Welsh Country - Issue88 - May - Jun 19

STORIES IN STONE
Gwenllian, with her two youngest sons Maelgwn, 16, and
Morgan, 18, led out a force to intercept them. This is the
only known example of a medieval woman leading an army
of Welshmen into battle.
They marched secretly through the forest of Ystrad Tywi
to Kidwelly and camped two miles upstream alongside
the river Gwendraeth, at the foot of Mynydd y Garreg
and waited. She sent out detachments to intercept the reinforcements.
Legend has it however that they were betrayed by a local
called Gruffudd ap Llewelyn. In such fragmented and
uncertain politics there was always treachery. It was in truth
always going to be difficult. The Welsh were completely out
manoeuvred. Not only did the Normans evade the Welsh
detachment but also they circled around the encampment
and took up a position on Mynydd y Garreg. They attacked
at speed down the hill, whilst Maurice advanced from the
castle.
Gwenllian was trapped with her back to the river and the
remnants of her army were quickly hacked to pieces. It is
believed that Maelgwyn was killed when he threw his own
body in front of his mother to protect her. Morgan was
wounded and captured. He could only watch as Gwenllian
was taken prisoner and immediately beheaded.
The field where it took place is known as Maes Gwenllian,
a small piece of flat land between hill and river.
It was a brief and a bloody encounter, entirely successful
as far as the Normans were concerned, and of no more
importance than so many others. The victors write the
history after all. But for the Welsh the death of Gwenllian
had much greater significance. She became a nationalist
symbol. The warrior princess fighting for her family and
her country. There were legends, of course. A spring welled
up on the spot where her head fell. Her headless ghost
haunted the battlefield looking for her missing head. She
only found peace when her skull was recovered and buried.
An oppressed people needed a romantic heroine. But it is
unlikely that she ever was what the myths say, “A queen of
the Amazons”, riding out at the head of an army.
Her name became a rallying cry throughout the great
rebellion of 1136. “Revenge for Gwenllian”
was a chant that accompanied
the sacking of Aberystwyth castle by troops lead by her
brothers. Her name remained a badge of identity for
centuries after her death.
But history moved on. Her father and her husband
both died in 1137. Her story soon only survived in an oral
tradition, passed on by the travelling bards in the distant
valleys where the Welsh survived, in opposition to Norman
rule. And although it was Norman culture which represented
the future, outside their castles an older culture survived,
believing in symbols and portents, waiting for the spirits of
King Arthur and of Merlin to arise from their slumbers and
drive out the invaders, crying out, perhaps, “Revenge for
Gwenllian!”
She became part of their common heritage, a part of the
stubborn individuality and identity of the Welsh, always
ready to defy the odds.
As a symbolic figure her name carried more weight with
our ancestors than it does generally today. She features in the
ancestral line of the Tudor line of the present Royal family,
but with little recognition. She is just a name, with little of
the significance that she once possessed.
But she is remembered in Kidwelly. Hers has always been
a popular name there, and is remembered in the quieter lives
that are remembered more conventionally in the churchyard.
There is a school in her name, a street - Llys Gwenllian - a
Community Hall, a hotel. And a farm with the field in which
she died.
The site of the battle is a little way upstream along the
Gwendraeth river that curls around the foot of the castle. It
is just a field now, green and marshy, where a mother
and a son died and a legend was born, and then
slowly forgotten.
Words: Geoff Brookes
Illustration: Charlotte Wood
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