The Ceffyl-y-Dwfr was very different to Chaucer’s wonderful brass horse, which could be ridden, without harm, by a sleeping rider:—
This steed of brasse, and easilie and well
Can in the space of a day naturél,
This is to say, in foure and twenty houres,
Where so ye lists, in drought or ellés showers,
Baren yours bodie into everie place,
In which your hearté willeth for to pace,
Withouten wemme of you through foul or fair,
Or if you liste to flee as high in th’ aire
As doth an eagle when him liste to soare,
This same steed shall bear you evermore,
Withouten harm, till ye be there you leste,
Though that ye sleepen on his back or reste;
And turn againe with writhing of a pinne,
He that it wroughte he couldé many a gin,
He waited many a constellation,
Ere he had done this operation.Chaucer’s Squire’s Tale, 137-152.
The rider of the magic horse was made acquainted with the charm that secured its obedience, for otherwise he took an aerial ride at his peril. This kind of invention is oriental, but it is sufficiently like the Celtic in outline to indicate that all figments of the kind had undoubtedly a common origin.
I have seen it somewhere stated, but where I cannot recall to mind, that, the Water Horses did, in olden times, sport, on the Welsh mountains, with the puny native ponies, before they became a mixed breed.
It was believed that the initiated could conjure up the River Horse by shaking a magic bridle over the pool wherein it dwelt.
There is much curious information respecting this mythic animal in the Tales of the Cymry and from this work I have culled many thoughts.
The Torrent Spectre.
This spectre was supposed to be an old man, or malignant spirit, who directed, and ruled over, the mountain torrents. He delighted in devastating the lands. His appearance was horrible to behold, and it was believed that in the midst of the rushing stream his terrible form could be discerned apparently moving with the torrent, but in reality remaining stationary. Now he would raise himself half out of the water, and ascend like a mist half as high as the near mountain, and then he would dwindle down to the size of a man. His laugh accorded with his savage visage, and his long hair stood on end, and a mist always surrounded him.
Davies, in his Mythology of the Druids, says that believers in this strange superstition are yet to be met with in
Glamorganshire. Davies was born in the parish of Llanvareth, Radnorshire, in 1756, and died January 1st, 1831.