The Legend of the Kentsham Bell

Pixabay – OpenClipart-Vectors – CC0 Public Domain

According to one legend, the greatest bell that was ever brought to England was the Kentsham Bell.  Where Kentsham was is not told in this tale but what is told is that the parishioners of Kentsham had great pride in their hometown.  They decided that the church of their parish should have the biggest and finest bell in all of England.  However, at this time in history there was no bell-making foundry in England that could produce a bell on the grand scale they desired and so they had to give the commission of the bell to a foreign foundry that cast the greatest bells in all of Europe.

It so happened that other parishes around England at the time decided that they too would like a fine bell to enhance their churches though they were more modest in their aspirations.  Therefore to save on costs,  a foreign foundry was awarded the commission of casting all four bells.  In due course, four fine bells were made that were named Great Tom of York, Great Tom of Lincoln, Great Tom of Christchurch and finally Great Tom of Kentsham, the largest and finest bell of all.  They were all transported from the foundry on the continent together on the same ship over the sea to England.

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The Eskimo Folktale of the Red Skeleton

Image by James Ward [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

The Ophan Boy

There was once a poor Eskimo boy who lived in a village on Cape Prince of Wales, Alaska.  The boy was an orphan and because of this he had no one to look after him of fend for him and some of the villagers treated him very badly.  They made him run errands for them and made him work for them.

He was allowed  to stay in the kashim, the villagers community building, in bad weather and sleep there. There came a night when it was snowing thick and fast and the adults ordered him to go out in the cold to see if the weather was getting worse or if it looked as if it might clear up.  It was a terribly cold night and he had no boots and no warm clothes.  He did not want to go but they pushed him out through the door and he ran to the edge of the village and looked at the night sky.  The snow had stopped but it was still perishing cold and he ran back with the news, banging on the door and shouting, “Good news! The snow had stopped now, but it is still very, very cold. Please let me in!”

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Welsh Folklore: The Legend of the Drowned Town of Kenfig Pool

This post was first published on #FolkloreThursday.com on May 25th, 2017, titled Welsh Lake Legends and Folklore: The Drowned Town of Kenfig by zteve t evans.

Kenfig Pool by Nigel Homer [CC BY-SA 2.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0)%5D, via Wikimedia Commons

Many Welsh lakes have legends and myths connected to them, and Kenfig Pool is no exception having associations with a legendary drowned town under the lake and a real town buried under sand nearby.  Situated near Porthcawl, Bridgend in Glamorgan, Wales, it is also known as Pwll Cynffig. There has been a human settlement in this area at least since the Bronze Age, and perhaps because of this long history it is steeped in legend and folklore from many ages. One of the most mysterious is the legend of a drowned town under Kenfig Pool and, adding to the mystique and romance, there was also a real town of Kenfig. This town was abandoned after being completely covered by the shifting sands of a massive dune system which once ran along the Welsh shoreline.

The purpose of this article is to discuss the legendary town supposedly submerged under Kenfig Pool. First, a description of the abandoned town of Kenfig which was known to exist will be provided. This will be followed by a discussion of how Kenfig Pool was thought to have formed, and then the legend that tells the story of the drowned town will be presented and the conclusion will offer a few thoughts to ponder.

The Drowning of the Legendary Town of Kenfig

According to local tradition, the lord of Kenfig had a daughter who fell in love with a young local man of low birth and no money. Still, they say love is blind and the couple wanted to marry. Love may be blind, but the girl’s father was not impressed by the lowly social status and lack of money of his daughter’s suitor, so he ruled against the marriage. He told the couple in no uncertain terms that the young man was not a suitable partner.  Filled with despair, the young man decided that the only chance he had of marrying his true love was to leave Kenfig and strike out to another town in the hope of finding or making his fortune. After discussing his plan with his lover, it was reluctantly agreed and he set off alone to find his fortune.

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