THE STORY OF TWO PARISHES DOLGELLEY & LLANELLTYD

by T.P.ELLIS

INTRODUCTION

The object of this little book is to tell, in a popular way, the story of a small Welsh town and village, set not only in a countryside of great natural beauty, but in a land of historical romance.

Many strangers pay the locality a passing visit; they see the natural beauties of the place, but they go away unaware of the greatest beauty of all, the age long story attached to it.

Those who dwell in the neighbourhood also are, only too often, sadly lacking in a knowledge of the past of their own home.

One of the charms of Wales is the story of its past. But to tell all that story, as it should be told, would be to write volumes, and people now-a-days are far too busy to read volumes.

In olden days in Wales bards and reciters handed down the traditions of the past, sometimes in song, sometimes in prose narratives, told round fire-sides of a winter's evening.

Those days are gone. The bard and reciter have been driven out of the land, partly by the growth of a mistaken belief that the past was an evil and untouchable thing, and partly by the spread of popular education. everybody now can read, and yet those who have learnt the art of reading form a very minute fraction of the people, not only in Wales, but everywhere else.

That is why a lengthy tome makes no appeal.

Traditions and stories, the salt of life, are passing away, because there is no one to tell them in a way that busy pre-occupied people have time or inclination to listen to. The cinema, and the trashy newspaper, with their details of sordid murders and divorce cases, have taken their place. 

Yet, down at the bottom of their hearts, people regret that this is so, and they sigh for some knowledge of the days of yore.

Here I am just trying to tell those amongst whom I live, and those who come here for rest or holiday, a little about what has happened in the immediate locality in the days that have gone, putting it into a wider background, the story of Wales, in the hope that it may serve as a kind of model for others to adopt in telling the story - a story we cannot afford to forget - of other places in Wales, and in the further hope, too, that the softening memories of olden struggles may sweeten some of the bitterness of the struggles of to-day.

In doing so it is hard to decide where to draw the geographical boundary line. One is tempted to range from Dolgelley, for instance, up the Ganllwyd valley to Tomen-y-Mur, and over Cader Idris to Pennal, while places like Bala, Dinas Mawddwy, Harlech, Towyn, and hosts of others, each and all, seem to call aloud for a little mention.

But, if we let ourselves wander whither the spirit listeth, there is no reason why we should stop before we reach the northern and southern seas. Hence it is that we must put an effective brake on our wanderings; and so the story that is told here is confined, so far as is it is possible to confine it, to the ancient parishes of Dolgelley and Llanelltyd. To separate them is not possible, for the glory of one is the glory of the other. It is written by one who is Welsh and who loves Wales - that must be the excuse, if any excuse be needed, for a Welsh story from a Welsh point of view.

It will be observed that I am careful to call it a "story" and not a "history"; and the reason is this. A "parochial history" is a technical, scientific, production, of a more or less special character, designed in the main for scholastic purposes. This little book is not that; it is mere popular narrative, designed mainly to stimulate interest; though it is, nevertheless, historically accurate. Its merits and demerits should be judged simply in light of its purpose.

T.P.E.