{169}"And Jacob took him rods of green poplar,and of the hazel,and of the chesnut tree,and peeled white strakes in them,and made the white appear which was in the rods.And he set the rods,which he had peeled,before the flocks in the gutters in the watering troughs,when the flocks came to drink,that they should conceive when they came to drink.And the flocks conceived before the rods,and brought forth cattle speckled and spotted."-Gen.xxx.
{170}Owen Gwynedd,the son of Gruffydd ap Conan,died in 1169,and was buried at Bangor.When Baldwin,during his progress,visited Bangor and saw his tomb,he charged the bishop (Guy Ruffus)to remove the body out of the cathedral,when he had a fit opportunity so to do,in regard that archbishop Becket had excommunicated him heretofore,because he had married his first cousin,the daughter of Grono ap Edwyn,and that notwithstanding he had continued to live with her till she died.The bishop,in obedience to the charge,made a passage from the vault through the south wall of the church underground,and thus secretly shoved the body into the churchyard.
-Hengwrt.MSS.Cadwalader brother of Owen Gwynedd,died in 1172.
{171}The Merlin here mentioned was called Ambrosius,and according to the Cambrian Biography flourished about the middle of the fifth century.Other authors say,that this reputed prophet and magician was the son of a Welsh nun,daughter of a king of Demetia,and born at Caermarthen,and that he was made king of West Wales by Vortigern,who then reigned in Britain.
{172}Owen Gwynedd "left behind him manie children gotten by diverse women,which were not esteemed by their mothers and birth,but by their prowes and valiantnesse."By his first wife,Gladus,the daughter of Llywarch ap Trahaern ap Caradoc,he had Orwerth Drwyndwn,that is,Edward with the broken nose;for which defect he was deemed unfit to preside over the principality of North Wales and was deprived of his rightful inheritance,which was seized by his brother David,who occupied it for the space of twenty-four years.
{173}The travellers pursuing their journey along the sea coast,crossed the aestuary of the river Conway under Deganwy,a fortress of very remote antiquity.
{174}At this period the Cistercian monastery of Conway was in its infancy,for its foundation has been attributed to Llewelyn ap Iorwerth,in the year 1185,(only three years previous to Baldwin's visitation,)who endowed it with very extensive possessions and singular privileges.Like Stratflur,this abbey was the repository of the national records,and the mausoleum of many of its princes.
{175}[David was the illegitimate son of Owen Gwynedd,and had dispossessed his brother,Iorwerth Drwyndwn.]
{176}This ebbing spring in the province of Tegeingl,or Flintshire,has been placed by the old annotator on Giraldus at Kilken,which Humphrey Llwyd,in his Breviary,also mentions.
{177}See before,the Topography of Ireland,Distinc.ii.c.7.
{178}Saint Asaph,in size,though not in revenues,may deserve the epithet of "paupercula"attached to it by Giraldus.From its situation near the banks of the river Elwy,it derived the name of Llanelwy,or the church upon the Elwy.
{179}Leaving Llanelwy,or St.Asaph,the archbishop proceeded to the little cell of Basinwerk,where he and his attendants passed the night.It is situated at a short distance from Holywell,on a gentle eminence above a valley,watered by the copious springs that issue from St.Winefred's well,and on the borders of a marsh,which extends towards the coast of Cheshire.
{180}Coleshill is a township in Holywell parish,Flintshire,which gives name to a hundred,and was so called from its abundance of fossil fuel.Pennant,vol.i.p.42.
{181}The three military expeditions of king Henry into Wales,here mentioned,were A.D.1157,the first expedition into North Wales;A.D.1162,the second expedition into South Wales;A.D.1165,the third expedition into North Wales.In the first,the king was obliged to retreat with considerable loss,and the king's standard-bearer,Henry de Essex,was accused of having in a cowardly manner abandoned the royal standard and led to a serious disaster.
{182}The lake of Penmelesmere,or Pymplwy meer,or the meer of the five parishes adjoining the lake,is,in modern days,better known by the name of Bala Pool.The assertion made by Giraldus,of salmon never being found in the lake of Bala,is not founded on truth.
{183}Giraldus seems to have been mistaken respecting the burial-place of the emperor Henry V.for he died May 23,A.D.1125,at Utrecht,and his body was conveyed to Spire for interment.
{184}This legend,which represents king Harold as having escaped from the battle of Hastings,and as having lived years after as a hermit on the borders of Wales,is mentioned by other old writers,and has been adopted as true by some modern writers.