HISTORY OF POWYS FADOG.

CHAPTER I.

GWRTHEYRN GWRTHENEU, or Vortigern, Prince of Erging, Ewias and Caer Glouyw or Gloucester, was elected King of Britain, upon the assassination of King Constans in the year 446. We find from the inscription on the shaft of the Cross erected to the memory of his great grandfather, King Eliseg, who died in the year 773, by his great grandson, King Cyngen II, that Vortigern married Seveira, the daughter of the Emperor Maximus, who slew the Emperor Gratian. By his Queen Seveira, Vortigern had three sons,--1. Gwartimer, who afterwards became King of Britain; 2. Cyndeyrn; 3. Pascens, who became King of Buallt.

From this second son Cyndeyrn descended the Kings and Princes of Powys, and the Tribe of Tudor Trevor, but according to the monk Nennius, they descended from a totally different stock.

Nennius states that during the reign of Vortigern a certain St. Germanus, Bishop of Auxerre in Gaul, came over to Britain, having been sent there by Pope St. Caelestine II to restore Christianity. Amongst others, Germanus went to visit Benlli Gawr, a king whose territories comprised the province Teyrnllwg. His castle was situate on a hill between Rhuddin and Y Wyddgrug (Mold), still called after him Moel Fenlli. Thither Germanus went, but the King declining to have anything to do with him, and having ordered him away, a young man named Cadell, one of the King's servants, gave him shelter, which having obtained, the monk Nennius declares that the anger of God fell on the King, and that ignis de cælo cecidit et combussit arcem, et omnes qui

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cum tyranno erant, nec ultra apparuerunt nec arx reædificate est, usque in hodiernem diem"; and that Germanus made Cadell King of Teyrnllwg, and that he became the ancestor of the Kings of Powys.

This statement made by the Christian monk Nennius, might at first sight appear extraordinary, did we not know from the Old Testament that Jehovah was in the habit of destroying the cities of his enemies with fire, and slaying the kings, princes, women, and children with the edge of the sword. In the book of Joshua we read as follows:

"And it came to pass when Joshua was by Jericho, that he lifted up his eyes and looked, and behold there stood a man over against him with his sword drawn in his hand; and Joshua went unto him, and said unto him, Art thou for us, or for our adversaries? and he said, Nay; but as Captain of the host of the Lord am I now come. And Joshua fell on his face to the earth, and did worship, and said unto him, What saith my Lord unto his servant? And the Captain of the Lord's host said unto Joshua, Loose thy shoe from off thy foot, for the place whereon thou standest is holy; and Joshua did so.

"And the Lord said unto Joshua, See, I have given into thine hand Jericho, and the king thereof, and the mighty men of valour. So the host of Israel took Jericho, in the manner described in the Old Testament. And they utterly destroyed all that was in the city, both man and woman, young and old, and ox, and sheep, and ass, with the edge of the sword, and they burnt the city with fire and all that was therein. Only the silver and the gold, and the vessels of brass and of iron, they put into the treasury of the house of the Lord.

"And the Lord said unto Joshua, Fear not, neither be thou dismayed; take all the people of war with thee, and arise, go up to Ai; see, I have given into thine hand the king of Ai, and his people, and his city, and his land. And thou shalt do to Ai and her king as thou didst unto Jericho and her king: only the spoil thereof and the cattle thereof shall ye take for a prey unto yourselves. . And Joshua took Ai, and set the city on fire, and slew the men of Ai. And the king of Ai they took alive, and brought him to Joshua. . . . . and so it was, that all that fell that day, both of men and women, were twelve thousand, even all the men of Ai. And Joshua burnt Ai, and made it a heap for ever, even a desolation unto this day. And the King of Ai he hanged on a tree until eventide,

and then threw his lifeless corpse on the bare ground at one of the gateways into the city, and raised a great heap of stones over it."

As the Lord God destroyed the cities of Jericho and Ai, with their kings and all their people, so did he destroy, according to the monk Nennius, King Benlli Gawr and his citadel, and all that was in it.

In the tenth chapter of the book of Joshua, we are told that Adoni Zedec, King of Jerusalem, and his allies, made war against the Gibeonites, and Joshua with his army went to assist them. "And the Lord (Adoni) said unto Joshua, Fear them not: for I have delivered them into thine hand; there shall not a man of them stand before thee." Joshua therefore came upon them suddenly. "And the Lord discomfited them before Israel, and slew them with a great slaughter at Gibeon, and chased them along the way that goeth up to Beth-horon, and smote them to Azekah, and unto Makedah. And it came to pass, as they fled, and were in the going down to Beth-horon, that the Lord cast down great stones from heaven upon them unto Azekah, and they died: they were more which died with hailstones, than they whom the children of Israel slew with the sword. Then spake Joshua to the Lord (Adoni), and he said in the sight of Israel, Sun, stand thou still upon Gibeon; and thou Moon in the valley of Ajalon. And the sun stood still, and the moon. stayed, until the people had avenged themselves upon their enemies. So the Sun stood still in the midst of heaven, and hasted not to go down about a whole day. And there was no day like that before it or after it, that the Lord harkened to the voice of a man: for the Lord fought for Israel,"

This last story inculcates the geometric theory, which is, that the earth is the centre, and that the sun moves round it. This is in direct contradiction to the Pagan philosophy of the Alexandrian school, which teaches the only true theory, viz., the Heliocentric one, which means that the sun is the centre, and that the earth and its satellite the moon move in a circle round it, and for as

serting the truth of the Heliocentric theory the monk Bruno was burnt alive with horrible torture by the Holy Catholic Church, which teaches also that the books of the Old and New Testament were divinely inspired by the Lord Jehovah.

I shall say nothing myself on these awful judgments of the Lord Jehovah on His creatures, but request my readers, whatever Christian sect they may belong to, if they should wish to learn anything more about this extraordinary subject, to purchase and carefully read a little work, very simply and plainly written, called The Conflict of Religion and Science, by Draper, (Kegan Paul and Co., London, price five shillings), and they will then be able to judge for themselves which theory is the true one, and to see what His Holiness Pope Pius IX has decreed to be the belief of the Catholic Church in the late Vatican Council with regard to the Bible.

All parts of the universe are interwoven with each other, and the bond by which they are linked together is holy, there being hardly any single thing that is foreign to or unconnected with the rest. For all parts have been disposed in due co-ordination, and combine to form this beautiful system the world. For the world, though comprising all things, is one, and there is one God who pervades all things, and one substance, and one law which is the common reason of all intelligent creatures, and one truth, and indeed there is also one perfection for all men, since they are all of the same kind and race, and partake of the same reason.1 If, then, this is true, how are we to account for God's altering the course of the sun and moon merely to allow one man to have sufficient time to massacre his foes?

The Pagan philosophers asserted that knowledge is to be obtained only by the laborious exercise of human observation and human reason. No man stands still, he either progresses or retrogrades, it is, therefore, our duty to improve ourselves in every reasonable manner, to get a thorough knowledge of ourselves, and to improve those talents that nature has implanted in each of us.

1 The Emperor Marcus Aurelius, iii, 9, vi, 54.

The account of the Lord God Jehovah as given by Nennius the Christian monk, and the account given of Him in the Old and New Testament, differ very considerably from the description of the Deity as given by the ancient philosophers,

"God," says Pythagoras, "is One; He is not, as some think, external to the universe, but is the universe itself, and is wholly in the whole sphere. His eyes are upon everything that is born: it is He who also creates all the immortal beings, and who is the Author of their power and their deeds. He is the origin of everything; He is the light of the heavens, the Father, the Wisdom, the Soul of all beings, the Mover of all spheres."

"God is neither the object of sense, nor subject to passions, but invisible, only intelligible, and supremely intelligent. In His body He is like the light, and His soul resembles truth. He is the universal Spirit that pervades and diffuses itself over all Nature. All beings receive their life from Him. There is but One only God, who is not, as men are apt to imagine, seated above the world, beyond the orb of the universe, but, being Himself all in all, He sees all the beings that fill His immensity, the only Principle, the Light of heaven, the Father of all. He produces everything; He orders and disposes everything; He is the Reason, the Life, and the Motion of all beings.' Or as another writer expresses it: "God is He in whom we live and move and have our being."

We learn however that Benlli Gawr had a son named Beli, who fell in battle, and his body was buried at Maes Mawr, in the parish of Llanarmon yn Iâl :

"Whose is the grave in the Maes Mawr?
Proud was his hand on the weapon of war,

It is the grave of Beli, the son of Benlli Gawr."

Maes Mawr lies on the mountain between Iâl and Ystrad Alun, above Rhyd y Gyvartha, and here occurred the great battle between Melir ab. . . . . and Beli ab Benlli Gawr, and where Beli was slain; and Meirion erected two stones, one at each end of the grave, which remained until the last forty years.

It was there that a wicked person, one Edward ab John ab Llewelyn of Iâl, owner of the piece of land which had been enclosed out of the mountain where the grave and