St Cynog Church (Established 492)
Most fonts in churches are covered in wood wherever you go in Wales because of an old folklore from ages past, people believed that witches would come by night and pollute the holy water and the witches did not like wood.
The lych-gate (Corpse gate) of St Cynog’s Church and other churches was where the local priests came to meet the body of a deceased person.
Story of Cynog
Cynog is invariably described as the eldest son of Brychan Brycheinog, the great father of a saintly family. According to legendary account, King Tewdig of Garthmadrin (the old name for Brycheniog) had a daughter named Marchell, who went to Ireland where she married Anlach son of Coronac.
There is preserved a poem “Cywydd Cynog Sant” by the bard and historian Hywel ab Dafydd ab Iefan ab Rhys, who lived in the second half of the fifteenth century and was evidently connected with Brecknockshire. In this poem he addresses the Saint as Cynog of Breconia who had been left by Brychan supreme governor of that country. He had in earlier life he says, refused dominion and crown in Ireland “a prosperous brilliant crown” but for the love of God, he chose the hermit life instead. When he came over to this island he encountered in Caer Wedros (South Cardiganshire) a fiendish giant addicted to cannibalism that infested it. To spare a victim he allowed the giant to cut a large slice of his own thigh and over the place grew “a sheep’s white wool”. The fiend relishing it came again for a slice but Cynon slew him with his “torque from heaven” fashioned in of red-yellow metal without the operation of a smith’s hand. A smith of “Evena” one broke in three but it was miraculously pieced together again.
His martyrdom is related too his later years for his desires for fixed solitude for meditation he retired into is his own county and adjoined himself to the society of certain religious men that led a hermitical life under the government of a superior in little cells upon a hill called the Van about 4 miles from Brecknock and about 2 miles from Carevong the place of his birth which is now destroyed and called the Gare where he built him a hermitage under a steep Rock near the top of the mountain. These men lived by the labour of their hands and had no water but what they fetched from the river at the foot of the mountain which was very troublesome to carry up the hill.
This made them moan and disrespect strangely while this holy man underwent the labour with all cheerfulness and reprimanded them for their murmurings and laziness against a labour in which on its self was holy and worked as exceeding reward. This raised their whole bitterness again Cynog, while god considering his age and good will gave him water upon the top of the rock over is little cell where he mounted every morning for meditation and prayer where no man else could have any this fuelled their rage thinking themselves mocked by him that they resolved to murder him, where upon two of them mounting the rock one Sunday morning found him as his prayers and saw the crystal spring at his feet they furiously ran at him and cut of his head with a sword which dropt into the well where the water immediately gave way to his head and dried up, nor would god almighty suffer these wicked monks to triumph over the sacred head which had humbled itself so much for its sake, for his dead body assisted by his holy spirit immediately took up his head in his hands and carried it down the hill from thence he walked on to a rising ground about a fields breadth beyond the church and laid it down under a bush of brambles.
Folklore
It is surprising to know that 200 years ago there were no seats in churches and when people came to church the old were permitted to stand leaning against the wall. A saying to have your back leaning against the wall’ may have come from this.
If a man and woman in a village were leading immoral lives they may have their life’s taken off dabbed with mud, they might be carried around on ladders nude, they might be tied on a pony back nude and the horse given a bump and left out on the common all night. Now these were practicing the Ceffyl Pren.
David Gam (Man at Arms to Henry V (Agincourt 1415)
Richard Games who ascended from one of the notorious traders in Wales, his name Daffyd Gam. He was the son of Einion App-Griffith of Pen Pont in Breconshire; wealthy family, distinguished family and Daffyd Gams grandfather had fought at the battle of Cresi.
Daffyd Gam became an esquire, to the king because King Henry had married into the Buckingham Family, the lords of Breconshire. So Daffyd Gam joined the army as an esquire at 40 marks a year.
He did very well in the army and a legend is that in 1404 he was sent to the Parliament of Owen Glyndwr Parliament at Machynlleth with the purpose of murdering Owen Glyndwr. There is no actual foundation for that, but we do know that Daffyd Gam took an important part in defeating Owen Glyndwr on the banks of the Usk in 1412.
Daffyd Gam went with the English King to fight at the battle of Agincourt and was killed, he was knighted for his bravery and our friend Shakespeare has referred to Daffyd Gam and the host of English Knights who were killed with him on that day. Daffyd Gam was of Norman and Welsh blood, so one can understand that he fought for the English. He was called Daffyd Gam because he had a squint and he joined the army as a very young man because he had murder his cousin, the Lord of Slewch in Brecon and then he runaway and join the army.
Shakespeare has written about him in Henry VI Act 4. “Here was a royal fellowship of death, where is the number of our English dead. Edward the Duke of York, the Earl of Suffolk, Sir Richard Celty, Davey Gam Esq., none else of name and of all other men but five and twenty, oh god, thy arm was here”. In other words, he was suggesting that David Gam was killed with the elite of the English army.
It is thought that David Gam took local archers from Penderyn and Ystradfellte and the bows came from the ewe trees at St Mary’s Church Ystradfellte.
Lewis Lewis (Merthyr Riots 1831)
Lewis Lewis was christened on the 21st March 1793 the son of Jenkin and Margaret Lewis of Blaencadlan in the parish of Penderyn, his father was a butcher. Lewis was a haulier by occupation hence his appellation ‘Yr Heliwr’ and he was engaged in carting coal from the pits at Llwydcoed to the limekilns at Penderyn. In the Merthyr Tydfil riots of 1831 he took a leading part, on the 2nd June in the attack on the house of Joseph Coffin, the clerk to the Court of Requests and in inciting the crowd to seize arms of the soldiers of the 93 rd (Highland) Regiment when outside the Castle Inn on the following day.
After the riots he hid in the Penderyn district but was caught on the 7th June in the woods of Hedrebolon near Garw Farm by Captain Franklyn and Williams Crawshay “Merthyr Ironmaster Ystradfellte. They then took him to the Lamb Inn in Penderyn until reinforcements came to take him away.
He was condemned to death at the Cardiff Assizes by Mr Justice Bosanquet, for riotous assembly and the destruction of the house and property of Joseph Coffin. His sentence was commuted to one transportation for life his date of death has not been ascertained.
Lewis Lewis (Lewsyn yr Heliwr also known as Lewsyn Shanco Lewis) 1793-