The village is a popular tourist destination on the western edge of the Brecon Beacons, famous for the history and heritage of the Physicians of Myddfai and the legend of ‘The Lady of The Lake’ and provides a central location to visit a wide range of interesting places, such as gardens, castles and The Heart of Wales Railway.
Myddfai Community Hall and Visitor Centre[5] is one of the main attractions in Myddfai with a gift shop offering plenty of art and crafts by local artists and contributors, a café serving hot drinks and homemade cakes and a large hall and meeting room offering facilities for weddings, events and local community events. It is an energy efficient facility in the heart of the village and recognised as one of the most well equipped venues in the area. It was designed and built with funding from the Big Lottery Village SOS Scheme and supported by a wide range of other funders. The story of the Myddfai project and build was followed by the BBC as part of the 'Village SOS' series with presenter Sarah Beeny and was shown on BBC One in August 2011 and was officially opened in June 2011 by Prince Charles and his wife the Duchess of Cornwall.
The area is the setting for many tales of myth and legend. One such legend is the story of the Lady of the Lake. The story goes that a young farm boy grazing his sheep flock around the lake of Llyn y Fan Fach below the Black Mountain escarpment used to pass the long daylight hours gazing into the dazzling waters of the lake. As he grew up, passing every day this way, one day a beautiful woman emerged from this lake, approached the dumbstruck boy, who was instantly besotted and cast totally under her spell. She was unparalleled in beauty, grace and wisdom and immediately prophesied to him that he would become rich and respected if he would agree to marry her. However this future success and her partnership was dependent on certain conditions. Foremost condition was that he should never strike her more than three times. Secondly that he never speak a word of her origin or the supernatural source of their success and relationship.
The boy very readily agreed and managed to suppress conjecture as to her sudden appearance – no easy feat among a Welsh community. As she forecast, the young boy's flocks gained weight and condition and many healthy lambs were born, including exceptional breed rams, he became an astute negotiator at market, enjoyed haggling, kept his humour and his nerve, he secured excellent deals with older, shrewder farmers, won their gradual respect, expanded his flocks, bought his own land, rented land wisely, developed a skillful eye when buying, built up relationships with trusted peers, supported those coming up behind him, knew intuitively who to trust and whose word to discount, expanded into horse breeding and before many years had passed he was a farmer. A man who was welcome wherever he went, sought out by all. His quiet wife kept in the background and produced beautiful, healthy children, ran the household efficiently and was a constant support to her husband.
For many years the couple were closely in love and they prospered and enabled their wider community to prosper. However like many young men the boy grew complacent, maybe even arrogant on occasions, neglected old friends, old bonds and old values. This resulted in lost revenue, damaged friendships and a resultant backlash of stress, anger and disquiet. On one occasion he struck his wife as she met him from market. She reminded him of his promises to her and the foremost condition of their marriage. He begged her forgiveness, which she readily gave.
However this happened twice more in similar circumstances and on being struck the third time she stood up to her full height, looked him in the eye and stated that their relationship was now over. She simply turned on her heel and walked out of their farm and as she crossed their land every sheep, lamb, cow, calf, hen, chick, duck, goose, pig and horse followed her. She ascended to the lake and wordlessly walked in once more, every animal following her beneath the cold still waters, leaving the man heartbroken in the shallows, his pleas resounding around the mountains arms.
Another version of the tale, as told by Sir John Rhys in his book "Celtic Folklore, Volume 1: Welsh and Manx," shows no worsening of the young man. Instead, the "blows" come to a light blow on the back with a pair of gloves, a warm hand at a wedding when the Lady is crying, and an admonishing hand at a funeral when the Lady is laughing. The story ends in a similar fashion, though, with the Lady calling all of her dowry of animals away with her. It is noted, further: "What became of the affrighted ploughman – whether he was left on the field when the oxen set off, or whether he followed them to the lake, has not been handed down to tradition; neither has the fate of the disconsolate and half-ruined husband been kept in remembrance".[6]
The man returned to his farm unable to work the land, lost in a world of self-reproach and disbelief, a ruined man. His only compensation was his children by his otherworldly wife, who still loved him; they grew up to be the Physicians of Myddfai.[7]
In 2006, Charles III, who at the time was Prince of Wales, started looking for a base for his visits to Wales. Carmarthenshire was seen as a favourite location due to its quiet nature. In late 2006, the Prince via the Duchy of Cornwall made an offer on Llwynywermwd (Llwynywormwood), a former coach house set in the 190-acre (0.77km2) grounds of a ruined mansion. Contracts were exchanged in November 2006, with Clarence House saying that the property may be let to holidaymakers when the Prince and his wife, now Queen Camilla, were not there. The King made his first official visit on 16 March 2007.[8]
Llandeilo is a town and community in Carmarthenshire, Wales, situated at the crossing of the River Towy by the A483 on a 19th-century stone bridge. Its population was 1,795 at the 2011 Census. It is adjacent to the westernmost point of the Brecon Beacons National Park. The town is served by Llandeilo railway station on the Heart of Wales Line.
Llandovery is a market town and community in Carmarthenshire, Wales. It lies on the River Tywi and at the junction of the A40 and A483 roads, about 25 miles (40 km) north-east of Carmarthen, 27 miles (43 km) north of Swansea and 21 miles (34 km) west of Brecon.
The Red Book of Hergest, Oxford, Jesus College, MS 111, is a large vellum manuscript written shortly after 1382, which ranks as one of the most important medieval manuscripts written in the Welsh language. It preserves a collection of Welsh prose and poetry, notably the tales of the Mabinogion and Gogynfeirdd poetry. The manuscript derives its name from the colour of its leather binding and from its association with Hergest Court between the late 15th and early 17th century.
Rhys ap Tewdwr was a king of Deheubarth in Wales and member of the Dinefwr dynasty, a branch descended from Rhodri the Great. He was born in the area which is now Carmarthenshire and died at the battle of Brecon in April 1093.
Llanwrda is both a village and a community in Carmarthenshire, Wales, 4 miles (6.4 km) southwest of Llandovery. It lies on the River Towy. The population in 2011 was 514.
Llywelyn ap Gruffydd Fychan of Caeo was a wealthy Carmarthenshire landowner who was executed in Llandovery by Henry IV of England in punishment for his support of Owain Glyndŵr's Welsh rebellion.
Llandovery Castle is a late thirteenth-century, Grade II*-listed, castle ruin in the town of Llandovery in Carmarthenshire, Wales. It occupies a knoll overlooking the River Towy and the land surrounding it. The Normans built a castle in the current location in the early twelfth century and this was rebuilt in stone. It was burnt in the early sixteenth century and never repaired.
Carmarthen East and Dinefwr is a constituency of the Senedd. It elects one Member of the Senedd by the first past the post method of election. Also, however, it is one of eight constituencies in the Mid and West Wales electoral region, which elects four additional members, in addition to eight constituency members, to produce a degree of proportional representation for the region as a whole.
Llansadwrn is a small village and community in Carmarthenshire, Wales.
Cilycwm is a village and parish located in Carmarthenshire, Wales. The community population taken at the 2011 census was 487.
Llanddeusant is a very sparsely populated community in the Black Mountain (range) of the Brecon Beacons National Park in Carmarthenshire, Wales. It is about 5 miles southeast of Llangadog.
Llanfair-y-bryn is the name of a sparsely populated, rural community and Church in Wales parish in Carmarthenshire, Wales. Covering an area of some 95 km², it lies along and to the northwest and southeast of the A483 Swansea to Chester road immediately north of the town of Llandovery. The population of the community at the 2011 census was 624.
Llyn y Fan Fach is a lake of approximately 10 hectares on the northern margin of the Black Mountain in Carmarthenshire, South Wales and lying within the Brecon Beacons National Park. The lake lies at an altitude of approximately 1,660 feet (510 m), immediately to the north of the ridge of the Carmarthen Fans. It is the smaller of two lakes within this mountain massif: the slightly larger Llyn y Fan Fawr is about 2 miles (3.2 km) to the east.
The Doctor of Myddfai is an opera in two acts composed by Peter Maxwell Davies to a libretto by David Pountney. The work premiered at the New Theatre in Cardiff on 5 June 1996, performed by the Welsh National Opera and conducted by Richard Armstrong. The libretto was adapted from an ancient Welsh legend related to the Lady of the Lake legend. The original tale is reinterpreted in terms of a mysterious disease, knowledge of which the authorities are trying to suppress. The opera takes place in a totalitarian society similar to that envisioned in Orwell's 1984, with a supreme ruler, mechanistic bureaucracy and endless war.
Llwynywermod, also known as Llwynywormwood, is an estate owned by the Duchy of Cornwall, just outside the Brecon Beacons National Park in Carmarthenshire, Wales. The 192-acre (0.78 km2) estate is near the village of Myddfai, Llandovery, Carmarthenshire.
Known as The Garden of Wales, Carmarthenshire is a county of rich, fertile farmland and productive seas and estuaries, that give it a range of foods that motivate many home cooks and restaurateurs. There is a local tradition in brewing, milling, gathering shellfish from the coasts and meat production. Carmarthenshire has been described by The Daily Telegraph as a "worthwhile destination for foodies" with the county having a modest matter of fact excellence. Carmarthenshire has ambitions to become the premier food-producing county of Wales, based on its strong reputation for first-class products. and Carmarthenshire County Council produces its own on-line and hard-copy recipe book called Taste from Carmarthenshire, for those interested in learning more about the county's cuisine.
Gwynfe or Capel Gwynfe is a small village inside the portion of Brecon Beacons National Park that is in Carmarthenshire, a county of southwestern Wales. This village is situated between Trichrug and the western slopes of the Black Mountain, to the west of the A4069 road about halfway between Llangadog and Brynamman. The village comprises a scattered collection of mostly nineteenth and twentieth-century housing that developed around several chapels. The area around the village is mainly farmland and the village was 2004 'Village of the Year for Carmarthenshire'. The village has a grade-two listed phone box now used as an information centre and a modern community hall built in 2001. The community association have erected 2 large woodcarvings of three red kites.
The Physicians of Myddfai were, according to local folklore, a succession of physicians who lived in the parish of Myddfai in Carmarthenshire, Wales.
John Davies was a Welsh Methodist minister. He was born in Llandovery, and as a young boy attended a school in Myddfai for a while before moving to attend classes at Hanover School, near Abergavenny. In 1842, he began a period of study at Brecon College, following which, as an ordained minister, he held appointments at; Llanelly, Brecknock (1846), Aberaman (1854), Mount Stuart, Cardiff (1863), and Hannah Street, Cardiff (1868–74).
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Welsh pronunciation ) is a small village and community in Carmarthenshire, Wales. It is situated south of Llandovery in the Brecon Beacons, and has a population of 415, [3] decreasing to 398 at the 2011 census. [1] 
