CLEAR WATERS 



quaint old farmhouses and other equally primitive 

 but less decorative abodes of Welsh-speaking natives. 

 So now, of course, the jerry-builder has been at work. 

 Looking up from the old bridge of Llansaintffraid, 

 where all was once foliage and grey roof, there is now the 

 garish and exotic glow of new red brick. What was 

 formerly a small village with an inn, a shop, a post 

 office, a schooUiouse, a church, a vicarage, a blacksmith 

 and a bard is now an obvious competitor on a small 

 scale for the holiday visitor from Lancashire and the 

 Midlands. Since those days, however, the salmon- 

 fishing has greatly improved. 



But Llansaintffraid, otherwise Carrog, is really a 

 place of high renown, concerning which something 

 should be said. For myself I owe more than I can teU 

 to the inspiration of the genius loci absorbed during 

 long days and weeks spent there or thereabouts upon 

 the Dee. This was actually the ancestral patrimony 

 and the home — one of two, that is to say, quite near 

 together — of the immortal ' Damned Glendower.' His 

 property, inherited through varying fortunes, not vital 

 to these light pages, from his princely ancestors of 

 Powys, extended, speaking broadly, from Corwen to 

 Llangollen. In the old Welsh divisions it constituted 

 the whole commote of Glyndyfrdwy. Indeed, the 

 great patriot and chieftain's true and actual name, 

 when he was at home among people that could pro- 

 nounce it, was Owain of Glyndyfrdwy. This was too 

 much even for some of his Welsh friends who Uved in 

 far counties, and he naturally became Glyndwr. His 

 English enemies and contemporaries ran, of course, 

 hopelessly amuck ; the nearest they ever achieved 

 70 



