Welsh Journals

CEREDIGION CYLCHGRAWN CYMDEITHAS HYNAFIAETHWYR CEREDIGION JOURNAL OF THE CEREDIGION ANTIQUARIAN SOCIETY CYFROL (VOLUME) VIII 1979 RHIFYN (NUMBER) 4 GELLIDYWYLL A CEREDIGION FAMILY SOUTH OF THE TEIFI On a cold but mercifully dry day in January 1975 I left the hamlet of Cenarth and toiled upwards along a steep narrow road for about three-quarters of a mile till I reached the 300-feet contour where an access roadway, clearly a former drive,' led abruptly westwards across the slope. Here I paused to take breath and to enjoy the prospect that unfolded around me, for a winter's day has its enchantments no less than a summer one, and if the air was neither alive with birdsong nor laden with the scent of herb and flower, the tense stillness was an invitation to reflection, while the tearless atmosphere etched a diorama where woodlands, hedgerows, cottages, and farmhouses stood forth with three-dimensional clarity. I was now on the shoulder of Cenarth, a parish that might well be termed the horn of Carmarthenshire, thrusting northwestwards to its uttermost border, divided from Cardiganshire by the lazy flow of the Teifi, and from Pembrokeshire by the troutful Cych. Near Cenarth bridge the Teifi bursts into song and tumbles joyously over a sudden rocky course, the famous 'falls,' where leaping salmon make determined passage to the spawning depths beyond. The Cych on the other hand is almost hidden, conspiratorial, nurtured in a deep ravine, embraced by trees and bushes along almost the whole of its course, and lingers in our memory as the scene where Pwyll Pendefig Dyfed made the strange hunting that introduced us to one of the most romantic tales of the Mabinogi, and where the palace of the medieval magnate Cadifor Fawr spanned the waters in the glen a few hundred yards below the source at Blaen Cych. Cenarth was the junction of the three counties which in earlier times had constituted the kingdom of Deheubarth, patrimony of the House of Hywel Dda and Tewdwr Mawr.