Above
Beech Terrace were the slopes of Mynyddislwyn. Low down they were wooded and
shadowed. Farther up there were open, sunny fields. On the summit was a great
earth mound called Twyn Tudur, only yards south of St Tudur’s church and the
adjacent inn. Inevitably called ‘the twmp’ by locals, the mound was probably a
bronze age burial, but in Norman times a small castle was built on its summit.
Nothing is
known of Tudur but his name. He may have been a Dark Age chieftain, a holy man
or both. In the Church Inn they will tell you about the mound:
The mound
is where Tudur lies buried with his long lost treasure.
Listen
boyur, it’s Roman soldiers that are in the mound.
Never! A
mound that size, it’s a giant that’s buried there.
Once a man
tried to dig into the mound in the hope of finding the hidden treasure. But a
thunderstorm arrived from nowhere and he was so terrified that he ran away and
never returned.
My uncle
Clive once took me confidentially on one side. “You know what Mynyddislwyn
means, boy?”
I knew the
answer: “The mountain of Islwyn.”
“Yes, but
who was Islwyn, boy? Who was Islwyn?”
I didn’t
know.
“It was
King Arthur,” whispered uncle Clive, as if the information was top secret. “Islwyn was his Welsh name.”
Up on
Twmbarlwm you can see the ramparts King Arthur built to defend Wales against
the Saxons.
Henllys Ridge up there, Old Court Ridge, it means the court
of Islwyn himself and the druids before him. But of course Islwyn is still
there. You can still hear the sounds of feasting under Mynddislwyn and a great
organ can be heard playing below the slopes of Twmbarlwm.
Years ago a young girl
heard the music and she ran away from her friends to find the source. Of course
she was never seen again.
I looked
across the valley to the fortified hilltop of Twmbarlwm and imagined Arthur,
the Boar of Cornwall, King of the Britons, valiantly fighting the invading
hordes.
Six miles
east of Twmbarlwm is the iron age hill fort of Lodge Hill, known anciently as
Belinstocke: Belin’s stronghold. It lies just north of the present town of
Caerleon with its Roman and Norman castles.
In the
ninth century the Welsh cleric and historian Nennius wrote of ‘The City of the
Legion’ as the site of King Arthur’s ninth battle against the Saxons.
Similarly
the twelfth century churchman Geoffrey of Monmouth had ‘The City of the Legion’
by the River Usk as Arthur’s castle and the site of his coronation. The classic
medieval Welsh tales of the Mabinogion also have Carleon as Arthur’s castle. So
Lodge Hill seems likely to have been the site of Arthur’s battle enthronement
and court.
But I knew
none of this. My uncle’s words echoed in my mind, for him and me Mynyddislwn
was Arthur’s Mountain. I thought of Arthur making his home on the very mountain
on which I lived. Perhaps he lived here, right by the Nant y Crochan.
It seemed
a good place for a king.