VI.
Here, for the sake of comparison with the Northwalian stories in which the fairy wife runs away from her husband in consequence of his having unintentionally touched or hit her with the iron in the bridle, the fetter, or the stirrup, as on pp. 35, 40, 46, 50, 54, 61. I wish to cite the oldest recorded version, namely from Walter Mapes’ curious miscellany of anecdotes and legends entitled De Nugis Curialium Distinctiones Quinque. Mapes flourished in the latter part of the twelfth century, and in Distinctio ii. 11 of Thomas Wright’s edition, published in the year 1850, one reads the following story, which serves the purpose there of giving the origin of a certain Trinio, of whom Mapes had more to say:—
Aliud non miraculum sed portentum nobis Walenses referunt. Wastinum Wastiniauc secus stagnum Brekeinauc [read Brecheinauc], quod in circuitu duo miliaria tenet, mansisse aiunt et vidisse per tres claras a luna noctes choreas fæminarum in campo avenæ suæ, et secutum eum eas fuisse donec in aqua stagni submergerentur, unam tamen quarta vice retinuisse. Narrabat etiam ille raptor illius quod eas noctibus singulis post submersionem earum murmurantes audisset sub aqua et dicentes, ‘Si hoc fecisset, unam de nobis cepisset,’ et se ab ipsis edoctum quomodo hanc adepta [read -us] sit, quæ et consensit et nupsit ei, et prima verba sua hæc ad virum suum, ‘Libens tibi serviam, et tota obedientiæ devotione usque in diem illum prosilire volens ad clamores ultra Lenem [read Leueni] me freno tuo percusseris.’ Est autem Leueni aqua vicina stagno. Quod et factum est; post plurimæ prolis susceptionem ab eo freno percussa est, et in reditu suo inventam eam fugientem cum prole, insecutus est, et vix unum ex filiis suis arripuit, nomine Triunem Uagelauc.
‘The Welsh relate to us another thing, not so much a miracle as a portent, as follows. They say that Gwestin of Gwestiniog dwelt beside Brecknock Mere, which has a circumference of two miles, and that on three moonlight nights he saw in his field of oats women dancing, and that he followed them until they sank in the water of the mere; but the fourth time they say that he seized hold of one of them. Her captor further used to relate that on each of these nights he had heard the women, after plunging into the mere, murmuring beneath the water and saying, “If he had done so and so, he would have caught one of us,” and that he had been instructed by their own words, as to the manner in which he caught her. She both yielded and became his wife, and her first words to her husband were these: “Willingly will I serve thee, and with whole-hearted obedience, until that day when, desirous of sallying forth in the direction of the cries beyond the Ỻyfni, thou shalt strike me with thy bridle”—the Ỻyfni is a burn near the mere. And this came to pass: after presenting him with a numerous offspring she was struck by him with the bridle, and on his returning home, he found her running away with her offspring, and he pursued her, but it was with difficulty that he got hold even of one of his sons, and he was named Trinio (?) Faglog.’
The story, as it proceeds, mentions Trinio engaged in battle with the men of a prince who seems to have been no other than Brychan of Brycheiniog, supposed to have died about the middle of the fifth century. The battle was disastrous to Trinio and his friends, and Trinio was never seen afterwards; so Walter Mapes reports the fact that people believed him to have been rescued by his mother, and that he was with her living still in the lake. Giraldus calls it lacus ille de Brecheniauc magnus et famosus, quem et Clamosum dicunt, ‘that great and famous lake of Brecknock which they also call Clamosus,’ suggested by the Welsh Ỻyn Ỻefni, so called from the river Ỻefni, misinterpreted as if derived from ỻef ‘a cry.’ With this lake he connects the legend, that at the bidding of the rightful Prince of Wales, the birds frequenting it would at once warble and sing. This he asserts to have been proved in the case of Gruffuđ, son of Rhys, though the Normans were at the time masters of his person and of his territory[29]. After dwelling on the varying colours of the lake he adds the following statement:—Ad hæc etiam totus ædificiis consertus, culturis egregiis, hortis ornatus et pomeriis, ab accolis quandoque conspicitur, ‘Now and then also it is seen by the neighbouring inhabitants to be covered with buildings, and adorned with excellent farming, gardens, and orchards.’ It is remarkable as one of the few lakes in Wales where the remains of a crannog have been discovered, and while Mapes gives it as only two miles round, it is now said to be about five; so it has sometimes[30] been regarded as a stockaded island rather than as an instance of pile dwellings.
In the Brython for 1863, pp. 114–15, is to be found what purports to be a copy of a version of the Legend of Ỻyn Syfađon, as contained in a manuscript of Hugh Thomas’ in the British Museum. It is to the effect that the people of the neighbourhood have a story that all the land now covered by the lake belonged to a princess, who had an admirer to whom she would not be married unless he procured plenty of gold: she did not care how. So he one day murdered and robbed a man who had money, and the princess then accepted the murderer’s suit, but she felt uneasy on account of the reports as to the murdered man’s ghost haunting the place where his body had been buried. So she made her admirer go at night to interview the ghost and lay it. Whilst he waited near the grave he heard a voice inquiring whether the innocent man was not to be avenged, and another replying that it would not be avenged till the ninth generation. The princess and her lover felt safe enough and were married: they multiplied and became numerous, while their town grew to be as it were another Sodom; and the original pair lived on so astonishingly long that they saw their descendants of the ninth generation. They exulted in their prosperity, and one day held a great feast to celebrate it; and when their descendants were banqueting with them, and the gaiety and mirth were at their zenith, ancestors and descendants were one and all drowned in a mighty cataclysm which produced the present lake.
Lastly may be briefly mentioned the belief still lingering in the neighbourhood, to the effect that there is a town beneath the waters of the lake, and that in rough weather the bells from the church tower of that town may be heard ringing, while in calm weather the spire of the church may be distinctly seen. My informant, writing in 1892, added the remark: ‘This story seems hardly creditable to us, but many of the old people believe it.’
I ought to have mentioned that the fifteenth-century poet Lewis Glyn Cothi connects with Syfađon[31] Lake an afanc legend; but this will be easier to understand in the light of the more complete one from the banks of the river Conwy. So the reader will find Glyn Cothi’s words given in the next chapter.
[1] As to the spelling of Welsh names, it may be pointed out for the benefit of English readers that Welsh f has the sound of English v, while the sound of English f is written ff (and ph) in Welsh, and however strange it may seem to them that the written f should be sounded v, it is borrowed from an old English alphabet which did so likewise more or less systematically. Th in such English words as thin and breath is written th, but the soft sound as in this and breathe is usually printed in Welsh dd and written in modern Welsh manuscript sometimes δ, like a small Greek delta: this will be found represented by đ in the Welsh extracts edited by me in this volume.—J. R. [↑]
[2] ‘Blaensawđe, or the upper end of the river Sawđe, is situate about three-quarters of a mile south-east from the village of Ỻanđeusant. It gives its name to one of the hamlets of that parish. The Sawđe has its source in Ỻyn y Fan Fach, which is nearly two miles distant from Blaensawđe House.’ [↑]
[3] The rendering might be more correctly given thus: ‘O thou of the crimped bread, it is not easy to catch me.’—J. R. [↑]
[4] ‘Myđfai parish was, in former times, celebrated for its fair maidens, but whether they were descendants of the Lady of the Lake or otherwise cannot be determined. An old penniỻ records the fact of their beauty thus:—
Mae eira gwyn
Ar ben y bryn,
A’r glasgoed yn y Ferdre,
Mae bedw mân
Ynghoed Cwm-brân,
A merched glân yn Myđfe.
Which may be translated,
There is white snow
On the mountain’s brow,
And greenwood at the Verdre,
Young birch so good
In Cwm-brân wood,
And lovely girls in Myđfe.’
[5] Similarly this should be rendered: ‘O thou of the moist bread, I will not have thee.’—J. R. [↑]
[6] In the best Demetian Welsh this word would be hweđel, and in the Gwentian of Glamorgan it is gweđel, mutated weđel, as may be heard in the neighbourhood of Bridgend.—J. R. [↑]
[7] This is not generally accepted, as some Welsh antiquarians find reasons to believe that Dafyđ ap Gwilym was buried at Strata Florida.—J. R. [↑]
[8] This is not quite correct, as I believe that Dr. C. Rice Williams, who lives at Aberystwyth, is one of the Međygon. That means the year 1881, when this chapter was written, excepting the portions concerning which the reader is apprised of a later date.—J. R. [↑]
[9] Later it will be seen that the triban in the above form was meant for neither of the two lakes, though it would seem to have adapted itself to several. In the case of the Fan Fach Lake the town meant must have been Carmarthen, and the couplet probably ran thus:
Os na cha’i lonyđ yn ym ỻe,
Fi fođa dre’ Garfyrđin.
[10] Ỻwch is the Goidelic word loch borrowed, and Ỻyn Cwm y Ỻwch literally means the Lake of the Loch Dingle. [↑]
[11] I make no attempt to translate these lines, but I find that Mr. Ỻewellyn Williams has found a still more obscure version of them, as follows:—
Prw međ, prw međ, prw’r gwartheg i dre’,
Prw milfach a malfach, pedair ỻualfach,
Ỻualfach ac Acli, pedair lafi,
Lafi a chromwen, pedair nepwen,
Nepwen drwynog, brech yn ỻyn a gwaun dodyn,
Tair bryncethin, tair cyffredin,
Tair caseg đu, draw yn yr eithin;
Dewch i gyd i lys y brenin.
[12] The Ty-fry is a house said to be some 200 years old, and situated about two miles from Rhonđa Fechan: more exactly it is about one-fourth of a mile from the station of Ystrad Rhonđa, and stands at the foot of Mynyđ yr Eglwys on the Treorky side. It is now surrounded by the cottages of colliers, one of whom occupies it. For this information I have to thank Mr. Probert Evans. [↑]
[13] It is to be borne in mind that the sound of h is uncertain in Glamorgan pronunciation, whether the language used is Welsh or English. The pronunciation indicated, however, by Mr. Evans comes near enough to the authentic form written Elfarch. [↑]
[14] In the Snowdon district of Gwyneđ the call is drwi, drwi, drŵ-i bach, while in North Cardiganshire it is trwi, trwi, trw-e fach, also pronounced sometimes with a surd r, produced by making the breath cause both lips to vibrate—tR′wi, tR′wi, which can hardly be distinguished from pR′wi, pR′wi. For the more forcibly the lips are vibrated the more difficult it becomes to start by closing them to pronounce p: so the tendency with R′ is to make the preceding consonant into some kind of a t. [↑]
[15] This is the Welsh form of the borrowed name Jane, and its pronunciation in North Cardiganshire is Si̯ân, with si̯ pronounced approximately like the ti of such French words as nation and the like; but of late years I find the si̯ made into English sh under the influence, probably, to some extent of the English taught at school. This happens in North Wales, even in districts where there are still plenty of people who cannot approach the English words fish and shilling nearer than fiss and silling. Si̯ôn and Si̯ân represent an old importation of English John and Jane, but they are now considered old-fashioned and superseded by John and Jane, which I learned to pronounce Dsi̯òn and Dsi̯ên, except that Si̯ôn survives as a family name, written Shone, in the neighbourhood of Wrexham. [↑]
[16] This term dafad (or dafaden), ‘a sheep,’ also used for ‘a wart,’ and dafad (or dafaden) wyỻt, literally ‘a wild sheep,’ for cancer or epithelioma, raises a question which I am quite unable to answer: why should a wart have been likened to a sheep? [↑]
[17] The name is probably a shortening of Caweỻyn, and that perhaps of Caweỻ-lyn, ‘Creel or Basket Lake.’ Its old name is said to have been Ỻyn Tarđenni. [↑]
[18] Tyn is a shortening of tyđyn, which is not quite forgotten in the case of Tyn Gadlas or Tyn Siarlas (for Tyđyn Siarlys), ‘Charles’ Tenement,’ in the immediate neighbourhood. Similarly the Anglesey Farm of Tyn yr Onnen used at one time to be Tyđyn yr Onnen in the books of Jesus College, Oxford, to which it belongs. [↑]
[19] That is the pronunciation which I have learnt at Ỻanberis, but there is another, which I have also heard, namely Derwenyđ. [↑]
[20] Ystrad is the Welsh corresponding to Scotch strath, and it is nearly related to the English word strand. It means the flat land near a river. [↑]
[21] Betws (or Bettws) Garmon seems to mean Germanus’s Bede-hūs or House of Prayer, but Garmon can hardly have come down in Welsh from the time of the famous saint in the fifth century, as it would then have probably yielded Gerfon and not Garmon: it looks as if it had come through the Goidelic of this country. [↑]
[22] One of the rare merits of our Welsh bards is their habit of assuming permanent noms de plume, by means of which they prevent a number of excellent native names from falling into utter oblivion in the general chaos of Anglo-Hebrew ones, such as Jones, Davies, and Williams, which cover the Principality. Welsh place-names have similarly been threatened by Hebrew names of chapels, such as Bethesda, Rehoboth, and Jerusalem, but in this direction the Jewish mania has only here and there effected permanent mischief. [↑]
[23] The Brython was a valuable Welsh periodical published by Mr. Robert Isaac Jones, at Tremadoc, in the years 1858–1863, and edited by the Rev. Chancellor Silvan Evans, who was then the curate of Ỻangïan in Ỻeyn: in fact he was curate for fourteen years! His excellent work in editing the Brython earned for him his diocesan’s displeasure, but it is easier to imagine than to describe how hard it was for him to resign the honorarium of £24 derived from the Brython when his stipend as a clergyman was only £92, at the same time that he had dependent on him a wife and six children. However much some people affect to laugh at the revival of the national spirit in Wales, we have, I think, got so far as to make it, for some time to come, impossible for a Welsh clergyman to be snubbed on account of his literary tastes or his delight in the archæology of his country. [↑]
[24] This parish is called after a saint named Tegái or Tygái, like Tyfaelog and Tysilio, and though the accent rests on the final syllable nothing could prevent the grammarian Huw Tegai and his friends from making it into Tégai in Huw’s name. [↑]
[25] For can they now usually put Ann, and Mr. Hughes remembers hearing it so many years ago. [↑]
[26] I remember seeing a similar mound at Ỻanfyrnach, in Pembrokeshire; and the last use made of the hollow on the top of this also is supposed to have been for cock-fights. [↑]
[27] My attention has also been called to freit, frete, freet, fret, ‘news, inquiry, augury,’ corresponding to Anglo-Saxon freht, ‘divination.’ But the disparity of meaning seems to stand in the way of our ffrit being referred to this origin. [↑]
[28] The Oxford Mabinogion, p. 63; Guest, iii. 223. [↑]
[29] See the Itinerarium Kambriæ, i. 2 (pp. 33–5), and Celtic Britain, p. 64. [↑]
[30] As for example in the Archæologia Cambrensis for 1870, pp. 192–8; see also 1872, pp. 146–8. [↑]
[31] Howells has also an account of Ỻyn Savadhan, as he writes it: see his Cambrian Superstitions, pp. 100–2, where he quaintly says that the story of the wickedness of the ancient lord of Syfađon is assigned as the reason why ‘the superstitious little river Lewenny will not mix its water with that of the lake.’ Lewenny is a reckless improvement of Mapes’ Leueni (printed Lenem); and Giraldus’ Clamosum implies an old spelling Ỻefni, pronounced the same as the later spelling Ỻyfni, which is now made into Ỻynfi or Ỻynvi: the river so called flows through the lake and into the Wye at Glasbury. As to Safađan or Syfađon, it is probably of Goidelic origin, and to be identified with such an Irish name as the feminine Samthann: see Dec. 19 in the Martyrologies. To keep within our data, we are at liberty to suppose that this was the name of the wicked princess in the story, and that she was the ancestress of a clan once powerful on and around the lake, which lies within a Goidelic area indicated by its Ogam inscriptions. [↑]
CHAPTER II
The Fairies’ Revenge
In th’olde dayes of the king Arthour,
Of which that Britons speken greet honour,
Al was this land fulfild of fayerye.
The elf-queen, with hir joly companye,
Daunced ful ofte in many a grene mede;
This was the olde opinion, as I rede.
I speke of manye hundred yeres ago.
Chaucer.