LLANDDWYN 53 



whether the sands have covered it or the sea 

 swallowed it, no man now knows. 



Hard by the ruined church in the hollow stood 

 the residence of its last rector, Richard Kyffyn, 

 afterwards the "Black Dean" of Bangor. He it 

 was who in the reign of Richard III. concerted 

 with other Welsh notabilities to place the Duke of 

 Richmond, afterwards Henry VII., on the throne; 

 and from the solitary coves of Llanddwyn fishing 

 vessels conveyed intelligence into Brittany where, 

 the would-be king then was. 



Into the same lonely coves many a smuggler has 

 run his cargo, the place becoming notorious for its 

 illicit traffic. 



And now, of all their lights and loves and sooth- 

 sayings, their abbey, church, and shrine, their monks 

 and saints, and smugglers of contraband kings and 

 rum kegs, there is left nothing but two commemorative 

 crosses, and part of the walls of the fallen church, 

 its empty eastern window staring like an eyeless 

 socket down the valley. The stones that housed the 

 scheming " Black Dean," have gone to the building 

 of the pilots' cottages. The lights that failed in the 

 hollow have been rekindled on the headland to 

 lighten mariners by night at sea. Of the land that 

 lay around most has become warren, the rest is 

 beneath the waves. 



At midnight, about the middle of May, one who 

 looks south may see the constellation of the Northern 

 Crown (Arianrhod, the Silver Orb, as the Welsh 

 calls it) come to the meridian. Five miles across the 

 water, and beneath a spot three points east of that 

 where it seems at that time to hang, lies another of 



