CLEAR WATERS 



though every trace of it but the upheaval of the turf 

 has vanished. Not so, however, some of the reHcs 

 of the chieftain. The little prison house, where for 

 long periods he immured certain notable captives, is 

 still standing in the village, inhabited when I last saw 

 it by an aged crone. To this day it is known as 

 cachardy Owain (Owen's prison house), a mere cottage, 

 and, I should imagine, one of the oldest in the kingdom. 

 The ancient little church is the same in which the 

 hero no doubt attended Mass, while the venerable 

 farmhouse beside the bridge is stoutly held by tradition, 

 a thing not to be despised among these long-memoried 

 people, to have been the site at any rate of Glyndwr's 

 farm buildings. An oak table is still treasured in a 

 neighbouring homestead as a relic of the manor-house 

 that once stood here above the Dee. A field below 

 is still known as the * Parliament Field,' where the men 

 of the valley presumably met their leader in council. 

 Not far to the north is the strip of upland which, as 

 a cause of disputed ownership between Owen and 

 Lord Grey, the powerful Anglo-Norman baron of the 

 vale of Clwyd, led to the armed raid which made a 

 rebel of Glyndwr. Hitherto he had been a loyal 

 subject and a polished gentleman familiar with the 

 English Court. This little boundary dispute pro- 

 voked a war that for many years decimated Wales, 

 harried the border counties, and brought in a French 

 army, inured Henry v. at an early age, pace Shake- 

 speare, to arduous campaigns (he destroyed with his 

 own hand this very house of Owen's), and undoubtedly 

 worried the king his father into a premature grave. 

 All this may seem irrelevant. But it was fishing, 

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