A Walk to Bedd Taliesin (Taliesin's Grave.)

A suitably grey and intermittently damp day for the start of September. But my day was brightened up by the news that I am booked on tomorrow's day ride. Fingers crossed that the forecast rain doesn't spoil the day.

Our walk today began in Tal Y Bont not very far from here. There were only six of us as I think the rain may have put some people off though in the end we only got rained on a few times. It was warm and humid so for most of the time both my jacket and long sleeved top stayed in my bag.

With most of the villages in this region strung out along the one main road that runs parallel to the coast it only takes half an hour of walking to be up in the hills in what feels like remote farmland. 

A quick climb up a steep hill gave us better views across the countryside reaching as far as Borth, which can be seen as a hazy peak in the centre of the photo above. Although I zoomed in our house was hidden by the hills near Tal Y Bont.

Behind us were the rolling hills that once supported many upland farms. We passed a couple of these farms, now in sad ruins. I'll post photos of these tomorrow.

We sat here (below) to eat our lunch staying away from the ruins of one farm which had the whiff of a dead sheep somewhere near it.

Coming back down we passed through a still functioning farm where they were cutting and baling hay for haylage at the top of a steep field. 

We walked down to the lane and then up the next hill eventually coming to Taliesin's Grave. The name is a probable misnomer as Taliesin was a 6th century poet and this is a bronze age burial site (2,000 - 700 BC) though of course he may have been buried there. This site is very informative about both Taliesin and the burial site while this site gives a lot of information about the historic monuments and roads all around the area. There are many legends about Taliesin who name means 'Radiant Brow' including one that says as a baby he was washed up on the beach at Borth.

We were most surprised to see that underneath the capstone was a Welsh harp. I wondered if it was something to do with celebrating the autumn equinox but that isn't until the 21st of September. Or maybe somebody was planning to spend the night on the stone after which according to legend he would awake either a poet or a madman.  Whatever the reason it was there we didn't attempt to take it out.

It was a bit of a hazy view down to the estuary and with light showers rolling in I put my camera in my backpack for safekeeping as we followed the lane back down to Tal Y Bont.