Carneddi by Iestyn Tyne

O’r ffordd fawr i’r lonydd bach i’r ffordd sy’n arwain trwy’r caeau. I fyny ac i fyny. Yn uwch na thrafael modur a thrwy’r ffordd drol sy’n enbydus i drol, – ac i’r Carneddi.’ (Y Cymro, 14 Medi 1945)

Pnawn Sul, ac mae arwyddion yr hydref eisoes ar gerdded yn nail Medi wrth i ohebydd a ffotograffydd straffaglu i fyny’r llwybr caregog at y ffermdy yng nghesail Moel y Dyniewyd. Ar y llethrau uwchlaw pentref Nantmor yn Eifionydd y saif y Carneddi, ei wyneb yn tremio dros fae Porthmadog; yno ar y diwrnod hwnnw yn niwedd haf 1945 mae Richard (Carneddog) a Catrin Griffith, ill dau yn eu hwythdegau, yn paratoi at eu hymadawiad terfynol â’r tir garw a’r clwstwr adeiladau a fu’n gynefin iddynt cyhyd. Maent yn eu galar amrwd, wedi’r chwalfa enbyd o golli’u mab, Hywel Wyn. Canfuwyd Hywel wedi’i foddi yn Llyn Dinas, yr ochr draw i’r mynydd, ddechrau Awst.

Tynna Geoff Charles fwy nac un llun o’r pâr y diwrnod hwnnw. Caiff bortreadau unigol, rhy agos, eu hwynebau wedi’u gwagio fel yr holl fywyd o’r tŷ y tu ôl iddynt. Yn y ddelwedd fydd yn serio’i hun ar gof gwerin, mae’n dal y ddau yn hanner-troi oddi wrth ei gamera, y tir garw yn codi yn y pellter canol at gefnen Yr Arddu, a’r naill fel pe’n pwyso ar y llall am gynhaliaeth.

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A Sunday afternoon, and signs of autumn are already awakening in the September leaves as a reporter and photographer struggle up the stony track to a farmhouse folded into the slopes of Moel y Dyniewyd. Carneddi stands in the hills above the village of Nantmor in Eifionydd, facing out across Porthmadog Bay; it is there on that day late in the summer of 1945 that Richard (Carneddog) and Catrin Griffith, both in their eighties, are preparing to depart for the final time from the rough land and the cluster of buildings they have known so long. They are in the raw throes of grief, after the shocking loss of their son, Hywel Wyn. Hywel was found drowned in Llyn Dinas, over the hill, at the beginning of August.

Geoff Charles takes more than one photograph of the couple on that day. He takes individual portraits that feel too close up, their faces emptied like all the life from the house behind them. In the image that will imprint itself on the collective memory, he catches them as they half-turn away from his camera, the rough landscape rising in the middle distance to the ridge of Yr Arddu, both as though leaning into one another for support.

Sgwennwr, cerddor, golygydd ac artist. Un o Gymrodorion Cymru'r Dyfodol 2023-25 a Bardd y Dre Caernarfon.

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Writer, musician, editor and artist. Future Wales Fellow 2023-25 and Caernarfon Town Poet.

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