Hywel Sele

Hywel Sele (died c. 1402) was a Welsh nobleman. A cousin of Owain Glyndŵr, Prince of Wales, he was a friend of Henry IV of England and opposed his cousin's 1400–1415 uprising. Sele was captured by Glyndŵr but is said to have accepted an invitation to hunt with his cousin on the Nannau Estate. Sele attempted to kill Glyndŵr but failed and was himself killed, his body being hidden within the hollow of an oak tree. The oak is subsequently said to have been haunted and was named Derwen Ceubren yr Ellyl ("The Hollow Oak of the Devils") or Ceubren yr Ellyll ("The Hollow Tree of the Ghost").

Biography Hywel Sele was a distant cousin of Owain Glyndŵr (c. 1359 – c. 1415), the last native Prince of Wales. Sele was a friend of the English King Henry IV and due to this was opposed to the Glyndŵr Rising. According to Richard Vaughan of Nannau (c. 1650), Sele sided against Glyndŵr, was captured and an attempt to free him was defeated in a battle at Beddau’r Gwŷr. The abbot of Cymer Abbey brokered a reconciliation between the two men and they later went hunting together in the Nannau Estate. This subsequently became known as Derwen Ceubren yr Ellyl ("The Hollow Oak of the Devils"). Glyndŵr burnt down Sele's estate, leaving Sele's 2-year-old son to be brought up by an uncle.

Different accounts There are significant differences in other accounts of Sele's life. In T. P. Ellis' 19th-century writings the sequence of events is reversed. Glyndŵr is said to have captured Sele and carried him to Llanelltud, where Gruffydd unsuccessfully attempted to release him. After Glyndŵr's victory the abbot attempted his reconciliation, and the fateful hunting expedition was carried out. In Ellis' version Glyndŵr, suspicious of Sele, survived by wearing a coat of mail beneath his clothes. John Humffreys Parry (1786–1825) relates another account in which the meeting came about by accident while Glyndŵr was hunting on Sele's land and a confrontation turned violent.

The story is regarded as a legend by Elissa R. Henken, who states that the story was at some point muddled and Sele's name sometime rendered as Huw Selef. She notes that some local people still regard the site of the tree as haunted. The story was also ascribed to legend by D. Helen Allday. Breverton states that there is some uncertainty over the date of the killing with 1402 given most credence, though some sources state 1404 or 1406.

Nannau Oak

The tree that supposedly entombed Sele subsequently became known as the Nannau Oak. Thomas Pennant inspected the oak in 1778 and noted that it was in girth but that it was in an advanced state of decay. The tree was said to have resembled the shape of a gothic arch. The tree was immortalised by Walter Scott in his 1808 work Marmion as "the spirit's Blasted Tree".