The word "cwm" in Welsh can signify either a valley or an armchair-shaped hollow in the hills, and in the case of Cwm Gwaun it means something else as well -- namely an "open-ended" valley with no top end and no bottom end, connecting Cilgwyn near Newport with lower town in Fishguard. It is about seven miles long, and it was cut in the Ice Age by huge volumes of meltwater flowing beneath melting glacier ice. it is one of the most famous examples of a "sub-glacial meltwater channel" in the world, and is featured in many geology and geography texts books. But it is also very beautiful and very isolated. The ancient oak woodlands are ecologically very valuable, and are now protected as nature reserves. The valley is famous as one of the few places left in Europe where the Old New Year ("Hen Galan") is celebrated on January 13th. It is also famous for having the greatest concentration of spooky tales in Wales -- and down through the centuries there have been many sightings of phantom funerals, corpse candles, ghosts and other supernatural occurrences.

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