Snowdonia National Park (Drws y Coed)
North Wales is absolutely scattered full of old sites and stone circles, as Welsh Druidry breathes and changes with the very landscape from which it springs. Everything in Welsh culture ties into the land and its spirits, in some way or the other, whether local people are aware of it or not. Not only does Welsh economy derive from the land (farming, mining, and tourism), but also the language itself, varying from village to village, from seashore to mountain, north and south. Language plays such a vital role in any culture as it is one of the glues that adhere people together, into a cohesive and comprehensible community. With the Welsh language, yr iaith gymraeg, it stems from two sources—the tangible land (instead of vague ideas, yr iaith gymraeg focuses on location, place, belonging) and the oral tradition (passed on from druid to community, parents to children, and so on).
It’s from this oral tradition that myths and legends such as the Mabinogi arise. These are not just works of literature to be dissected and disseminated. Welsh legend is intrinsically tied into the landscape and the two-way relationship of those living there, with their environment. Everywhere and anywhere you go, place names give you clues to the local history and spirits.
Welsh legend primarily tells the story of the local ancestors, and as it was the ancestors of place who knew and shaped or were shaped by their homes, then it is by connecting to these same places, feeling the stones they touched, seeing the mountainous horizons they saw, wading in rivers and seas as they did, that anyone, whether of welsh or non-welsh origin, can discover the same knowledge, encounter the same experiences, feel the same energies, just as the ancestors did in their times. That thrills me.
You can still visit the place where Arianrhod lived, or where Blodeuwedd and Gronw murdered Lleu. You can explore the localities and settings behind the mythologies, and by doing so, an entire new interaction and level of understanding opens up, to those with eyes to see. This is what I love about living in Wales. Ireland and Scotland definitely have their own legends and similar way of handling landscape, but it isn’t the same. Wales sings her own song. What other places in the world can you still enter the ancient mindset and connect with the same earth that watered and fed this lifestyle, while still implemented within a modern system? The Celtic Isles shine in this way.
About These Pages:
Join me, Jenn, as I explore North Wales' sacred sites through the history, mythology and language where I live. These pages will be informal, like a friend to a friend. We'll visit cairns and barrows, standing stones and circles, holy wells, old trees, places mentioned in Welsh legend. The information shared will come from my own research, or from the locals and first hand experience. I hope you enjoy it as much as I do, and are encouraged to come visit these places for yourself. Just remember that all earth is sacred, and that while pilgrimage is meaningful, there is nothing like falling in love with the places where you live. No place like home.
North Wales Sacred Sites (By Region):
The High Place
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In the ruins,
a sapling shakes sleep to the ground,
a birch,
beginning of a tribe
beginning of a grove.
Is there anything that can keep you remembering?
One day,
a hedge of stars,
a deep forest of tradition
a reminder on aged lips.
The folk’s poet,
never forgets
and will go to a high place,
up to the sound,
up to the grove,
to remember.
To remember life.
~by Eadha Deora
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A "high place" on top of Y Garn, looking to Snowdon with glimmerings of snow
