KATE MARTIN: Hello and welcome to the National Trust podcast.
When I was in Beddgelert a couple of weeks back, I went on
a beautiful walk with the National Trust Countryside
Manager there, Rhys Thomas.
And while we were walking on one of the trust new accessible
paths, he told me the curious tale of two dragons.
Now Rhys, I've got a bit of a thing about Welsh dragons. I
started collecting Welsh dragons when I was a child and I now
have a house full of them much to my husband's horror.
But this area is very famous for its dragon myths. The beautiful
Llyn Dinas lake is just to our right. It has a little bit more
than fish lurking in its depths, I believe.
RHYS THOMAS: Yeah, that's how the story goes. So just just
above in the background over there, you can see Dinas Emrys
and the story of Dinas Emrys was that Vortigern was the Celtic
king.
King of the Britons and he was sort of retreating from the
Saxon invasion and they built a fort on, on Dinas Emrys to
defend Snowdonia.
The story goes that they were building the castle up at the
top. Every night, there'd be huge rumbles and everything that
they built during that day would be lost. They would just all
crumbled to the floor and all the tools that they'd use during
the day would just disappear.
So, the king's advisor suggested that he needed to sacrifice a
young boy and that would sort of ease the gods. But when they
found a young boy, they brought him up and he persuaded
Vortigern that it wasn't the case, but it was actually two
dragons fighting beneath the hillock in a cave above a pool
or a lake.
And it turned out this young boy was Merlin from the King Arthur
myths and legends.
Basically, he persuaded Vortigern to dig down and find
what was beneath and lo and behold, there were two dragons.
One was the Red Dragon of Wales. And the second was the the white
dragon representing the Saxons. So they had a, a mighty battle.
The Red Dragon of Wales banished the, the white dragon of the
Saxons into Llyn Dinas. Never to be seen again.
It's symbolic of the Welsh sort of not being suppressed by the
Saxons back then.
They did an archaeological dig in the fifties. They actually
found the remains of a medieval structure believed to be
Vortigern's castle. It's a fantastic story really. And you
know, it dates back so many years and I you know, you like
to think there's an element of, of truth to it really!
KATE MARTIN: Thanks for listening to this week's
National Trust mini episode.
In next week's full episode. I'll be walking on my home turf
in Formby, until then from me, Kate Martin. Goodbye.