‘ “No, I will but merely tell you that a certain maiden’s heart is like a ship on the coast, unable to reach the harbour because the pilot has lost heart.”
‘As soon as she had cried out the last word, she vanished, no one knew whither or how.
‘During her visit, the cry rising from the river had stopped, but soon afterwards it began again to proclaim:—
The time of vengeance is come;
nor did it cease for a long while. The company had been possessed by too much terror for one to be able to address another, and a sheet of gloom had, as it were, been spread over the face of each. The time for parting came, and Rhyđerch the heir went to escort Gwerfyl, his lady-love, home towards Pen Craig Daf, a journey from which he never returned.
‘Before bidding one another “Good-bye,” they are said to have sworn to each other eternal fidelity, even though they should never see one another from that moment forth, and that nothing should make the one forget the other.
‘It is thought probable that the young man Rhyđerch, on his way back towards home, got into one of the rings of the fairies, that they allured him into one of their caves in the Ravens’ Rift, and that there he remained.
‘It is high time for us now to turn back towards Pantannas and Pen Craig Daf. The parents of the unlucky youth were almost beside themselves: they had no idea where to go to look for him, and, though they searched every spot in the place, they failed completely to find him or any clue to his history.
‘A little higher up the country, there dwelt, in a cave underground, an aged hermit called Gweiryđ, who was regarded also as a sorcerer. They went a few weeks afterwards to ask him whether he could give them any information about their lost son; but it was of little avail. What that man told them did but deepen the wound and give the event a still more hopeless aspect. When they had told him of the appearance of the little woman, and the doleful cry heard rising from the river on the night when their son was lost, he informed them that it was the judgement threatened to the family by the fairies that had overtaken the youth, and that it was useless for them to think of ever seeing him again: possibly he might make his appearance after generations had gone by, but not in their lifetime.