Home, Hills, Myths and Legends - Part 2

Now. Arthur's Castle/Palace, whatever?

OK so I've been brushing up on the legends and folklore of Wales, especially around my home area. What I really like about a lot of these stories is that they often explain the names of various places in Wales and also they are native tales, not those taken from the cultures of various invaders as has happened with a lot of English folklore.

Now from my cursory research there appears to be various combinations of antagonist and hero in everyone of these tales - each of which can be selected in any combination from the following list:

1) King Arthur
2) One or more of his Knights
3) A Saint (of which there appear to be many)
4) One or more Giants (Of which there appear to be even more)
5) Dragons. It's on our flag, of course there were dragons!

Most landmarks, quirks of geography and some place names appear to be explained through the activities of Giants and subsequent hissy fits by Giants. Moel Fenlli is named after a giant who lived there called Benlli Gawr. Moel Fenlli is the other hill in the Clwydian range. Using the Ordnance Survey International 'Happy Mondays Hill Classification System', it is the Bez of the Clwydian range.

Saints appear quite a lot - Llanarmon-Yn-Iâl literally means 'The Church of St Garmon in Iâl'. St Garmon sorted out Benlli Gawr after he tried to help some Picts invade and founded the church in Iâl. Anyway, I digress.

King Arthur obviously appears a lot, being a native Briton and all that. Guinevere is apparently a mutation of Gwenhuifor. There are various tales about him knocking about the place.

One thing that is always true in these tales - if there are Saxons involved, they always lose. Don't think the Romans fare much better to be honest, there is even a tale about how the Saxons were able to invade - as it turns out it was Arthur getting too big for his boots. Tosser.

Right, so thats a few bits in there - my country was essentially formed by tall fat people having tantrums. I am getting a lot of this stuff from an excellent book called 'Supernatural Clwyd'. Hardly an inspiring title bt very well written! I've decided that rather than the constant whining, I am going to reproduce some stories here. Unless of course you don't want me to, but I find it quite interesting and often funny.