Michael Livingston » Adventure

UK Trip 2011: Days Ten and Eleven

Michael Livingston — Fri, 29 Jul 2011 12:04:10 +0000

Article Series - UK Trip 2011

I recently returned to the USA from a sudden but exciting adventure across the pond to the United Kingdom. The goal of the trip was three-fold: to study some unpublished manuscripts of J.R.R. Tolkien (for an article or two in progress), to tour sites related to Owain Glyndwr (for an upcoming book), and to visit the site recently identified as the location of the Battle of Brunanburh.

As a result, the trip was pretty well packed with things to do, so I’ll be breaking up my trip report here into smallish doses. Enjoy!

. . .

Thursday, 21 July 2011

Not quite the roll of adventures today, as most of my time was taken up with the drive from Llangollen to Oxford.

I decided not to stop anywhere, as I’m just about too tired for words. My feet in particular are pretty sore.

I managed to make it back to the car rental place in Oxford without a hitch, and it was raining a good English rain — just like it was on the morning I left. I considered this a good thing since it washed some of the dirt off the car and also made it less likely that the inspector would spend a lot of time looking it over.

The weather did mean that I was walking the mile into the middle of town in rain, but it was all worth it when I arrived at Wadham College and was told that there had been some problem with my room and I’d been upgraded to the “luxury” room at no charge.

Wadham College quad.

Turns out, it’s essentially an apartment (a flat) that would normally be used by a fellow of the college. It is NICE. A huge sitting area with a bay window overlooking the street, a bedroom, a kitchen, and a massive bedroom. I took a number of pictures.

One of rooms at Wadham College.

After a short bit of relaxing, I walked around Wadham College a bit, taking some pictures of the dining hall and chapel. Both are magnificent.

Wadham College dining hall.

Chapel at Wadham College.

Next I took a relaxing walk over to the Pitt Rivers Museum, which I’d never been to before. It’s incredibly eclectic — fossils, rocks, guns, shrunken heads, toys, samurai swords … All just lined up in display cases. And the building is just magnificent. I went just to fill some time, but I had a real blast and I stayed until they kicked me out (politely) at closing. I will be coming back to it soon, I hope.

Then a bit more walking, over past New College to the old city walls this time. And then back to my flat to kick up my feet for a few minutes before I headed down to meet Paul Cavill, one of the Brunanburh contributors.

For dinner we split the tab at Brown’s, which is a nice restaurant. Good food and even better company. Paul is a good guy in addition to being a staggeringly brilliant scholar. What he does to “nail down” Brunanburh in the Casebook is incredible, and he isn’t done with the subject yet!

So it is nearly ten now, and I’ve drawn a hot bath for my aching body. I’ll leave in the morn for Heathrow.

Friday, 22 July 2011

Ah, the trip back. No problems, no worries. Just the long, long haul back across the pond.

Clouds over the USA.

<< Previous in series

UK Trip 2011: Day Nine

Michael Livingston — Thu, 28 Jul 2011 12:48:04 +0000

Article Series - UK Trip 2011

As a result, the trip was pretty well packed with things to do, so I’ll be breaking up my trip report here into smallish doses. Enjoy!

. . .

Wednesday, 20 July 2011

It is turning 8 now, and I’ve just arrived at the Corn Mill (same as last night) for dinner and a pint. I’m exhausted but exhilerated.

After a hearty breakfast — I knew I was in for a long haul from the get-go — I got in the car and drove just up a nearby tributary valley to Valle Crucis Abbey. It’s a ruined abbey — a lot like Tintern, which my brother has photographed so beautifully — and I hoped that the weather would break and give me some sun on it.

It wasn’t quite open yet when I arrived, so I hiked a short bit up along the side of the road until I found Eliseg’s Pillar out in the middle of a sheep field. (I think just about everything in Wales is in a sheep field.) The pillar is the broken-off bottom of a cross that once stood in the middle of the valley (and gave the nearby abbey it’s name, as a matter of fact — “Abbey of the Valley of the Cross”). It is not admittedly the most impressive thing to look at, but it actually is fairly significant. It had an Insular Latin inscription on it — now eroded away but partially preserved a few hundred years ago — in which the person who raised it claimed to be doing so to honor his grandfather, Eliseg. In so doing, the recorder also makes reference to Vortigern, the man who by some accounts preceded Arthur as king of the Britons. Pretty cool stuff. In addition, Owain’s descent from the carver ( and thus to Eliseg) was one of the genealogical facts that enabled him to claim the throne of Wales.

Eliseg's Pillar.

By the time I go back to the abbey it was open. Even better, the sun was coming out. I took a lot of pictures, which raises the statistical likelihood that I may have managed to take at least one that does the site justice. I’m well aware of my very limited skill as a photographer — I intentionally use the singular there, as I think my only skill is a working trigger finger — but my inadequacies really come home in trying to capture something so viscerally striking.

Valle Crucis Abbey.

Anyway, I left the abbey and drove over Horseshoe Pass through small Welsh towns toward England. I’d planned to go by World’s End, but I spent that time at the abbey. A good trade-off, especially if a picture or two turn out.

Ruins of Valle Crucis Abbey up close.

After spending all my time driving on English backroads and then Welsh roads, it was quite jarring to get near Chester and run into cities and traffic and people. But things were a lot easier to navigate on freeways, and I made good time getting to the Wirral, the peninsula on which several essays in The Battle of Brunanburh: A Casebook (see in particular those by Cavill, Coates, and Harding) argue that the famed battle occurred over a thousand years ago. I first went to Bromborough — which Cavill very convincingly shows is the philological equal of “Brunanburh” — and then I meandered my way over to Higher Bebington, which has been suggested to be the actual location of the battlesite (our sources essentially point to it being “near Brunanburh”).

Standing (maybe?) at Brunanburh -- next time I'll have a tripod.

Though I seem to be getting a bit well known for being an expert on the battle — which is silly, since the contributors to the book are the brilliant ones here — this was my first chance to walk the supposed location. Good fun, and I came away with some additional thoughts about how it played out, and not a hint more doubt about the identification.

(It may sound strange to say, but feeling like the identification was really hammered down was slightly disappointing. There’s something really great about an unsolved mystery, and I’m thinking that the biggest mystery about Brunanburh is pretty much solved. Plus, if I had walked it and found problems we’d really have a reason to write on it again!)

From “Brunanburh” I rumbled a long way back south, headed for Owain’s home at Sycharth. Along the way I stopped at Chirk Castle — no time or money to tour, but I took pics.

Chirk Castle.

Sycharth is really in the middle of nowhere, and there aren’t even signs to help with navigation to it (which is astonishing to me). I’d examined the location on Google Earth back in Charleston, though, so as soon as I got reasonably close I was able to find it without a hitch.

Sycharth Castle's remains today.

There’s nothing left of the buildings, and there hasn’t been since Prince Hal burned it to the ground while Owain was on the run. You can still see the earthworks, however, and even Owain’s fishpond. You also get a very strong sense of, well, place. One can almost hear the ghosts.

It was probably pushing 4 o’clock when I left Sycharth and drove a bit south and then west, deeper into the hills of Wales. Passing through the town where they filmed “The Englishman Who Went Up a Hill but Came Down a Mountain” — which I now want to see again — I drove to the highest waterfall in England or Wales. It was utterly gorgeous, though I was there at totally the wrong time of day. Shadows were all wrong for photography.

Pistyll Rhaeadr.

Backroads and more backroads now. I drove over two ridgelines up and down one-lane roads trying to avoid head-on collisions with Land Rovers and farm trucks that would’ve made my little Volkswagen very unhappy indeed. I got lost once — my maps were not terribly helpful at this point — but a friendly young chap on a bike (who was a dead ringer for Ron Weasley if he had braces) helped point me to a vital turn that got me back down into my basecamp town of Llangollen.

It was 6:45 at this point, and I still had one big thing I knew I wanted to do: Dinas Bran Castle, which sits atop a mountain right over town. My car parked at the hotel — which sits right beside Llangollen’s famed bridge over the River Dee — I set off on foot with not much more direction than that I needed to go up.

Castell Dinas Bran from Llangollen. Go up!

And boy was it up. I don’t know what the elevation gain is from the river to the castle, but it was enough to make my legs and lungs burn a bit as I hurried to get up while I still had good light. Probably took me a half-hour to reach the ruins at the summit, but it was completely worth it.

Dinas Bran actually features in some medieval literature that I teach, and I have zero doubt that Owain stood up there at least once in his life. The ruins are evocatively skeletal, and the views are simply breathtaking.

I took a LOT of pictures.

The ruins of Castle Dinas Bran.

View from Castle Dinas Bran.

Then back down (found the main route now) and straight here to the Corn Mill and my just-finished pint of cider and plate of bangers and mash.

So. Tomorrow I drive to Oxford, return the car, perhaps meet Paul Cavill — one of my Brunanburh contributors — and stay at Wadham College. I haven’t decided if I will make any stops on the way to Oxford.

And then the next morning I bus to Heathrow and fly back to the USA. I’ve enjoyed this trip — I truly hope that is clear — but I’m nevertheless anxious to get home.

<< Previous in series Next in series >>

UK Trip 2011: Day Eight

Michael Livingston — Wed, 27 Jul 2011 12:34:51 +0000

Article Series - UK Trip 2011

As a result, the trip was pretty well packed with things to do, so I’ll be breaking up my trip report here into smallish doses. Enjoy!

. . .

Tuesday, 19 July 2011

Big traveling day today, with multiple stops and a lot of great country.

My first stop was — at last — Machynlleth, where Owain Glyndwr held his first parliament. There’s a fifteenth-century building on the same site (no one is certain if it is the one Owain used) that now houses the official Owain Glyndwr museum and study centre.

Presumed site of Owain's Parliament in Machynlleth.

It isn’t nearly as impressive as it sounds. It’s striking, in fact, how unbothered they seem to be about promoting or highlighting their history over here — relative to the USA, anyway.

Still, it was quite lovely for what it was, and I got to chat up the gentlemen running the place. (I also learned they have plans to expand if they’ve enough interest, which I hope to help provide for them.)

From there I drove to Harlech, which took me along the absolutely beautiful seaside near Barmouth. I tried to capture it, but I’m sure I failed. (Another thing they don’t have over here are picture-taking spots. I daresay they’d be well-served to promote themselves a bit more to tourists with overlooks and the like.)

I was in Harlech, as you may recall, to see the castle. Unlike Aberystwyth, which is in utter ruin, Harlech is only partially in ruin — and it is very impressive. It’s situated on a high rock promontory, seemingly grown up out of the native stone. The multiple levels of the gatehouse, main walls, and towers remain. I hiked the tight, steep spiral stairs to get to the highest point, and it was an amazing view out over the sea and up into deeper Wales. A really great castle with strong connections to Owain: it became essentially his headquarters after he seized it in 1404. It was very much worth the detour it took me to get there.

Harlech Castle main gate.

Before I left Harlech I had a spot of ice cream to go with my powerbar. I ordered a tub with two flavors — one scoop each — the Welsh equivalent of Bailey’s, and an award-winning elderberry blossom. That second one I had to convince them to let me try. They kept saying that it was a very local kind of flavor, and I surely wouldn’t like it. Yesterday a person from Arizona hated it, blah, blah, blah. Turns out I positively loved it. So there.

From Harlech I had a long drive over Snowdonia, essentially all the way across Wales, down into the Dee valley. Owain Glyndwr is from the Dee valley — his last name, in fact, effectively means “of the Dee.” There’s a sizable equestrian statue of him in Corwen that I stopped to snap.

Equestrian statue of Owain in Corwen.

Owain’s childhood home (well, the mound on which part of it was built) is not too much further, right beside the road west of Glyndyfydry. I obviously stopped there to hike around through the sheep-poop-strewn fields.

Glyndwr's Mount near Glyndyfrdwy; his house was likely just down the slope to the right.

So then, at last, down the valley to Llangollen, where I’ll be spending two nights.

I really like Llangollen so far. It has a sort of “Ouray” feel as far as the small town meets tourism in beautiful surrounds. Gift shops, local crafts, a mighty river tumbling through … And an artisan spirit to boot.

It also has a bit of Silverton in it: there’s a small steam-powered train that puffs up and down the valley from here. Very awesome in and of itself.

The train arrives in Llangollen. The River Dee ignores it.

Oh, and there’s the Telluride part, too: it’s a town of art and music and hot-air balloon festivals.

And did I mention that it is beautiful?

Yes, I do think I like it here.

For dinner I had an odd — to my American experience — but quite yummy “macaroni cheese” (as they call it) at the Corn Mill. Might have the best atmosphere of all the places I’ve been to on this trip. I then took a walk through the town along the rushing river (awesome), then along the boat-filled canal (awesome), then across the old stone bridge (awesome), and back along the river and, well, you get the idea.

Llangollen bridge over the Dee, seen from the Royal Hotel.

It’s pushing 9:00 now — as I said it was a long trip today — and tomorrow I will have a lot to do. Just have to decide what it’ll be!

<< Previous in series Next in series >>

UK Trip 2011: Day Seven

Michael Livingston — Tue, 26 Jul 2011 12:22:42 +0000

Article Series - UK Trip 2011

As a result, the trip was pretty well packed with things to do, so I’ll be breaking up my trip report here into smallish doses. Enjoy!

. . .

Monday, 18 July 2011

Last night I’d planned a return to the highlands in pursuit of Hyddgen — twisted ankles be damned — based on some additional data I now have in hand. Alas, I awoke to rain (still) and it was clear from the weather maps that it would be far worse up in the mountains I wanted to hike.

So it was on to the back-up plan: a relatively slow day touring Aberystwyth. Not the most glamorous thing to do, I know, and the way I did it was not exactly the most traditional way to do it, either, since my tour was built one or another around Owain Glyndwr, obviously.

The timing of things was driven by the weather. After breakfast the rain was down to a stinging mist, so I hurried as fast as I could to the ruins of Aberystwyth Castle, which Owain captured in his war for Welsh independence. I shot a lot and thought a lot. You know the drill.

The ruins of Aberystwyth Castle.

The clouds again opened up, so from there I went book shopping. There were a few Owain-related books I was wanting, and I ended up going to three or four shops to get almost all of them.

After my lunch of an apple, tapwater, and a power bar, the rain had let up again. I walked down to the Old College campus of the University of Aberystwyth, which is a beautiful building close by the castle. I was looking for one of my Brunanburh contributors, Marged Haycock. Alas, she wasn’t in.

So then I set off on a hike the mile or so uphill to the National Library of Wales. It is a gorgeous building high on a hillside overlooking the city with stunning views. Plus it is a friggin’ national library!

While up there I also bought another book — this one all in Welsh, which raised some eyebrows given my obvious American-ness. They took my money without complaint, though.

From there I walked further up the hill to the new campus of the university, where I mosied around a bit and then spent money in the campus store. Good times.

Alas, when I left it was dumping rain again. I had to make the long walk back right into the face of it. I got soaked, but at least it was downhill.

Before heading into the hotel to rest my wet and weary feet I participated in an Aberystwyth tradition by walking to the north end of the sea-side promenade and “kicking the bar” — which is, shockingly, the kicking of what amounts to a guardrail bar.

Kicking the bar in Aberystwyth, with Constitution Hill in background.

And so here to dinner at a Welsh-Irish pub-bistro. Decent enough fare, especially the dessert (there’s a reason I skimped on lunch): Belgian waffle with honeycomb ice cream, drizzled with honey. Wow!

All things being equal, though, I could sure use some good Mexican … but it sure is a bit hard to find that hereabouts!

My plans are a bit uncertain from here. I’d still like to get back up to Hyddgen, but I don’t think I can do it with all else I have to accomplish in these last few days. So instead I will head up to Machynlleth first, finally to do the Owain things I’ve missed there. Then, weather permitting, I’ll run over to Harlech Castle, followed by a drive through Snowdonia down into the Dee Valley and Owain’s holdings there.

My base in north Wales is Llangollen, and I am hoping I’ll have time to check off a number of local things there before it gets dark. That would make Wednesday and Thursday more doable.

I sat down to write this daily account in the bay window of my hotel, looking out across the darkening raging sea, and after a time I noticed that there was dancing in the bandstand along the promenade, the smallish building, sheltered from the wind and rain, where I’d seen the local orchestra yesterday.

I walked over and found a number of folks in traditional Welsh dress, turning folk dances to the accompaniment of a small band made up of traditional instruments, like harp and fiddle and a kind of box accordion. It was delightful.

After a time they cleared the floor and a folk music group from Karelia took the stage: they had a button-based piano accordion, a wooden flute, an upright bass, and then some positively medieval harps, lutes, fiddles, and bagpipes. They also had with them a group of dancers who showed off folk social dancing from Karelia. It was marvelous.

After perhaps forty-five minutes one of the Welsh folk dancers suggested that all the folk dancers and musicians ought to get together and teach each other some simple dances. Very few of the Karelians could speak English (much less Welsh, obviously), and the Welsh folks couldn’t speak a lick of Russian or Finnish … but everyone got along well enough with gestures, instinct, and perhaps some deep-rooted cultural commonalities. The musicians just picked things up from whichever group was in the lead. Everyone was singing and clapping.

After it was over I struck up a conversation with some of the Welsh performers, eventually retiring to a bar to chat into the night. As it happens, I got into a really fine talk with a Dutch PhD student from Maastricht of all places (I lived there for a semester abroad in college), who is studying medieval Welsh syntax and is also a huge Tolkien buff.

Crazy small world.

<< Previous in series Next in series >>

UK Trip 2011: Day Six

Michael Livingston — Mon, 25 Jul 2011 12:04:53 +0000

Article Series - UK Trip 2011

As a result, the trip was pretty well packed with things to do, so I’ll be breaking up my trip report here into smallish doses. Enjoy!

. . .

Sunday, 17 July 2011

This morning after breakfast (alone again, as I was the only guest) I hiked out to the earthwork remains of Castell Foel-allt, a Norman motte and bailey castle in the valley just behind the Pilleth Oaks.

It was pretty impressive for a not-on-the-map sort of thing. I then spent more time milling around and talking to myself as I took pictures. Add it all together and I am strongly suspicious that every account of the battle I have seen has it incorrect. I can’t see it happening the way they claim.

Panorama from Castell Foel-allt: "Cuckoo burial mounds" out of sight up valley at left, Bryn Glas "mass burial site" marked by Wellingtonia trees near center.

Castell Foel-allt earthwork remains.

After I was done — well, after my schedule told me I was done — I drove south a bit on a detour to try to find a group of standing stones near Walton. Did not find them.

So then it was on west into the heart of Wales. After some missed or wrong turns — thanks again, car rental — I got on the road north into what are surely the most desolate and untouched “highland” areas I’ve ever seen: the wind-swept mountains above Nant-y-Moch Reservoir. The rain was coming in at that point – sideways no matter which direction I faced – and it was bitter cold. From where I had to park the wee Volkswagen (to go further required a Land Rover) I could see one human being: a brave fellow in thick neoprene fly-fishing down by the lake. He left not long after I headed off from my car, away from the reservoir and the road and straight up the mountain into the mists.

No one then around then but me and the ghosts of the past.

And the sheep, of course. Lots and lots of sheep.

The terrain was both craggy and marshy. The rocks promised respite they could not deliver: the damp made them slick with colorful moss, and even the thickest tufts of grass that covered the slopes might give way unexpectedly into the boggy damp beneath.

It was, in a word, wet.

But it was strikingly beautiful, too. The wind and rain would let up occasionally, and though the sun never shone through, wide vistas would open up. I captured them as best I could with the camera.

Mount of Hyddgen at center; Owain's battle likely occurred in Hyddgen valley to left.

I was up there because Owain won a small but historically significant battle somewhere on or near the slopes of Pumlumon, the mountain whose sides I was clambering up. No one knows where exactly the battle was fought, so I was mostly there to get a sense of the types of terrain that the fighters were dealing with. I certainly got that.

After a time I angled back down to meet the 4×4 road, which I followed up to where it forded a stream and a river in quick succession at a valley separating Pumlumon from the mount that gave the battle its name, Hyddgen. There was a wide stretch of ruins there — post-medieval, I’m fairly sure — and the waters were singing as they tumbled down over the rocks among them. I could not have been a half-mile from where the battle was fought six hundred years ago. For all I know, I was standing upon it..

It was incredible.

River Hengwm tumbling down toward the River Hyddgen.

And then the rains hit. And the wind.

I know, I said that earlier. But those rains and winds were nothing. What hit now was fierce. The rain soaked the few semi-dry parts of me left, and then the wind plastered the sodden mess to my body and forced me to lean to stay upright. I discovered a new coldness, and I decided, reluctantly, that since I was alone I better not spend the hours more I’d planned up there. If I twisted an ankle — or worse — in the slicked up broken landscape, things could be trouble.

Welsh highland mountainside in the mists.

Still, it was great. I got back to the car chilled but safe, and I set off again, briefly stopping to check out the official marker for the Battle of Hyddgen, which is miles away from the site itself.

Memorial for the Battle of Hyddgen -- a looooong way from the actual site.

I was ahead of schedule, so instead of going straight into Aberystwyth I drove a one-lane road over the highlands to visit the Owain Glyndwr Centre in Machynlleth, which is where Owain held his Welsh Parliament.

Random Welsh valley between rains.

Raining in Machynlleth, naturally, and the centre was closed both today and tomorrow. A pity, since it would be perfect to tour in inclement weather, which is also expected tomorrow.

So I drove a bit further to the tiny village of Pennal, from which Owain wrote a famous letter to the French. There is a small church there, also connected with Owain, which is one of six locations to receive facsimiles of the Pennal Letter.

Letter signed "Owain, Prince of Wales," at Pennal Church.

There were some other Owain things there, too, including a statue (recent) in the churchyard.

Statue of Owain at Pennal Church.

I photographed all and then drove down into Aberystwyth, still plunging through the rain. I found my hotel by working off week-old memory of its location in the city according to Google Maps.

It was only four, and it was pelting rain with a vicious salty sea breeze, so I tried to find some bookstores I was told about.

Found them. Closed early for Sunday.

So, too, most of the restaurants.

Eventually I found a pizza-and-bar joint open on the pier, so I drank a pint of Strongbow, ate pizza, and started writing this (long) account.

After dinner, the rain had finally stopped. The wind was still crazy, and the sun was fast sinking, but I managed to take some pictures along the promenade. The local volunteer orchestra/band was playing a free gig in the bandstand, so I stopped and listened for a bit. Not the Boston Pops, but they were enthusiastic despite their meager audience (five of us?). Then back here to the hotel to finish this note.

The Aberystwyth seawall and promenade, beset by storm.

So that’s it. Still haven’t decided on tomorrow’s plan. Much will depend on the weather.

<< Previous in series Next in series >>