On the Monday of our March break in North Wales we opted to have a change and head away from the coast ... to Beddgelert.
I seem to recall having visited a long, long time ago, but couldn't remember the place at all, though I can remember the legend of the faithful dog ...
"The story goes that in the thirteenth-century, Prince Llywelyn the Great had a palace at Beddgelert in Caernarvonshire, and as the Prince was a keen hunter, he spent much of his time in the surrounding countryside. He had many hunting dogs, but one day when he summoned them as usual with his horn, his favourite dog Gelert didn’t appear, so regretfully Llywelyn had to go hunting without him.It really is a beautiful village ... at the confluence of the Colwyn and Glaslyn rivers and surrounded by mountains ...
When Llywelyn returned from the hunt, he was greeted by Gelert who came bounding towards him …his jaws dripping with blood.
The Prince was appalled, and a horrible thought came into his mind …was the blood on the dog’s muzzle that of his one-year old son. His worst fears were realised when he saw in the child’s nursery, an upturned cradle, and walls spattered with blood! He searched for the child but there was no sign of him. Llywelyn was convinced that his favourite hound had killed his son.
Mad with grief he took his sword and plunged it into Gelert’s heart.
As the dog howled in his death agony, Llywelyn heard a child’s cry coming from underneath the upturned cradle. It was his son, unharmed!
Beside the child was an enormous wolf, dead, killed by the brave Gelert.
Llywelyn was struck with remorse and carried the body of his faithful dog outside the castle walls, and buried him where everyone could see the grave of this brave animal, and hear the story of his valiant fight with the wolf.
To this day, a cairn of stones marks the place, and the name Beddgelert means in Welsh ‘The grave of Gelert’. Every year thousands of people visit the grave of this brave dog; slight problem however, is that the cairn of stones is actually less than 200 years old!
Nevertheless this story has great appeal. History and myth appear to have become a little confused when in 1793, a man called David Pritchard came to live in Beddgelert. He was the landlord of the Royal Goat Inn and knew the story of the brave dog and adapted it to fit the village, and so benefit his trade at the inn."
We wandered over the old stone bridge, had a mooch in a couple of gift shops, before following the Colwyn River ...
... to the point where it meets the Glaslyn, when we took a right to head towards 'brave Gelert's resting place' ...Tourist legend or not ... it really is the most beautiful spot ... The path from Gelert's final resting place took us back to the river ...
... which we followed until we reached the steam railway bridge, where we declared it time for a pitstop ...
... before we needed to cross the river to return to the village along the other side ...
We were so glad that we had decided to hang around here for a while as, quite by chance, we just happened to be in exactly the right spot at the right time ...
As the railway hadn't actually started running for the season, we were all thrilled to have had such a close encounter with the old engine ... and in such a beautiful spot.
It was time to cross the river and start to head back towards the village ...
Before too long we were back at the confluence of the two rivers ...
... where we stopped to take pictures of the row of old stone cottages ...
... before retracing out steps along the Colwyn and back to the car ...
It was nearly time to head for home, but we couldn't leave without a quick look at the steam railway station ...We were all shattered by now, with very achy knees, but we'd had such a lovely day. Beddgelert was a real treat and an absolutely beautiful spot ... if you're in the area and fancy a change from the beach, It's definitely worth a visit.
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