HIGH HILLS, WILD BANDITS
They crowd in, these cloud-skirmished hills. Some are conifer-black. Others have grass pelts from which rocks protrude like broken bones and ponds that glint on their summits. Quarries yawn. Raptors scream. Sheep scatter. These are wild enough hills all right, even without their historical association with the Red-haired Bandits of Mawddwy – Gwylliaid Cochion Mawddwy, in Welsh.
The bandits were at large in the early 16th century after the Wars of the Roses, when territory between Powys and Meirionnydd was unclaimed and un-sheriffed.
Local historian and tour guide Arfon Hughes takes up the tale.
