The extent of his travels, on foot and on horseback, was astonishing and when I then came to read the account of his visit to Tre‘r Ceiri, the atmospheric hillfort on the easternmost peak of Yr Eifl on the Llyn Peninsular, I knew that this was the location that I wished to evoke in film.

I had visited Tre‘r Ceiri just once before. I climbed up the steep pathway from Llanaelhaearn on a hot summer’s day to find an extensive and well-preserved settlement at the top of the mountain, which was beyond my wildest expectation. Who were the people who, with their sheep and their cattle, had occupied the many stone huts in this lofty place overlooking the Irish Sea two thousand years ago? I could almost hear their feet ringing on the distinctive, flat flakes of stone. Pennant names the place as  ‘Tre‘r Caeri, or, the Town of the fortresses’, but local legend has it as ‘Tre‘r Ceiri’, the dwelling place of red-headed giants!

Pennant had approached from the West, having first explored ’Nant y Gwytherin, or Vortigern’s Valley’. He describes this as being ‘embosomed in a lofty mountain, on two sides bounded by stony steeps, on which no vegetables appear but the blasted heath and stunted gorse; the third side exhibits a most tremendous front of black precipice, with the loftiest peak of the mountain Eifl soaring above.’ On the occasion of my next visit, I intend also to approach from the west, while keeping Pennant’s description in mind.

On arriving at Tre‘r Ceiri, Pennant was amazed: ‘On the Eifl is the most perfect and magnificent, as well as the most artfully constructed British post I ever beheld.’ He describes the construction of the huts as being ‘of various forms; round, oval, oblong, square’. This evolution of form is now regarded as evidence for the different phases of occupation, the later, more rectangular enclosures dating from Romano-British times having developed from subdivisions of the original circular huts. Apart from their buildings, the inhabitants of Tre’r Ceiri left almost no traces of their society. Tantalisingly few objects which would enable us to glean any insight into their way of life have ever been found.

The Curious Travellers project has presented an impetus for me to re-visit Tre‘r Ceiri, but I am writing this first contribution to the blog while all is still in the imagination and much may change. In that imagination the setting and content of the film has already crystallised into an evocation of light on the longest day of the year, the summer solstice.

As a celebration of light, Midsummer was a time when beacons were traditionally lit on hilltops and animals were driven through purifying fire. In the Christian tradition, this light is represented by St John, whose feast day, 24 June, is coincident with the summer solstice. The herb which bears his name, St John’s wort (hypericum perforatum), was thought to ward off evil and hung over doors and windows at this time. From the time of the ancient Greeks the plant was considered to have magical properties and amongst other things, has been used to combat depression. Yarrow, likewise, used since ancient times for healing wounds, was burnt on the Eve of St John as a protection from disease during the forthcoming year.

While pondering on these things, my mind turned to a visit made to a reconstructed lake dwelling, Araisi, in Latvia. The site had been occupied since prehistoric times, but the excavated dwellings in the lake had been rebuilt upon their ancient foundations and in one of the structures, bundles of herbs gathered from the adjacent meadows hung from the timbers of the roof.

By great good fortune, both St John’s wort and yarrow grow in my garden, though neither are currently in flower. I shall be interested to see whether they are in flower at midsummer, as I wish to draw on their auspicious associations by gathering bundles for my filming expedition.

St John’s wort, salad burnet, greater celandine and Welsh poppies

Yarrow growing amongst speedwell

An associated interest in plant material, developed for other projects in the past, is its use for making paper. The results are not necessarily recognisable as paper, in that one would be hard pressed to write or draw upon it, but, nevertheless, the paper-making process is employed and some interesting results can be obtained. I have to date made paper from moss, seaweed and grass with good results and, as part of this project, intend to experiment with St John’s wort and yarrow.

The next step in my involvement with the Curious Travellers will be for me to assemble my filming equipment and make a planning expedition. I need to re-acquaint myself with the approaches and lie of the land in order to prepare for midsummer. Exciting times!

By Marged Pendrell

When I started to read Thomas Pennant’s Tours in Wales I found myself travelling to all parts with him, curious to find out about the time in which he wrote and of course about the area in which I live ,in Snowdonia. I live in a small hamlet called Rhyd in Gwynedd and found that Pennant came to both ends of my road. He stayed at Plas Tan Y Bwlch on the one end and rode across to Croesor on the other. I walk the land around where I live regularly and it is the main source of inspiration for my creative work as a sculptor.

The area I did choose to focus on for this enquiry however was the Nantgwynant valley, a few miles away.

Pennant describes it as –

“…the most beautiful vale of Snowdonia  varied with woods ,lakes ,rivers and meadows…”

“an excellent carriage road has recently been opened, which passes through this valley…presenting a succession of scenery the most desolate, the sublimest and the most romantic”

Tours of Wales (Vol. 2)

My first walk down into the valley was on a rather dark brooding day of contrasting light and shadow, which fitted well with Pennant’s description.

I returned on a clear bright day to walk again from Llyn Gwynant to Llyn Dinas and found that wherever I looked the landscape was mirrored.

The concept of time, past and present dominated my thoughts. It felt as if time had stood still and I found myself wondering if Pennant saw these same sights on a clear still day. Reflections never change.

Pennant writes that at the bottom of Llyn Dinas –

“lies a vast rock, insulated and cloathed with wood, the famous Dinas Emris, from early times celebrated in British story, for here –

Prophetic Merlin sate, when to the British King

The changes long to come, suspiciously he told.”

This is where my walking has halted as I became fascinated by the place.

It hasn’t changed much from the engraving by Moses Griffith which was included in A Tour in Wales.

The walk up along the National Trust path on that April morning was inspirational.

Can one’s act of walking/journeying, followed by myself be an invitation to another’s imagination?

I have started to keep a journal documenting my process, some in done in situ and some as a reflective response to the walk. I have only included sections of it here.

The old oak trees pre dominate the path up to Dinas Emrys and I was transported back in time walking amongst these mossy cloaked trees. Skeletal branches of winter are now full of buds of spring, about to burst.

I wondered if some of this ancient woodland would have been here when Pennant came through this area. The new entrance is from the NE along the ridge but the original entrance was by a steep path on the western side of the hill fort.

The strongest remains are of the foundation walls of the high Mediaeval tower that was, as Pennant described possibly Vortigen’s stronghold. It was a very still, sunny morning and I sat with my back against the stone foundation walls, sharing it with only a flock of wild goats.

I had with me a historic account of the fortress with all its archaeological findings and the legends associated, but I just sat and absorbed the spirit of the place. It is very atmospheric, with or without its history and legends. On one visit I coincided with a young family from Cardiff whose daughter had just been learning about the origins of the Welsh red dragon on the flag and had come to the place where it is said to be lying.

A circle of mountains surrounds the hill fort with Llyn Dinas and the Afon Glaslyn below.

I walked around the whole fort, including the base and found myself searching for any evidence of

“a place close by styled Cell y Dewiniaid, or the Cell of the Diviners, allusive to the magicians of Vortigen’s court, is another circumstance which favours the history of this celebrated supposed prophet.” (Thomas Pennant)

I later found evidence of this from enquiries through a friend who put me in touch with Kathy Laws an archeologist who worked in the NT in Betws y Coed, who not only sent me a 1900 OS map which marks the place but also a complete report that was carried out on the area by Shaun McGuiness in 2013. I have details of all this in my journal.

And so to the legend of the boy Merlin who challenged the wizards to dig down near the tower of Dinas Emrys where they found a pool. There, in the pool were two dragons, one white and one red: they were fighting. Merlin explained that the red dragon, which appeared initially to be losing the fight, represented the people of Britain and the white dragon, represented the Saxon, from whom Vortigen had fled. Merlin prophesied that the Britons would rise again and push the Saxons back.

The legend and the land have become one and this is what has inspired my response to the place.

The collecting of natural materials in order to draw, as research material or to use in themselves has  always been a part of my artistic practice and so my walks on and around Dinas Emrys have provided the materials needed to begin my work .

I collected samples of stones and earths from the land around and on Dinas Emrys. On the opposite ridge to the fort lies the Sygun copper mine which began in Victorian times and this is where I found the deep red pigments. Pennant was particularly interested in the Copper mines of Parys Mountain and should the Sygun mine have been working at the time he visited Nant Gwynant he would certainly have been halted in his tracks while he explored them.

Working with the collected colours of the land, I made a small “Book of Earths” to begin my investigation into this chosen place – Dinas Emrys.

More to follow on next blog post.