THE WELSH DEE 



day after day, occasionally for salmon, mostly for trout, 

 beneath the fir-crowned up-lifted tumulus, beneath 

 which the wide waters of the mound pool surged so 

 temptingly, that filled me with strange longings to 

 gather something tangible of the indomitable warrior 

 who lived at its foot and owned the ancestors of the 

 trout and salmon that drew me thither. It seemed 

 odd that the Welsh who all over the country invoked 

 the hero as a sort of patron saint knew only a few odd 

 tags and legends about him ; a man, too, living and 

 laying about him as he did within quite measurable 

 time. 



As the years went on, and the old tags went on, 

 and Welsh patriots of the political and pulpit type 

 grew more and more eloquent of the past greatness 

 and glories of Wales, hidden from the scoffing Saxon, 

 and but little understood, I fear, by most of them- 

 selves, the real Owen still remained hardly more than 

 a shadow. The Glyndwr of Shakespeare still held the 

 field ! He was on every local patriot's tongue, but 

 none of them seemed to want to know anything further 

 about a man so well worth knowing. The Dee valley 

 folk were only certain that he was born in Corwen ; 

 though, as a matter of fact, he was born by chance in 

 Pembrokeshire, his mother being a lady of South Wales. 

 The mark of his dagger, at any rate, flung in a fit of 

 petulance from the mountain-top above, was, and 

 still is, to be seen by the faithful on the wall of 

 Corwen church. Owen was almost as shadowy a 

 figure in the Principality as Merlin, though as real 

 and as recent a one as Henry v. himself, and 

 paramount in Wales for years. Every county had 



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