The monks of the Cistercian Abbey of Cwmhir are said to have stocked Llyn Gwyn with carp, as a secret food supply, before Henry III destroyed the abbey in revenge for their support of the Welsh prince Llewelyn in 1231.  The abbey is the site of the burial ground of Llewelyn ap Grufydd, the last native prince of Wales, in 1282.  Some also claim that Llyn Gwyn was the home of King Bademagus, the Lame King and father of Melwas in Arthurian legend.  Certainly the remains of an earthern Roman fort are prominent on Llyn Gwyn’s northern bank, and Roman myth speaks of Vulcan as a lame god who was united with Maia, the mother of springs.  Most significantly, Llyn Gwyn was traditionally believed to be the home of Gwyn, son of Mudd of the underworld, the king of the tylwyth teg (fairies).  The secluded lake was Gwyn’s favorite haunt, and he and his court often danced in a circle on its shores.

Belief in fairies and various other nonhuman beings was commonplace in Radnor until the late nineteenth century, when there was a significant movement among all Welsh people away from the backward or foolish “superstitions” of traditional beliefs and myths.  The Welsh were not masters in their own land; the English were the major land and business owners. With the spread of Methodism and the enroachment of the industrial age, stories, communal games, national customs, habits, lore, and legends were either discarded as unworthy of an educated and enlightened people or confined to the eistedfodds (Welsh cultureal festivals).  Fortunately, in Radnor, the most rural of counties, folklore had a chronicler, the Reverend R. Francis Kilvert, an English clergyman assigned to the village parish of Clyro, and an active historical group, the Radnor Society, to preserve the county’s remarkable heritage.

Radnor’s other world

Radnorshire’s supernatural world was occupied by various beings.  Common folk knew of bwciod, a comprehensive term for a variety of spirits, imps, little devils, familiars, and apparitions.  Most dreaded Gwarch-y-Rhibyn, an enormous and frightful female wraith that appeared before death, tragedy, or misfortune.