BEDARIEUX

bedarieux, a town of southern france, in the department of herault, on the orb, 27 m. n.n.w. of beziers by rail. pop. (1906) 5594. the town has a 16th-century church, a board of trade arbitration, a chamber of arts and manufactures, a communal college and a school of drawing. bedarieux was at one time a notable manufacturing centre. its cloth-weaving industry, carried on under a special royal privilege from the end of the 17th century to the revolution, employed in 1789 as many as 5000 workmen, while some thousand more were occupied in wool and cotton spinning, &c. in spite of the introduction of modern machinery from england, the industries of the place declined, mainly owing to the loss of the trade with the levant; but of late years they have somewhat revived, owing partly to the opening up of coal mines in the neighbourhood. besides cloth factories and wool-spinning mills, there are now numerous tanneries and leather-dressing works. there is some trade in timber, wool and agricultural produce. beddgelert ("gelert's grave"), a village in carnarvonshire, north wales, at the foot of snowdon. the tradition of gelert, llewelyn's hound, being buried there is old in wales; and common to it and india is the legend of a dog (or ichneumon) saving a child from a beast of prey (or reptile), and being killed by the child's father under the delusion that the animal had slain the infant. the english poet, w.r. spencer, has versified the tale of llewelyn, king of wales, leaving gelert and the baby prince at home, returning to find gelert stained with the blood of a wolf, and killing the hound because he thought his child was slain. sir w. jones, the welsh philologist and linguist, gives the indian equivalent (lord teignmouth's _life of jones_, ed. rev. s.c. wilkes, editor's supplement). a brahmin, leaving home, left his daughter in charge of an ichneumon, which he had long cherished. a black snake came up and was killed by the ichneumon, mistakenly killed, in its turn, by the brahmin on his coming back. another version is the medieval romance in _the seven wise masters of rome_. in the edition printed by wynkyn de worde it is told by "the first master"--a knight had one son, a greyhound and a falcon; the knight went to a tourney, a snake attacked the son, the falcon roused the hound, which killed the serpent, lay down by the cradle, and was killed by the knight, who discovered his error, like llewelyn, and similarly repented (villon society, british museum reprint, by gomme and wheatley). on the west of beddgelert is moel hebog (bare-hill of the falcon), a hiding-place of owen glendower. here, in 1784, was found a brass roman shield. near is the famous aberglaslyn pass, dividing carnarvon and merioneth. in the centre is cadair rhys goch o'r eryri, a rock named as the chair of rhys goch, a bard contemporary with glendower (died traditionally, 1429). not far hence passed the roman road from uriconium to segontium (see carnarvon).