So runs this short tale, which the old lady, Mrs. Edwards, and the people of the neighbourhood explained as an instance of the gratitude of the fairies to a man who had rendered them a service, which in this case was supposed to have consisted in ridding them of the rooks, that disturbed their merry-makings in the green ring beneath the branches of the tree.
VII.
It would be unpardonable to pass away from Merioneth without alluding to the stray cow of Ỻyn Barfog. The story appears in Welsh in the Brython for 1860, pp. 183–4, but the contributor, who closely imitates Glasynys’ style, says that he got his materials from a paper by the late Mr. Pughe of Aberdovey, by which he seems to have meant an article contributed by the latter to the Archæologia Cambrensis, and published in the volume for 1853, pp. 201–5. Mr. Pughe dwells in that article a good deal on the scenery of the corner of Merioneth in the rear of Aberdovey; but the chief thing in his paper is the legend connected with Ỻyn Barfog, which he renders into English as the Bearded Lake[17]. It is described as a mountain lake in a secluded spot in the upland country behind Aberdovey; but I shall let Mr. Pughe speak for himself:—
‘The lovers of Cambrian lore are aware that the Triads in their record of the deluge affirm that it was occasioned by a mystic Afanc y Ỻyn, crocodile[18] of the lake, breaking the banks of Ỻyn Ỻion, the lake of waters; and the recurrence of that catastrophe was prevented only by Hu Gadarn, the bold man of power, dragging away the afanc by aid of his Ychain Banawg, or large horned oxen. Many a lakelet in our land has put forward its claim to the location of Ỻyn Ỻion; amongst the rest, this lake. Be that as it may, King Arthur and his war-horse have the credit amongst the mountaineers here of ridding them of the monster, in place of Hu the Mighty, in proof of which is shown an impression on a neighbouring rock bearing a resemblance to those made by the shoe or hoof of a horse, as having been left there by his charger when our British Hercules was engaged in this redoubtable act of prowess, and this impression has been given the name of Carn March Arthur, the hoof of Arthur’s horse, which it retains to this day. It is believed to be very perilous to let the waters out of the lake, and recently an aged inhabitant of the district informed the writer that she recollected this being done during a period of long drought, in order to procure motive power for Ỻyn Pair Mill, and that long-continued heavy rains followed. No wonder our bold but superstitious progenitors, awe-struck by the solitude of the spot—the dark sepial tint of its waters, unrelieved by the flitting apparition of a single fish, and seldom visited by the tenants of the air—should have established it as a canon in their creed of terror that the lake formed one of the many communications between this outward world of ours and the inner or lower one of Annwn—the unknown world[19]—the dominion of Gwyn ap Nuđ, the mythic king of the fabled realm, peopled by those children of mystery, Plant Annwn; and the belief is still current amongst the inhabitants of our mountains in the occasional visitations of the Gwrageđ Annwn, or dames of Elfin land, to this upper world of ours. A shrewd old hill farmer (Thomas Abergraes by name), well skilled in the folk-lore of the district, informed me that, in years gone by, though when, exactly, he was too young to remember, those dames were wont to make their appearance, arrayed in green, in the neighbourhood of Ỻyn Barfog, chiefly at eventide, accompanied by their kine and hounds, and that on quiet summer nights in particular, these ban-hounds were often to be heard in full cry pursuing their prey—the souls of doomed men dying without baptism and penance—along the upland township of Cefnrhosucha. Many a farmer had a sight of their comely milk-white kine; many a swain had his soul turned to romance and poesy by a sudden vision of themselves in the guise of damsels arrayed in green, and radiant in beauty and grace; and many a sportsman had his path crossed by their white hounds of supernatural fleetness and comeliness, the Cwn Annwn; but never had any one been favoured with more than a passing view of either, till an old farmer residing at Dyssyrnant, in the adjoining valley of Dyffryn Gwyn, became at last the lucky captor of one of their milk-white kine. The acquaintance which the Gwartheg y Ỻyn, the kine of the lake, had formed with the farmer’s cattle, like the loves of the angels for the daughters of men, became the means of capture; and the farmer was thereby enabled to add the mystic cow to his own herd, an event in all cases believed to be most conducive to the worldly prosperity of him who should make so fortunate an acquisition. Never was there such a cow, never such calves, never such milk and butter, or cheese, and the fame of the Fuwch Gyfeiliorn, the stray cow, was soon spread abroad through that central part of Wales known as the district of Rhwng y đwy Afon, from the banks of the Mawđach to those of the Dofwy[20]—from Aberdiswnwy[21] to Abercorris. The farmer, from a small beginning, rapidly became, like Job, a man of substance, possessed of thriving herds of cattle—a very patriarch among the mountains. But, alas! wanting Job’s restraining grace, his wealth made him proud, his pride made him forget his obligation to the Elfin cow, and fearing she might soon become too old to be profitable, he fattened her for the butcher, and then even she did not fail to distinguish herself, for a more monstrously fat beast was never seen. At last the day of slaughter came—an eventful day in the annals of a mountain farm—the killing of a fat cow, and such a monster of obesity! No wonder all the neighbours were gathered together to see the sight. The old farmer looked upon the preparations in self-pleased importance—the butcher felt he was about no common feat of his craft, and, baring his arms, he struck the blow—not now fatal, for before even a hair had been injured, his arm was paralysed—the knife dropped from his hand, and the whole company was electrified by a piercing cry that awakened echo in a dozen hills, and made the welkin ring again; and lo and behold! the whole assemblage saw a female figure clad in green, with uplifted arms, standing on one of the craigs overhanging Ỻyn Barfog, and heard her calling with a voice loud as thunder:—
Dere di velen Einion,
Cyrn Cyveiliorn—braith y Ỻyn,
A’r voel Dodin,
Codwch, dewch adre.
Come yellow Anvil, stray horns,