Mynydd y Fedw

In ‘Celtic Folklore Welsh And Manx’ (1901), John Rhys recounted the following folktale originally passed down Siân Dafydd of Helfa Fawr, and Mari Domos Siôn of Tyn Gadlas, Llanberis who would probably have been born around 1770.

‘To the farm of Bron y Fedw there belonged a son, who grew up to be a young man, the women knew not how long before their time. He was in the habit of going up the mountain to Cwm Drywenydd and Mynydd y Fedw, on the west side of Snowdon, to do the shepherding, and there he was wont to come across a lass on the mountain, so that as the result of frequently meeting one another, he and she became great friends. They usually met at a particular spot in Cwm Drywenydd, where the girl and her family lived, and where there were all kinds of nice things to eat, of amusements, and of incomparable music; but he did not make up to anybody there except the girl. The friendship ended in courtship; but when the boy mentioned that she should be married to him, she would only do so on one condition, namely, that she would live with him until he should strike her with iron. They were wedded, and they lived together for a number of years, and had children. Once on a time it happened to be market day at Carnarvon, whither the husband and wife thought of riding on ponies, like all the farmers of that time. So they went to the mountain to catch a pony each. At the bottom of Mynydd y Fedw there is a pool some sixty or one hundred yards long by twenty or thirty broad, and on one side of it there is a level space along which the horses used to run. The husband caught a pony, and gave it to the wife to hold fast without a bridle, while he should catch another. When he had bridled his own pony, he threw another bridle to his wife for her to secure hers; but as he threw it, the bit of the bridle struck her on one of her hands. The wife let go the pony, and went headlong into the pool, and that was the end of their wedded life.’