Nestled within Snowdonia National Park Wales is a small little village that thousands are drawn to every year. In a deep valley surrounded by hills and mountains sits Beddgelert.
The literal translation of the name is Gelert’s Grave. Although this may in fact be a mistranslation and the origin of the name is somewhat murky, possibly relating to a seventh century saint known as Gelert or Celert. The most popular belief comes from a 19th century tale, the story of Prince Llewelyn and his faithful hound Gelert.
The tale, which can be read on a large piece of slate, speaks of the day Prince Llewelyn left on a hunting trip leaving behind his beloved son and his favourite hound Gelert, whom for some reason he couldn’t find. When he returned from the hunt he found the door of his house opened and to his horror he discovered the babies crib covered in blood with the swaddling ripped.
From a corner happily bounded Gelert whom was also covered in blood, believing that his favoured hound had killed his son he drew his blade and slew Gelert. As the dog howled his final breath his howls were responded to by cries from the baby.
Investigating the Prince discovered the baby safe and unharmed, a body of a wolf laying near by.
Realising he had jumped to the wrong conclusion he became overwhelmed with grief and buried Gelert in his favourite place.
It may be only a story, but it is one that draws people to the village over and over. However from one village many stories can develop and Beddgelert is also famous for being the home of the creator of the endearing bear Rupert. Many of the paintings used in the cartoons were based on the mountains all around the village and trails can be taken to visit those areas.
More about the area can be found here: http://www.beddgelerttourism.com/gelert/
If you ever get the chance to go to Snowdonia, make sure to stop by!
It’s been 20 years or more since I last went to Beddgelert and I didn’t know about the Rupert Bear connection! How interesting! I’ll be in Snowdonia in May so I will have to go and visit Beddgelert again.
I lost count of the number of times we had to draw that story when I was at school – in lower juniors, just as pictures, in upper juniors we had to add words (captions and/or speech) in english, and in high school we progressed to writing in welsh…
Are you from the area then, or just interested in this part of the world?
(with apologies for late response to your post, I’m not very good at checking this blog regularly)
Thanks both for the replies.
Kate – you’ll have to tell us all how it goes – have a great trip!
Esselci – I grew up an hour and a half away from the village so it was a place that was regularly visited.
I went to Beddgelert two weeks ago – we stayed at the Snowdon Ranger YHA. It was lovely weather and the blossom was out on the tree above the grave. I hadn’t seen the bronze statue of Gelert before in the old hut, so that was well worth seeing. Also, the church in the village is very interesting. Managed to get three-quarters of the way up Snowdon, too!