THE STORY OF GELERT.

(AS CURRENT IN ANGLESEA)


It was somewhere about 1200, Prince Llewellyn had a castle at Aber,
just abreast of us here; indeed, parts of the towers remain to this
day. His consort was the Princess Joan; she was King John's
daughter. Her coffin remains with us to this day. Llewellyn was a
great hunter of wolves and foxes, for the hills of Carnarvonshire
were infested with wolves in those days, after the young lambs.

Now the prince had several hunting-houses--sorts of farm houses, one
of them was at the place now called Beth-Gelert, for the wolves were
very thick there at this time. Now the prince used to travel from
farm-house to farm-house with his family and friends, when going on
these hunting parties.

One season they went hunting from Aber, and stopped at the house
where Beth-Gelert is now--it's about fourteen miles away. The prince
had all his hounds with him, but his favourite was Gelert, a hound
who had never let off a wolf for six years.

The prince loved the dog like a child, and at the sound of his horn
Gelert was always the first to come bounding up. There was company
at the house, and one day they went hunting, leaving his wife and
the child, in a big wooden cradle, behind him at the farm-house.