DISCOVER Bannau Brycheiniog
The lady of the lake returned with secrets that would turn her descendants in the village of Myddfai into celebrated medics of the middle ages...
RHIWALLON, AND HIS sons Cadwgan, Gruffudd and Einion, became the first Physicians of Myddfai in the 13th century, starting a medical dynasty that lasted over 500 years. The village – still tiny today – became famed across Cymru, and the medics’ patients included the Welsh prince Rhys Grug, aka Rhys the Hoarse. (Myddfai is still liked by royalty: another Prince of Wales bought Llwynywormwood Farm near here in 2007.)
Alane squeezed by fat hedges leads you towards the open hills, but in summer the closer view is bewitching. Wildflowers riot along the verges and up the banks: sunny buttercups, delicate forget-menots, fragrant honeysuckles, pretty vetches and, by a stream, a fog of deadly hemlock water-dropwort.
Many of these plants were used to stock the medieval medicine cabinet (see p62) and in the 14th century the physicians’ remedies were collected in The Red Book of Hergest, a vellum volume of Welsh poetry and prose. The Meddygon Myddfai, as it was called, included 188 treatments and tips, from the virtues of leeks to urine analysis to headache cures.
Arecipe to heal deafness used eel’s bile, ram’s urine and juice of ash; eating saffron would make you feel merry (though not too much ‘lest you should die of excessive joy’). Centuries of medical research later, the remedies often seem bizarre, and sometimes dangerous. But with the resources and knowledge of the time they were pioneering.
As you continue up the lane you pass a turn to Esgair-llaethdy, the farm where the family lived, and then a leafy track tunnels up to the tussocky crown of Mynydd Myddfai. The view grows fast, with the shadowy skyline of Mynydd Du above the legendary lake now clearly visible.
It’s said the lady returned more than once to her sons, teaching them about plants and their uses at Pant Meddygon (Dingle of the Physicians) which is marked on the map on the southern side of this mountain. There is also a spring k
