John Fraser Williams
A Londoner, John Fraser Williams has produced television current affairs programmes in Welsh and English. Since settling in Caernarfon, and thanks to a Welsh Academy bursary, he is to trace his grandfather's journey to North India and research the effects of the Welsh Mission. A book of poetry will follow.
Drysau Coll Caernarfon / The Lost Doorways of Caernarfon (John Fraser Williams)
Llanbeblig
Maybe our best gift is for collecting stone,
building on the flat top of a windswept hill.
We marked barracks, bath-house,
treasury and walls, found a dark hall for the cult
of businessmen and soldiers, where a son of the sky
could live, drink our prayers, and die.
Let the rest go, slip from spring to flow, tide-turned
on the aber's salted songs. We've lost to nature
by the church, Iesu Grist, lost the same war as Mithras,
with all that sacrifice-and-born-again stuff.
Tonight's the voice of land and time and weather.
There was just a hut here, when Peblig cleared
his llan, tucked against sight from the sea.
Now it's flats, houses, a cemetery of junkies' nests,
plastic bags, cans in the bushes,
sacraments of alcohol and needles.
There's still a light in the porch, Publicius, and stones
stolen from Segontium, altars recycled.
Segont. Seiont. The fast, strong river.
I'll listen, let it whisper, tell me
where to look in this estate, for sanctuary,
a cave, another hero with a cloak of stars.
In 1959 a temple to the god Mithras was uncovered during the building of a council estate, adjoining the site of the Roman fort of Segontium in the parish of Llanbeblig, Caernarfon, Gwynedd. Mithraism, a mystery religion, had several features in common with Christianity, and was supplanted by it in the late Roman Empire.
Peblig is the Welsh form of Publicius, a Latin personal name.
Segontium, and the nearby river Seiont, derive from an early Celtic root sego-, suggesting strength, speed or victory.
Posted: 9th April 2009
