Visiting An Enchanted Lake

It’s a beautiful day in the Snowdonia National Park, and Dave and Sian are hiking in the southern end of the Rhinogydd mountains. They come upon a magical lake, still, deep blue, and clear, nestling between the ridges of Y Llethr and Diffwys.

The lake was dammed in 1894 to convert it to a reservoir, and its outflow gives rise to the Afon Ysgethin, which eventually flows out into the Irish Sea near Tal-y-bont.


Legend has it that the fairies - the Fair Folk or Tylwyth Teg - stocked this lake with the rare Artic Char fish that live in it as a gift to a young shepherd who had once helped them.

The lake and its surrounding have a palpable atmosphere of the past living in the present, and of a remote and enchanted place.

While walking its banks, Dave chances on a lichen-covered stone, with a message chiselled into its face.

It was erected in 1913 to a twenty-one year old climber, William Harris Leadbrook, who lost his life falling from the rock face above the east end of the lake.

Dave pauses to reflect on its message. “The call came to him/among the wilderness and grandeur of God’s creation/which he loved so well’.

None of us can know when our lives will end, but the fact that they have the inevitable event horizon of our own mortality gives them a weight and meaning that it’s all too easy to lose sight of.

If William had survived to 1914, he would probably have ended up serving in WW1, and perhaps perishing in a muddy field in France.

Instead, this thin place bears witness to his passing.


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