CASTLE.] NOTICE HISTORICAL AND TRADITIONAL. 337 testimony, that whatever hands may have raised the first structure, that which now occupies our attention is of Norman architecture. The historical details of Llanstephan are meagre and unsatisfactory; we would desire to learn the circumstances of siege and storm and surrender, the acts of fortitude and valour which mutually distinguished the besieged and their assailants, their patient endurance of privations, their resolute and determined resistance, the nightly assault, the treachery of professing allies, the regular investment by open enemies, the daily skirmishes, the nightly advance, the scaling of the walls, the final struggle, the throwing open of gates, the dismantling of towers, with mingled traits of personal prowess, magnanimity, and fortitude. But of these, history observes a mysterious silence. We learn, however, that Caddell, Meredydd, and Rhys, sons of Gryffyd-ap-Rhys*-the prince so often named in these pages-having in 1143 succeeded in their enterprise against Carmarthen Castle, were induced to make a similar attempt upon Llanstephan, and, directing their march to that point, invested the walls, and summoning the Norman garrison to surrender, were answered by a message of contempt and defiance. This, however, served merely to stimulate the Cambrian leaders into immediate action; for, after a spirited resistance, they carried the fortress by storm or stratagem, and planted their own countrymen within its walls. This daring exploit was instantly reported to the Norman legions beyond the frontier, who made all possible haste to vindicate the tarnished honour of the garrison; and mustering all their available strength, soon made their appearance under the walls of Llanstephan. The consequence of this movement was a protracted siege, in the progress of which everything promised a successful issue to the Normans. At last, while the Cambrian garrison within did little more than regard their operations with passive indifference, the signal was given to scale the ramparts, and at the word every Norman flew to the assault. Meredydd, however, was well prepared to give his unbidden guests a Welsh welcome; and while the Normans, like swarming bees, were covering fosse and rock with their numbers, he ordered a wedge to be struck home, and no sooner was the hammer at work than an avalanche of rocks, suddenly let loose from the highest point of the ramparts, overwhelmed the invaders, and hurled the scaling party and their ladders into the ravine below. A shout of derision followed them from the garrison above; operations on both sides were suspended; and with their ranks thus suddenly thinned by a catastrophe as unseen as it was disastrous, the Normans sullenly withdrew. But it was only to return with increased strength and whetted *This and most others of the native patronymics are all variously spelt by different writers. VOL. II. vengeance. They had sworn to extirpate the garrison at their next visit, and the Norman leader was not a man to break his word whenever stimulated by a thirst of revenge or plunder. We need not dwell upon the skill and vigour of the besiegers, nor the spirited resistance of the garrison. But, in the present instance, the siege was conducted in a more regular and systematic method than heretofore; they had recourse to all the appliances of military art. The warlike engines employed against stubborn fortresses were now called into perpetual action, and night and day the butting of the battering-rams continued to shake the ramparts, until here and there a stone dropping from the mason-work, the whole ramparts began to shake under the feet of the besieged. At length, a breach being effected, the Normans poured in their best troops, and for a time the conflict was maintained with desperate fury. Foot to foot the assailants met, fought, and fell where they stood. Too proud to ask quarter, the fiery Cambrian rushed upon his adversary with a blind impetuosity that often placed him at his mercy; while the Norman, adroit in the management of his weapon, and bent on revenging his countrymen, was only stimulated to indiscriminate slaughter; and long before sunrise the Norman banner waved on the Castle of Llanstephan. In M.CC.XVI the fortune of war was again invoked. The Norman sway, so intolerable to native independence, had extended its influence and territory; and with these had inspired into the heart of every reflecting Cambrian, a deep sense of the wrongs inflicted upon his country. With an irrepressible and Wallace-like determination to crush or expel the invader, he rushed to the conflict. This, so far as regards Llanstephan, was partly effected by Llewelyn-ap-Iorwerth, who, after a successful attack, entered the fortress, slew or captured the garrison, and then, to prevent its being again turned against the peace of the country, dismantled the walls, threw down the gates, filled up the ditches, and left its towers for a habitation to the owls. The position of the Castle, however, was too advantageous to be neglected for more than a season: for, as war continued rampant along the marches, the demand for garrisons increased; and Llanstephan was again converted into a fortress, and crowded with troops. In this state it appears to have continued until the year 1254. But in those days of mutual hatred and jealousy—when neighbour plotted against neighbour, and friendships cemented at morning were often changed, by some sudden exasperation, into mortal enmities before nightthe garrison of Llanstephan could never remain unconcerned spectators of passing events. Llewelyn-ap-Grufydd, whose name is so familiar in the Cambrian annals, finding himself in a position to resent, to the very death, some personal insult from the haughty castellan of Llanstephan, summoned his countrymen "This offensive castle," said he, "must be demolished! Ye have to arms. CASTLE.] ST. ANTON'S WELL-WATER-ITS VIRTUES. 339 true British hearts; and if your hands will only obey those hearts, my countrymen, before two days elapse ye shall drive your goats to pasture in the courtyard of Llanstephan!" This old Griffin kept his word-the raid was successful-his flag soon waved over the battlements of the castle; and there we leave him for the present to enjoy the fruits of his new seigneurie. It St. Anton's Well, in the parish of Llanstephan, was long a place of popular resort for invalids. Impregnated by some mysterious qualities which escaped detection by the ancient process of analysis, the water was lauded as a neverfailing resource under those forms of corporeal malady which had baffled the skill of physicians, and conducted the sufferer to the very brink of despair. may, therefore, be imagined, that the concourse of pilgrims was a source of no little emolument to the place, more especially to the "hydropathic" friar of the olden day, who presided at the well, and propitiated, for a consideration, the kind offices of St. Anthony. But all the medicinal virtues of this holy well are now left to the gossip of old tradition; and although the fountain bubbles up as fresh, and clear, and salubrious as ever, public faith in its qualities has been shaken; and no pilgrim, in these days of scientific analysis, ever stoops down to taste the water, and, in testimony of its virtue, leaves his crutch behind him.* * Nevertheless, the old maxim of >on μ lòng has lost nothing of its truth as a medicinal agent in the treatment of human maladies. The superstitious belief that once carried the invalid to drink, "nothing doubting," of some distant well, necessitated, in many instances, a total change of scenes and habits, which could hardly fail to prove beneficial in many cases, in which the comforts of home and the established rules of treatment had been found quite ineffectual. The cures ascribed to hydropathy in our own time are, in many cases, not a whit less wonderful than those ascribed by monkish legends to the holy wells of England and Wales. The only difference is, that while tradition affirms that new limbs were known to sprout out [as in the claw of a lobster] by the plentiful use of certain waters, hydropathists restrict themselves to the reproduction of lungs only; so that the modern wells have rather an advantage over the ancient in the art of miracle-working. 海瓜 LAUGHARNE CASTLE, Carmarthenshire. "Now strike ye the harp that has slumbered so long, OWARDS the south end of the town, close on the Bay of Carmarthen, are the ruins of the Castle, supposed to have been founded by Guido de Brian, in the reign of Henry III., or, according to others, to have been rebuilt by him; for it is said that the original castle was destroyed by Llywelyn-apIorwerth as early as 1215. as 1215. If so, the said Guido de Brian rebuilt it in the following reign. The remains, which have been many years enclosed within the walls of a private garden, and consist of a large square building-now a mere shell-are still in tolerable preservation. In this parish also are the ruins of what is called Roche's Castle, but which tradition reports to be those of a monastery; though of what order, or epoch in the Cambrian annals, is not ascertained. This monastic or feudal ruin stands about a mile from the Castle of Laugharne, the subject of our present notice. The ancient appellation of this town and castle, according to the native writers, appears to have been Llacharn, and seems to have taken its present orthography from the general of that name-William Laughearne-who distinguished himself in the service of the "Parliament;" and in 1644, after a siege of three weeks, took the Castle of "Llacharn." Its still more ancient name is Abercoran, or Cowan-the "Castle on the banks of the Coran"--which, at a short distance below the. Castle, empties itself into the sea. Local tradition says that the parish church CASTLE.] LAUGHARNE-FOUNDERS-GUY De brian. 341 formerly stood upon a farm, in an island called Craseland-that is, Christ'sland; but of the sacred edifice, not a vestige remains to support the tradition- "Not an arch of nave or aisle Not a relic marks the pile; Floor and fretted vault are gone!" The Corporation consists of a portreeve, a recorder, an indefinite number of aldermen, two common attorneys, four constables, and seventy-six burgesses, who have shares in lands and commons which were given to the Corporation by "Sir Guido de Brian the younger, lord marcher of the said town and lordship of Laugharne," in the reign of King John. "His cloak or mantle," says Carlisle, "richly embroidered in purple and gold, is still preserved in the parish church." Laugharne, as described by a recent tourist, is one of the neatest and cleanest of the smaller towns of South Wales. It has many excellent dwellinghouses, a good inn for the accommodation of travellers, and possessing various local attractions and a cheap market, many private families have made choice of it as a residence which unites pleasure and economy. The situation is low and sheltered-bounded by the tidal estuary and the Taff, which, at low water, presents a wide extent of dry land-an amphibious territory, which the inconstant sea alternately invades and deserts. Guy de Brian-The founder of this name, and his successors, were all in their day knights of military renown. Their chief seat was in these marches, where, in the 29th Henry III., the first Guy received command to assist the Earl of Gloucester in suppressing some new insurrection in the country. Toward the close of the same reign, he had summons to attend the king at Chester -well fitted with horse and arms-to "prevent the incursions of that unruly people." But not long after this, when the breach betwixt the king and divers of the great barons happened, he adhered unto them; for it appears that, after the battle of Lewes, where the king was made prisoner by the barons, he was constituted by them governor of the Castles of Cardigan and Kaermerdyn [or Carmarthen], which commission was renewed the next ensuing year; he having then also the like trust granted unto him by them for the Castle of Kilgaran. But shortly after, when the battle of Evesham "had quelled the power of those haughty spirits, he became one of the sureties for Robert de Vere, then Earl of Oxford, that he should thenceforth demean himself peaceably, and stand to the decree called 'Dictum de Kenilworth,' for the redemption of his lands." Guy of Laugharne married Eve, daughter and heir of Henry de Trací, and dying in the 31st Edward I. left a son-then in his twenty-fourth year— named also Guy, who being a knight, in the 4th of Edward III., was made governor of the Castle of Haverford. "But it was found by inquisition, |