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indicating changes of level; this and the existing distribution of boulder clay on and near the coast clearly imply that much of Cardigan Bay was a low lying boulder clay plain before a geologically recent subsidence or submergence took place.

Somehow or other it seems that a tale of a former land in Cardigan Bay has come down to us from remote antiquity, and it is one of many similar tales. “The numerous interesting features which these tales have in common seem to suggest the existence in past times of people who were supposed to live in lakes, were small of stature, disliked iron, possessed few articles of furniture, had not learnt the art of making bread, disliked the greensward being broken up by the plough, were successful in tending animals, had a limited ability to count, and probably used a language of their own which no-one else understood. They appear also to have reckoned descent in the female line. If this suggestion is accepted, these characteristics are consistent with a pastoral people in a primitive state of culture, who were not acquainted with the use of iron, but who attributed great importance to stocks of cattle, sheep and goats, and knew little or nothing about tilling the ground and the growing of corn.”¹

      This description might well apply to the Bronze Age people, whose pile-dwellings make clear their intimate association with lakes. The later Iron Age peoples, with better weapons, must have frightened the earlier inhabitants. An anthropological investigation of Central Wales has revealed that a short, dark, and rather long-headed people are associated with remote hill lands, in fact in places where traces of Neolithic man are still common. In the Mawddach valley, around Towyn and in other places is another type. In these places Bronze Age pottery is found. The distribution of these people suggests they came later than the dark hill folk. Later still came the iron using people.

      It is, therefore, possible that the folk tales, a better description than legends, go back at least as far as the early contacts of the Iron Age people with the peoples already living in Wales, or it may even be that the tales date from the remoter past when the Bronze Age and Neolithic peoples were first in contact.

      There is little doubt (see Chapters 8 and 9) that in or before the Neolithic period the boulder clay reached some distance out into Cardigan Bay as a low-lying plain through which the rivers pursued winding, sluggish courses. The post-glacial rise of sea level included the Neolithic period, but probably ceased fairly soon after it. It is likely that the submergence was wholly or nearly complete in the Bronze Age. It has been argued with conviction that many of the present inhabitants of Wales are the direct descendants of Neolithic man, and it is at least possible that their remote ancestors actually witnessed the drowning of the coastal plain. In short, we may have in the legend of Cantref y Gwaelod the gist of a folk tale that has been handed down from a very remote period of human history.

      One final word: the sarns are formed of boulders that were contained in the boulder clay; there is no reason whatever for ascribing their formation to any human element. It is, however, difficult to account for their long and narrow shape. Sarn Badrig and Sarn Cynfelin occur about mid-way between river mouths, thus suggesting the idea that they are in some way continuations of the watersheds between adjacent streams.

¹ For recent information on Holderness I have made considerable use of an unpublished report, 7 July 1947, by G. M. Hines and C. Pinsent, Research officers to the Ministry of Town and Country Planning (Leeds), and shown to me by the kindness of the Regional Controller.

¹ The Lost Towns of the Yorkshire Coast,” 1912, p. 42.

² It was later removed.

³ Letter 10.9.1948 from the County Planning Officer (Norfolk) to the Regional Controller, Ministry Town and Country Planning, Cambridge.

⁴ The figures are kindly given to me by the Cambridge office of the Ministry of Town and Country Planning.

¹ Partly from a plan prepared by F. W. S. Stanton about 1908, and further details from information supplied to the Ministry of Town and Country Planning (Tunbridge Wells), and passed to me by Mr. H. R. Wardill.

¹ Based on information given to me by the Department of Health for Scotland.

² Halophytes are plants which will live in soils containing an appreciable amount of common salt or of other organic salts.

¹ C. P. Petch, Reclaimed Lands of West Norfolk, Trans. Norf. Norw. Nat. Soc. 16, 1945, 106.

² A. G. Tansley, The British Islands and their Vegetation, 1939, p. 828.

¹ Royal Commission on Coast Erosion and Afforestation: Final Rept. p. 135, para. 49.

¹ V. B. Redstone, Memorials of Old Suffolk, Ch. XII. (The italics are mine, J.A.S.).

¹ An account of the historical fluctuations of the bar of the river Findhorn, on the Moray Firth, is given on page 143. All river harbours deflected by a sand or shingle bar have similar stories, but the examples given are sufficient to illustrate the general subject.

² Arch. Cambrensis, June, 1933.

¹ L. S. Higgins, op. cit.

² A Cornish Legend: the Three Churches of Perranzabuloe. Truro, City Printing Works, 1923. Dr. N. J. G. Pounds put me in touch with various sources dealing with coastal sand areas in Cornwall.

¹ The English Martyrologe, 1608, p. 116.

¹ F. J. North, Supplement to the Llandudno, Colwyn Bay and District Field Club Proceedings, Llandudno, 1940.

¹ O. T. Jones, The Welsh Outlook, January, 1941.

       CHAPTER 4

      THE COAST IN PROFILE AND PLAN

      BEFORE discussing particular stretches of coastline formed by rocks of various types, a general review of the nature of cliffs and of the shore profile is desirable.

      Let us assume that the sea comes to rest against the land at a certain level, and that that level remains unchanged for a long period of time. What will happen depends on a variety of factors, and to make

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