Stated to have been conjured up by a sorcerer and even the fairy folks themselves, Pennard Castles historical past is each mysterious and haunted by the sound of the howling witch left within the sandy ruins of the deserted fortress in Wales.
Rising above the windswept shoreline of the Gower Peninsula, the crumbling stays of Pennard Fort sit watchfully on their cliff, surrounded by shifting sands and centuries of uncanny legends the place solely ghosts stay.
What stands immediately is little greater than weathered stone and silent arches, but the fortress has impressed among the most unsettling tales in Welsh folklore. Its desolation isn’t merely the work of time. Locals whisper that Pennard’s downfall started with curses, fairy vengeance, and the darkish attentions of a supernatural hag.
A Fort In-built a Night time
There’s little recorded concerning the fortress and all through centuries extra myths and legends than details have etched themselves into the thoughts of the locals.
Folklore claims Pennard Fort was slowly constructed with mortar and sweat like its neighbors. As a substitute, it appeared in a single moonlit night time. The truthful folks, who have been stated to hang-out the close by woods and hollows, are generally credited with its development. Typically it’s stated it was a sorcerer who conjured the fortress one night time to avoid wasting himself from demise by the Normans.
Learn Extra: Take a look at all ghost tales from haunted castles around the globe
The ruins of Pennard Fort overlay an earlier Norman earth timber ringwork fortification. The cliffs on the north and west facet provided strategic defences, and a stone fortress was constructed within the 1300s. The fortress modified fingers from the Broase clan to the Mowbray, Despenser, and Beauchamp households.
Exceptionally stormy climate within the thirteenth and 14th centuries blew massive quantities of sand into and round it. The sandy storms broken the fortress construction a lot those dwelling in it deserted it. By the 1650s, the historic data discuss concerning the desolate ruins of the fortress buried in sand.
The Curse of the Truthful Folks over Pennard Fort
So who have been these truthful folks stated to be those constructing the fortress? Alongside the Parkmill route within the space, additionally, you will discover an abundance of Buckthorn, the favorite of the Welsh Faeries, or Lunantisidhe from Irish folklore. Some additionally say it is a signal of the Welsh model of them and their presence across the fortress.
Considered one of Pennard’s most enduring legends tells of a marriage feast held by the lord of the fortress. As he and his friends celebrated, music drifted into the corridor from the courtyard. There, the truthful folks, or Verry folks, “verry-folks”, the fairies of Gower, have been dancing beneath the moon.
As a substitute of welcoming them or providing hospitality, the lord reacted with anger and drove them out. Insulted and livid, the fairies cursed the fortress and its grasp. That very same night time, winds howled throughout the coast and a tide of sand rose like a dwelling drive. By daybreak, the fortress was half buried. Inside just a few quick years, a lot sand had piled towards the partitions that Pennard grew to become uninhabitable. Some tales declare that whereas Pennard was choked by sand, the seashores of Eire have been stripped naked, the grains carried throughout the ocean as a part of the curse.
The Hag of Pennard Fort
The legends of Pennard don’t finish with the truthful folks. The fortress can also be tied to a terrifying spirit often known as a Gwrach y Rhibyn, a witch or hag of demise whose screeches and cries echo throughout the cliffs. Just like the banshee of Irish folklore, she seems earlier than a demise in sure outdated households, usually within the type of a crow-like creature hunched within the shadows.
Some say that it was the sorcerer who conjured up the fortress who invoked her to guard him from the Normans and that she wouldn’t let any mortal spend the night time within the fortress.
If that weren’t scary sufficient, she is alleged to bodily assault anybody silly sufficient to sleep among the many ruins. Some variations of the story say she leaps upon any dwelling soul who beds down contained in the fortress partitions. Others declare she solely assaults these from the traditional native lineages she has shadowed for generations. The result is seldom good. Those that dared to sleep in Pennard Fort have been stated to awaken mad, die earlier than morning, or in stranger instances rise as poets, cursed with visions they may by no means totally categorical.
Legend has it that one Carmarthen man, daring to spend the night time within the ruined fortress, was attacked by the Gwrach. The ghostly determine swooped down upon him, leaving him bruised and bloodied. Although he survived, he was cursed to dwell the remainder of his life as a madman.
The Weeping Girl within the Ruins
Guests generally report the sound of a lady crying among the many damaged partitions when the wind dies and the dunes lie nonetheless. Some imagine she is a tragic bride, without end mourning a misplaced love. A maiden apparently threw herself off close by Penrice Hill after avenging the demise of her lover.
Others insist the weeping maiden is none apart from the gwrach herself, altering type as fits her objective. Whether or not a spirit of sorrow or a harbinger of demise, her presence lingers within the night time air, carried over the sands like a lament for the fortress and the lives it claimed.
A Place The place Time Does Not Relaxation
Pennard Fort has lengthy since fallen to wreck, its halls open to the sky and its gates claimed by sand. the uncommon county flower of Glamorgan extensively on the fortress website.
But the tales stay. The curses of the truthful folks, the deathly hag, the unseen bride, and the chilling destiny of those that sleep inside its partitions all cling to the positioning as stubbornly because the dunes that smothered it.
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References:
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