Llyn Glaslyn in Wales is 126 feet (42 metres) deep and is said to be the location of a legendary monster the 'Afanc.'
The Afanc was a mythical water monster that originally abided in Llyn-yr-Afanc (the Afanc Pool) in the River Conwy. It was a huge beast who would cause flooding to the local area by its thrashing about. Attempts had been made to kill it but to no avail. It was decided to try and entice the creature from the pool and move it to a place where it could not cause any more trouble. Iron chains would be used to bind the creature and two oxen would then drag the creature to another lake. A local girl sang by the lake and the creature left the lake to get closer to her. Local men immediately bound the creature and started to drag it to Llyn Ffynnon Las (now called Llyn Glaslyn). The creature apparently jumped into the new home on arrival and is said to be trapped there.
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Afnac is one of those vague terms that names many different things: I remember when Oll Lewis had a discussion about it and one of the responses indicated the name could also mean a humanoid dwarf. In the case of Water Monsters, there seem to be a mammalian hairy creature and a "Slimy reptile" (if it is truly slimy, then it is more reasonably an amphibian), both approximately crocodile -shaped and -sized. That is, whenever any specific sort of a description is made at all: I have one book at home that illustrates it as a sort of a crocodile with a beaver-like tail. I take the main line of reports to refer to a Master-Otter but some of the larger reported creatures could be eels. And of course there are the usual confusion with pikes and tree stumps, or whatever.
ReplyDeleteBest Wishes, Dale D.
The term afanc is, linguistically, the equivalent of Irish abhac, a dwarf. In the Welsh romance "Peredur" it is able to fling a spear, which suggests it signified a humanoid in Welsh also. However, in Modern Welsh it is used for beaver and crocodile. This seems to have led to untold confusion.
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