Winter Solstice was spent in and around the Llangollen area. It’s not only easy for us to get to, but there are some favourite sites which we know always deliver when it comes to both scenery and ‘sorcery’. Kal has already covered our visit to St.Winifrede’s Well in Holywell, which was a shared experience. The next couple of posts will concentrate on our next two places – Vale Crucis Abbey, and then the hillfort of Dinas Bran and I will describe the visits in terms of what happened to me.
Before we arrived at Vale Crucis, though, we came through some back roads from Holywell which meant that we came over Horseshoe Pass. At that time of the morning and at this time of the year the views were stunning:
Vale Crucis – free and open in Winter
We began our visit by taking some photographs. You have to get the fiddly stuff done first in this weather or your fingers freeze up! Having got that bit done we circled the site in opposite directions, each of us choosing our spot through a combination of dowsing and intuition.
Conversation with Collen
St Collen is famous for having refused firstly the invitation of, then the hospitality of Gwyn Ap Nudd – the Faery King. After causing him to disappear through the application of holy water, little more is heard of Collen. The story, from the ‘Life of St. Collen‘ and quoted in Lady Charlotte Guest’s translation of The Mabinogion, is reproduced here. [Thanks to Ian Pegler for correcting that].
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