History
Ardudwy features prominently in Welsh mythology. In the Third Branch of the Mabinogi, Bendigeidfran holds court at Harlech, and his severed head returns there for seven years before it is taken on to Gwales. In the Fourth Branch, Lleu Llaw Gyffes is given Eifionydd and Ardudwy as his fief by Math fab Mathonwy. Lleu built his palace at Mur y Castell in Ardudwy. He reigned there before and after the usurpation of Gronw Pebr, whom he killed on the banks of the River Cynfael. A holed stone in Ardudwy is still known as Llech Ronw (Gronw's Stone).
Ardudwy is later associated with 9th Century chieftain Collwyn ap Tango the progenitor of the fifth of the Fifteen Noble Tribes of Gwynedd. He was Lord of Eifionydd, Ardudwy & part of Llŷn and is a maternal ancestor of the Anwyl of Tywyn Family. Ardudwy was a core part of the Kingdom of Gwynedd above the River Conwy throughout the early Middle Ages. After the conquest and subjugation of Gwynedd in 1283 the cantref was merged with Meirionydd to form the new county of Merionethshire. This situation was retained, more or less, until 1974 when Welsh Local Government was reorganised and it became part of the reformed Gwynedd where it has remained.
Read more about this topic: Ardudwy
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“The history of any nation follows an undulatory course. In the trough of the wave we find more or less complete anarchy; but the crest is not more or less complete Utopia, but only, at best, a tolerably humane, partially free and fairly just society that invariably carries within itself the seeds of its own decadence.”
—Aldous Huxley (1894–1963)
“Both place and time were changed, and I dwelt nearer to those parts of the universe and to those eras in history which had most attracted me.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“There are two great unknown forces to-day, electricity and woman, but men can reckon much better on electricity than they can on woman.”
—Josephine K. Henry, U.S. suffragist. As quoted in History of Woman Suffrage, vol. 4, ch. 15, by Susan B. Anthony and Ida Husted Harper (1902)