Other Mysteries · Llyn Tegid, Bala, Gwynedd, Wales · Undated lake-formation traditions; versions collected in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries
Beneath Llyn Tegid, tradition places an earlier town. One account blames a well left uncovered; another follows a poor harper away from a feast while a warning bird repeats its message. John Rhys preserved both, allowing the lake’s familiar drowned-city story to be read as several connected traditions rather than one fixed account.
The well beneath the lake
In the version Rhys traces through the Trefriw collector David Jones, a town stands around a well called Ffynnon Gywer. Its cover must be kept secure. When that obligation is neglected, the water escapes and overwhelms the settlement.
The collection associates the material with an older conversation dated 1735 and later transmission through Welsh publications. It also records claims that chimneys could be seen through clear water. These are elements of the collected tradition, not the results of an archaeological survey carried out for this case file.
Old Bala and the town at the outlet
The story explains the surviving town as a replacement established near the lake’s outlet. Rhys also records local discussion of older shoreline ground, a road and the encroachment of water. Those observations sit beside a prophecy that Bala itself will eventually be drowned.
A couplet involving Bala and Llanfor gives the landscape a future as well as a past. The lake is imagined as a continuing presence which has already taken one settlement and may take another. That is a different narrative from a single catastrophe safely confined to an ancient age.
The feast and the third generation
A second version concerns a cruel prince who hears that vengeance will fall upon the third generation. At the celebration of a grandson’s birth, a poor harper is summoned to provide music. The splendid household continues its feast while the threatened consequence approaches.
During a rest the musician hears a warning. A bird leads him away through difficult ground and uphill. When he tries to stop, the warning draws him on. Eventually he reaches a place where he can rest, hearing water nearby but not understanding what has happened behind him.
Morning reveals the lake
The harper worries about missing the next dance and losing his place at the feast. By morning the palace and its gathering have disappeared beneath water. His harp floats on the new lake, connecting the object he left behind with the world which has been lost.
This version gives the flood a moral and dynastic purpose. The well story centres on a neglected precaution; the harper story centres on vengeance and escape. Rhys treats that difference as significant when comparing Welsh inundation traditions, rather than assuming the two plots originally formed one continuous event.
Sounds, bells and the observer’s landscape
Rhys also discusses how sounds from broken ice moving on the lake can resemble metallic ringing. He cites an observation associated with Owen M. Edwards. This provides a concrete example of a sound which a visitor might encounter, without claiming that one observation explains every tradition of underwater bells or every person’s experience.
The useful distinction is between the lake itself, reported local sounds and the stories used to interpret them. A natural sound can become part of a tradition, while a tradition can change what a listener expects to hear. Rhys’s collection preserves both landscape observation and inherited narrative.
Reading Bala beside other Welsh waters
The map marks Llyn Tegid as the lake associated with the stories. It does not locate the alleged town, a visible chimney or the harper’s exact refuge. The source material does not establish coordinates for those narrative features.
Llyn Llech Owain supplies another neglected well; Cantre’r Gwaelod carries the theme to Cardigan Bay. Their differences are as useful as their similarities. At Bala, the warning bird and the floating harp make the escape personal, while the forgotten cover offers a second explanation of how familiar water came to occupy a vanished human world.
Timeline
- 1735 — conversation date associated with the older source route for the well tradition.
- Eighteenth and nineteenth centuries — Welsh collections preserve drowned-town and prophecy material.
- Nineteenth-century retelling — the harper’s escape circulates through Welsh publication.
- 1901 — Rhys publishes his comparative collection in Celtic Folklore.
Sources & further reading
John Rhys, Celtic Folklore: Welsh and Manx, volume 1 — Public-domain account of Ffynnon Gywer, the drowned settlement and local Bala traditions.
John Rhys, Celtic Folklore: Welsh and Manx, volume 2 — Public-domain harper narrative, comparison of flood traditions and discussion of lake sounds.
Location reference — Lake-area pin. No submerged town, chimney, palace or exact escape route has been located by this research.
Related UKPX cases
Llyn Llech Owain: the forgotten well-cover, the galloping horse and three different Owens
Cantre’r Gwaelod: Mererid’s well, Seithennin’s watch and the bells beneath Cardigan Bay
Llyn Cwm Llwch: the fairy garden, the stolen flower and the guardian in the red coat
UKPX historical case file. Researched and checked 4 November 2026.