The Twin Fort: Caer Fawr and Caer Einion
Chronicle Entry
Recorded by Brother Wyn of Caermynach, Anno Domini 919
Known As: The Twin Forts, The Twin Wheels, The Lost Wonder, Capital of the Cymroth
Construction Period: c. 3750-3740 BC
Chief Builder: Tafod Ddu the Blacksmith
Location: High ridges between Builth
Status: Abandoned c. 950 BC after the Cymroth fracture, ruins remain
Caer Fawr and Caer Einion were twin settlements raised by the Cymroth people in the high country of what would become middle Wales, serving as capital for nearly three thousand years. The merchants who preserve knowledge of this period name these forts the first capital of the island and call them the lost wonder of our world, surpassing in innovation anything built before or since.
The Record
The twin forts were built as paired structures on two facing hills separated by a narrow saddle of land. Caer Fawr, the greater fort, stood on the higher ridge where volcanic stone carried the strongest resonance when struck. Caer Einion, the lesser fort, occupied the facing slope across the valley, positioned so that sound from one site would reach the other with clarity. The merchants report that when the structures were properly maintained, a voice raised at Caer Fawr could be heard at Caer Einion without shouting, and certain tones sung at either fort would cause stone at both sites to hum in response.
The design rejected the vertical ambition that had brought catastrophe at Shinar. Where the towers had risen toward heaven and fallen in ruin, the twin forts spread outward and connected between. Houses radiated from each summit like spokes from a wheel's centre, an arrangement that honoured the invention that had enabled the westward migration. The saddle between the two hills became an ever-growing citadel where the living city thrived, whilst the summits remained sacred: Caer Fawr held the ritual grounds where the Cymroth gathered for worship, and Caer Einion housed the meeting place where elders judged disputes and set law.
The forts were raised using turf and stone in concentric circles, with ramparts positioned according to measurements that suggest careful planning. At the centre of each fort stood a single worked stone, black at Caer Fawr and grey at Caer Einion, placed so that the two stones aligned with specific stars when viewed from either site. The acoustics were perfect by design rather than accident. Every angle, every distance, every placement of stone served both practical and harmonic purpose. The merchants claim nothing like it existed before or has been built since, and I find no cause to dispute them.
What distinguished the twin forts from all other settlements of their age was the understanding that architecture could serve purposes beyond shelter and defence. The structures functioned as instruments, amplifying remnants of the tone that flows through creation. Later ages forgot this purpose and saw only defensive ramparts, mistaking instruments for fortifications. Yet the evidence remains in the positioning, in the choice of volcanic stone, in the precise distances maintained between elements. These were not merely forts but a statement in stone about how peoples might dwell in harmony with the world's hidden music.
History
The Cymroth who gathered to build the twin forts brought with them knowledge carried westward during the migration from eastern lands. Among the innovations they possessed was the wheel, which Tafod Ddu had designed before the towers at Shinar fell. The merchants report he left his plans drawn on cave walls in the eastern lands, work of many years abandoned when he fled the scattering. This loss set his work back significantly, forcing him to recreate from memory what he had perfected on stone.
I cannot help but note that wheels appeared in Sumerian lands some centuries after the exodus, in the same region the refugees departed. Whether later peoples discovered those same caves and learned from what Tafod left behind, I have no means to verify, though the merchants believe this explains why eastern wheels appeared long after western ones despite originating in the same lands.
The use of wheeled carts during construction of the twin forts allowed the Cymroth to transport stone and timber across distances that would otherwise have made the work impossible. The merchants report that roads between gathering sites and the twin forts were smoothed and widened specifically to accommodate these carts, creating pathways that endured for generations after the forts themselves were abandoned.
Tafod Ddu led the construction, working alongside kin-groups who had gathered from across the Cymroth territories. The merchants state that he worked in concert with powers beyond mortal reckoning during this period, though they will not speak directly of such matters in my hearing. The building took seven years by mortal reckoning, though the merchants preserve accounts that trouble me when I attempt to reconcile them with what I understand of time's passage.
During construction, Tafod made frequent journeys to the otherworld realm the merchants call Annwn, where he had been granted access to work in a forge unavailable to mortal smiths. The merchants report that time moves differently in that realm than in mortal lands, though they struggle to explain precisely how this difference manifests. What seems certain is that brief stays in Annwn, measured in hours or days by Tafod's reckoning, consumed far longer spans in the mortal world.
The merchants preserve a detail that strikes me as both tragic and essential to understanding what followed. When the twin forts were completed after seven years of labour, Tafod walked through streets he had designed and recognized no faces among those who gathered to celebrate. Everyone who had begun the work with him was elderly or dead, their children grown and aged whilst he remained unchanged by the years. The horror of this discovery, the merchants suggest, drove him to request permanent residency in the otherworld, a petition that was granted.
Whether this was honour bestowed for service rendered or mercy granted to one who could no longer bear mortal time, I cannot say. What seems clear is that the very achievement that established Tafod as master builder also severed his connection to the peoples he had meant to serve, a severance that would later prove consequential in ways the merchants speak of with sorrow rather than condemnation.
The twin forts served as capital of the Cymroth civilization for nearly three thousand years, from their completion around 3740 BC until the fracture near 950 BC. The forts functioned as the hub from which the Cymroth spread across the island, with settlements radiating outward along ridges and valleys like spokes from a wheel's centre. Peoples travelled to all corners of what would become Wales, establishing communities in hills and coastal areas, yet the twin forts remained the heart to which they returned for gatherings and rites.
The Decline
The twin forts were abandoned following the fracture of the Cymroth near 950 BC, when unity that had endured for almost three millennia broke. The merchants report that Caer Fawr was the last site to be left empty, with a small group maintaining the stones and continuing rites there even after most had departed to join either the Silures or the Ordovices. By the time of the Roman conquest, the sites were already ancient ruins, their purpose forgotten by peoples who had no memory of the Joined Ones.
Archaeological evidence of the forts is scattered and difficult to interpret, as later peoples built upon the same ridges for their own purposes. The merchants claim they can identify which earthworks date to the Cymroth period and which were raised by later inhabitants, though I lack the knowledge to verify their assessments. What remains certain is that two significant hillforts once stood in the high country, positioned with care and serving purposes beyond simple defence.
Final Entry
The memory of Caer Fawr and Caer Einion persists primarily in merchant tradition, preserved through careful telling across more than four thousand years. The Church has no official record of these sites, as they predate Scripture's account of human civilization by a span that cannot be reconciled with established chronology. I record the merchants' account because their knowledge of the westward migration and the Cymroth has proven detailed and internally consistent across multiple tellings.
When I asked the eldest merchant why the twin forts mattered enough to preserve in memory for so many generations, he replied that they represented the first successful settlement after the scattering at Shinar, proof that peoples whose tongues had been divided could still build together if they chose unity over perfection. He added that the forts were called twin not merely because they were paired but because they demonstrated a truth the Cymroth understood: strength comes not from one voice singing alone but from two voices singing in harmony, each distinct yet contributing to one song.
I confess the merchants' accounts trouble me less for their chronological difficulties than for what they suggest was lost when the twin forts were abandoned. Here was innovation beyond anything I can find record of in Scripture or in the writings of Greeks and Romans who came millennia later. Here was understanding of how sound moves through stone, how distance and angle might be precisely calculated, how peoples might build not merely for shelter but for harmony with creation's hidden music. The merchants name them the lost wonder of our world, and I find myself unable to dispute this claim.
What we have lost in these dark ages may be greater than what we have preserved. The twin forts stood for three thousand years, longer than any empire I can name. They were built not through conquest or slavery but through peoples gathering freely to create beauty together. They rejected the vertical ambition that brought ruin at Shinar and built instead with patience across earth that welcomed their work. When I stand on the high ridges where the merchants claim these structures once rose, I feel the weight of what time has taken from us.
The red clay soil between the ridges where the twin forts stood still bears traces of ancient working, or so the merchants claim. Whether these traces are genuine remnants of Cymroth labour or merely wishful interpretation of natural features, I cannot say with certainty. What remains beyond dispute is that peoples once dwelt here who possessed knowledge we have forgotten and built wonders we cannot replicate. Their memory deserves preservation, even when their chronology confounds our understanding.
