Qualla: Tref Alaw https://qualla.com/tref-alaw en-us © 2026 Bendyline Wed, 08 Jul 2026 02:40:13 GMT Qualla serial false Qualla support@bendyline.com yes https://qualla.com/_res/siteimages/rsslogo.png Qualla: Tref Alaw https://qualla.com/tref-alaw Tref Alaw: Introduction https://qualla.com/tref-alaw/ Branwen, in the Second Branch of the Mabinogion, dies of a broken heart on the bank of the Alaw after a war between Britain and Ireland that she has unwillingly caused. The medieval text says her people raised a four-sided grave for her there, beside the river. In 1813 an antiquarian dug into a low cairn east of Elim, found a cremation urn full of burned bone, and decided this was Branwen's grave — the cairn has been Bedd Branwen ever since. Radiocarbon dating in 1980 told a different story. The central pillar in the cairn was raised before 2000 BC, more than two thousand years before the legend was even written. But the cairn is a cremation cemetery, the burials are real, and someone really did stand here, four thousand years ago, in the wind off the lake, and burn their dead.

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]]> Sun, 24 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/k/z/tref-alaw-wp/gckz-tref-alaw-intro.mp3 0:06 1 full Tref Alaw: The Reservoir and the Community https://qualla.com/tref-alaw/ Tref Alaw is a community — the Welsh equivalent of a civil parish — wrapped around the western and southwestern shores of Llyn Alaw, a man-made reservoir built in 1966 to supply drinking water to Anglesey. It is the largest body of water on the island. The community is more a net...

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]]> Sun, 24 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/k/z/tref-alaw-wp/gckz-tref-alaw-the-reservoir-and-the-community.mp3 0:06 2 full Tref Alaw: Wind Turbines on Top of the Bronze Age https://qualla.com/tref-alaw/ The northern part of Tref Alaw is dominated by the Llyn Alaw wind farm — 35 turbines turning over a landscape that has been worked by humans for at least four thousand years. The juxtaposition is not as strange as it sounds: every generation in this place has built into the wind....

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]]> Sun, 24 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/k/z/tref-alaw-wp/gckz-tref-alaw-wind-turbines-on-top-of-the-bronze-age.mp3 0:06 3 full Tref Alaw: Four Scheduled Monuments https://qualla.com/tref-alaw/ There are four protected ancient monuments in the community. Glan-Alaw Standing Stone, presumed Bronze Age, sits massive in a field 400 metres west of Bod-deiniol farm. Tregwehelydd Standing Stone — also known as Maen y Gored, the rock of the weir — is around eight feet high, in ...

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]]> Sun, 24 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/k/z/tref-alaw-wp/gckz-tref-alaw-four-scheduled-monuments.mp3 0:06 4 full Tref Alaw: Branwen Beside the Alaw https://qualla.com/tref-alaw/ The Mabinogion gives Branwen one of the saddest stories in Welsh literature. Married to Matholwch, king of Ireland, mistreated and humiliated, she sends a starling across the sea with a message that brings her brother Bran the Blessed and the war-bands of Britain to her rescue. T...

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]]> Sun, 24 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/k/z/tref-alaw-wp/gckz-tref-alaw-branwen-beside-the-alaw.mp3 0:06 5 full Tref Alaw: Quiet Country https://qualla.com/tref-alaw/ Most days, Tref Alaw is sheep. It is small farms, narrow lanes, the long horizon of Llyn Alaw under the slow turn of the turbines, the smaller mass of the Carmel Head peninsula in the distance. Llanddeusant has a tiny church. Elim is a scatter of houses. Llantrisant has its own e...

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]]> Sun, 24 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/k/z/tref-alaw-wp/gckz-tref-alaw-quiet-country.mp3 0:06 6 full