Latest / DunkersPodcast / Canolfan Felin Uchaf and the Future of Community | Voices of the Land Ep.1

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Canolfan Felin Uchaf and the Future of Community | Voices of the Land Ep.1 · DunkersPodcast

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Today's podcast isn't just a place or a guest or a
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conversation. It's a Celtic myth, an
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experience of memory, myth and meaning.
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And it's part of our Voices of the Land series.
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Out on the Clean Peninsula, where the land leans into the
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sea and stories travel on the wind, there's a place that
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doesn't just preserve history, it lives it.
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At Velenoca, myth, craft and community come together not as
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something to observe, but something to take part in.
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Here, in a Roundhouse built in the old ways, stories are told
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as they always have been, by voice, by firelight, and by
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memory. And at the heart of it all is
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Dafydd, our storyteller today, who's rooted in the land carries
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the myth and the histories of the Clean Peninsula and North
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Wales into the present day. This episode is Voices of the
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Land. David, welcome.
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Oh, thank you. A privilege.
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And it's a privilege for me. It's absolutely awesome.
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This, this, this whole environment.
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How long have you been developing it?
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I suppose there's an idea, perhaps over 30 years as an
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idea. Things take a long time to
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Germany, but on the land here, actually on this site for 22
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years now. 22 years. 22 years since we set up a charity and
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bought this parcel of land. Oh, right.
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OK. So it was always an intention
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from the from the get go. Yeah, it was always an
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intention. We looked at different places on
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Thin Peninsula and further inland in Snowdonia, right, to
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set up this kind of community hub, if you like, and each one's
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site specific. And this one came up eventually,
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having gone from one to the other over some years, right?
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This one came up for sale and we went for it.
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And do we presume that this was once a farmhouse which you've
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just grown? That's it.
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Yeah. So we live where we're seated
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now, in a brand new building. There was an old farmhouse here,
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an old dwelling. It'd been empty some 20 years.
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The land had lain fallow around it, treeless, windswept.
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So it's quite a different setting now with the the little
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eco buildings and and some 18,000 new trees which form a
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New Forest line around it. Goodness, goodness and all
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because you planted them. Yes, I've had very little.
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I would say. I've been oiling the cogs.
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Oh yeah, I've been on because showing people where to plant,
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perhaps how to plant, but leaving it to others to do the
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planting. Oh, right.
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Cleverly, absolutely, yes. So that was kinda you're about
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two miles or so from Aberdaran. We're about two miles from
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Aberdaran and the sea is around 3-4 miles either side of us.
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So we we get the winds from all directions and sometimes you
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really feel the the salt air, you can smell the kelp on it.
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OK, OK, so just describe very briefly the, the the, the sort
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of the layout of the buildings because they're all there's,
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there's a number and they are all, they've all got their own
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handwriting it appears. That's a, that's a beautiful way
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of, of describing it, Mark. They all, they all have their
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little idiosyncrasies that from the old Celtic Roundhouse you
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first described, which was our first building, right up through
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to a more contemporary buildings that we're putting up now.
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And they all feel like they've grown from the land because we
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use a lot of local materials, clay and thatch and timber.
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But they all only make sense if they are in dialogue together.
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So. Otherwise they would be a
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karaoke of different styles. But they all work as a campus,
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yes. So what we've, what the vision
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has been is to set up a campus, a rural campus.
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And for a campus, you need cultural spaces, you need spaces
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to accommodate people. You need spaces to eat, places
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to meditate and to to be quietly on your own.
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So these buildings have been put together by volunteers and by
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young people for young people to be able to come here and study.
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And those skills sound as though they were actually rooted in the
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land and have just sort of grown.
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The craft, the nature, the survival of those skills has
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been exacerbated by being in this environment, I take it.
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You're right. They, they were it, it, it is a
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past tense in that when I first came to to the theme peninsula
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and I and I'm a foreigner, I came from 20 miles due east from
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here. That's classed as a foreigner.
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Yeah, yes. Though I have relatives that
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born and bred around here and cousins plenty here, but I come
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from 20 miles due E, which is different again.
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But the theme, it was always a place where things lingered
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longer, lingered longer. Things that had disappeared or,
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or had gone to ground in Snowdonia lingered longer on the
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scene. It's that bit more remote.
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And, and, and the communities are tight knit and and they're
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proud of what they do. And things had gone quite
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threadbare here in terms of craft.
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They've gone thin on the ground. And so we decided, well, is
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there some mileage in looking at that craft?
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Again, not propping it up because it had died a natural
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death. Boat building, basket making,
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all of those things had gone to ground.
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So there was no thread of continuity.
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There was some tradition here still spoken of, but it was no
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longer alive in the community. But it was a generation away and
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it seemed still on the wind, if you know what I mean.
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I do. So we picked it up.
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Yeah, and breezed life into. It into it, but it breathed life
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into it in a new way in that we were no longer having to earn a
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living doing those things, making baskets or creoles or
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weaving or or making these clay buildings and such or thatching.
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None of us were having to earn a living through doing that, but
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we were exploring the craft for a different purpose.
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For the for the sake of the craft.
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For the sake of the craft. And what is the sake of the
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craft, isn't it? It is what is the sake of the
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craft? Why do we do anything?
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Why do we work? What is that the the beauty of
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working and and there is something beyond the monetary
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value of working, isn't it? Oh, it absolutely brings back
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value. Of course, the community,
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there's that conversation between people then and the,
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the, the sort of mercurial relationships that people have.
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The if if you're buying from somebody who's making something
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locally, but also just how health giving it is.
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And in terms of self, self-awareness, confidence, all
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of those things comes with work, doesn't it?
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It does. Appreciation, it does.
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And there's a completeness about actually doing that work, isn't
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there? And sort of starting a day and
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arriving at the end of the day or exhausted or not, but feeling
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that you've had a complete day, a little bit like you when I
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rooted you out of the barn tonight.
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Yeah, yeah, yeah, yes. Well, you speak from experience,
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I think, in this manner. So how do feeling is very
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important to to this this whole environment and to your life?
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Clearly. What do people feel when they
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come here first? Nowadays, nowadays I think
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people feel that it's a special place.
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When we first came here it, as I say, it was windswept.
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It was hardly a tree here. It was no different from any
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other 23 acre fields. And there are other fields
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larger than this. There are 50 acre fields in, in
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neighboring farms where the hedgerows were all cleared in
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the 60s and 70s, but this is 23 acres and it was 1 field you
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could say. And now there are 12 small
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fields. And it does feel a very special
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place. It's ringing with birdsong, with
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wildlife. There's ferns and, and, and
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flowers in the forest that weren't there in before or
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they've gone dormant and they've come through.
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So people feel it's a very special place that it's been
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like this for ages, for generations.
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But of course, it's been only like this for 22 years.
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But one would say are the myths that surround this environment
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that go back 220 years or 520 years.
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You're right. Yeah, we can.
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We imagine all sorts of pasts for ourselves, don't we?
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We do. We can.
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Anything that's not written or not dug up by an archaeologist
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and looked at forensically can can be interpreted in a number
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of different ways. However we like to, and I think
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we can interpret mythology from our own standpoint as we'd like
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it to have been. So we can look at the mythology
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of the theme and the legends and such of the theme.
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And we can glean from them a number of things.
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We can, we can put ourselves in in the minds of the people that
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composed them or told them, but we can look beyond that into the
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inspiration. What was the inspiration?
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And why did they tell these things?
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Why they did they survive, you know, in the oral tradition,
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beyond the books and academics that that recorded them perhaps
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late in the 19th century. Why had they survived for so
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long? And it's because there's
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something of a flame of imagination.
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This flame of imagination, you listen to it and you you come
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into story space, you come into a magical space.
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And in that magical space, anything can become manifest.
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And you can carry that back into your real life, I think.
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So you can go into story space where anything can happen.
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Cut it. You can you can travel to the
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moon in a day and be back for tea.
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And if you can do that in your mind, you know, it's only a
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stone throw to actually do that physically and make that
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manifest. And I think that's the beauty of
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story and of mythology of a place.
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So the scene is a windswept as you introduced it, a rocky place
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sticking out into the Irish Sea, a green finger of land.
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But layer it with mythology, layer it with history and colour
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it with people's imaginations over centuries and you have then
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the potential of moving forward in a way that gives people pride
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in where they are. It inspires them to greatness
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because they thought the people in the past were great.
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They were heroes, they were heroines, they were people that
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did great deeds and misdeeds, but they did great things and,
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and it and we can aspire to those.
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Not that we can, not that we can stride over the Irish Sea up to
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our knees and such, but but we can aspire to greatness in
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ourselves. It stops being from what you're
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telling me, it stops being nostalgia.
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It starts being relevant into the world that you allow your
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imagination to go into. So it's not nostalgia, it's
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relevant to a modern world. And, and I think that's that, if
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you agree, then I think that's, that's quite awesome.
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It's quite awesome. So I think it can, it can begin
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as nostalgia as a, you know, especially in Welsh, we have
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this term Hiraith. You probably heard Hiraith.
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It's, if you have a compendium of Welsh poetry, there will be
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perhaps 1/3 of it will be nature poetry, 1/3 of it will be
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perhaps love poetry, and certainly 1/3 of it will be
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longing, longing for something lost.
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Hero, hero. We are very good at hero.
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You say a Welsh person is never the Welsh are never happy until
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they're sad. So we, we, we have wallow in our
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melancholy in a way, and nostalgia for something, for a
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golden time that maybe never was for the heroes gone to ground
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that lie sleeping in caves. We, we, we live by that.
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And those, those experiences, those, those glimpses into the
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past which you, you sort of drag the people of the present into
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and, and consume them with it. Those are, those are often,
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well, seemingly those are all delivered in the Roundhouse.
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And the Roundhouse is just tell us a wee bit about the
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Roundhouse, if you will. Well, describe it then.
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It was we, it was the first building that we put together.
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We dug into the ground, into the clay.
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It was a little hill. We dug into the hill as you
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would a fairy mound if you like, right, and created this
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auditorium. Within it, a circle of stone.
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We piled earth to make banks and on top of the earth banks we put
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poles with local primary schools, in the main with the
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local primary schools, and then thatched it again with local
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primary schools. So it's building handmade by
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dozens of children and now who are now in their 30s and have
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their own children who come here and can point out their
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thumbprints on the old columns when they were here.
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So they they were allowed to leave an identity.
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Here they were. Yes, and they came in their
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school uniforms and many school uniforms have white upon them,
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all yellow and they left all uniform brown and teachers as
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well and they they. Left.
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Like you talk about the Celtic people, the Celtic people they,
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they left tattooed with, with clay marks all over their faces.
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They left with wild imaginations or so, but they left their
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prints and marks. Of course, as we all like to,
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they left their marks upon the. Absolutely.
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And they come back now again in a white shirt, but what they're
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going to leave? Like, I don't know, yes, but and
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they just bring in this their their families and and so the,
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the the rapture continues. They just get subsumed into it,
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don't they as well? It's their place, yes.
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And it's had some respect with that.
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So the stories aren't just experienced, they're actually
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consumed, don't they? I suppose they're they're,
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they're an experience, as you say.
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A shared experience. A shared experience it's.
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As you have with the with your enterprises and initiatives,
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they're about community building.
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Yes, yeah, yeah. And.
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These buildings are about community building.
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They're they're an excuse to bring people together.
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They're really something you hang upon.
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And and the focus with young people, you've, you've mentioned
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young people a number of times. Because the older people
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generally will come anyway. So the oldest gentleman working
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on the Roundhouse was in his early 90s.
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He made all the pegs for the Roundhouse.
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He was the local village blacksmith retirement.
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And so he passed on lots of his skills.
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And we have a lot of the older people now in the generation in
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then 80s now who have passed on a lot of their skills.
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But the younger people need to know that the place is open for
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them. So we've aimed it at younger
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people, but people of all ages come here.
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It's a multi generational place, but it's the younger people in
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that frame from from school leaving age 1617 through to
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maybe early 20s who are looking, searching for something in
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themselves. Those are the people who are
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attracted and they've got lots of energy.
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Absolutely. You know you can harness it and
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put them to work. Yeah, absolutely.
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I didn't see any whips on the way.
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And so they must do it very, very voluntarily, willingly.
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Plenty of good food. Plenty of hope that's that's the
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key to a young person's stomach. So the myth and the landscape is
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obviously it's, it's it completely engulfs people when
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they, they come here. And when I was doing a wee bit
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of research for this, this particular podcast, not just
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about yourself, but about the clean and, and about the, the,
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the landscape behind the clean and the, the, the heritage of
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there. And it and two or three things
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came out. Firstly is that the clean
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peninsula is a place or still is probably a place of pilgrimage
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and myth. There are connections are found
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to King Arthur legends and ancient folk, Welsh law.
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And as a storyteller, hills and stones and coastlines sort of
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almost sketch out a lot of the stories that you seem to that I
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certainly have experienced. So is it therefore a case that
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many of the Welsh myths that that you talk about and that you
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share to people are place based and in fact those their voices
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are tied to exact locations. So there's lots of different
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locations around the clean and they all seem to have a
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different story. Would you say that that was?
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I think you're right. I think that's very true in that
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I'm thinking now I cast my mind. A few miles away.
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There's a place called Quetan Arthur.
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Quetan Arthur, the Arthur's Quintane.
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It's a great standing stone burial chamber.
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There's Arthur's table, which is on top of the Carmadrin Hill
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Fort. It's a long table.
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Underneath the table there's a running stream of running water,
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full of myth and legend. That is too, and people
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associate those with legend. But of course, Arthur is
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everywhere. Arthur is from Brittany, from
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from middle Europe, from Germany, from everyone claims
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Arthur. Really.
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No, everyone claims Arthur. They all want to peace, they
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all. Want a piece of Arthur?
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They all want Arthur to to be their ancestor.
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Some people even claim to have ancestral roots going right back
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to Arthur or Gawain or to one of their nights.
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You know, and, and it may be or may not be true.
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It's not important for me whether it happened there or
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not, But but as you say that it's connected with a place,
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helps us to root and find meaning in it.
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So there's a place not far from here in the foothills of
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Snowdonia where there's a stone. And in that stone there's a hole
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right through it. It's a, it's a great big hole.
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I can put my fist right through it.
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And it's said that a staff, appointed bronze tipped staff
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was thrown through that stone and it struck the warrior on the
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other side. And that was before Roman times.
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That was ancient times. Now, whether it happened or not,
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people still go to that place. They remember the story when
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they see it and they tried to stand in the same place as the
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warrior and all sorts of things go on there.
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But they remember, they put together the story from the the
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physical landscape that still holds it in its name anyways,
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mine, granu, granu stone. It still holds the memory of
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that story and whether it happened there, where it,
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whether it never happened or whether it happened in another
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country and was carried here by the Celts when they came 500 BC,
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who knows? But that's, that's not
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important. It is connected with that place,
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as you say. And there are Hamlets, there are
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coves, there are caves, only a stone throw from here.
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And they're all connected with heroes and with mythologies and
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local legends. And whether they happened or not
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is. Is irrelevant really.
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They're a good story. Well, they're not just stories,
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are they? They are something more.
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They are definitely something more.
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And they're that, that ore, that for example, that stone with
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the, the, the, with the hole in that ore that must inspire
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people to, to, to want to, to almost transport themselves to
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that point where those, those soldiers were or whatever,
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whether they were the recipient or the thrower, whichever they,
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they just want to be there, don't they?
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It's like the, it's like in some way the dragon.
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When we hear about the dragon, we, we, my, my children used to
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ask me young when they were younger, Dad, are they still
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Dragons? And for a while, I, I didn't
20:55
know how to answer them really. Not that I didn't want to dispel
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something like, you know, Santa Claus or they didn't want to
21:03
dispel. Not that I was holding back from
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dispelling something about, about their childhood and
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imagination and such thing. But there are real Dragons in in
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my imagination. I created all Dragons I can.
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I can Their leathery wings creaking above fire breathing.
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We can create those real Dragons and we want to touch that.
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We want to believe in that. Well, I can't touch a dragon.
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I can't go to a place where I can point to a fire breathing
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fire Drake worm. But in my imagination I can.
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They live still. What a great escape that is,
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isn't it? It's a great escape.
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So do you think that myths actually teach us more than
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facts? In a way, it's a bit of a big
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question. But you know, that goes right to
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the core of things, doesn't it? That's a great question.
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There's a hill just behind where you're seated and I could see
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the top of it just above the window and it there's a a Bronze
22:05
Age Cairn on top of it. And once there was a posse of
22:10
people following an archaeologist up to the top of
22:13
the Cairn and I was coming on the on from the opposite side of
22:16
the hill. And I knew the archaeologist
22:18
leading quite well. And she said, oh, look, and
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here's David now I've been telling you all about what
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really happened here in the Bronze Age.
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And David will tell you what might have happened here.
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Lovely, subtle, different. Yeah, there is So this fact and
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and I've worked with archaeologists from Bangor
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University that you've spoken to with.
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And what we found is that the mythology and the legend
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actually goes hand in hand with what's found in the ground.
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It gives purpose and meaning, a purpose in that many
22:52
archaeologists. They're not treasure hunters,
22:56
but they're certainly storytellers.
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Absolutely. They're just.
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They're just lapping it up, you know, and, and they, they love
23:04
archaeology because they want to discover something of the past.
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They love the past. So they so they have an
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imagination that takes them to the past, but it's filled with
23:15
story. They wouldn't be scratching with
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a tooth comb on top of a hill in the middle of the winter if it
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was just a physical thing. No, they're looking for
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something that may have been there from story long ago.
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And they're looking for that talk or that hoof or whatever it
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was from that story. Like the, we we all know the,
23:36
the story of Troy and the the Iliad, the famous Iliad and the
23:40
Odyssey and such. Well, you know, it drove an
23:44
archaeologist, Schliemann, to to go to Turkey, to follow the
23:49
trail between two rivers to look for this sacked city.
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And he dug up this city based on Homer's myth, dug up a city,
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found treasures, their dresses, wife in these silver and gold
24:03
treasures, the treasures of Troy, Helen of Troy.
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And it led him to this place. Now whether Troy actually ever
24:10
existed there, who knows? This place was apparently sacked
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7 times. He found 7 layers of burnt city
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there, but it was enough to move mountains there to try and find
24:22
this place of mythology. And people are always trying to
24:25
find Arthur's birthplace or Arthur's resting place.
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Edward the first, you know, he, he famously dug up Arthur and
24:33
Guinevere from Glastonbury and of course it was a big money
24:36
spinner for the monks then. But so, you know, people are
24:39
always trying to find the physical attributes of
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mythology. And a hook to where they live or
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a hook to to where they want to to believe.
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Yes, don't they? Yes.
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And we want them to happen here, don't we?
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We do, we do and and and that's that's nice segue.
24:56
Thank you. Because that sort of brings me
24:58
back to this, to where we are now and to say, but you teach
25:03
practical skills as well, don't you?
25:06
It's it's actually sort of practical.
25:08
I've written down here practical wisdom because I feel that that
25:13
that's what you share. You share that wisdom of
25:17
anything is possible. And you can do it as next, as
25:21
easily as the next man or girl next to you.
25:25
And practically you can sort of teach them fire making and
25:29
shelter and connection to the seasons.
25:32
Clearly that's that must be must be a quite a strong driver here
25:36
with the seasons. And I suppose after they've been
25:41
here for a while, they read the land, they read the weather,
25:44
they read even the animals that that might be around.
25:47
So is there a, is there a modern disconnection versus ancestral
25:55
awareness? That's that's my question now,
25:59
is there, do you feel that the ancestral awareness that
26:03
actually surrounds all of us and our lives?
26:06
Do you think that the that there is a modern disconnection we
26:10
just can't connect to what we want to to to connect to other
26:15
than through mediums like yourself as a storyteller such
26:19
an. Interesting question, such a
26:21
such a wide-ranging. Sorry, sorry, no.
26:24
No, it is. It's a fascinating question and.
26:26
OK, OK. If I who own it a little bit bit
26:29
nearer is are the skills that we've lost that actually for
26:34
life we need? And that's not just saying
26:38
somebody who is a a lathe Turner or a, or a somebody who who
26:43
actually understands the the the land.
26:46
But are the skills that really the myths and the heritage of
26:50
the clean will sort of say to people or this this is what you
26:56
should be doing? Is there a?
26:58
Interesting too, I I take a broadview of things and and it's
27:02
a personal your take on things, you know.
27:05
Which is which is what our podcast.
27:07
Is and and I always think that things die out for a good
27:10
reason. Some things are forced out and
27:14
and cruelly put to ground and it does seem lamentable that they
27:18
pass. But for many things they they
27:21
die because there's no economic reason for them anymore or
27:24
because their time has passed. They've come, their time has
27:27
passed, they had a golden age and it's past now.
27:30
And there are so many stories about a new age not being born
27:35
until the old one has been put to rest or it's head has been
27:38
cut off and it's been buried. And that's happened again and
27:42
again and again. So we have to recognise, I think
27:45
that the with each generation something is lost, but something
27:48
is gained in that as well. And whether it's, and people
27:52
look at, look at me, I, I can see in my mind's eye the places
27:57
where curlews and lapwing and little tern and a great many
28:01
birds are nested. As a child I remember that are
28:04
no more. So I've seen the world changing
28:06
and, and become, you know, much poorer because of that.
28:12
But other things have come. Other things have come.
28:16
The, the beat has come the the sunfish has come with the
28:20
warming of the oceans. The other things that the, the
28:23
world is such a dynamic place and things are lost and things
28:26
are found all the time. And I tend not to clutch onto
28:29
them and say that then we, we must hold onto these things at
28:33
all costs because they are who we are.
28:35
We've breathed this mythology or this memory for so long.
28:41
It has formed us. But maybe we don't need to hold
28:44
on to these things anymore. Do you know, hold them in your
28:47
open path and they are things. And if they have real practical
28:52
use, if they have a real use, these stories or craft, then
28:56
they will live. We don't have to prop them up
28:59
artificially. We don't have to care for them
29:02
and conserve them with such delicacy.
29:05
Let them be in the strongest of winds, in the Gale, that is,
29:09
that is passing through our communities.
29:11
And if they live, they live. If they do not and they pass, we
29:16
will remember them. But we will let them pass and we
29:19
will breathe new things. So that is my take on it.
29:23
So these these energies are like a flame and you and you, you're
29:28
quite happy for that flame to die because another flame will
29:32
will then grow and something else will replace it.
29:36
Not better, not worse, but just different.
29:39
Different. Yes, different because I've, I
29:41
think myself in I, I do tell stories and my grandmother was a
29:46
great storyteller, but I didn't hear stories told in my
29:49
community in the same way as I shared them in the Roundhouse.
29:52
That had passed long ago. Really, that had passed long
29:55
ago. And it had passed because there
30:00
was the, the Chapel had come maybe.
30:02
And there was, you know, with, with the Methodist revival,
30:06
there was less of a, a, a year for the old tales and the old
30:10
folk songs in the same, same ways.
30:13
So they were put to ground and, and I'm sort of digging them up
30:17
and researching them. And I'm asking with an open palm
30:21
and an open question, are these still relevant?
30:23
Are they still? Do you still want to hear them?
30:26
So you don't tell stories of the past, they're actually stories
30:30
of the future, but are based on things that you feel are
30:37
important or that you should you should direct people's awareness
30:41
to. Well, they say when you were
30:45
talking about myself as a teacher that you teach most what
30:49
you need to learn yourself. Absolutely yes.
30:52
And. I need to learn these things
30:53
myself, and that's why I share them, because I need to learn
30:57
them myself. I need to hear them myself.
30:59
And when you, when you teach somebody like a yoga teacher,
31:02
they're taught the craft, first of all, the, the skill of yoga.
31:06
And but to be a master, they have to teach other people
31:09
because it's through the teaching.
31:10
Of course, as you know, it's through the teaching of
31:13
something that you become aware of something yourself.
31:16
You're able to detach it from, from your own ego.
31:19
You can look at it, you can shape it, you can become that's
31:22
from it. And I need to, I need this
31:24
ground wire. So yes, we do storytelling in
31:28
the round house and that's fantastic fantasy.
31:31
It is fantastical and we do the craft because it's an earth
31:34
wire. It grounds us.
31:37
So we don't not soaring with the birds or the Dragons all the
31:42
time. In fantasy, we're actually
31:44
digging in the earth. We're planting trees, we're
31:47
making a Stonewall, we're working with the heli heavy real
31:51
elements of the earth. And when you can dig and and
31:55
make a building with your bare hands, then you can talk about
31:59
magic. And you would just sort of set
32:02
you, I'm just going to pick up on that analogy that you just
32:05
use with, with yoga and been having doing yoga everyday,
32:10
which I do. Then it's never you never
32:13
actually learn yoga. It's always a practice.
32:17
It's it's and there's that's that just went through my mind
32:21
then when you were just saying that because it's never it is
32:24
apartment, it just sort of keeps it together.
32:26
So you are really quite a, you're a bridge to people's
32:31
imaginations, to different lives that they can live, to skills
32:35
that you can bring out. You're a bridge to make that
32:38
happen here. And felon and felon, Luca is, is
32:42
really that sort of environment that they can thrive in and feel
32:46
safe in, I guess. Feel safe in yes.
32:49
Do you choose the stories or do the stories choose you?
32:52
Oh, that's. Another You all have such
32:55
interesting questions. I choose.
32:58
I choose the stories that I love.
33:00
Of course, out of the array of stories, I have hundreds of
33:02
stories. Because you want to keep
33:04
learning them. Yes, I I love to tell them
33:07
because they they put me in a frame of mind.
33:09
Some of them are difficult stories, some of them are
33:11
unresolved and I'm yet to find their their roots.
33:15
And some of them are, well, they're, they're new to me.
33:20
And I'm telling them for the first time sometimes really.
33:24
So I don't always tell the same tale.
33:26
In fact, I'm tired of myself if I told the same tale all the
33:29
time. I sometimes lean on an old tale
33:31
sometimes because it's an old favorite, like an old friend
33:35
that comes up every now and again seasonally.
33:38
But sometimes there are new tales.
33:40
So I'm learning new stories now and I won't tell them publicly
33:44
for another couple of years. I'm, I'm maturing them.
33:47
I'm working on them. OK, I'm not going to ask, I'm
33:50
not going to ask you to give away that confidence because
33:54
like a good wine, it would be, it would be wrong to try and tap
33:57
the barrel before it's before it's actually fermented
34:01
properly. But if could I impose on you or
34:07
just during this Voices series, could I impose on you just to
34:10
tell us a short story? Yes.
34:13
We've been talking about the sea in and out.
34:15
One of the stories that I love. I was a child who was fortunate
34:21
to go out into the sea as a young age in a little wooden
34:24
boat fishing for mackerel. And of course many people do, in
34:28
a little outboard engine tugging away out beyond the cricket
34:32
castle, back behind, beyond the rocks.
34:34
And my friend's father used to get snagged from time to time at
34:38
the, at the roots of the at the base of the sea.
34:41
And he would say, can you hear it?
34:43
Can you hear it? And we listened.
34:45
We craned our heads and we never could.
34:48
But he said he could. And he said there was a bell
34:52
far, far down below and that he could hear the tugging, he could
34:56
hear the bell ringing still on its tower far below.
34:59
Of course he was, He was full of story and, and he was telling us
35:03
about Clerk. I can't read Guillot, Clerk, I
35:06
can't read Guillot. And it's one of the stories of
35:09
Wales that I, I love the best, I think, because it brings
35:14
together geology, geography, history, mythology, community,
35:22
all those things. And it's a meeting place for all
35:26
of those things. So it's a long tail and in it,
35:31
in it perhaps. Should I tell you a part of it
35:34
please? Yes.
35:35
Please see every every western seaboard has it's Atlantis story
35:41
and Cantreguil of the lower hundreds is our story is our
35:45
story and our beginnings. So there is a there is a land
35:50
spreading out to sea, a golden land full of wheat and honey.
35:54
The orchards are so full of apples that that that the trees
35:58
honking lean over in the autumn time honking with apples.
36:01
Everything is fruitful and golden.
36:04
And there is a king and his name is Gwydnall.
36:09
Gwydnall and he has a brother and his name is Saith Yennon.
36:12
Saith Yennon is the watcher of the Tower and it's a tower
36:16
stretches high, high, high over the city walls.
36:19
And the city walls are built from South to north, all along
36:23
the side of the land. And the land is low, low lying.
36:27
And the city walls are the only things that protect it from the
36:31
sea, from Manan and MC Moor, from the king of the sea that
36:35
everyday drives its chariot up and down the the coast looking
36:39
for a breach in the wall. But, say Tienen in the
36:42
watchtower keeper, he rings a great bell when the tide comes
36:46
in, and 20 strong men put their hands to behind the beam, push
36:50
the door fast and close the doors against the tide.
36:54
And then when the tide goes out and the Chariots are out far
36:58
across the sea again, he calls again with a bell the 20 strong
37:02
men. They open the gates again and
37:04
the rivers flow out into the sea.
37:06
And everyday this happens twice a day, of course.
37:09
And the story goes that there is a great storm that brews one
37:12
night and saith Yanin, he's drunk.
37:15
He's found drunk in the court of his of his brother and he misses
37:20
the call of the bell. And because of that, the whole
37:25
of the lower lands are flooded. And it's said that that night a
37:30
freak storm, the the stars are blotted out like candles being
37:35
blown out. It's a very beautiful
37:36
description. It's a long tail.
37:39
And if I give you the story as it happens, as it unfolds for a
37:45
young boy whose name is Gwynheidel Gwynheidel.
37:49
Gwynheidel is a young Fisher boy and his cottage is at the foot
37:53
of the earthen dyke. And this night he sees all the
37:57
sea birds coming over the dyke, all the gulls, all the
38:01
cormorants, and he hears them coming silently and settling in
38:06
the fields, and he knows that's the only sure sign of a storm.
38:11
But he can hear no wind, and he makes his makes his way to the
38:14
top of the dike. He looks out and he can see that
38:17
the sea is far, far out. The sun is setting, the moon is
38:21
rising, and there's hardly a shimmer on the sea.
38:27
It's so calm, hardly a shimmer on the sea.
38:30
It's Mill Poncalm, and it's far, far out against the sands.
38:34
And then he turns and there's a crackle on the horizon.
38:38
There's a crackle. And 1 by 1 the stars are blown
38:42
out, like candles being blown out.
38:46
And the great curtain of darkness rises from the South.
38:50
And then a wind gently blows in his hair.
38:53
And then the wind becomes a Gale and he looks to the watchtower
38:56
and he can see in the lightning that the watchtower is empty and
38:59
the bell is swinging by now in the wind.
39:02
And he makes his way from tower to tower along the along the top
39:06
top of the wall until he reaches the great watchtower.
39:09
And he calls to saith the Ennen, calls the watchman there.
39:12
Ring your bell, call the male and call the men.
39:15
But there's nobody there. Saith the Ennen is down in the
39:18
Great Hall, his his cheek on the spilt, wine on the table,
39:23
snoring. And so it falls upon Gwynhoedel
39:26
and he takes the great oaken staff.
39:28
He strikes the great bell, but by then it's too late.
39:32
Mannan and Mcmoore, the king of the sea, is galloping in with
39:35
his Chariots, white horses galloping in from east to West,
39:40
all whipped to A to a fury. And he's making his way towards
39:45
the dyke and there's nothing that Gwynhoedel can do about it.
39:48
He comes through the dashes open the the great city gates, takes
39:52
the city gates on the horses hooves and and the horses naying
39:57
come into the city, shatter the walls.
40:01
They flow into the city with the sea and drown the city.
40:05
And Gwen Heidel makes his way to the stable, gets a White Horse,
40:09
takes the sleeping Princess and and makes landward.
40:14
All night he's riding, riding, riding, riding eastward, and all
40:18
night he hears behind in the crackle of Thunder.
40:21
And the hooves of Manon and Mcmoore and the white horses of
40:23
the sea chasing him. And all night they hear the
40:26
wheat being flattened and the orchards crashing under the
40:31
waves behind them. And they make their way,
40:33
galloping, galloping, until they start to climb.
40:36
And then they climb into the foothills of Snowdonia.
40:38
And exhausted, the horse falls on it's side, and they sleep.
40:43
Under the flank of the horse, under the belly of the sleeping
40:46
horse. They sleep all night, the
40:48
crackling of the wind and the Thunder over them, and in the
40:53
morning there's blue sky, there's larks, and Gwen.
40:58
Hoedel lifts his head above the belly of the sleeping horse and
41:02
all he can see are the grey churning waves of the sea where
41:05
the land was. And of course, that's the story
41:09
of Cantrell Guillot of the lower lands.
41:12
And there are still sunken forests there.
41:14
And navasotra, there's still sunken forests from that time.
41:16
It's said to have been a real event that happened about 7000
41:20
BC. Great part of Norway slumped
41:23
into the sea, caused a great tsunami that came and swamped
41:27
Dogger Bank, came round St. George's Channel, broke through
41:30
the last of the glacial dikes. That was the salt marsh of the
41:35
Thleen and and flooded the land here.
41:38
So it's a memory that we've kept in story in this form for over
41:44
7000 years now. That's goose pimply
41:48
extraordinary, isn't it? And Gwynheidel, well the boy
41:51
went, where did he settle? He settled in San Gwinheidel,
41:55
San Guanadel. And it's said that there's a
41:57
stone there where he put his footprint and it stared to this
42:00
day outside of the church, Gwynheidel's footprint, young
42:04
lad, Gwen Hoedel sang Gwen Hoedel.
42:07
So it has a place in and it's, and we, we can, we can talk
42:12
about this story. But a friend of mine, he's a
42:14
geologist, he's a, an oceanographic scientist.
42:18
And he can take you to where you can look upon the maps and see
42:23
that actually there was this great dike, we call it Saint
42:27
Patrick's Causeway, that kept back the sea for all that time
42:30
until the great tsunami broke through, flooded this lower
42:34
hundreds and and now we have the great churning ways of the sea
42:38
all remembered in this tale. Amazing, extraordinary, amazing.
42:43
Absolutely. Extraordinary is the right word.
42:45
Yeah. Thank you for that.
42:46
And that was that was that was awesome.
42:48
I think what that sort of brings us to is the fact that this land
42:55
does have a voice. It's, I'm so thrilled that our
42:59
series is called Voices of the Land, because I think this land
43:03
does have a, a voice. And the land, from what you've
43:06
said this afternoon, the land isn't silent.
43:09
It's it continually reminds us where we are and and who we
43:15
should be I guess. If we if we have a year to
43:17
listen and if we have a year to listen, isn't it?
43:20
Yes, in a way we're listening to ourselves and in a way and the
43:23
land is mirroring who we who we wish to be, who we could be and
43:28
who wish to be but and isn't telling us to be anybody but
43:31
ourselves fully. And we don't need to hear that,
43:35
we need to listen to it, don't we?
43:37
That's more listening than than. Hearing yeah, absolutely, yeah.
43:43
And I think I'd, I'd sort of bring Velanuka and yourself and
43:49
this whole, this whole experience, I'd, I'd sort of say
43:53
as long as stories are told here, this place is alive.
43:58
And in this part of Wales, the land doesn't just sit here.
44:03
It, it remembers. And if you know how to listen
44:08
exactly what you've just said, I guess it speaks to you.
44:13
And some of the most important things that, that you can learn
44:16
that certainly I, I've learnt can't be written down.
44:19
They have to be shown, heard, felt, and and I guess lived
44:24
really. So let's put ourselves back,
44:28
David. Let's put a let's stay with this
44:31
story for a moment and sign this off for us really, because it's
44:37
it, it really sort of concludes where we've been today and, and
44:42
the fact that the voices of this land are listening to us.
44:47
The fire is low now, the voices have softened, and outside, the
44:51
wind still moves across the theme, just as it always has.
44:55
Nothing is here is new, and yet nothing here feels old.
45:01
Because this place, Kanol Vamelenkov, isn't holding on to
45:05
the past. It's keeping something alive.
45:08
Not in books, not behind glass, but in people, in telling the
45:13
story, in the telling of a story, in the passing of a
45:16
skill, in the quiet moment when someone realises they're part of
45:19
something bigger than themselves.
45:21
And maybe that's what we've been searching for.
45:24
In a world that moves faster every day, places like this ask
45:28
us to slow down, to listen, to remember, to remember.
45:35
Because as long as we do, the fire never really goes out.
45:40
And I think my question for our listeners from both of us is,
45:45
when did you, the last, the listener last sit and truly
45:50
listen? And what stories belong to your
45:54
place, to the place that that you've occupied so far in your
45:58
life? David, is there anything in the
46:02
podcast that we've missed that you'd like to add or are you
46:09
happy just to call it a day at that?
46:12
No, it's perfect. I think you you captured your
46:15
questions are very poignant and they we we could speak for for
46:19
days, couldn't we Mark? Well, I'm sure you can.
46:21
One of those things, but anyone thinks it's, it's, it's, it's
46:24
thrilling and and we haven't exhausted any of those
46:28
questions. I've taken you wide, wide, wide
46:32
of the mark of some of them onto other.
46:35
But that's the way one story takes us to another.
46:39
Absolutely, absolutely. So yes, I'm delighted.
46:41
It's been a real pleasure. Thank you, and it has for me,
46:44
thank you. So I'd just like to say a very
46:47
big thank you. This is very important to our
46:50
Voices of the Land series because we want people to hold
46:55
on to this, hold on to the experience, hold on to the
46:57
stories that you've shared this afternoon.
47:00
And I'd only sign off quite heartfelt and say may the
47:06
dunker's spirit. Go with you.