The boy frequently returned to our hemisphere, sometimes by the way he had first gone, sometimes by another; at first in company with other persons, and afterwards alone; and made himself known only to his mother, declaring to her the manners, nature, and state of that people. Being desired by her to bring a present of gold, with which that region abounded, he stole, when at play with the king’s son, the golden ball with which he used to divert himself, and brought it to his mother in great haste; and when he reached the door of his father’s house, but not unpursued, and was entering it in a great hurry, his foot stumbled on the threshold, and falling down into the room where his mother was sitting, the two pigmies seized the ball, which had dropped from his hand, and departed, showing the boy every mark of contempt and derision. On recovering from the fall, confounded with shame, and execrating the evil counsel of his mother, he returned by the usual track to the subterraneous road, but found no appearance of any passage, though he searched for it on the banks of the river (Tawe) for nearly the space of a year. But since those calamities which reason cannot mitigate are often alleviated by time, and length of time alone blunts the edge of our afflictions, and puts an end to many evils, the youth having been brought back by his friends and mother, and restored to his right way of thinking, and to his learning, in process of time attained the rank of priesthood. Whenever David II., Bishop of St. David’s, talked to him in his advanced state of life concerning this event, he could never relate the particulars without shedding tears. He had made himself acquainted with the language of that nation, the words of which, in his younger days, he used to recite, which, as the bishop had often informed me, were very conformable to the Greek idiom. When they asked for water, they said, “Ydor ydorum,” which meant, bring water; for “ydor,” in their language, signifies water, and dwr also, in the British language, signifies water. When they wanted salt they said, “Halgein ydorum,” bring salt. Salt is called halen in British.
[So far the narrative of Giraldus Cambrensis. We are happy to be able to lay before our readers some further details, hitherto unpublished, of the early life of Elidorus, and of his visits to the fairy kingdom beneath the bay.]
On the brow of Town Hill, and commanding a magnificent view of Swansea Bay, the channel, and their circumjacent coast, with the Devonian range of mountains in the distance; there stood, at the time of which we write, a small thatched cottage, with mud or clay walls, which was then occupied by Shôn Gwyllt, his wife Mary, and their son John, an only child.
Shôn, as had been his father and his grandfather before him, was a fisherman, which, in those times, was a highly remunerative business. Fish of all kinds were then abundant, and they commanded a ready market. In the bay were shoals of conger, cod, mullet, sole, whiting, and flat-fish; while, in the season, the fishermen were often fortunate enough to secure in their nets sea trout and salmon, which, for delicacy of flavour, were unequalled in the British seas and rivers, the Tawe excepted. In the Tawe salmon were as plentiful as the daisy on the verdant mead in early summer. The waters of that river then, and for several hundred years after, were as clear as the crystal dewdrops. Now it was on that delightful, that glossy and pellucid river that Shôn Gwyllt plied his trade, and the sylvan groves on its banks resounded with the sound of his rich tenor voice. Shôn loved a good song, and the echo of his voice in the near and distant groves had for him a peculiar charm.
We have already observed that Shôn plied his calling on the Tawe. He had a horror of the sea. Upon its waters he never ventured. Nothing could induce him to join his brother fishermen in the bay. Though they often tempted him by predicting that they would certainly have a splendid haul of fish, yet the prospect of a rich reward for his labour had no influence on his mind. To their solicitation he used to reply, “The Tawe has been a good and generous parent to me, so I shall not forsake the kind and rich old mother.” And Shôn did not forsake her. Day after day, during the season, he might be seen with his coracle on his back, wending his way down Mount Pleasant and across the fields to the Tawe (there were no houses there then), and thence he fished up the river as far as Morriston, which at that time consisted of a few clod-built huts. It was but seldom that he ventured above that village, though occasionally, and once in a way, he fished up to Ynistawe, but never went so high up the stream as Penllwch. His aversion to Penllwch appears to have arisen from the circumstance that his cousin met with an untimely end there, and Shôn dreaded to fish the deep pools under Glais, where the young man, whom he loved as a brother, was drowned.
Although Shôn was passionately fond of his trade, yet, strange to say, he was strongly opposed to his son following in his footsteps. He reasoned thus: It is an occupation in which there is a great risk of life. The fisherman has to contend with bad seasons, and occasionally fish is a drug in the market. The business is not respectable; those engaged in it are men of the lowest class, ignorant, drunken, and improvident, living from hand to mouth, never saving a penny against a rainy day. Instead of allowing young John to accompany him, he resolved to send him to school; and to school accordingly his son was duly sent. John, however, hated school, and intensely disliked his preceptor, a dislike he gloried in exhibiting whenever an opportunity offered itself. The teacher resented the boy’s conduct by the free use of the cane. In the severity of punishment he had no mercy, and to escape chastisement young Gwyllt often absented himself from school. The hours thus spent were among the happiest of his boyhood. After his father had gone, John would walk down to the Tawe, and leaping into a stranded coracle, he, with his paddle, would spend hour after hour in skimming over the waters. When he got tired, he would row to the bank, and fastening his little boat to the stake, lie down to rest. The remainder of the youth’s story we shall tell in his own words, which are as follows:—
I lay me down on the banks of Tawe’s crystal waters, and slept. In my sleep, behold I had a dream. In my dream or vision I saw a man approaching who was exceeding small in stature. He was clad in rich apparel, and the fastenings of his garments—which were as white as the winter’s snow—were of pure gold, rubies, and other precious gems. When he came up to the place where I lay, he addressed me in the softest and sweetest voice I had ever heard, and the voice said, “Oh, youth with ruddy cheeks and curly locks, why sleepest thou, seeing it is only the third hour after the sun of thy world has passed his meridian?”
“I sleep,” I replied, “to forget the past, to drown the very thought of existence.”
“With youth,” said the voice, “there is nothing to regret. The days of youth are days of innocence and pleasure. Every breeze fans the flame of delight.”
“But my sorrow, sweet voice, does not spring from the heart’s passion or paternal unkindness, but from stripes inflicted upon my body by a tyrannical and cruel teacher, a man who has no mercy nor kindness of heart.”