iii. 20, which alludes to Arthur meeting in Nanhwynain with Medrawd

or Medrod (Modred) and Idawc Corn Prydain, and to his being betrayed, for the benefit and security of the Saxons in the island. An earlier reference to the same story occurs in the Dream of Rhonabwy in the Red Book of Hergest [156], in which Idawc describes himself as Idawc son of Mynio, and as nicknamed Idawc Cord Prydain--which means 'Idawc the Churn-staff of Prydain'--in reference presumably to his activity in creating dissension. He confesses to having falsified the friendly messages of Arthur to Medrod, and to succeeding thereby in bringing on the fatal battle of Camlan, from which Idawc himself escaped to do penance for seven years on the Llech Las, 'Grey Stone [157],' in Prydain or Pictland.

Another story brings Arthur and the giant Rhita into collision, the latter of whom has already been mentioned as having, according to local tradition, his grave on the top of Snowdon: see pp. 474-9. The story is a very wild one. Two kings who were brothers, Nyniaw or Nynio and Peibiaw or Peibio, quarrelled thus: one moonlight night, as they were together in the open air, Nynio said to Peibio, 'See, what a fine extensive field I possess.' 'Where is it?' asked Peibio. 'There it is,' said Nynio, 'the whole firmament.' 'See,' said Peibio, 'what innumerable herds of cattle and sheep I have grazing in thy field.' 'Where are they?' asked Nynio. 'There they are,' said Peibio, 'the whole host of stars that thou seest, each of golden brightness, with the moon shepherding them.' 'They shall not graze in my field,' said Nynio. 'But they shall,' said Peibio; and the two kings got so enraged with one another, that they began a war in which their warriors and subjects were nearly exterminated. Then comes Rhita Gawr, king of Wales, and attacks them on the dangerous ground of their being mad. He conquered them and shaved off their beards [158]; but when the other kings of Prydain, twenty-eight in number, heard of it, they collected all their armies together to avenge themselves on Rhita for the disgrace to which he had subjected the other two. But after a great struggle Rhita conquers again, and has the beards of the other kings shaved. Then the kings of neighbouring kingdoms in all directions combined to make war on Rhita to avenge the disgrace to their order; but they were also vanquished forthwith, and treated in the same ignominious fashion as the thirty kings of Prydain. With the beards he had a mantle made to cover him from head to foot, and that was a good deal, we are told, since he was as big as two ordinary men. Then Rhita turned his attention to the establishment of just and equitable laws as between king and king and one realm with another [159]. But the sequel to the shaving is related by Geoffrey of Monmouth, x. 3, where Arthur is made to tell how the giant, after destroying the other kings and using their beards in the way mentioned, asked him for his beard to fix above the other beards, as he stood above them in rank, or else to come and fight a duel with him. Arthur, as might be expected, chose the latter course, with the result that he slew Rhita, there called Ritho, at a place said to be in Aravio Monte, by which the Welsh translator understood the chief mountain of Eryri [160] or Snowdon. So it is but natural that his grave should also be there, as already mentioned. I may here add that it is the name Snowdon itself, probably, that underlies the Senaudon or Sinadoun of such Arthurian romances as the English version of Libeaus Desconus, though the place meant has been variously supposed to be situated elsewhere than in the Snowdon district: witness Sinodun Hill in Berkshire [161].

The story of Rhita is told also by Malory, who calls that giant Ryons and Ryence; and there the incident seems to end with Ryons being led to Arthur's court by knights who had overcome him. Ryons' challenge, as given by Malory [162], runs thus:--

'This meane whyle came a messager from kynge Ryons of Northwalys. And kynge he was of all Ireland and of many Iles. And this was his message gretynge wel kynge Arthur in this manere wyse sayenge . that kynge Ryons had discomfyte and ouercome xj kynges . and eueryche of hem did hym homage . and that was this . they gaf hym their berdys clene flayne of . as moche as ther was . wherfor the messager came for kyng Arthurs berd. For kyng Ryons had purfyled a mantel with kynges berdes . and there lacked one place of the mantel . wherfor he sente for his berd or els he wold entre in to his landes . and brenne and slee . & neuer leue tyl he haue the hede and the berd.'

Rhita is not said, it is true, to have been a Gwydel, 'Goidel'; but he is represented ruling over Ireland, and his name, which is not Welsh, recalls at first sight those of such men as Boya the Pict or Scot figuring in the life of St. David, and such as Llia Gvitel, 'Llia the Goidel,' mentioned in the Stanzas of the Graves in the Black Book of Carmarthen as buried in the seclusion of Ardudwy [163]. Malory's Ryons is derived from the French Romances, where, as for example in the Merlin, according to the Huth MS., it occurs as Rion-s in the nominative, and Rion in régime. The latter, owing to the old French habit of eliding d or th, derives regularly enough from such a form as the accusative Rithon-em [164], which is the one occurring in Geoffrey's text; and we should probably be right in concluding therefrom that the correct old Welsh form of the name was Rithon. But the Goidelic form was at the same time probably Ritta, with a genitive Rittann, for an earlier Ritton. Lastly, that the local legend should perpetuate the Goidelic Ritta slightly modified, has its parallel in the case of Trwyd and Trwyth, and of Echel and Egel or Ecel, pp. 541-2 and 536-7.

The next story [165] points to a spot between y Dinas or Dinas Emrys and Llyn y Dinas as containing the grave of Owen y Mhacsen, that is to say, 'Owen son of Maxen.' Owen had been fighting with a giant--whose name local tradition takes for granted--with balls of steel; and there are depressions (panylau [166]) still to be seen in the ground where each of the combatants took his stand. Some, however, will have it that it was with bows and arrows they fought, and that the hollows are the places they dug to defend themselves. The result was that both died at the close of the conflict; and Owen, being asked where he wished to be buried, ordered an arrow to be shot into the air and his grave to be made where it fell. The story is similarly given in the Iolo MSS., pp. 81-2, where the combatants are called Owen Findu ab Macsen Wledig, 'Owen of the Dark Face, son of Prince Maxen,' and Eurnach Hen, 'E. the Ancient,' one of the Gwydyl or 'Goidels' of North Wales, and otherwise called Urnach Wydel. He is there represented as father (1) of the Serrigi defeated by Catwallawn or Cadwallon Law-hir, 'C. the Long-handed,' at Cerrig y Gwydyl, 'the Stones of the Goidels,' near Malldraeth [167], in Anglesey, where the great and final rout of the Goidels is represented as having taken place [168]; (2) of Daronwy, an infant spared and brought up in Anglesey to its detriment, as related in the other story, p. 504; and (3) of Solor, who commands one of the three cruising fleets of the Isle of Prydain [169]. The stronghold of Eurnach or Urnach is said to have been Dinas Ffaraon, which was afterwards called Din Emreis and Dinas Emrys. The whole story about the Goidels in North Wales, however, as given in the Iolo MSS., pp. 78-80, is a hopeless jumble, though it is probably based on old traditions. In fact, one detects Eurnach or Urnach as Wrnach or Gwrnach in the story of Kulhwch and Olwen [170] in the Red Book, where we are told that Kei or Cai, and others of Arthur's men, got into the giant's castle and cut off his head in order to secure his sword, which was one of the things required for the hunting of Twrch Trwyth. In an obscure passage, also in a poem in the Black Book, we read of Cai fighting in the hall of this giant, who is then called Awarnach [171]. Some such a feat appears to have been commemorated in the place-name Gwryd Cai, 'Cai's Feat of Arms,' which occurs in Llewelyn's grant of certain lands on the Bedgelert and Pen Gwryd side of Snowdon in 1198 to the monks of Aberconwy, or rather in an inspeximus of the same: see Dugdale's Monasticon, v. 673a, where it stands printed gwryt, kei. Nor is it unreasonable to guess that Pen Gwryd is only a shortening of Pen Gwryd Cai, 'Cai's Feat Knoll or Terminus'; but compare p. 217 above. Before leaving Cai I may point out that tradition seems to ascribe to him as his residence the place called Caer Gai, 'Cai's Fort,' between Bala and Llanuwchllyn. If one may treat Cai as a historical man, one may perhaps suppose him, or some member of his family, commemorated by the vocable Burgocavi on an old stone found at Caer Gai, and said to read: Ic iacit Salvianus Burgocavi filius Cupitiani [172]--'Here lies Salvianus Burgocavis, son of Cupitianus.' The reader may also be referred back to such non-Brythonic and little known figures as Daronwy, Cathbalug, and Brynach, together perhaps with Mengwaed, the wolf-lord of Arllechwed, pp. 504-5. It is worth while calling attention likewise to Goidelic indications afforded by the topography of Eryri, to wit such cases as Bwlch Mwrchan or Mwlchan, 'Mwrchan's Pass,' sometimes made into Bwlch Mwyalchen or even Bwlch y Fwyalchen, 'the Ousel's Gap,' near Llyn Gwynain; the remarkable remains called Muriau'r Dre, 'the Town Walls'--otherwise known as Tre'r Gwydelod [173], 'the Goidels' town'--on the land of Gwastad Annas at the top of Nanhwynain; and Bwlch y Gwydel, still higher towards Pen Gwryd, may have meant the 'Goidel's Pass.'

Probably a study of the topography on the spot would result in the identification of more names similarly significant; but I will call attention to only one of them, namely Bedgelert or, as it is locally pronounced, Bethgelart, though the older spellings of the name appear to be Beth Kellarth and Beth Kelert. Those who are acquainted with the story, as told there, of the man who rashly killed his hound might think that Bedgelert, 'Gelert or Kelert's Grave,' refers to the hound; but there is a complete lack of evidence to show this widely known story to have been associated with the neighbourhood by antiquity [174]; and the compiler of the notes and pedigrees known as Boned y Saint was probably right in treating Kelert as the name of an ancient saint: see the Myvyr. Arch., ii. 36. In any case, Kelert or Gelert with its rt cannot be a genuine Welsh name: the older spellings seem to indicate two pronunciations--a Goidelic one, Kelert, and a Welsh one, Kelarth or Kellarth, which has not survived. The documents, however, in which the name occurs require to be carefully examined for the readings which they supply.

Lastly, from the Goidels of Arfon must not be too violently severed those of Mona, among whom we have found, pp. 504-5, the mysterious Cathbalug, whose name, still half unexplained, reminds one of such Irish ones as Cathbuadach, 'battle-victorious or conquering in war'; and to the same stratum belongs Daronwy, p. 504, which survives as the name of a farm in the parish of Llanfachreth. The Record of Carnarvon, p. 59, speaks both of a Molendinum de Darronwy et Cornewe, 'Mill of Daronwy [175] and Cornwy,' and of Villæ de Dorronwy et Kuwghdornok, 'Vills of Daronwy and of the Cnwch Dernog,' which has been mentioned as now pronounced Clwch Dernog, p. 457: it is situated in the adjoining parish of Llandeusant. The name is given in the same Record as Dernok, and is doubtless to be identified with the Ternóc not very uncommon in Irish hagiology. With these names the Record further associates a holding called Wele Conus, and Conus survives in Weun Gonnws, the name of a field on the farm of Bron Heulog, adjoining Clwch Dernog. That is not all, for Connws turns out to be the Welsh pronunciation of the Goidelic name Cunagussus, of which we have the Latinized genitive on the Bodfedan menhir, some distance north-east of the railway station of Ty Croes. It reads: CVNOGVSI HIC IACIT, 'Here lies (the body) of Cunagussus,' and involves a name which has regularly become in Irish Conghus, while the native Welsh equivalent would be Cynwst [176]. These names, and one [177] or two more which might be added to them, suggest a very Goidelic population as occupying, in the fifth or sixth century, the part of the island west of a line from Amlwch to Malldraeth.

Lastly, the chronological indications of the crushing of the power of the Goidels, and the incipient merging of that people with the Brythons into a single nation of Kymry or 'Compatriots,' are worthy of a passing remark. We seem to find the process echoed in the Triads when they mention as a favourite at Arthur's Court the lord of Arllechwed, named Menwaed, who has been guessed, p. 507 above, to have been a Goidel. Then Serrigi and Daronwy are signalized as contemporaries of Cadwallon Law-hir, who inflicted on the former, according to the later legend, the great defeat of Cerrig y Gwydyl [178]. The name, however, of the leader of the Goidels arrayed against Cadwallon may be regarded as unknown, and Serrigi as a later name, probably of Norse origin, introduced from an account of a tenth century struggle with invaders from the Scandinavian kingdom of Dublin [179]. In this conqueror we have probably all that can be historical of the Caswallon of the Mabinogion of Branwen and Manawydan, that is, the Caswallon who ousts the Goidelic family of Llyr from power in this country, and makes Pryderi of Dyfed pay homage to him as supreme king of the island. His name has there undergone assimilation to that of Cassivellaunos, and he is furthermore represented as son of Beli, king of Prydain in the days of its independence, before the advent of the legions of Rome. But as a historical man we are to regard Caswallon probably as Cadwallon Law-hir, grandson of Cuneda and father of Maelgwn of Gwyned. Now Cuneda and his sons, according to Nennius (§ 62), expelled the Goidels with terrible slaughter; and one may say, with the Triads, which practically contradict Nennius' statement as to the Goidels being expelled, that Cuneda's grandson continued the struggle with them. In any case there were Goidels still there, for the Book of Taliessin seems to give evidence [180] of a persistent hostility, on the part of the Goidelic bards of Gwyned, to Maelgwn and the more Brythonic institutions which he may be regarded as representing. This brings the Goidelic element down to the sixth century [181]. Maelgwn's death took place, according to the oldest manuscript of the Annales Cambriæ, in the year 547, or ten years after the Battle of Camlan--in which, as it says, Arthur and Medrod fell. Now some of this is history and some is not: where is the line to be drawn? In any case, the attempt to answer that question could not be justly met with contempt or treated as trivial.

The other cause, to which I suggested that contempt for folklore was probably to be traced, together with the difficulties springing therefrom to beset the folklorist's paths, is one's ignorance of the meaning of many of the superstitions of our ancestors. I do not wish this to be regarded as a charge of wilful ignorance; for one has frankly to confess that many old superstitions and superstitious practices are exceedingly hard to understand. So much so, that those who have most carefully studied them cannot always agree with one another in their interpretation. At first sight, some of the superstitions seem so silly and absurd, that one cannot wonder that those who have not gone deeply into the study of the human mind should think them trivial, foolish, or absurd. It is, however, not improbable that they are the results of early attempts to think out the mysteries of nature; and our difficulty is that the thinking was so infantile, comparatively speaking, that one finds it hard to put one's self back into the mental condition of early man. But it should be clearly understood that our difficulty in ascertaining the meaning of such superstitions is no proof whatsoever that they had no meaning.

The chief initial difficulty, however, meeting any one who would collect folklore in Wales arises from the fact that various influences have conspired to laugh it out of court, so to say, so that those who are acquainted with superstitions and ancient fads become ashamed to own it: they have the fear of ridicule weighing on their minds, and that is a weight not easily removed. I can recall several instances: among others I may mention a lady who up to middle age believed implicitly in the existence of fairies, and was most anxious that her children should not wander away from home at any time when there happened to be a mist, lest the fairies should carry them away to their home beneath a neighbouring lake. In her later years, however, it was quite useless for a stranger to question her on these things: fairy lore had been so laughed out of countenance in the meantime, that at last she would not own, even to the members of her own family, that she remembered anything about the fairies. Another instance in point is supplied by the story of Castellmarch, and by my failure for a whole fortnight to elicit from the old blacksmith of Aber Soch the legend of March ab Meirchion with horse's ears. Of course I can readily understand the old man's shyness in repeating the story of March. Science, however, knows no such shyness, as it is her business to pry into everything and to discover, if possible, the why and wherefore of all things. In this context let me for a moment revert to the story of March, silly as it looks:--March was lord of Castellmarch in Lleyn, and he had horse's ears; so lest the secret should be known, every one who shaved him was killed forthwith; and in the spot where the bodies were buried there grew reeds, which a bard cut in order to provide himself with a pipe. The pipe when made would give no music but words meaning March has horse's ears! There are other forms of the story, but all substantially the same as that preserved for us by Llwyd (pp. 233-4), except that one of them resembles more closely the Irish version about to be summarized. It occurs in a manuscript in the Peniarth collection, and runs thus:--March had horse's ears, a fact known to nobody but his barber, who durst not make it known for fear of losing his head. But the barber fell ill, so that he had to call in a physician, who said that the patient was being killed by a secret; and he ordered him to tell it to the ground. The barber having done so became well again, and fine reeds grew on the spot. One day, as the time of a great feast was drawing nigh, certain of the pipers of Maelgwn Gwyned coming that way saw the reeds, some of which they cut and used for their pipes. By-and-by they had to perform before King March, when they could elicit from their pipes no strain but 'Horse's ears for March ab Meirchion' (klvstiav march i varch ab Meirchion). Hence arose the saying--'That is gone on horns and pipes' (vaeth hynny ar gyrn a ffibav), which was as much as to say that the secret is become more than public [182].

The story, it is almost needless to say, can be traced also in Cornwall and in Brittany [183]; and not only among the Brythonic peoples of those countries, but among the Goidels of Ireland likewise. The Irish story runs thus [184]:--Once on a time there was a king over Ireland whose name was Labraid Lorc, and this is the manner of man he was--he had two horse's ears on him. And every one who shaved the king used to be slain forthwith. Now the time of shaving him drew nigh one day, when the son of a widow in the neighbourhood was enjoined to do it. The widow went and besought the king that her son should not be slain, and he promised her that he would be spared if he would only keep his secret. So it came to pass; but the secret so disagreed with the widow's son that he fell ill, and nobody could divine the cause until a druid came by. He at once discovered that the youth was ill of an uncommunicated secret, and ordered him to go to the meeting of four roads. 'Let him,' said he, 'turn sunwise, and the first tree he meets on the right side let him tell the secret to it, and he will be well.' This you might think was quite safe, as it was a tree and not his mother, his sister, or his sweetheart; but you would be quite mistaken in thinking so. The tree to which the secret was told was a willow; and a famous Irish harper of that day, finding he wanted a new harp, came and cut the makings of a harp from that very tree; but when the harp was got ready and the harper proceeded to play on it, not a note could he elicit but 'Labraid Lorc has horse's ears!' As to the barber's complaint, that was by no means unnatural: it has often been noticed how a secret disagrees with some natures, and how uneasy and restless it makes them until they can out with it. The same thing also, in an aggravated form, occurs now and then to a public man who has prepared a speech in the dark recesses of his heart, but has to leave the meeting where he intended to have it out, without finding his opportunity. Our neighbours on the other side of the Channel have a technical term for that sort of sufferer: they say of him that he is malade d'un discours rentré, or ill of a speech which has gone into the patient's constitution, like the measles or the small-pox when it fails to come out. But to come back to the domain of folklore, I need only mention the love-lorn knights in Malory's Morte Darthur, who details their griefs in doleful strains to solitary fountains in the forests: it seems to have relieved them greatly, and it sometimes reached other ears than those of the wells. Now with regard to him of the equine ears, some one might thoughtlessly suggest, that, if it ever became a question of improving this kind of story, one should make the ears into those of an ass. As a matter of fact there was a Greek story of this kind, and in that story the man with the abnormal head was called Midas, and his ears were said to be those of an ass. The reader will find him figuring in most collections of Greek stories; so I need not pursue the matter further, except to remark that the exact kind of brute ears was possibly a question which different nations decided differently. At any rate Stokes mentions a Serbian version in which the ears were those of a goat.

What will, however, occur to everybody to ask, is--What was the origin of such a story? what did it mean, if it had a meaning? Various attempts have been made to interpret this kind of story, but nobody, so far as I know, has found a sure key to its meaning. The best guess I can make has been suggested in a previous chapter, from which it will be seen that the horse fits the Welsh context, so to say, best, the goat less well, and the ass probably least of all: see pp. 433-9 above. Supposing, then, the interpretation of the story established for certain, the question of its origin would still remain. Did it originate among the Celts and the Greeks and other nations who relate it? or has it simply originated among one of those peoples and spread itself to the others? or else have they all inherited it from a common source? If we take the supposition that it originated independently among a variety of people in the distant past, then comes an interesting question as to the conditions under which it arose, and the psychological state of the human race in the distant past. On the other supposition one is forced to ask: Did the Celts get the story from the Greeks, or the Greeks from the Celts, or neither from either, but from a common source? Also when and how did the variations arise? In any case, one cannot help seeing that a story like the one I have instanced raises a variety of profoundly difficult and interesting questions.

Hard as the folklorist may find it to extract tales and legends from the people of Wales at the present day, there is one thing which he finds far more irritating than the taciturnity of the peasant, and that is the hopeless fashion in which some of those who have written about Welsh folklore have deigned to record the stories which were known to them. Take as an instance the following, which occurs in Howells' Cambrian Superstitions, pp. 103-4:--

'In Cardiganshire there is a lake, beneath which it is reported that a town lies buried; and in an arid summer, when the water is low, a wall, on which people may walk, extending across the lake is seen, and supposed to appertain to the inundated city or town; on one side is a gigantic rock, which appears to have been split, as there is a very extensive opening in it, which nearly divides it in twain, and which tradition relates was thus occasioned:--Once upon a time there was a person of the name of Pannog, who had two oxen, so large that their like was never known in any part of the world, and of whom it might be said,

They ne'er will look upon their like again.

It chanced one day that one of them (and it appears that they were not endued with a quantum of sense proportionate to their bulk) was grazing near a precipice opposite the rock, and whether it was his desire to commit suicide, or to cool his body by laving in the lake below, one knows not, but certain it is that down he plunged, and was never seen more: his partner searching for him a short time after, and not perceiving any signs of his approach, bellowed almost as loud as the Father of the Gods, who when he spake "Earth to his centre shook"; however, the sound of his bleating [sic] split the opposite rock, which from the circumstance is called Uchain Pannog (Pannog's Oxen). These oxen were said to be two persons, called in Wales, Nyniaf and Phebiaf, whom God turned into beasts for their sins.

Here it is clear that Mr. Howells found a portion, if not the whole, of his story in Welsh, taken partly from the Kulhwch story, and apparently in the old spelling; for his own acquaintance with the language did not enable him to translate Nynnya6 a pheiba6 into 'Nynio and Peibio.' The slenderness of his knowledge of Welsh is otherwise proved throughout his book, especially by the way in which he spells Welsh words: in fact one need not go beyond this very story with its Uchain Pannog. But when he had ascertained that the lake was in Cardiganshire he might have gone a little further and have told his readers which lake it was. It is not one of the lakes which I happen to know in the north of the county--Llyn Llygad y Rheidol on Plinlimmon, or the lake on Moel y Llyn to the north of Cwm Ceulan, or either of the Iwan Lakes which drain into the Merin (or Meri), a tributary of the Mynach, which flows under Pont ar Fynach, called in English the Devil's Bridge. From inquiry I cannot find either that it is any one of the pools in the east of the county, such as those of the Teifi, or Llyn Ferwyn, not far from the gorge known as Cwm Berwyn, mentioned in Edward Richards' well known lines, p. 43:--

Mae'n bwrw' 'Nghwm Berwyn a'r cysgod yn estyn, Gwna heno fy mwthyn yn derfyn dy daith.

It rains in Cwm Berwyn, the shadows are growing, To-night make my cabin the end of thy journey.

There is, it is true, a pool at a place called Maes y Llyn in the neighbourhood of Tregaron, as to which there is a tradition that a village once occupied the place of its waters: otherwise it shows no similarity to the lake of Howells' story. Then there is a group of lakes in which the river Aeron takes its rise: they are called Llyn Eidwen, Llyn Fanod, and Llyn Farch. As to Llyn Eidwen, I had it years ago that at one time there was a story current concerning 'wild cattle,' which used to come out of its waters and rush back into them when disturbed. In the middle of this piece of water, which has a rock on one side of it, is a small island with a modern building on it; and one would like to know whether it shows any traces of early occupation. Then as to Llyn Farch, there is a story going that there came out of it once on a time a wonderful animal, which was shot by a neighbouring farmer. Lastly, at Llyn Fanod there are boundary walls which go right out into the lake; and my informant thinks the same is the case with Llyn Eidwen [185]. One of these walls is probably what in Howells' youthful hands developed itself into a causeway. The other part of his story, referring to the lowing of the Bannog Oxen, comes from a well known doggerel which runs thus:--

Llan Dewi Frefi fraith [186], Lle brefod yr ych naw gwaith, Nes hollti craig y Foelallt.

Llandewi of Brefi the spotted, Where bellowed the ox nine times, Till the Foelallt rock split in two.

Brefi is the name of the river from which this Llandewi takes its distinctive name; and it is pronounced there much the same as brefu, 'the act of lowing, bellowing, or bleating.' Now the Brefi runs down through the Foelallt Farm, which lies between two very big rocks popularly fancied to have been once united, and treated by Howells, somewhat inconsistently, as the permanent forms taken by the two oxen. The story which Howells seems to have jumbled up with that of one or more lake legends, is to be found given in Samuel Rush Meyrick's County of Cardigan: see pp. 265-6, where one reads of a wild tradition that when the church was building there were two oxen to draw the stone required; and one of the two died in the effort to drag the load, while the other bellowed nine times and thereby split the hill, which before presented itself as an obstacle. The single ox was then able to bring the load unassisted to the site of the church. It is to this story that the doggerel already given refers; and, curiously enough, most of the district between Llandewi and Ystrad Fflur, or Strata Florida, is more or less associated with the Ychen Bannog. Thus a ridge running east and west at a distance of some three miles from Tregaron, and separating Upper and Lower Caron from one another, bears the name of Cwys yr Ychen Bannog, or the Furrow of the Ychen Bannog. It somewhat resembles in appearance an ancient dyke, but it is said to be nothing but 'a long bank of glacial till [187].' Moreover there used to be preserved within the church of Llandewi a remarkable fragment of a horn commonly called Madcorn yr Ych Bannog, 'the mabcorn or core of the Bannog Ox's Horn.' It is now in the possession of Mr. Parry of Llidiardau, near Aberystwyth; and it has been pronounced by Prof. Boyd Dawkins to have belonged to 'the great urus (Bos Primigenius), that Charlemagne hunted in the forests of Aachen, and the monks of St. Galle ate on their feast days.' He adds that the condition of the horn proves it to have been derived from a peat bog or alluvium [188]. On the whole, it seems to me probable that the wild legends about the Ychen Bannog [189] in Cardiganshire have underlying them a substratum of tradition going back to a time when the urus was not as yet extinct in Wales. How far the urus was once treated in this country as an emblem of divinity, it is impossible to say; but from ancient Gaul we have such a name as Urogeno-nertus [190], meaning a man of the strength of an Urogen, that is, of the offspring of a urus; not to mention the Gaulish Tarvos Trigaranus, or the bull with three cranes on his back. With this divine animal M. d'Arbois de Jubainville would identify the Donnos underlying such Gallo-Roman names as Donnotaurus, and that of the wonderful bull called Donn in the principal epic story of Ireland [191], where we seem to trace the same element in the river-name given by Ptolemy as Mo-donnos, one of the streams of Wicklow, or else the Slaney. This would be the earliest instance known of the prefixing of the pronoun mo, 'my,' in its reverential application, which was confined in later ages to the names of Goidelic saints.

To return, however, to the folklorist's difficulties, the first thing to be done is to get as ample a supply of folklore materials as possible; and here I come to a point at which some of the readers of these pages could probably help; for we want all our folklore and superstitions duly recorded and rescued from the yawning gulf of oblivion, into which they are rapidly and irretrievably dropping year by year, as the oldest inhabitant passes away.

Some years ago I attempted to collect the stories still remembered in Wales about fairies and lake dwellers; and I seem to have thrown some amount of enthusiasm into that pursuit. At any rate, one editor of a Welsh newspaper congratulated me on being a thorough believer in the fairies. Unfortunately, I was not nearly so successful in recommending myself as a believer to the old people who could have related to me the kind of stories I wanted. Nevertheless, the best plan I found was to begin by relating a story about the fairies myself: if that method did not result in eliciting anything from the listener, then it was time to move on to try the experiment on another subject. Among the things which I then found was the fact, that most of the well known lakes and tarns of Wales were once believed to have had inhabitants of a fairy kind, who owned cattle that sometimes came ashore and mixed with the ordinary breeds, while an occasional lake lady became the wife of a shepherd or farmer in the neighbourhood. There must, however, be many more of these legends lurking in out of the way parts of Wales in connexion with the more remote mountain tarns; and it would be well if they were collected systematically.

One of the most complete and best known of these lake stories is that of Llyn y Fan Fach in the Beacons of Carmarthenshire, called in Welsh Bannau Sir Gaer. The story is so much more circumstantial than all the others, that it has been placed at the beginning of this volume. Next to it may be ranked that of the Ystrad Dyfodwg pool, now known as Llyn y Forwyn, the details of which have only recently been unearthed for me by a friend: see pp. 27-30 above. Well, in the Fan Fach legend the lake lady marries a young farmer from Mydfai, on the Carmarthenshire side of the range; and she is to remain his wife so long as he lives without striking her three times without cause. When that happens, she leaves him and calls away with her all her live stock, down to the little black calf in the process of being flayed; for he suddenly dons his hide and hurries away after the rest of the stock into the lake. The three blows without cause seem to belong to a category of very ancient determinants which have been recently discussed, with his usual acumen and command of instances from other lands, by Mr. Hartland, in the chapters on the Swan Maidens in his Science of Fairy Tales. But our South Welsh story allows the three blows only a minimum of force; and in North Wales the determinant is of a different kind, though probably equally ancient: for there the husband must not strike or touch the fairy wife with anything made of iron, a condition which probably points back to the Stone Age. For archæologists are agreed, that before metal, whether iron or bronze, was used in the manufacturing of tools, stone was the universal material for all cutting tools and weapons. But as savages are profoundly conservative in their habits, it is argued that on ceremonial and religious occasions knives of stone continued to be the only ones admissible long after bronze ones had been in common use for ordinary purposes. Take for example the text of Exodus iv. 25, where Zipporah is mentioned circumcising her son with a flint. From instances of the kind one may comprehend the sort of way in which iron came to be regarded as an abomination and a horror to the fairies. The question will be found discussed by Mr. Hartland at length in his book mentioned above: see more especially pp. 305-9.

Such, to my mind, are some of the questions to which the fairies give rise: I now wish to add another turning on the reluctance of the fairies to disclose their names. There is one story in particular which would serve to illustrate this admirably; but it is one which, I am sorry to say, I have never been able to discover complete or coherent in Wales. The substance of it should be, roughly speaking, as follows:--A woman finds herself in great distress and is delivered out of it by a fairy, who claims as reward the woman's baby. On a certain day the baby will inevitably be taken by the fairy unless the fairy's true name is discovered by the mother. The fairy is foiled by being in the meantime accidentally overheard exulting, that the mother does not know that his or her name is Rumpelstiltzchen, or whatever it may be in the version which happens to be in question. The best known version is the German one, where the fairy is called Rumpelstiltzchen; and it will be found in the ordinary editions of Grimm's Märchen. The most complete English version is the East Anglian one published by Mr. Edward Clodd, in his recent volume entitled Tom Tit Tot, pp. 8-16; and previously in an article full of research headed 'The Philosophy of Rumpelstiltskin,' in Folk-Lore for 1889, pp. 138-43. It is first to be noted that in this version the fairy's name is Tom Tit Tot, and that the German and the East Anglian stories run parallel. They agree in making the fairy a male, in which they differ from our Welsh Silly Frit and Silly go Dwt: in what other respect the story of our Silly differed from that of Rumpelstiltzchen and Tom Tit Tot it is, in the present incomplete state of the Welsh one, impossible to say. Here it may be found useful to recall the fragments of the Welsh story: (1) A fairy woman used to come out of Corwrion Pool to spin on fine summer days, and whilst spinning she sang or hummed to herself sìli ffrit, sìli ffrit--it does not rise even to a doggerel couplet: see p. 64 above. (2) A farmer's wife in Lleyn used to have visits from a fairy woman who came to borrow things from her; and one day when the goodwife had lent her a troell bach, or wheel for spinning flax, she asked the fairy to give her name, which she declined to do. She was, however, overheard to sing to the whir of the wheel as follows (p. 229):--

Bychan a wyda' hi Little did she know Mai Sìli go Dwt That Silly go Dwt Yw f'enw i. Is my name.

This throws some light on Silly Frit, and we know where we are; but the story is inconsequent, and far from representing the original. We cannot, however, reconstruct it quite on the lines of Grimm's or Clodd's version. But I happened to mention my difficulty one day to Dr. J. A. H. Murray, when he assured me of the existence of a Scottish version in which the fairy is a female. He learnt it when he was a child, he said, at Denholm, in Roxburghshire; and he was afterwards charmed to read it in Robert Chambers' Popular Rhymes of Scotland (Edinburgh, 1858), pp. 221-5, whence Mr. Clodd has given an abstract of it in his 'Philosophy of Rumpelstiltskin.' Among those popular rhymes the reader will find it as related at length by Nurse Jenny in her inimitable fashion; but the Scotch is so broad, that I think it advisable, at the risk of some havoc to the local colouring, to southronize it somewhat as follows:--

'I see that you are fond of talks about fairies, children; and a story about a fairy and the goodwife of Kittlerumpit has just come into my mind; but I can't very well tell you now whereabouts Kittlerumpit lies. I think it is somewhere in the Debatable Ground; anyway I shall not pretend to know more than I do, like everybody nowadays. I wish they would remember the ballad we used to sing long ago:--

Mony ane sings the gerss, the gerss, And mony ane sings the corn; And mony ane clatters o' bold Robin Hood, Ne'er kent where he was born.

But howsoever about Kittlerumpit: the goodman was a rambling sort of body; and he went to a fair one day, and not only never came home again, but nevermore was heard of. Some said he 'listed, and others that the tiresome pressgang snatched him up, though he was furnished with a wife and a child to boot. Alas! that wretched pressgang! They went about the country like roaring lions, seeking whom they might devour. Well do I remember how my eldest brother Sandy was all but smothered in the meal-chest, hiding from those rascals. After they were gone, we pulled him out from among the meal, puffing and crying, and as white as any corpse. My mother had to pick the meal out of his mouth with the shank of a horn spoon.

'Ah well, when the goodman of Kittlerumpit was gone, the goodwife was left with small means. Little resources had she, and a baby boy at her breast. All said they were sorry for her; but nobody helped her--which is a common case, sirs. Howsoever the goodwife had a sow, and that was her only consolation; for the sow was soon to farrow, and she hoped for a good litter.

'But we all know hope is fallacious. One day the woman goes to the sty to fill the sow's trough; and what does she find but the sow lying on her back, grunting and groaning, and ready to give up the ghost.

'I trow this was a new pang to the goodwife's heart; so she sat down on the knocking-stone [192], with her bairn on her knee, and cried sorer than ever she did for the loss of her own goodman.

'Now I premise that the cottage of Kittlerumpit was built on a brae, with a large fir-wood behind it, of which you may hear more ere we go far on. So the goodwife, when she was wiping her eyes, chances to look down the brae; and what does she see but an old woman, almost like a lady, coming slowly up the road. She was dressed in green, all but a short white apron and a black velvet hood, and a steeple-crowned beaver hat on her head. She had a long walking-staff, as long as herself, in her hand--the sort of staff that old men and old women helped themselves with long ago; I see no such staffs now, sirs.

'Ah well, when the goodwife saw the green gentlewoman near her, she rose and made a curtsy; and "Madam," quoth she, weeping, "I am one of the most misfortunate women alive."

'"I don't wish to hear pipers' news and fiddlers' tales, goodwife," quoth the green woman. "I know you have lost your goodman--we had worse losses at the Sheriff Muir [193]; and I know that your sow is unco sick. Now what will you give me if I cure her?"

'"Anything your ladyship's madam likes," quoth the witless goodwife, never guessing whom she had to deal with.

'"Let us wet thumbs on that bargain," quoth the green woman; so thumbs were wetted, I warrant you; and into the sty madam marches.

'She looks at the sow with a long stare, and then began to mutter to herself what the goodwife couldn't well understand; but she said it sounded like--

Pitter patter, Holy Water.

'Then she took out of her pocket a wee bottle, with something like oil in it; and she rubs the sow with it above the snout, behind the ears, and on the tip of the tail. "Get up, beast," quoth the green woman. No sooner said than done--up jumps the sow with a grunt, and away to her trough for her breakfast.

'The goodwife of Kittlerumpit was a joyful goodwife now, and would have kissed the very hem of the green woman's gowntail; but she wouldn't let her. "I am not so fond of ceremonies," quoth she; "but now that I have righted your sick beast, let us end our settled bargain. You will not find me an unreasonable, greedy body--I like ever to do a good turn for a small reward: all I ask, and will have, is that baby boy in your bosom."

'The goodwife of Kittlerumpit, who now knew her customer, gave a shrill cry like a stuck swine. The green woman was a fairy, no doubt; so she prays, and cries, and begs, and scolds; but all wouldn't do. "You may spare your din," quoth the fairy, "screaming as if I was as deaf as a door-nail; but this I'll let you know--I cannot, by the law we live under, take your bairn till the third day; and not then, if you can tell me my right name." So madam goes away round the pig-sty end; and the goodwife falls down in a swoon behind the knocking-stone.

'Ah well, the goodwife of Kittlerumpit could not sleep any that night for crying, and all the next day the same, cuddling her bairn till she nearly squeezed its breath out; but the second day she thinks of taking a walk in the wood I told you of; and so with the bairn in her arms, she sets out, and goes far in among the trees, where was an old quarry-hole, grown over with grass, and a bonny spring well in the middle of it. Before she came very near, she hears the whirring of a flax wheel, and a voice singing a song; so the woman creeps quietly among the bushes, and peeps over the brow of the quarry; and what does she see but the green fairy tearing away at her wheel, and singing like any precentor:--

Little kens our guid dame at hame, That Whuppity Stoorie is my name.

'"Ha, ha!" thinks the woman, "I've got the mason's word at last; the devil give them joy that told it!" So she went home far lighter than she came out, as you may well guess--laughing like a madcap with the thought of cheating the old green fairy.

'Ah well, you must know that this goodwife was a jocose woman, and ever merry when her heart was not very sorely overladen. So she thinks to have some sport with the fairy; and at the appointed time she puts the bairn behind the knocking-stone, and sits on the stone herself. Then she pulls her cap over her left ear and twists her mouth on the other side, as if she were weeping; and an ugly face she made, you may be sure. She hadn't long to wait, for up the brae climbs the green fairy, neither lame nor lazy; and long ere she got near the knocking-stone she screams out--"Goodwife of Kittlerumpit, you know well what I come for--stand and deliver!"

'The woman pretends to cry harder than before, and wrings her hands, and falls on her knees, with "Och, sweet madam mistress, spare my only bairn, and take the wretched sow!"

'"The devil take the sow, for my part," quoth the fairy; "I come not here for swine's flesh. Don't be contramawcious, huzzy, but give me the child instantly!"

'"Ochone, dear lady mine," quoth the crying goodwife; "forgo my poor bairn, and take me myself!"

'"The devil is in the daft jade," quoth the fairy, looking like the far end of a fiddle; "I'll bet she is clean demented. Who in all the earthly world, with half an eye in his head, would ever meddle with the likes of thee?"

'I trow this set up the woman of Kittlerumpit's bristle: for though she had two blear eyes and a long red nose besides, she thought herself as bonny as the best of them. So she springs off her knees, sets the top of her cap straight, and with her two hands folded before her, she makes a curtsy down to the ground, and, "In troth, fair madam," quoth she, "I might have had the wit to know that the likes of me is not fit to tie the worst shoe-strings of the high and mighty princess, Whuppity Stoorie."

'If a flash of gunpowder had come out of the ground it couldn't have made the fairy leap higher than she did; then down she came again plump on her shoe-heels; and whirling round, she ran down the brae, screeching for rage, like an owl chased by the witches.

'The goodwife of Kittlerumpit laughed till she was like to split; then she takes up her bairn, and goes into her house, singing to it all the way:--

A goo and a gitty, my bonny wee tyke, Ye'se noo ha'e your four-oories; Sin' we've gien Nick a bane to pyke, Wi' his wheels and his Whuppity Stoories.'

That is practically Chambers' version of this Scottish story; and as to the name of the fairy Whuppity Stoorie, the first syllable should be the equivalent of English whip, while stoor is a Scotch word for dust in motion: so the editor asks in a note whether the name may not have originated in the notion 'that fairies were always present in the whirls of dust occasioned by the wind on roads and in streets [194].' But he adds that another version of the story calls the green woman Fittletetot, which ends with the same element as the name Tom Tit Tot and Silly go Dwt. Perhaps, however, the Welsh versions of the story approached nearest to one from Mochdrum in Wigtownshire, published in the British Association's Papers of the Liverpool Meeting, 1896, p. 613. This story was contributed by the Rev. Walter Gregor, and the name of the fairy in it is Marget Totts: in this we have a wife, who is in great distress, because her husband used to give her so much flax to spin by such and such a day, that the work was beyond human power. A fairy comes to the rescue and takes the flax away, promising to bring it back spun by the day fixed, provided the woman can tell the fairy's name. The woman's distress thereupon becomes as great as before, but the fairy was overheard saying as she span, 'Little does the guidwife ken it, my name is Marget Totts.' So the woman got her flax returned spun by the day; and the fairy, Marget Totts, went up the chimney in a blaze of fire as the result of rage and disappointment. Here one cannot help seeing that the original, of which this is a clumsy version, must have been somewhat as follows

Little does the guidwife wot That my name is Marget Tot.

To come back to Wales, we have there the names Silly Frit and Silly go Dwt, which are those of females. The former name is purely English--Silly Frit, which has been already guessed (p. 66) to mean a silly sprite, or silly apparition, with the idea of its being a fright of a creature to behold: compare the application elsewhere to a fairy changeling of the terms crimbil (p. 263) and cyrfaglach or cryfaglach (p. 450), which is explained as implying a haggard urchin that has been half starved and stunted in its growth. Leaving out of the reckoning this connotation, one might compare the term with the Scottish habit of calling the fairies silly wights, 'the Happy Wights.' See J. Jamieson's Scottish Dictionary, where s. v. seily, seely, 'happy,' he purports to quote the following lines from 'the Legend of the Bishop of St. Androis' in a collection of Scottish Poems of the Sixteenth Century (Edinburgh, 1801), pp. 320-1:--

For oght the kirk culd him forbid, He sped him sone, and gat the thrid; Ane Carling of the Quene of Phareis, That ewill win gair to elphyne careis,

Through all Braid Albane scho hes bene, On horsbak on Hallow ewin; And ay in seiking certayne nyghtis, As scho sayis, with sur [read our] sillie wychtis.

Similarly, he gives the fairies the name of Seely Court, and cites as illustrating it the following lines from R. Jamieson's Popular Ballads, (i. 236, and) ii. 189:--

But as it fell out on last Hallowe'en, When the Seely Court was ridin' by, The queen lighted down on a gowan bank, Nae far frae the tree where I wont to lye.

Into Welsh, however, the designation Silly Frit must have come, not from Scotland, but from the Marches; and the history of Sìli go Dwt must be much the same. For, though construed as Welsh, the name would mean the Silly who is go Dwt [195], 'somewhat tidy or natty'; but the dwt (mutated from twt) was suggested doubtless by the tot of such fairy names as Tom Tit Tot. That brings me to another group, where the syllable is trot or trut, and this we have in the Welsh doggerel, mentioned at p. 229, as follows:--

Bychan a wyda' hi Little did she know Mai Trwtyn-Tratyn That Trwtyn Tratyn Yw f'enw i. Is my name.

But this name Trwtyn-Tratyn sounds masculine, and not that of a she-fairy such as Silly Frit. The feminine would have been Trwtan-Tratan in the Carnarvonshire pronunciation, and in fact trwtan is to be heard there; but more frequently a kind of derivative trwdlan, meaning an ungainly sort of woman, a drudge, a short-legged or deformed maid of all work. Some Teutonic varieties of this group of stories will be found mentioned briefly in Mr. Clodd's article on the 'Philosophy of Rumpelstiltskin [196].' Thus from the Debatable Ground on the borders of England and Scotland there comes a story in which the fairy woman's name was Habetrot; and he alludes to an Icelandic version in which the name is Gillitrut; but for us still more interest attaches to the name in the following rhyme [197]:--

Little does my lady wot That my name is Trit-a-Trot.

This has been supposed to belong to a story coming from Ireland; but whether that may prove true or not, it is hardly to be doubted that our Trwtyn Tratyn is practically to be identified with Trit-a-Trot, who is also a he-fairy.

That is not all; for since the foregoing notes were penned, a tale has reached me from Mr. Craigfryn Hughes about a fairy who began by conducting himself like the brownies mentioned at pp. 287, 324-5 above. The passages here in point come from the story of which a part was given at pp. 462-4; and they are to the following effect:--Long ago there was in service at a Monmouthshire farm a young woman who was merry and strong. Who she was or whence she came nobody knew; but many believed that she belonged to the old breed of Bendith y Mamau. Some time after she had come to the farm, the rumour spread that the house was sorely troubled by a spirit. But the girl and the elf understood one another well, and they became the best of friends. So the elf proved very useful to the maid, for he did everything for her--washing, ironing, spinning and twisting wool; in fact they say that he was remarkably handy at the spinning-wheel. Moreover, he expected only a bowlful of sweet milk and wheat bread, or some flummery, for his work. So she took care to place the bowl with his food at the bottom of the stairs every night as she went to bed. It ought to have been mentioned that she was never allowed to catch a sight of him; for he always did his work in the dark. Nor did anybody know when he ate his food: she used to leave the bowl there at night, and it would be empty by the time when she got up in the morning, the bwca having cleared it. But one night, by way of cursedness, what did she do but fill the bowl with some of the stale urine which they used in dyeing wool and other things about the house. But heavens! it would have been better for her not to have done it; for when she got up next morning what should he do but suddenly spring from some corner and seize her by the neck! He began to beat her and kick her from one end of the house to the other, while he shouted at the top of his voice at every kick:--

Y faidan din dwmp-- Yn rhoi bara haid a thrwnc I'r bwca!

The idea that the thick-buttocked lass Should give barley bread and p-- To the bogie!

Meanwhile she screamed for help, but none came for some time; when, however, he heard the servant men getting up, he took to his heels as hard as he could; and nothing was heard of him for some time. But at the end of two years he was found to be at another farm in the neighbourhood, called Hafod yr Ynys, where he at once became great friends with the servant girl: for she fed him like a young chicken, by giving him a little bread and milk all the time. So he worked willingly and well for her in return for his favourite food. More especially, he used to spin and wind the yarn for her; but she wished him in time to show his face, or to tell her his name: he would by no means do either. One evening, however, when all the men were out, and when he was spinning hard at the wheel, she deceived him by telling him that she was also going out. He believed her; and when he heard the door shutting, he began to sing as he plied the wheel:--

Hi warda'n iawn pe gwypa hi, Taw Gwarwyn-a-throt yw'm enw i.

How she would laugh, did she know That Gwarwyn-a-throt is my name!

'Ha! ha!' said the maid at the bottom of the stairs; 'I know thy name now.' 'What is it, then?' he asked. She replied, 'Gwarwyn-a-throt'; and as soon as she uttered the words he left the wheel where it was, and off he went. He was next heard of at a farmhouse not far off, where there happened to be a servant man named Moses, with whom he became great friends at once. He did all his work for Moses with great ease. He once, however, gave him a good beating for doubting his word; but the two remained together afterwards for some years on the best possible terms: the end of it was that Moses became a soldier. He went away to fight against Richard Crookback, and fell on the field of Bosworth. The bogie, after losing his friend, began to be troublesome and difficult to live with. He would harass the oxen when they ploughed, and draw them after him everywhere, plough and all; nor could any one prevent them. Then, when the sun set in the evening he would play his pranks again, and do all sorts of mischief about the house, upstairs, and in the cowhouses. So the farmer was advised to visit a wise man (dyn cynnil), and to see if he could devise some means of getting rid of the bogie. He called on the wise man, who happened to be living near Caerleon on the Usk; and the wise man, having waited till the moon should be full, came to the farmer's house. In due time the wise man, by force of manoeuvring, secured the bogie by the very long nose which formed the principal ornament of his face, and earned for him the name of Bwca'r Trwyn, 'the Bogie of the Nose.' Whilst secured by the nose, the bogie had something read to him out of the wise man's big book; and he was condemned by the wise man to be transported to the banks of the Red Sea for fourteen generations, and to be conveyed thither by 'the upper wind' (yr uwchwynt). No sooner had this been pronounced by the cunning man than there came a whirlwind which made the whole house shake. Then came a still mightier wind, and as it began to blow the owner of the big book drew the awl out of the bogie's nose; and it is supposed that the bogie was carried away by that wind, for he never troubled the place any more.

Another version of the story seems to have been current, which represented the bogie as in no wise to blame [198]: but I attach some importance to the foregoing tale as forming a link of connexion between the Rumpelstiltzchen group of fairies, always trying to get hold of children; the brownie kind, ever willing to serve in return for their simple keep; and the troublesome bogie, that used to haunt Welsh farm houses and delight in breaking crockery and frightening the inmates out of their wits. In fact, the brownie and the bogie reduce themselves here into different humours of the same uncanny being. Their appearance may be said to have differed also: the bogie had a very long nose, while the brownie of Blednoch had only 'a hole where a nose should have been.' But one of the most remarkable points about the brownie species is that the Lincolnshire specimen was a small creature, 'a weeny bit of a fellow'--which suggests a possible community of origin with the banshee of the Irish, and also of the Welsh: witness the wee little woman in the story of the Curse of Pantannas (pp. 188-9), who seems to come up out of the river. All alike may perhaps be said to suggest various aspects of the dead ancestor or ancestress; but Bwca'r Trwyn is not to be severed from the fairy woman in the Pennant Valley, who undertakes some of the duties, not of a dairymaid, as in other cases mentioned, but those of a nurse. Her conduct on being offered a gown is exactly that of the brownie similarly placed: see p. 109 above. But she and Bwca'r Trwyn are unmistakably fairies who take to domestic service, and work for a time willingly and well in return for their food, which, as in the case of other fairies, appears to have been mostly milk.

After this digression I wish only to point out that the Welsh bogie's name, Gwarwyn-a-throt, treated as Welsh, could only mean white-necked and (or with) a trot; for a throt could only mean 'and (or with) a trot.' So it is clear that a throt is simply the equivalent of a-Trot, borrowed from such an English combination as Trit-a-Trot, and that it is idle to translate Gwarwyn-a-throt. Now trot and twt are not native Welsh words; and the same remark applies to Trwtyn Tratyn, and of course to Sìli ffrit and Sìli go Dwt. Hence it is natural to infer that either these names have in the Welsh stories merely superseded older ones of Welsh origin, or else that there was no question of name in the Welsh stories till they had come under English influence. The former conjecture seems the more probable of the two, unless one should rather suppose the whole story borrowed from English sources. But it is of no consequence here as regards the reluctance of fairies to disclose their names; for we have other instances to which the reader may turn, on pp. 45, 87-8, 97 above. One of them, in particular, is in point here: see pp. 54, 61. It attaches itself to the Pool of Corwrion in the neighbourhood of Bangor; and it relates how a man married a fairy on the express condition that he was neither to know her name nor to touch her with iron, on pain of her instantly leaving him. Of course in the lapse of years the conditions are accidentally violated by the luckless husband, and the wife flies instantly away into the waters of the pool: her name turned out to be Belene.

Thus far of the unwillingness of the fairies to tell their names: I must now come to the question, why that was so. Here the anthropologist or the student of comparative folklore comes to our aid; for it is an important part of his business to compare the superstitions of one people with those of another; and in the case of superstitions which have lost their meaning among us, for instance, he searches for a parallel among other nations, where that parallel forms part of living institutions. In this way he hopes to discover the key to his difficulties. In the present case he finds savages who habitually look at the name as part and parcel of the person [199]. These savages further believe that any part of the person, such as a hair off one's head or the parings of one's nails, if they chanced to be found by an enemy, would give that enemy magical power over their lives, and enable him to injure them. Hence the savage tendency to conceal one's name. I have here, as the reader will perceive, crowded together several important steps in the savage logic; so I must try to illustrate them, somewhat more in detail, by reference to some of the survivals of them after the savage has long been civilized. To return to Wales, and to illustrate the belief that possession of a part of one's person, or of anything closely identified with one's person, gives the possessor of it power over that person, I need only recall the Welsh notion, that if one wished to sell one's self to the devil one had merely to give him a hair of one's head or the tiniest drop of one's blood, then one would be for ever his for a temporary consideration. Again, if you only had your hair cut, it must be carefully gathered and hidden away: by no means must it be burnt, as that might prove prejudicial to your health. Similarly, you should never throw feathers into the fire; for that was once held, as I infer, to bring about death among one's poultry: and an old relative of mine, Modryb Mari, 'Aunt Mary,' set her face against my taste for toasted cheese. She used to tell me that if I toasted my cheese, my sheep would waste away and die: strictly speaking, I fancy this originally meant only the sheep from whose milk the cheese had been made. But I was not well versed enough in the doctrines of sympathetic magic to reply, that it did not apply to our cheese, which was not made from sheep's milk. So her warning used to frighten me and check my fondness for toasted cheese, a fondness which I had doubtless quite innocently inherited, as anybody will see who will glance at one of the Hundred Mery Talys, printed by John Rastell in the sixteenth century, as follows:--'I fynde wrytten amonge olde gestes, howe God mayde Saynt Peter porter of heuen, and that God of hys goodnes, sone after his passyon, suffered many men to come to the kyngdome of Heuen with small deseruynge; at whyche tyme there was in heuen a great companye of Welchemen, whyche with their crakynge and babelynge troubled all the other. Wherfore God sayde to Saynte Peter that he was wery of them, and that he wolde fayne haue them out of heuen. To whome Saynte Peter sayd: Good Lorde, I warrente you, that shall be done. Wherfore Saynt Peter wente out of heuen gates and cryed wyth a loud voyce Cause bobe [200], that is as moche to saye as rosted chese, whiche thynge the Welchemen herynge, ranne out of Heuen a great pace. And when Saynt Peter sawe them all out, he sodenly wente into Heuen, and locked the dore, and so sparred all the Welchemen out. By this ye may se, that it is no wysdome for a man to loue or to set his mynde to moche upon any delycate or worldely pleasure, wherby he shall lose the celestyall and eternall ioye.'

To leave the Mery Talys and come back to the instances mentioned, all of them may be said to illustrate the way in which a part, or an adjunct, answered for the whole of a person or thing. In fact, having due regard to magic as an exact science, an exceedingly exact science, one may say that according to the wisdom of our ancestors the leading axiom of that science practically amounted to this: the part is quite equal to the whole. Now the name, as a part of the man, was once probably identified with the breath of life or with the soul, as we shall see later; and the latter must have been regarded as a kind of matter; for I well remember that when a person was dying in a house, it was the custom about Ponterwyd, in North Cardiganshire, to open the windows. And a farmer near Ystrad Meurig, more towards the south of the county, told me some years ago that he remembered his mother dying when he was a boy: a neighbour's wife who had been acting as nurse tried to open the window of the room, and as it would not open she deliberately smashed a pane of it. This was doubtless originally meant to facilitate the escape of the soul; and the same idea has been attested for Gloucestershire, Devon, and other parts of the country [201]. This way of looking at the soul reminds one of Professor Tylor's words when he wrote in his work on Primitive Culture,