In
the land of North Wales lies an ancient road, stretching between the Island
of Anglesey in the west and the Welsh border towns in the east.
Along
this old road, down the centuries, came the restless Stone Age people, the
Beaker Folk with bright copper daggers, and the dancing, singing Celts.
Along here marched the Roman legions, far from home, ringing the mountainsides
with the rhythm of their boots.
One
summer's day two heavy-footed giants, red-faced and red-haired, trudged
along the road. They were bad-tempered and quarrelling loudly, as all giants
do.
One of the gaints carried a large stone under each arm, which would form
the window frame of the house they were going to build on Anglesey. The
giantess, his wife, held in her apron an awkward bundle of smaller rocks,
plucked from the mountains, to be used for the walls of their new home.
The
giants had set out at sunrise from Chester but had easily got lost in a
maze of pathways around the pretty village of Rowen, which had few finger-posts
to direct unwelcome travellers.
When
they finally found the right road, it was steep and stony, climbing and
winding into the mountains, and by now the giants had spent a long day walking
under the hot summer sun.
They
were sticky and sweating and swearing, and grunting and grumbling and groaning
by the time they reached the highest point of a pass between two mountain
ranges. From here they could look forward over the wooded valleys to the
sea at Aber and the Island of Anglesey beyond.
Steadily
climbing the track towards them came a lively young man with a sackful of
flapping leather shoes and yawning sandals slung on his back which he hoped
to repair and then sell in the next market town.
The
giant peered down at the peak of the young man's woollen hood and asked
him if it was far to Anglesey.
"Well"
said the cobbler, bending his head lower to hide his smile and opening his
sack, "all these shoes were new when I left there!"
On
hearing these words, foretelling a long journey ahead of them, the giant
panicked and threw down his boulders, which stuck upright in the soft mud
either side of the track. The giantess, in despair, emptied her bundle of
rocks in a heap on the ground.
And the giant's two stones and the giantess's apronful can still be seen
by any traveller walking down the centuries through Bwlch y Ddeufaen - the
Pass of Two Stones - along the old Roman road.
