By: Blonde One
On our recent visit to Abergynolwyn in Wales, we stumbled across the story of Mary Jones and her bible. At the age of 15 Mary walked barefoot 26 miles across the Welsh countryside to buy a copy of the Welsh bible. The trip, in 1800, was after saving hard for this bible for six years. That takes some dedication and determination. Our feet were sore after just a few miles with good boots on so I cannot imagine what her poor feet were like. I wonder what would prompt a teenager nowadays to go to such lengths? This feat understandably turned Mary in a national icon. The route that she took has been repeated many times and is now helpfully waymarked. We only did a small section of it, but it was beautiful and definitely made us want to do more. The little visitor centre is worth a look too.