'Recognitions dim and faint': the hermit of 'Tintern Abbey' again. (William Wordsworth's novel)

Once again I see. . . . . . wreaths of smoke Sent up in silence from among the trees! With some uncertain notice, as might seem, Of vagrant dwellers in the houseless woods, Or of some hermit's cave, where by his fire The hermit sits alone.(1)

A new interpretation recently put forward in these pages by Damian Walford Davies argues that the figure of the hermit in Wordsworth's 'Tintern Abbey' was suggested by the semihistorical Gwentian saint and king Tewdrig the Blessed.(2) Davies points out that several local histories and travel books of the time refer to Tewdrig's retirement to a hermitage and subsequent death at Tintern, and he proposes David Williams' History of …