From Aberystwyth with Love

Sixteen crosses glimmering beneath the waters of a lake are all that remain of the Chinamen who built the Devil’s Bridge narrow gauge railway. Sixteen unhappy wretches who left their native land in the nineteenth century thinking they were going to build the great Union Pacific Railway across the United States and learned too late the bitter lesson that life so often conceals in the small print. From the comfort of your Aberystwyth hotel with all its modern amenities – its electric elevator and sophisticated telephone switchboard – it is easy to believe the official account of their deaths. A simple linguistic mix-up that transubstantiated gelignite for jelly in the dessert. But if you forsake the comforting embrace of civilisation and pass by the shores of the lake late on a winter’s day when the curlew haunts the land with its uncannily human cry, you may hear a different story. You may chance upon the humble peasant carrying brushwood home upon his back who will tell you about the trolls living deep in the belly of the mountain, and about the Promethean arrogance of the railway company that scoffed at the superstitions of the locals and carried on blasting despite the warnings. The peasant may tell you stories of his childhood when village girls were offered to the trolls as brides. Perchance he will point you in the direction of a forgotten parish museum where photos gather dust that show the many hairy babies born in those parts. And he may add with a glint of pride in his eye that many of them went on to achieve great renown and bring honour to the village as school games teachers.

From In Deepest Cardiganshire, by Colonel Sir Henry Lyons