We were not sorry to leave this place as soon as it was light paying much higher for our miserable entertainment than we had done at any place in the island. First directed our steps along the turnpike to Llandrûgan, { 53} situated near Gwindy the halfway house between Beaumaris and Holyhead our host having given us to understand there was a very ancient stone near the church which many travellers went to look at but few could read the inscription. He himself among the rest although he said he was a good schollar having been clerk of Bodedern many years could (fol. 90) make nothing of it. On arriving at the spot we found a flat tomb stone to the right of the entrance door bearing the following lines legibly cut on its surface:
Reader in me doe thou thyself behold Wilome full hie but now full low in mould Bodychens heyr I was my name was John The second who that sirname fixt upon Credit nor wealth nor friends I did not lacke Heare dead and dust loe all doe me forsake The day draws on when God me hence shall raise Amongst his chosen his great name to praise.
Obiit apud Bodechen decimo die Junii incarnationis milessimo sexto centessimo tricessimo nono aetatis suae septuagesimo.
Moestissima uxor Margaretta monumentum hoc delectessimo conjugi piae memoriae amoris ergo posuit vicessimo die Martii anno milessimo sexgentessimo quadragessimo.
Though we copied the inscription being on the spot we did not think it deserving a digression of three miles to read especially as we had so much to perform before night.
[Picture: No. 41. Stone in Llantrisant Parish]
Hence we hastened forward to Llantrisant not without some apprehension in being equally deceived in an ancient inscription we learnt was to be seen there cut on the stone { 54} of a gateway. On enquiring at a farm house we found it had been taken up from the gate and placed in a kind of shed as a block to chop sticks on. This intelligence conveyed through our interpreter did not quiet our fears for the fate of the inscription, however towards the place we went and fortunately found the stone lying with the inscription downwards (fol. 92). On the edge was engraved Aroe lapidibus in the manner I have shewn in my sketch. Having with the assistance of four stout fellows turned the stone I traced as nearly as I could the characters as they appear in my drawing. The stone was of a lozenge form about six feet high and three wide, and I conjecture was first of all employed by the Romans as a direction across the country, as the words Aroe lapidibus to the stones of Aroe seem to imply. The second inscription was probably cut some centuries after in monkish times as appears by the words moribus disciplinae et sapientiae coming together in the conclusion of the sentence. Indeed many of the upright pillars we have met with in the island I imagine were intended as directions or boundaries and not at all connected with druidical worship as Mr. Rowlands seems to suppose. The day by this time being far advanced we exerted ourselves as much as the country would (fol. 92_a_) allow to gain Llanbabo church four miles distant in sufficient time to copy an ancient stone dug up here in the reign of Charles the second bearing the effigies of Pabo post Prid or Prince Pabo the support of Britain who flourished about the year four hundred sixty and who is said to have built and to have been buried in this church. His effigies are designed on a flat stone resembling free stone, the figure crowned with a sceptre in its right hand and a close garment down to its feet. On the edge of the stone these characters are cut hic jacet Pabo post Prid the remainder is very much defaced but I should read it qui edificavit hanc ecclesiam.