The Itinerary of Archbishop Baldwin through Wales: Book 2 Chapter 6. Beyond Lleyn, there is a small island [Bardsey Island [Map]] inhabited by very religious monks, called Caelibes, or Colidei. This island, either from the wholesomeness of its climate, owing to its vicinity to Ireland, or rather from some miracle obtained by the merits of the saints, has this wonderful peculiarity, that the oldest people die first, because diseases are uncommon, and scarcely any die except from extreme old age. Its name is Enlli in the Welsh, and Berdesey¹⁴⁶ in the Saxon language; and very many bodies of saints are said to be buried there, and amongst them that of Daniel, bishop of Bangor.

Note 146. This island once afforded, according to the old accounts, an asylum to twenty thousand saints, and after death, graves to as many of their bodies; whence it has been called Insula Sanctorum, the Isle of Saints. This island derived its British name of Enlli from the fierce current which rages between it and the main land. The Saxons named it Bardsey, probably from the Bards, who retired hither, preferring solitude to the company of invading foreigners.

The Diary of George Price Boyce 1851. 05 Aug 1851. (at Bettws-y-Coed [Map]). While sketching, David Cox (age 68) came and shook hands with me. He has put up here (the "Royal Oak") After dinner I made an evening sketch on grey wrapping-up paper. David Cox saw it and approved.

In 1861 Henry Holiday (age 21) and Catherine Raven (age 22) first met at Betws-y-Coed [Map] where she was staying with her sister Jane and her brother John. Holiday recalled in his Reminiscences:

Occasionally, when I seemed to be getting on, I looked forward to the time when I might be able to set up a home of my own, and hoped I might find some sympathetic being suitable as a companion for life who would accept me in that relation. I thought falling in love was very pretty in storybooks, but that in real life it must be a matter of careful choice, with the chance of that choice being reciprocated. But all this was thrown to the winds during the half-hour I spent before Mr. Collingwood’s sketches. Life had assumed a new aspect for me, and though I do not think I was lacking in devotion to the profession I had chosen for myself, I had certainly found a new and powerful incentive to work and to work well…A few days after that, our first meeting, I spent the evening with them and made the welcome discovery that Miss Kate Raven was devoted to music and was an excellent pianist.

The River Conwy rises on the on the Migneint moor where a number of small streams flow into Llyn Conwy [Map] from where it flows more or less north through Betws-y-Coed [Map], under Llanrwst Bridge, Clywd [Map] past Conwy Castle [Map] where it joins the Irish Sea.

The River Dovey rises nears Pennant, Gwynedd [Map] from where it flows past Dinas Mawddwy, Gwynedd [Map], Aberangell [Map], Cemmaes, Montgomeryshire [Map], Machynlleth [Map] to Aberdyfi [Map] where it joins the Irish Sea.

In Jan 1283 King Edward I surrounded Dafydd's (age 44) base of Snowdonia with a massive army. Dafydd initially operated from Dolwyddelan [Map]. Dafydd moved down to Castell y Bere [Map]. In April, Castell y Bere was besieged by over 3,000 men, and the small Welsh garrisonsurrendered on 25 Apr 1283. Dafydd escaped the siege and moved north to Dolbadarn Castle [Map]. In May 1283, he was forced to move again, this time to the mountains above the Welsh royal home in Abergwyngregyn.

Castles built by the Welsh for the Welsh include Dryswyn Castle [Map], Dolbadarn Castle [Map], Dolwyddelan Castle [Map], Ewloe Castle [Map], Castell Dinas Brân [Map], Castell y Bere [Map], Carreg Cennen Castle [Map] and Arnold Arnaullt Castle [Map].

The River Conwy rises on the on the Migneint moor where a number of small streams flow into Llyn Conwy [Map] from where it flows more or less north through Betws-y-Coed [Map], under Llanrwst Bridge, Clywd [Map] past Conwy Castle [Map] where it joins the Irish Sea.

The River Dovey rises nears Pennant, Gwynedd [Map] from where it flows past Dinas Mawddwy, Gwynedd [Map], Aberangell [Map], Cemmaes, Montgomeryshire [Map], Machynlleth [Map] to Aberdyfi [Map] where it joins the Irish Sea.

The Itinerary of Archbishop Baldwin through Wales: Book 2 Chapter 6. We continued our journey over the Traeth Mawr [Map],¹⁴¹ and Traeth Bachan,¹⁴² that is, the greater and the smaller arm of the sea, where two stone castles have newly been erected; one called Deudraeth [Map], belonging to the sons of Conan, situated in Evionyth, towards the northern mountains; the other named Carn Madryn, the property of the sons of Owen, built on the other side of the river towards the sea, on the head-land Lleyn.¹⁴³ Traeth, in the Welsh language, signifies a tract of sand flooded by the tides, and left bare when the sea ebbs. We had before passed over the noted rivers, the Dissenith,¹⁴⁴ between the Maw and Traeth Mawr, and the Arthro, between the Traeth Mawr and Traeth Bachan. We slept that night at Nevyn, on the eve of Palm Sunday, where the archdeacon, after long inquiry and research, is said to have found Merlin Sylvestris.¹⁴⁵

Note 141. The Traeth Mawr, or the large sands, are occasioned by a variety of springs and rivers which flow from the Snowdon mountains, and, uniting their streams, form an aestuary below Pont Aberglaslyn.

Note 142. The Traeth Bychan, or the small sands, are chiefly formed by the river which runs down the beautiful vale of Festiniog to Maentwrog and Tan y bwlch, near which place it becomes navigable. Over each of these sands the road leads from Merionyth into Caernarvonshire.

Note 143. Lleyn, the Canganorum promontorium of Ptolemy, was an extensive hundred containing three comots, and comprehending that long neck of land between Caernarvon and Cardigan bays. Leland says, "Al Lene is as it were a pointe into the se."

Note 144. In mentioning the rivers which the missionaries had lately crossed, our author has been guilty of a great topographical error in placing the river Dissennith between the Maw and Traeth Mawr, as also in placing the Arthro between the Traeth Mawr and Traeth Bychan, as a glance at a map will shew.

Note 145. To two personages of this name the gift of prophecy was anciently attributed: one was called Ambrosius, the other Sylvestris; the latter here mentioned (and whose works Giraldus, after a long research, found at Nefyn) was, according to the story, the son of Morvryn, and generally called Merddin Wyllt, or Merddin the Wild. He is pretended to have flourished about the middle of the sixth century, and ranked with Merddin Emrys and Taliesin, under the appellation of the three principal bards of the Isle of Britain.

The Itinerary of Archbishop Baldwin through Wales: Book 2 Chapter 9. I must not pass over in silence the mountains called by the Welsh Eryri [Map], but by the English Snowdon, or Mountains of Snow, which gradually increasing from the land of the sons of Conan, and extending themselves northwards near Deganwy, seem to rear their lofty summits even to the clouds, when viewed from the opposite coast of Anglesey. They are said to be of so great an extent, that according to an ancient proverb, "As Mona could supply corn for all the inhabitants of Wales, so could the Eryri mountains afford sufficient pasture for all the herds, if collected together." Hence these lines of Virgil may be applied to them:-

"Et quantum longis carpent armenta diebus,

Exigua tautum gelidus ros nocte reponet."

"And what is cropt by day the night renews,

Shedding refreshful stores of cooling dews."

1911 Encyclopædia Britannica. Sep 1811 to Feb 1813. [Percy Bysshe Shelley (age 19)] ... sailed thence to Dublin, where Shelley was eager, and in some degree prominent, in the good cause of Catholic emancipation, conjoined with repeal of the union; crossed to Wales, and lived at Nant-Gwillt, near Rhayader, then at Lynmouth [Map] in Devonshire, then at Tanyrallt in Carnarvonshire. All this was between September 1811 and February 1813. At Lynmouth an Irish servant of Shelley's was sentenced to six months' imprisonment for distributing and posting up printed papers, bearing no printer's name, of an inflammatory or seditious tendency - being a Declaration of Rights composed by the youthful reformer, and some verses of his named The Devil's Walk. At Tanyrallt Shelley was (according to his own and Harriet's account, confirmed by the evidence of Miss Westbrook, the elder sister, who continued an inmate in most of their homes) attacked on the night of 26th February by an assassin who fired three pistol-shots. It was either a human assassin or (as Shelley once said) " the devil." The motive of the attack was undefined; the fact of its occurrence was generally disbelieved, both at the time and by subsequent inquirers. Shelley was full of wild unpractical notions; he dosed himself occasionally with laudanum as a palliative to spasmodic pains; he was given to strange assertions and romancing narratives (several of which might properly be specified here but for want of space), and was not incapable of conscious fibbing. His mind no doubt oscillated at times along the line which divides sanity from insane delusion. It is now, however, at last proved that he did not invent such a monstrous story to serve a purpose. The Century Magazine for October 1905 contained an article entitled "A Strange Adventure of Shelley's," by Margaret L. Croft, which shows that a shepherd close to Tanyrallt, named Robin Pant Evan, being irritated by some well-meant acts of Shelley in terminating the lives of dying or diseased sheep, did really combine with two other shepherds to scare the poet, and Evan was the person who played the part of "assassin." He himself avowed as much to members of a family, Greaves, who were living at Tanyrallt between 1847 and 1865. This was the break-up of the residence of the Shelleys at Tanyrallt; they revisited Ireland, and then settled for a while in London.

The Itinerary of Archbishop Baldwin through Wales: Book 2 Chapter 6. We continued our journey over the Traeth Mawr [Map],¹⁴¹ and Traeth Bachan,¹⁴² that is, the greater and the smaller arm of the sea, where two stone castles have newly been erected; one called Deudraeth [Map], belonging to the sons of Conan, situated in Evionyth, towards the northern mountains; the other named Carn Madryn, the property of the sons of Owen, built on the other side of the river towards the sea, on the head-land Lleyn.¹⁴³ Traeth, in the Welsh language, signifies a tract of sand flooded by the tides, and left bare when the sea ebbs. We had before passed over the noted rivers, the Dissenith,¹⁴⁴ between the Maw and Traeth Mawr, and the Arthro, between the Traeth Mawr and Traeth Bachan. We slept that night at Nevyn, on the eve of Palm Sunday, where the archdeacon, after long inquiry and research, is said to have found Merlin Sylvestris.¹⁴⁵

Note 141. The Traeth Mawr, or the large sands, are occasioned by a variety of springs and rivers which flow from the Snowdon mountains, and, uniting their streams, form an aestuary below Pont Aberglaslyn.

Note 142. The Traeth Bychan, or the small sands, are chiefly formed by the river which runs down the beautiful vale of Festiniog to Maentwrog and Tan y bwlch, near which place it becomes navigable. Over each of these sands the road leads from Merionyth into Caernarvonshire.

Note 143. Lleyn, the Canganorum promontorium of Ptolemy, was an extensive hundred containing three comots, and comprehending that long neck of land between Caernarvon and Cardigan bays. Leland says, "Al Lene is as it were a pointe into the se."

Note 144. In mentioning the rivers which the missionaries had lately crossed, our author has been guilty of a great topographical error in placing the river Dissennith between the Maw and Traeth Mawr, as also in placing the Arthro between the Traeth Mawr and Traeth Bychan, as a glance at a map will shew.

Note 145. To two personages of this name the gift of prophecy was anciently attributed: one was called Ambrosius, the other Sylvestris; the latter here mentioned (and whose works Giraldus, after a long research, found at Nefyn) was, according to the story, the son of Morvryn, and generally called Merddin Wyllt, or Merddin the Wild. He is pretended to have flourished about the middle of the sixth century, and ranked with Merddin Emrys and Taliesin, under the appellation of the three principal bards of the Isle of Britain.