Pelleas And Ettarre by Alfred Lord Tennyson

(I get a buzz out mentions of the Forest of Dean and literature. This is an extract from Tennyson’s Pelleas and Ettare.)

King Arthur made new knights to fill the gap
Left by the Holy Quest; and as he sat
In hall at old Caerleon, the high doors
Were softly sundered, and through these a youth,
Pelleas, and the sweet smell of the fields
Past, and the sunshine came along with him.

`Make me thy knight, because I know, Sir King,
All that belongs to knighthood, and I love.’
Such was his cry: for having heard the King
Had let proclaim a tournament–the prize
A golden circlet and a knightly sword,
Full fain had Pelleas for his lady won
The golden circlet, for himself the sword:
And there were those who knew him near the King,
And promised for him: and Arthur made him knight.

And this new knight, Sir Pelleas of the isles–
But lately come to his inheritance,
And lord of many a barren isle was he–
Riding at noon, a day or twain before,
Across the forest called of Dean, to find
Caerleon and the King, had felt the sun
Beat like a strong knight on his helm, and reeled
Almost to falling from his horse; but saw
Near him a mound of even-sloping side,
Whereon a hundred stately beeches grew,
And here and there great hollies under them;
But for a mile all round was open space,
And fern and heath: and slowly Pelleas drew
To that dim day, then binding his good horse
To a tree, cast himself down; and as he lay
At random looking over the brown earth
Through that green-glooming twilight of the grove,
It seemed to Pelleas that the fern without
Burnt as a living fire of emeralds,
So that his eyes were dazzled looking at it.
Then o’er it crost the dimness of a cloud
Floating, and once the shadow of a bird
Flying, and then a fawn; and his eyes closed.
And since he loved all maidens, but no maid
In special, half-awake he whispered, `Where?
O where? I love thee, though I know thee not.
For fair thou art and pure as Guinevere,
And I will make thee with my spear and sword
As famous–O my Queen, my Guinevere,
For I will be thine Arthur when we meet.’

. . .

To read complete poem, please click here.

Afforestwr itti – I am thy forester

You can imagine my excitement when I read the following lines in Lady Charlotte Guest’s translation of the Mabinogion (1848):

“I am one of thy foresters, Lord, in the Forest of Dean, and my name is Madawc, the son of Twrgadarn.”

If have now tracked down the original medieval Welsh for this translation in the Llyfr Coch Hergest (The Red Book of Hergest) one of the source-books for the Mabinogion.

“afforestwr itti arglwyd wyfi ynforest ydena. amadawc yw vy enw i uab twrgadarn.”

Here is some more of the text covering the entry and the description of the forester, Madawc:

“ . . .

And on Whit-Tuesday, as the King sat at the banquet, lo! there entered a tall, fair-headed youth, clad in a coat and a surcoat of diapered satin, and a golden-hilted sword about his neck, and low shoes of leather upon his feet. And he came, and stood before Arthur.

‘Hail to thee, Lord!’ said he.

‘Heaven prosper thee,’ he answered, ‘and be thou welcome. Dost thou bring any new tidings?’

‘I do, Lord,’ he said.

‘I know thee not,’ said Arthur.

‘It is a marvel to me that thou dost not know me. I am one of thy foresters, Lord, in the Forest of Dean, and my name is Madawc, the son of Twrgadarn.’

. . . ”

This is the introduction to another White Stag in the Forest of Dean story – more later.

***

English extracts taken from:
The Mabinogion by Lady Charlotte Guest

Beaker Folk in the Forest of Dean

(Beaker Folk: Late Neolithic–Early Bronze Age people living about 4,500 years ago in the temperate zones of Europe. – Encyclopædia Britannica)

The New Stone Age people were succeeded by the “Beaker” folk, so called from a highly distinctive type of pot which was used among them. These people have left very impressive memorials in the shape of stone monuments of large size, from single standing stones called “menhirs” to elaborate stone circles. There are no stone circles recorded in Gloucestershire. Although there are several just across its borders, but in the Dean we still can see the Staunton “Long Stone” at the side of the road between Coleford and Staunton, and the “Queen Stone” at Huntsham. Until fairly recently there were two others, “Long John” at Close Turf, St Briavels, which was destroyed in recent years, and another at Shortstanding, which possibly is the origin of the name of the place if, as some think, it comes from “Short Stone Dun”.

Forest Story by R. J. Mansfield (published in 1964 by the author)

The Diary of Samuel Pepys

Samuel Pepys was a fascinating character. He wrote his famous diary between 1660 and 1669. He lived through the Commonwealth and saw the return of Charles II, the Plague and the Great Fire of London.

As the Chief Secretary to the Admiralty, his responsibility was the Navy, and thus the Forest of Dean, which supplied the timber to build the ships.

He was born in 1633 and died in 1703. His life covered the reigns of Charles I, the Commonwealth, Charles II, James II, William & Mary and Anne.

1662 – 25th February

Great talk of the effects of this late great wind; and I heard one say that he had five great trees standing together blown down; and, beginning to lop them, one of them, as soon as the lops were cut off, did by the weight of the root, rise again and fasten.

We have letters from the Forest of Dean, that about 1000 oaks and as many beeches are blown down in one walk there.

The preceding text is taken from The Diary of Samuel Pepys
(publisher: Macmillan and Co., Limited, 1905)

1662 – 20th June 25th

Up by four or five o’clock, and to the office, and there drew up the agreement between the King and Sir John Winter about the Forest of Dean; and having done it, he came himself (I did not know him to be the Queen’s (Queen Henrietta Maria) secretary before, but observed him to be a man of fine parts); and we read it, and both like it well.

That done, I turned to the Forest of Dean, in Speed’s Maps, and there he showed me how it lies;
and the Lea-Bayly, with the great charge of carrying it to Lydney, and many other things worth my knowing;
and I do perceive that I am very short in my business by not knowing many times the geographical part of my business.

The preceding text is taken from The Diary of Samuel Pepys
(publisher: Macmillan and Co., Limited, 1905)

1662 – 15th August

Commissioner Pett and I being invited went by Sir John Winter’s coach, sent for us, to the Mitre, in Fenchurch Street, to a venison-pasty; where I found him a very worthy man; and good discourse, most of which was concerning the Forest of Dean, and the timber there, and ironworks with their great antiquity, and the vast heaps of cinders which they find, and are now of great value, being necessary for the making of iron at this day, and without which they cannot work; with the age of many trees there left, at a great fall in Edward the Third’s time,
by the name of forbid trees, which at this day are called vorbid trees.

The preceding text is taken from The Diary of Samuel Pepys
(publisher: Macmillan and Co., Limited, 1905)

1663 – 21st January

Dined at Mr. Ackworth’s, where a pretty dinner, and she a pretty and modest woman; but, above all things, we saw her Rock, which is one of the finest things done by a woman that I ever saw. I must have my wife to see it.

On board the Elias, and found the timber brought from the Forest of Dean to be exceedingly good.

The preceding text is taken from The Diary of Samuel Pepys
(publisher: Macmillan and Co., Limited, 1905)

1665 – 20th March

. . . and I full of joy, thence to dinner, they setting me down at Sir J. Winter’s, by promise, and dined with him, and a worthy fine man he seems to be, and of good discourse; and a fine thing it is to see myself come to the condition of being received by persons of this rank, he being, and having long been, Secretary to the Queen-mother.

The preceding text is taken from The Diary of Samuel Pepys
(publisher: Macmillan and Co., Limited, 1905)

1667 – 15th March

Letters this day come to Court do tell us that we are not likely to agree, the Dutch demanding high terms, and the King of France the like, in a most braving manner. This morning I was called up by Sir John Winter, poor man! ome in a sedan from the other end of town, about helping the King in the business of bringing down his timber to the seaside, in the Forest of Dean.

The preceding text is taken from The Diary of Samuel Pepys
(publisher: Macmillan and Co., Limited, 1905)

1667 – 30th April

Sir John Winter to discourse with me about the Forest of Dean, and then about my Lord Treasurer, and asking me whether, as he had heard, I had not been cut for the stone, I took him to my closet, and there showed it to him, of which he took the dimensions, and I believe will show my Lord Treasurer it.

The preceding text is taken from The Diary of Samuel Pepys
(publisher: Macmillan and Co., Limited, 1905)

1671 – July

(Pepys, with Lord Brouncker, Commissioner Tippetts, Anthony Deane and four clerks set out from Plymouth on a tour of inspection of the Royal Forests – EH.)

Thence, with their horses and clerks and three bottles of cider, they were ferried across the Severn to Wales, where they stopped at Chepstow and Newnham and visited the iron works. The bill for one of their meals has been preserved – a leg and neck of mutton with carrots 5s., a couple of rabbits 2s. 8d., fruit and cheese 10d., a bottle of claret 1s., a pint of white wine 1s., and bread and beer 4s. 2d., At another meal they ate a leg of mutton and cauliflower, a breast of veal, six chickens, artichokes, peas, oranges and fruit and cheese with a modest 3s. 6d. worth of wine to wash down £1 9s. 7d. of food.

So they came to the Forest of Dean, where they stayed at Mitcheldean and took a survey of the forest. Their Report, which Pepys afterwards presented to His Majesty, was not encouraging. Of the 10,000 trees, about half were oaks, most of them wind-ridden or cup-shaken and not more than 800 of them fit for the service of the Navy. The beeches were in better condition: taking twenty-four average trees scattered over the whole forest and to fell which they gave the Woodward £2 5s. for an encouragement, they found them all sound and good for making four-inch by three-inch planks, though of no use for any other purpose. A great many trees, too, were lying on the ground, having been felled for the building of a new warship at Bristol, but of these few were worth the transporting and all were likely to be useless if they lay much longer.

With a guide and a shilling’s worth of beer, they went on to Gloucester, where they stayed a night and collected their letters from the post-house . . .

This text was taken from ‘Samuel Pepys: The Years of Peril’
Written by Arthur Bryant in 1935
(publisher: The Reprint Society – 1952)

Queen Stone

Most inexplicable of all the mark stones are those with clean-cut grooves running from top to bottom of an upright or ‘long’ stone.

The Queen Stone in the horseshoe bend of the Wye near Symond’s Yat is a fine Herefordshire example. It measures about 7 feet 6 inches in height, 6 feet broad and 3 feet wide. The south-east face has five grooves, the north-west face three grooves, the north-east end two grooves, and the south-west end one only.

The grooves die out before reaching the ground, but appear to continue in an irregular way over the apex. They are all much alike in width – from 2 inches to 2½ inches, but vary in depth from 3 inches to 7 inches, being much deeper than they are wide. It seems quite impossible that they should result from any natural cause.

The top of the stone is irregularly corroded, and the probability of this being caused by fire presents itself. I tried the insertion of broomsticks in these grooves, but the tops projecting on opposite sides were too irregular for such a method to have been used for sighting.

There seems to be no legend attached to this stone, and it aligns with other points. Whether it is a sacrificial stone remains a surmise.

The above text is from:
                “The Old Straight Track”
                by Alfred Watkins
                publisher: Methuen 1925

Ghost of Littledean Hall

Dean Hall is one of the oldest houses west of the River Severn; there is ample evidence of Roman occupation there, and its name is derived from the Dene family, who were Lords of Dene from 1080 until 1319.

It is the most haunted house in the most haunted village in the Forest and it boasts the only poltergeist of the area. Often, if white flowers are arranged in the dining room they will be flung to the floor, or scattered on the stairs.

For 250 years the Pyrke family owned the Hall. Over the fireplace in the dining room is a reproduction of an earlier portrait which formerly hung there, of Charles Pyrke and his silver-collared black servant, painted when they were both still boys.

In later years, when Charles was twenty three, he was murdered by his servant, who is said to haunt the scene of his crime, both audibly and visibly.

Years ago, after the original portrait was taken down, a country scene was put in its place, which repeatedly fell to the ground. In despair of this it was fastened with a chain, but to no avail; it was found on the floor again, this time with the chain broken.

The text above is from:
                “Ghosts of the Forest of Dean”
                by Sue Law
                publisher: Douglas McLean 1982

Christ is a Weeping

Before the second world war there was a natural rock formation in a hole at the side of an incline at Wigpool that was referred to as ‘Christ is a Weeping’ or ‘Jesus is a weeping’. Etched in the limestone appeared to be a representation of Christ in the Garden of Gethsemane. Brian Waters, in his book ‘The Forest of Dean’, wrote about this local shrine and its eventual destruction, in a fit of envious pique, by its self-appointed guardian. (2016 – EH)

Christ is a Weeping, only a few yards from Nancy’s Farm, is an open incline as large as a road. This was improvised as a cinema by the United States Army during the war, and Wigpool cottagers, who had never had so much as a village shop of their own, went to many a free cinema show. Wooden seats were fitted, then the before the Americans left, to the disgust of the commoners, they burnt the seats. Wigpool would not only have liked to make use of the timber, but the fire blackened and blistered the patina of the rock formation which they greatly admired.

Christ is a Weeping was mutilated a number of years earlier. To see it you had to creep through a narrow hole in the incline, and there, in carbonate of lime upon the rock, was a natural bas-relief that the locality took to be a representation of Christ in the Garden of Gethsemane.

Christ is a Weeping was, however, unusual, and in a Roman Catholic country it would no doubt have become a place of local and minor pilgrimage; as it was people from time-to-time came to look at it, and as it was hard to find and one needed a candle and matches, a man named Hale, who lived in the nearest cottage, earned a few sixpences and shillings by showing it to visitors. He later moved house to a cottage on another part of the common, and the new occupier of his old home became the unofficial guide in his place. Unreasonably annoyed at seeing his successor inheriting the tips that had once been his, Hale took a stick of dynamite and in the dead of night blew up the bas-relief on the rock.

The above text is from The Forest of Dean by Brian Waters (publisher: Dent)

The Story of the Blue Mound at Lydbrook

How the men of Lydbrook created the Recreation Ground

During the working life of a coal mine a copious amount of waste is produced and the Lydbrook Deep Navigation Pit was no exception. In its operational years from 1838 to 1933 the mine produced a staggering 30,000 tons of the stuff. This redundant slag had no value and was dumped close to the entrance of the mine creating a man-made hill between the Church of Holy Jesus (built in 1851) and the main road. This hill became known as the Blue Mound. It was an eyesore and a danger to health and safety in the village.

Every day, in the school set on the opposite bank across the main road, Sydney Miles, the headmaster would sit at his desk and stare out of his window at this pile of of waste with growing irritation. At the same time he could hear the reasuring sound of the children laughing and playing in the school yard only partially mitigating his indignation. Then, one sunny day, he had a flash of inspiration: why not remove the Blue Mound and create a green playground for the miners’ children to use for generations?

Sydney Miles was a man of influence in Lydbrook. He had been instrumental in the building of the Lydbrook Memorial Hall in 1926. He immediately called a meeting to consider moving the Blue Mound by voluntary labour. The motion was carried and work began on the site in July 1934 and the foundation stone was laid by the Duke of Kent in November 1934.

To remove this menacing heap, the men of Lydbrook, mainly miners, constructed a mini railway in a spiral pattern up to the top, and ‘bogey’ carts were used on it to bring the material down. The work was carried out entirely by pick and shovel and pit carts. Once the mound had been flattened, they grassed it over and put in a football pitch (a home for Lydbrook AFC) and a recreation ground for the children of Lydbrook.

I am proud to say that my Grandfather, George (Mollie) Hunt, took part in this enterprise and can be seen in one of the photographs. He is the short man wearing a waistcoat, the third from the right, in the photograph above.


Postscript 1 (added on 5th December 2015)

The following extract is taken from ‘A Glance Back at . . . Lydbrook’
published by the Lydbrook Historical Society

The Recreation Ground was built on the site of the Blue Mound, seen in the centre of the previous two views, the spoil heap of Lydbrook Deep Level Colliery (1838-1933). Work began on the site in July 1934 and the foundation stone was laid by the Duke of Kent in November. Before work could begin, the brook running across the site was culverted by E.J.Flewelling & Son. This and the building of the surrounding stone walls, was the only paid work, everything else, including the removal of 30,000 tons, being carried out by volunteers. Carts and rails were loaned by Waterloo and Cannop Collieries. Part of the ground was completed in time for the Silver Jubilee on 6 May 1935, and Joys Green and Lydbrook Schools joined for a programme of games and sports, ending with a firework display.
To help appreciate the size of the Blue Mound, from Mr Hall’s (later Evan’s, now closed) shop doorway, Lydbrook Church could not be seen at all.

Postscript 2

The retaining wall to hold back the spoil following the removal of the Blue Mound was recently in the news when cracks started to show following flooding in Lydbrook.

Acknowledgements

I heard this story first from my Mum, Grandad and uncles (Pearl, George, John and Tony Hunt). The photographs are from a CD left to me by my uncle John. The web pages below have been essential to my research and I cannot recommend the wonderful SunGreen website highly enough.The postscript above is lifted directly from ‘A Glance Back at . . . Lydbrook’ published by the Lydbrook Historical Society (2002)

Interesting web pages (please click on link):

          (a) SunGreen: The Blue Mound before levelling

          (b) SunGreen: The Blue Mound after levelling

          (c) SunGreen: The Blue Mound after levelling

Mitcheldean Meend Enclosure Stone

These stones were set up around the Forest of Dean to mark enclosures.
This is the enclosure stone marking “Mitcheldean Meend Enclosure No. 1” set up in 1847.
A.R.P is the area covered: A(cres), R(oods) and P(oles) i.e. 9.5 acres, 0 roods and 0 poles.
Lord Morpeth was the Crown Commissioner of the Woods

See also:

Forest of Dean Enclosures

Mitcheldean Meend – pt. I

Mitcheldean Meend – pt. II

Dean Forest and the Holy Grail

The quest for The Holy Grail proved to be a lethal obstacle course that killed many of Arthur’s knights. Legend says that Galahad and his party of knights discovered and captured The Holy Grail and brought it back to Camelot Castle to Arthur.

The Holy Grail was found in the possession of Anfortas II, the Grail-King, who was relocated to Britain under King Arthur’s patronage, and was given the old iron-age hill-fort at Castell Dinas Bran, at Llangollen, in Clwyd, Wales as his estate. His family, descendants of Joseph of Arimathea, that is, the “Grail-Kings”, served as the official “keepers” of the holy relic, which was kept in an old Roman temple that was refurbished to house it, the one at Lydney Park in the Forest of Dean about nine miles north-east of Chepstow in Gloucestershire. It is situated on a hill overlooking the River Severn. The temple complex was a hybrid of architectural types. Its basic plan was that of a Celto-Roman shrine with a central inner sanctum surrounded by a portico. The Holy Grail was later returned to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem by Helyas”The Swan Knight”, epic-hero of the First Crusade 1096-99, the last Grail-King, and, the first Grand-Master of the Knights-Templar, who, upon entering Jerusalem (accompanying his son, Geoffrey of Bouillon, the leader (army-commander) of the First Crusade) placed the Holy Grail himself on the high-altar (1099). The Holy Grail was taken out of Jerusalem to Acre at the time of Jerusalem’s fall to the Muslims either in 1187 and/or 1244, and there remained at Acre until 1291 when it was taken by the Knight-Templar Guillame (III) de Beaujeu to Antioch and entrusted into the care of Tibald de Gaudin, the city’s bishop. The Holy Grail after that disappears from history until 1910 when there was found in the ruins of a church at Antioch, a cup, containing an inner cup, that is thought by able scholars to be the Holy Grail. The inner cup is plain silver, however its container, the outer cup, is exquisitely carved silver with the figures of Christ and His disciples at the “Last Supper”. The outer cup was obviously made to hold the inner cup, as a sacred, precious object older than itself. The artistic style and workmanship is considered to be of first century date. The Holy Grail, now called “The Chalice of Antioch”, eventually came into the possession of the Cloister’s Museum in New York City and is privately owned today by the Metropolitan Museum, New York, NY.

The text above is from:
                “The British Chronicles”
                by David Hughes
                publisher: Heritage Books 2007