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The valley of the river Leri (as it is named on maps) or
Eleri, as those who know her call her, begins on the western edge of the
Cambrian Mountains where the river waters fall from a lake into the narrow
gorge of Craig y Pistyll. They run for twenty miles or so to reach the sea
through the salt marsh between Borth Bog (Cors Fochno) and the sand dunes of
Ynys-Las. In spite of the natural settings of both her source and her estuary,
both are engineered places. At the end of the lake where the waters fall into
the gorge there is a dam to regulate the flow down to the water pumping station
on the nearest road in the village
of Bontgoch, or Elerch,
five miles away. But this is a lonely place and little detracts from the wild
splendour of the open mountain and moorland that stretches as far as the eye
can see even on a clear day when there is no mist. And it is a small dam,
unlike the barrier at the end of the nearby reservoir of Nant-y-Moch that
regulates the flow into the river Rheidol to a small hydro-electric power
station miles downstream. These waters drain from the mountain of Pumlummon
(‘five peaks’) as do the springs that give rise to the River Severn and the
River Wye. Up on the summit Cei and Bedwyr stood in “the highest wind in the
world” in their search for the things required by the giant Ysbadadden Pencawr
for Culhwch to wed Olwen. So it is a place of great significance both in legend
and its importance as the source of great rivers. Further east waters run off
this range to fill the reservoirs of Claerwen and Elan for Birmingham’s water supply. But Eleri is a
quiet stream running a short distance to the sea and supplying sweet water to
the local population. Pumlummon is known as the ‘Mother of Rivers’ and the
whole area is a place of water, held in the peaty earth as in a sponge. Waters
of life welling up and then released slowly into streams and rivers. It is a
realm of water spirits.
In their book Celtic
Heritage, Alwyn and Brinley Rees compare the area around Pumlummon – known
traditionally as ‘Elenydd’ - to Uisnech
in Ireland
where the Stone of Divisions stands. It is the centre which symbolizes the
whole. By no means as high or as spectacular as the mountains of Snowdonia or
the Brecon Beacons, its central position between these gives it a symbolic
significance, better appreciated by the medieval mapmakers such as Gough who,
in his map of 1360 shows it as if it is higher than the mountains to the north
and the south, through to Speed’s map of 1612 which gives it similar
prominence. Eleri runs off to the West of the mountain, away from the great
watersheds and once meandered to the sea through the remnants of a sunken
forest, the semi-petrified remains of trees that can still be seen in the sand
at low tide on the beach at Borth on the shores of Cardigan
Bay. It is possible to trace the previous course of this mile or
so of the river over the fields created by draining the bog. But now the last
stretch runs in a straight line to meet the estuary of the River Dyfi and
functions as a drainage channel separating the green water meadows from the
brown lands of the bog. What river ever maintained its course for very long?
Cwm Eleri is Eleri’s valley, the groove in the Earth the river has created,
wide or narrow depending on the interaction of water, soil and stone. There are
many things that might change a river’s direction; human interference has
shaped most rivers for a while, but the river itself is invincible, the
life-blood of the living world. So this sudden transformation from a sinuous
bubbling stream to something more resembling a canal might seem an insult to
Eleri in human terms. But somehow it suits the flat landscape of the bog and is
symbolic of the lost land
of Gwyddno Garanhir
itself maintained by dykes and sluice gates one of which, left open, brought
about its end. For this in legend was Cantre’r Gwaelod, a land under the sea,
and it is a legend to which the sunken remains of the forest bear witness.
Walking through the stumps when the tide is out it is possible to imagine the
forest alive with birds in the green leaves, though the present reality is rock
pools and oyster catchers foraging at the tide line. Along the estuary geese overwinter
and in summer sand martens build nests in the banks. The bog broods darkly in the shade of
mountains. Once it stretched north along the Dyfi nearly to Machynlleth, though
most of the northern part of it has long since been drained for farm land. The
small hills that rise from the flat plain all have ‘Ynys’ (‘island’) in their
names, an indication that they once stood above wetlands. It was the realm of
‘Yr Hen Wrach’ (the Old Witch) who, if she visited you in your bed at night,
would cause you to wake with the shakes.
Between these two ends of the river, Eleri runs through
wooded valleys, only really touching any significant place of human habitation
when crossed by the main road north from Aberystwyth at the village of Talybont
where, joined by the waters of the Ceulan, the rushing waters once powered a
woollen mill. Along the ridges of the valleys around here are a series of hill
forts built to watch the approaches from the sea and now providing spectacular
viewpoints to anyone with the energy to climb to them. Though I have walked
from source to estuary, it is in these middle stretches that I came to know and
love Eleri. There are places where it is possible to sit watching the flow for
hours without seeing another person. These, to me, are sacred waters, the well
of life flows through me when I sit here and I am part of the flow. And it is
here, and in the woodlands along and above the valley, that I come to meditate
and to commune with the spirits of the valley. The map of it I have in my mind is
populated with sacred places to which I can go, on foot or in imagination,
whenever world space or mind space allows. There is a place where the river
swirls around a bend and runs over rocks making a music that I have sat and
listened to, entranced. And I have knelt in the rushing waters and the words of
a ritual for crossing to the Realms came to me from many years before: “Running
Waters, Speaking Stones …”. And I have listened to the voice and responded with
a blessing and a kiss, which she took, laughing, and tumbled it away.
There is a wood of oak, beech and birch above this spot,
enclosed within a larger forest, where I have planted a seed of love in a mossy
hollow and where the trees always welcome me when I come to sit among them to
converse with the wights of the wood and feel myself in their company. Here I
have felt closest to the Spirit World more often than anywhere else. There are
times when the trees enclose me and the ground shifts beneath my feet and the
wind blowing through that place is a spirit wind at once swift as an arrow and
as still as a pond of clear water. Then when I emerge from the wood onto the
forestry road it’s as if I have arrived there suddenly from I know not where.
So I come often to these places and follow Eleri from her source in the
mountains to her meeting with the sea. And if she is always running to the
legendary realm of Cantre’r Gwaelod, so too am I always walking the paths to
the Realms when I follow her winding way through the woods.
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