CARNEDD ELIDIR

“…a man who was fishing in [Marchlyn] found himself enveloped in the clouds that had descended from the hills to the water. A sudden gust of wind cleared a road through the mist that hung over the lake, and revealed to his sight a man busily engaged in thatching a stack. The man, or rather the fairy, stood on a ladder. The stack and the ladder rested on the surface of the lake.”
Reverend Elias Owen

HAT HAUNTING IMAGE, recorded by the folklorist and headmaster of Llanllechid School Elias Owen (1833-1899), comes from his seminal 1896 study, – still one [valleys] in Eryri – an atmosphere changed out of all recognition since Marchlyn was harnessed as the upper lake for the Dinorwig pumped storage scheme. This took ten years to complete before it was finally commissioned, appropriately enough in 1984. Its main purpose – admitted at the time of its construction in publicity caravans that toured local towns and villages – was to provide a source of instant power to cope with surges in demand as the British populace en masse turns on its electric kettles to make tea at the end of each episode of , , or whatever’s the favourite viewing of the time. So this fine Welsh cwm was turned into a disturbing sink with a plughole through which all Marchlyn’s water – its level fluctuating by 100 feet – disappeared twice a day, to be returned to source by means of the energy generated by its descent. There was a degree of resistance to it, and a campaign of sabotage and disruption went unrecorded in the press (does that sound familiar?).