CHAPTER III.

FOOTNOTE:[161]‘Cambro-British Saints,’ 519.

FOOTNOTE:

[161]‘Cambro-British Saints,’ 519.

Only second in fame to Winifred’s, among the Welsh themselves, is St. Tecla’s well, or Ffynon Tegla, in Denbighshire. It springs out of a bog called Gwern Degla, about two hundred yards from the parish church of Llandegla. Some account ofthe peculiar superstitious ceremony connected with this well has already been given, in the chapter treating of the sin-eater. It is there suggested that the cock to which the fits are transferred by the patient at the well is a substitute for the scapegoat of the Jews. The parish clerk of Llandegla in 1855 said that an old man of his acquaintance ‘remembered quite well seeing the birds staggering about from the effects of the fits’ which had been transferred to them.

Of great celebrity in other days was St. Dwynwen’s well, in the parish of Llandwyn, Anglesea. This saint being patron saint of lovers, her well possessed the property of curing love-sickness. It was visited by great numbers, of both sexes, in the fourteenth century, when the popular faith in its waters seems to have been at its strongest. It is still frequented by young women of that part of the country when suffering from the woes inflicted by Dan Cupid. That the well itself has been for many years covered over with sand does not prevent the faithful from displaying their devotion; they seek their cure from ‘the water next to the well.’ Ffynon Dwynwen, or Fountain of Venus, was also a name given to the sea, according to the Iolo MSS.; and in the legend of Seithenhin the Drunkard, in the ‘Black Book of Carmarthen,’ this stanza occurs:

Accursed be the damsel,Who, after the wailing,Let loose the Fountain of Venus, the raging deep.[162]

The story of Aphrodite, born from the foam of the sea, need only be alluded to here.

FOOTNOTE:[162]‘Black Book of Carmarthen,’ xxxviii. (An ancient MS. in the Hengwrt collection, which belonged of old to the priory of Black Canons at Carmarthen, and at the dissolution of the religious houses in Wales, when their libraries were dispersed, was given by the treasurer of St. David’s Church to Sir John Price, one of Henry VIII.’s commissioners.)

FOOTNOTE:

[162]‘Black Book of Carmarthen,’ xxxviii. (An ancient MS. in the Hengwrt collection, which belonged of old to the priory of Black Canons at Carmarthen, and at the dissolution of the religious houses in Wales, when their libraries were dispersed, was given by the treasurer of St. David’s Church to Sir John Price, one of Henry VIII.’s commissioners.)

Several wells appear to have been devoted to the cure of the lower animals’ diseases. Such was the well of Cynfran, where this ejaculation was made use of: ‘Rhad Duw a Chynfran lwydd ar y da!’—(the grace of God and the blessed Cynfran on the cattle.) This Cynfran was one of the many sons of the patriarch Brychan, and his well is near Abergeleu. Pennant speaks also of a well near Abergeleu, which he calls St. George’s well, and says that there the British Mars had his offering of horses; ‘for the rich were wont to offer one, to secure his blessing on all the rest. He was the tutelar saint of those animals.’

St. Cynhafal’s well, on a hillside in Llangynhafal parish, Denbighshire, is one of those curing wells in which pins are thrown. Its specialty is warts. To exorcise your wart you stick a pin in it and then throw the pin into this well; the wart soon vanishes. The wart is a form of human trouble which appears to have been at all times and in all countries a special subject of charms, both in connection with wells and with pins. Where a well of the requisite virtue is not conveniently near, the favourite form of charm for wart-curing is in connection with the wasting away of some selected object. Having first been pricked into the wart, the pin is then thrust into the selected object—in Gloucestershire it is a snail—and then the object is buried or impaled on a blackthorn in a hedge, and as it perishes the wart will disappear. The scapegoat principleof the sin-eater also appears in connection with charming away warts, as where a ‘vagrom man’ counts your warts, marks their number in his hat, and goes away, taking the warts with him into the next county—for a trifling consideration.[163]

FOOTNOTE:[163]A popular belief among boys in some parts of the United States is that warts can be rubbed off upon a toad impaled with a sharp stick; as the toad dies the warts will go.Per contra, this cruel faith is offset by a theory that toads if ill-treated can spit upon their aggressors’ hands and thus cause warts.

FOOTNOTE:

[163]A popular belief among boys in some parts of the United States is that warts can be rubbed off upon a toad impaled with a sharp stick; as the toad dies the warts will go.Per contra, this cruel faith is offset by a theory that toads if ill-treated can spit upon their aggressors’ hands and thus cause warts.

On Barry Island, near Cardiff, is the famous well of St. Barruc, or Barri, which was still frequented by the credulous up to May, 1879, at which time the island was closed against visitors by its owner, Lord Windsor, and converted into a rabbit warren. Tradition directs that on Holy Thursday he who is troubled with any disease of the eyes shall go to this well, and having thoroughly washed his eyes in its water, shall drop a pin in it. The innkeeper there formerly found great numbers of pins—a pint, in one instance—when cleaning out the well. It had long been utterly neglected by the sole resident of the island, whose house was a long distance from the well, at a point nearer the main land; but pins were still discovered there from time to time. There was in old days a chapel on this island; no vestige of it remains. Tradition says that St. Barruc was buried there, and the now barren and deserted islet appears to have been anciently a popular place among the saints. St. Cadoc had one of his residences there.[164]He was one day sitting on a hill-top in that island when he saw the two saints Barruc and Gwalches drawing near in a boat, and as he looked the boat was overturned by the wind. Bothsaints were drowned, and Cadoc’s manual book, which they had in the boat with them, was lost in the sea. But when Cadoc proceeded to order his dinner, a salmon was brought to him which being cut open was found to have the missing manual book in its belly in an unimpaired condition. Concerning another saint whose name was Barri, a wonderful story is told that one day being on a visit to St. David he borrowed the latter’s horse and rode across the sea from Pembrokeshire to the Irish coast. Many have supposed this Barri to be the same person as Barruc, but they were two men.

This romantic island was anciently celebrated for certain ghastly noises which were heard in it—sounds resembling the clanking of chains, hammering of iron, and blowing of bellows—and which were supposed to be made by the fiends whom Merlin had set to work to frame the wall of brass to surround Carmarthen. So the noises and eruptions of Etna and Stromboli were in ancient times ascribed to Typhon or Vulcan. But in the case of Barry I have been unable, by any assistance from imagination, to detect these mystic sounds in our day. Camden, in his ‘Britannica,’ makes a like remark, but says the tradition was universally prevalent. The judicious Malkin, however, thinks it requires but a moderate stretch of fancy to create this cyclopean imagery, when the sea at high tides is often in possession of cavities under the very feet of the stranger, and its voice is at once modified and magnified by confinement and repercussion.[165]

FOOTNOTES:[164]‘Cambro-British Saints,’ 336.[165]Malkin’s ‘South Wales,’ 132.

FOOTNOTES:

[164]‘Cambro-British Saints,’ 336.

[165]Malkin’s ‘South Wales,’ 132.

Another well whose specialty is warts is a small spring called Ffynon Gwynwy, near Llangelyninchurch, Carnarvonshire. The pins used here must be crooked in order to be efficacious. It is said that fifty years ago the bottom of this little well was covered with pins; and that everybody was careful not to touch them, fearing that the warts deposited with the pins would grow upon their own hands if they did so.[166]At present the well is overgrown with weeds, like that on Barry Island.

FOOTNOTE:[166]‘Arch. Camb.,’ 3rd Se., xiii., 61.

FOOTNOTE:

[166]‘Arch. Camb.,’ 3rd Se., xiii., 61.

The use of pins for purposes of enchantment is one of the most curious features of popular superstition. Trivial as it appears to superficial observation, it can be associated with a vast number of mystic rites and ceremonials, and with times the most ancient. There is no doubt that before the invention of pins in this country small pieces of money were thrown into the well instead; indeed it was asserted by a writer in the ‘Archæologia Cambrensis’ in 1856 that money was still thrown into St. Tecla’s well, by persons desirous of recovering from fits. That the same practice prevailed among the Romans is shown by Pliny, who speaks of the sacred spring of the Clitumnus, so pure and clear that you may count the pieces of money that have been thrown into it, and the shining pebbles at the bottom. And in connection with the Welsh well of St. Elian there was formerly a box into which the sick dropped money as they nowadays drop a pin into that well. This box was called cyff-elian, and was in the form of a trunk studded with nails, with an aperture in the top through which the money was dropped. It is said to have got so full of coins that the parishioners opened it, and with the contents purchased threefarms. The presentation of pins to the well, though now a meaningless rite on the part of those who practice it, was originally intended as a propitiatory offering to the evil spirit of the well. In some instances the heathen faith is virtually restored, and the well endowed with supernatural powers irrespective of the dedication of its waters to a Christian saint. Indeed in the majority of cases where these wells are now resorted to by the peasantry for any other than curative purposes, the fetichistic impulse is much more conspicuous than any influence associated with religious teaching.

St. Elian’s is accounted the most dreadful well in Wales. It is in the parish of Llanelian, Denbighshire. It is at the head of the cursing wells, of which there are but few in the Principality, and holds still a strong influence over the ignorant mind. The popular belief is that you can ‘put’ your enemy ‘into’ this well, i.e., render him subject to its evil influence, so that he will pine away and perhaps die unless the curse be removed. The degree and nature of the curse can be modified as the ‘offerer’ desires, so that the obnoxious person will suffer aches and pains in his body, or troubles in his pocket—the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune. The minister of the well appears to be some heartless wretch residing in the neighbourhood, whose services are enlisted for a small fee. The name of the person to be ‘put into’ the well is registered in a book kept by the wretch aforesaid, and a pin is cast into the well in his name, together with a pebble inscribed with its initials. The person so cursed soon hears of it, and the fact preys on his mind; he imagines for himself every conceivable ill,and if gifted with a lively faith soon finds himself reduced to a condition where he cannot rest till he has secured the removal of the curse. This is effected by a reversal of the above ceremonies—erasing the name, taking out the pebble, and otherwise appeasing the spirit of the well. It is asserted that death has in many instances resulted from the curse of this wickedly malicious well.[167]

FOOTNOTE:[167]‘Camb. Pop. Ant.,’ 247. See also ‘Arch. Camb.,’ 1st Se., i. 46.

FOOTNOTE:

[167]‘Camb. Pop. Ant.,’ 247. See also ‘Arch. Camb.,’ 1st Se., i. 46.

Occasionally the cursing powers of a well were synonymous with curing powers. Thus a well much resorted to near Penrhos, was able to curse a cancer, i.e., cure it. The sufferer washed in the water, uttering curses upon the disease, and also dropping pins around the well. This well has been drained by the unsympathizing farmer on whose land it was, on account of the serious damage done to his crops by trespassers.

Wells from which milk has flowed have been known in several places. That Winifred’s well indulged in this eccentricity on one occasion has been noted. The well of St. Illtyd is celebrated for the like performance. This well is in Glamorganshire, in the land called Gower, near Swansea. It was about the nativity of John the Baptist, on the fifth day of the week, in a year not specified, but certainly very remote, that for three hours there flowed from this well a copious stream of milk instead of water. That it was really milk we are not left in any possible doubt, for ‘many who were present testified that while they were looking at the milky stream carefully and with astonishment, they also saw among the gravelcurds lying about in every direction, and all around the edge of the well a certain fatty substance floating about, such as is collected from milk, so that butter can be made from it.’[168]

The origin of this well is a pleasing miracle, and recalls the story of Canute; but while Canute’s effort to command the sea was a failure in the eleventh century, that of St. Illtyd five hundred years earlier was a brilliant success. It appears that the saint was very pleasantly established on an estate consisting of a field surrounded on all sides by plains, with an intermediate grove, but was much afflicted by the frequent overflowings of the sea upon his land. In vain he built and rebuilt a very large embankment of mud mixed with stones, the rushing waves burst through again and again. At last the saint’s patience was worn out, and he said, ‘I will not live here any longer; I much wished it, but troubled with this marine molestation, it is not in my power. It destroys my buildings, it flows to the oratory which we built with great labour.’ However, the place was so convenient he was loth to leave it, and he prayed for assistance. On the night before his intended departure an angel came to him and bade him remain, and gave him instructions for driving back the sea. Early in the morning Illtyd went to the fluctuating sea and drove it back; it receded before him ‘as if it were a sensible animal,’ and left the shore dry. Then Illtyd struck the shore with his staff, ‘and thereupon flowed a very clear fountain, which is also beneficial for curing diseases, and which continues to flow without a falling off; and what is more wonderful, although it is near the sea, the water emitted is pure.’[169]

FOOTNOTES:[168]‘Arch. Camb.,’ 1st Se., iii., 264.[169]‘Cambro-British Saints,’ 478.

FOOTNOTES:

[168]‘Arch. Camb.,’ 1st Se., iii., 264.

[169]‘Cambro-British Saints,’ 478.

Some of the Welsh mystic wells are so situated that they are at times overflowed by the waters of the sea, or of a river. Taff’s Well, in Glamorganshire, a pleasant walk from Cardiff, is situated practically in the bed of the river Taff. One must wade through running water to reach it, except in the summer season, when the water in the river is very low. A rude hut of sheet iron has been built over it. This well is still noted for its merits in healing rheumatism and kindred ailments. The usual stories are told of miraculous cures. A primitive custom of the place is that when men are bathing at this well they shall hang a pair of trousers outside the hut; women, in their turn, must hang out a petticoat or bonnet.

At Newton Nottage, Glamorganshire, a holy well called Sanford’s is so situated that the water is regulated in the well by the ocean tides. From time immemorial wondrous tales have been told of this well, how it ebbs and flows daily in direct contrariety to the tidal ebb and flow. The bottom of the well is below high-water mark on the beach, where it has an outlet into the sea. At very low tides in the summer, when the supply of water in the well is scanty, it becomes dry for an hour or two after low water. When the ocean tide rises, the sea-water banks up and drives back the fresh water, and the well fills again and its water rises. The villagers are accustomed to let the well-water rise through what they call the ‘nostrils of the well,’ and become settled a little before they draw it. Of course this phenomenon has been regarded as something supernatural by the ignorant for ages, and upon the actual visible phenomena have been builta number of magical details of a superstitious character.

The wide prevalence of some form of water-worship among Aryan peoples is a fact of great significance. Superstitions in connection with British wells are generally traceable to a Druidic origin. The worship of natural objects in which the British Druids indulged, particularly as regards rivers and fountains, probably had a connection with traditions of the flood. When the early Christian preachers and teachers encountered such superstitions among the people, they carefully avoided giving unnecessary offence by scoffing at them; on the contrary they preferred to adopt them, and to hallow them by giving them Christian meanings. They utilized the old Druidic circles as places of worship, chose young priests from among the educated Druids, and consecrated to their own saints the mystic wells and fountains. In this manner were continued practices the most ancient. As time passed on, other wells were similarly sanctified, as the new religion spread and parish churches were built. Disease and wickedness being intimately associated in the popular mind—epileptics and like sufferers being held to be possessed of devils, and even such vulgar ills as warts and wens being considered direct results of some evil deed, suffered or performed—so the waters of Christian baptism which cleansed from sin, cleansed also from disease. Ultimately the virtue of the waters came to be among the vulgar a thing apart from the rite of baptism; the good was looked upon as dwelling in the waters themselves, and the Christian rite as not necessarily an element in the work of regeneration. The reader who will recall what has been said inthe chapter on changelings, in the first part of this volume, will perceive a survival of the ancient creed herein, in the notion that baptism is a preventive of fairy babe-thievery. Remembering that the changeling notion is in reality nothing but a fanciful way of accounting for the emaciation, ugliness, idiocy, bad temper—in a word, the illness—of the child, it will be seen that the rite of baptism, by curing the first manifestations of evil in the child’s system, was the orthodox means of preventing the fairies from working their bad will on the poor innocent.

Personal Attributes of Legendary Welsh Stones—Stone Worship—Canna’s Stone Chair—Miraculous Removals of Stones—The Walking Stone of Eitheinn—The Thigh Stone—The Talking Stone in Pembrokeshire—The Expanding Stone—Magic Stones in the ‘Mabinogion’—The Stone of Invisibility—The Stone of Remembrance—Stone Thief-catchers—Stones of Healing—Stones at Cross-roads—Memorials of King Arthur—Round Tables, Carns, Pots, etc.—Arthur’s Quoits—The Gigantic Rock-tossers of Old—Mol Walbec and the Pebble in her Shoe—The Giant of Trichrug—Giants and the Mythology of the Heavens—The Legend of Rhitta Gawr.

In the traditions concerning Welsh stones, abundant personal attributes are accorded them, such as in nature belong only to animals. They were endowed with volition and with voice; they could travel from place to place without mortal aid; they would move uneasily when disturbed by human contact; they expanded and contracted at will; they clung to people who touched them with profane or guilty purpose; they possessed divers qualities which made them valuable to their possessors, such as the power of rendering them invisible, or of filling their pockets with gold. In pursuing the various accounts of these stones in Welsh folk-lore we find ourselves now in fairyland, now in the domains of mother church, now listening to legends of enchantment, now to tales of saintly virtue, now giving ear to a magician, now to a monk. Stone-worship, of which the existing superstitions are remains, was so prevalent under the Saxon monarchy, that it was forbidden by law in the reign of Edgar the Peaceable, (ninth century,)and when Canute came, in the following century, he also found it advisable to issue such a law. That this pagan worship was practised from a time of which there is now no record, is not questioned; and the perpetuation of certain features of this worship by the early Christians was in spite of the laws promulgated for its suppression by a Christian king. In this manner the monks were enabled to draw to themselves the peasantry in whose breasts the ancient superstition was strong, and who willingly substituted the new story for the old, so long as the underlying belief was not rudely uprooted.

Among the existing stones in Wales with which the ancient ideas of occult power are connected, one in Carmarthenshire is probably unique of its kind. It is called Canna’s Stone, and lies in a field adjoining the old church of Llangan, now remote from the population whose ancestors worshipped in it. The church was founded by an Armorican lady of rank named Canna, who was sainted. The stone in question forms a sort of chair, and was used in connection with a magic well called Ffynon Canna, which is now, like the church, deserted and wretched. Patients suffering from ague, in order to profit by its healing power, must sit in the chair of Canna’s stone, after drinking of the water. If they could manage to sleep while in the chair, the effect of the water was supposed to be made sure. The process was continued for some days, sometimes for two or three weeks.

In the middle of this parish there is a field called Parc y Fonwent, or the churchyard-field, where, according to local tradition, the church was to have been originally built; but the stones brought to thespot during the day were at night removed by invisible hands to the site of the present church. Watchers in the dark heard the goblins engaged in this work, and pronouncing in clear and correct Welsh these words, ‘Llangan, dyma’r fan,’ which mean, ‘Llangan, here is the spot.’

Similar miraculous removals of stones are reported and believed in other parts of Wales. Sometimes visible goblins achieve the work; sometimes the stones themselves possess the power of locomotion. The old British historian Nennius[170]speaks of a stone, one of the wonders of the Isle of Anglesea, which walks during the night in the valley of Eitheinn. Being once thrown into the whirlpool Cerevus, which is in the middle of the sea called Menai, it was on the morrow found on the side of the aforesaid valley. Also in Builth is a heap of stones, upon which is one stone bearing the impress of a dog’s foot. This was the famous dog of King Arthur, named Cabal, which left its footprint on this stone when it hunted the swine Troynt. Arthur himself gathered this heap of stones, with the magic stone upon it, and called it Carn Cabal; and people who take away this stone in their hands for the space of a day and a night cannot retain it, for it returns itself to the heap. The Anglesea stone is also mentioned by Giraldus, through whom it achieved celebrity under the name of Maen Morddwyd, or the Thigh Stone—‘a stone resembling a human thigh, which possesses this innate virtue, that whatever distance it may be carried it returns of its own accord the following night. Hugh, Earl of Chester, in the reign of King Henry I., having by force occupied this island and the adjacent country, heard of the miraculous power of this stone, and for the purpose oftrial ordered it to be fastened with strong iron chains to one of a larger size and to be thrown into the sea; on the following morning, however, according to custom, it was found in its original position, on which account the Earl issued a public edict that no one from that time should presume to move the stone from its place. A countryman also, to try the powers of this stone, fastened it to his thigh, which immediately became putrid, and the stone returned to its original situation.’[171]This stone ultimately lost its virtues, however, for it was stolen in the last century and never came back.

FOOTNOTES:[170]Harleian MSS., 3859.[171]Sir R. C. Hoare’s Giraldus, ‘Itin. Camb.,’ ii., 104.

FOOTNOTES:

[170]Harleian MSS., 3859.

[171]Sir R. C. Hoare’s Giraldus, ‘Itin. Camb.,’ ii., 104.

The Talking Stone Llechlafar, or stone of loquacity, served as a bridge over the river Alyn, bounding the churchyard of St. David’s in Pembrokeshire, on the northern side. It was a marble slab worn smooth by the tread of many feet, and was ten feet long, six feet broad, and one foot thick. Ancient tradition relates that one day ‘when a corpse was being carried over it for interment the stone broke forth into speech, and by the effort cracked in the middle, which fissure is still visible; and on account of this barbarous and ancient superstition the corpses are no longer brought over it.’[172]

In this same parish of St. David’s, there was a flight of steps leading down to the sea, among which were a certain few which uttered a miraculous sound, like the ringing of a bell. The story goes that in ancient times a band of pirates landed there and robbed the chapel. The bell they took away to sea with them, but as it was heavy they rested it several times on their way, and ever since that daythe stones it rested upon have uttered these mysterious sounds when struck.

Also in this parish is the renowned Expanding Stone, an excavation in the rock of St. Gowan’s chapel, which has the magic property of adapting itself to the size of the person who gets into it, growing smaller for a small man and larger for a large one. Among its many virtues was that if a person got into it and made a wish, and did not change his mind while turning about, the wish would come true. The original fable relates that this hollow stone was once solid; that a saint closely pursued by Pagan persecutors sought shelter of the rock, which thereupon opened and received him, concealing him till the danger was over and then obligingly letting him out.

This stone may probably be considered as the monkish parallel for the magic stones which confer on their possessor invisibility, as we find them in the romances of enchantment. In the ‘Mabinogion’ such stones are frequently mentioned, usually in the favourite form of a gem set within a ring. ‘Take this ring,’ says the damsel with yellow curling hair,[173]‘and put it on thy finger, with the stone inside thy hand; and close thy hand upon the stone. And as long as thou concealest it, it will conceal thee.’ But when it is found, as we find in following these clues further, that this Stone of Invisibility was one of the Thirteen Rarities of Kingly Regalia of the Island of Britain; that it was formerly kept at Caerleon, in Monmouthshire, the city whence St. David journeyed into Pembrokeshire; and that it is mentioned in the Triads thus: ‘The Stone of the Ring of Luned, which liberated Owen the son of Urien from between the portcullis and the wall;whoever concealed that stone the stone or bezel would conceal him,’ the strong probability appears that we are dealing with one and the same myth in the tale of magic and in the monkish legend. Traced back to a period more remote than that with which these Welsh stories ostensibly deal, we should find their prototype in the ring of Gyges.

The Stone of Remembrance is another stone mentioned in the ‘Mabinogion,’ also a jewel, endowed with valuable properties which it imparts not merely to its wearer, but to any one who looks upon it. ‘Rhonabwy,’ says Iddawc to the enchanted dreamer on the yellow calf-skin, ‘dost thou see the ring with a stone set in it, that is upon the Emperor’s hand?’ ‘I see it,’ he answered. ‘It is one of the properties of that stone to enable thee to remember that thou seest here to-night, and hadst thou not seen the stone, thou wouldst never have been able to remember aught thereof.’[174]Still another stone of rare good qualities is that which Peredur gave to Etlym, in reward for his attendance,[175]the stone which was on the tail of a serpent, and whose virtues were such that whosoever should hold it in one hand, in the other he would have as much gold as he might desire. Peredur having vanquished the serpent and possessed himself of the stone, immediately gave it away, in that spirit of lavish free-handedness which so commonly characterizes the heroes of chivalric British romance.

FOOTNOTES:[172]Ibid., ii., 8.[173]Lady Charlotte Guest’s ‘Mabinogion,’ 13.[174]Lady Charlotte Guest’s ‘Mabinogion,’ 303.[175]Ibid., 111.

FOOTNOTES:

[172]Ibid., ii., 8.

[173]Lady Charlotte Guest’s ‘Mabinogion,’ 13.

[174]Lady Charlotte Guest’s ‘Mabinogion,’ 303.

[175]Ibid., 111.

In the church of St. David’s of Llanfaes, according to Giraldus, was preserved among the relics a stone which caught a thieving boy in the act of robbing a pigeon’s nest, and held him fast for three days and nights. Only by assiduous and long-continuedprayer were the unhappy boy’s parents able to get him loose from the terrible stone, and the marks of his five fingers remained ever after impressed upon it, so that all might see them. There was a stone of similar proclivities in the valley of Mowddwy, which did good service for the church. A certain St. Tydecho, a relation of King Arthur, who slept on a blue rock in this valley, was persecuted by Maelgwn Gwynedd. One day this wicked knight came with a pack of white dogs to hunt in that neighbourhood, and sat down upon the saint’s blue stone. When he endeavoured to get up he found himself fastened to his seat so that he could not stir, in a manner absurdly suggestive of French farces; and he was obliged to make up matters with the saint. He ceased to persecute the good man, and to make amends for the past gave him the privilege of sanctuary for a hundred ages.[176]

FOOTNOTE:[176]‘Celtic Remains,’ 420. (Printed for the Cambrian Arch. Soc., London, 1878.)

FOOTNOTE:

[176]‘Celtic Remains,’ 420. (Printed for the Cambrian Arch. Soc., London, 1878.)

As for Stones of Healing, with qualities resembling those abiding in certain wells, they appear in many shapes. Now it is a maenhir, against which the afflicted peasant must rub himself; now it is a pebble which he must carry in his pocket. The inevitable wart reappears in this connection; the stone which cures the wart is found by the roadside, wrapped in a bit of paper, and dropped on a cross-road; to him who picks it up the wart is transferred. Children in Pembrokeshire will not at the present day pick up a small parcel on a cross-road, suspecting the presence of the wart-bearing stone. In Carmarthen are still to be found traces of a belief in the Alluring Stone, whose virtue is that it will cure hydrophobia. It isrepresented as a soft white stone, about the size of a man’s head, originally found on a farm called Dysgwylfa, about twelve miles from Carmarthen town. Grains were scraped from the stone with a knife, and administered to the person who had been bitten by a rabid dog; and a peculiarity of the stone was that though generation after generation had scraped it, nevertheless it did not diminish in size. A woman who ate of this miraculous stone, after having been bitten by a suspicious cur, testified that it caused ‘a boiling in her blood.’ The stone was said to have fallen from the sky in the first instance.

Stones standing at cross-roads are seldom without some superstitious legend. A peasant pointed out to me, on a mountain-top near Crumlyn, Monmouthshire, a cross-roads stone, beneath which, he asserted, a witch sleeps by day, coming forth at night. ‘Least they was say so,’ he explained, with a nervous look about him, ‘but there you!Iwas never see anything, an’ I was pass by there many nights—yes, indeed, often.’ The man’s eagerness to testify against the truth of the tradition was one of the most impressive illustrations possible of lingering superstitious awe in this connection.

A famous Welsh witch, who used to sleep under a stone at Llanberis, in North Wales, was called Canrig Bwt, and her favourite dish at dinner was children’s brains. A certain criminal who had received a death-sentence was given the alternative of attacking this frightful creature, his life to be spared should he succeed in destroying her. Arming himself with a sharp sword, the doomed man got upon the stone and called on Canrig to come out. ‘Wait till I have finished eating the brains in this sweetlittle skull,’ was her horrible answer. However, forth she came presently, when the valiant man cut off her head at a blow. To this day they scare children thereabout with the name of Canrig Bwt.

In every part of Wales one encounters the ancient memorials of King Arthur—sometimes to be dimly connected with the historical character, but more often with the mythical figure—each with its legend, or its bundle of legends, poetic, patriotic, or superstitious. Arthur’s Round Table at Caerleon, Monmouthshire, is as well known to every boy in the neighbourhood as any inn or shop of the village. It is a grass-grown Roman amphitheatre, whence alabaster statues of Adrian’s day have been disinterred. There is also an Arthur’s Round Table in Denbighshire, a flat-topped hill thus called, and in Anglesea another, near the village of Llanfihangel. Arthur’s Seat, Arthur’s Bed, Arthur’s Castle, Arthur’s Stone, Arthur’s Hill, Arthur’s Quoit, Arthur’s Board, Arthur’s Carn, Arthur’s Pot—these are but a few of the well-known cromlechs, rocking-stones, or natural objects to be found in various neighbourhoods. They are often in duplicates, under these names, but they never bear such titles by other authority than traditions reaching back into the dark ages. Some of the stories and superstitions which attach to them are striking, and of the most fascinating interest to the student of folk-lore; others are merely grotesque, as in the case of Arthur’s Pot. This is under a cromlech at Dolwillim, on the banks of the Tawe, and in the stream itself when the water is high; it is a circular hole of considerable depth, accurately bored in the stone by the action of the water. This hole is called Arthur’sPot, and according to local belief was made by Merlin for the hero king to cook his dinner in. Arthur’s Quoits are found in many parts of the country. A large rock in the bed of the Sawdde river, on the Llangadock side of Mynydd Du, (the Black Mountain,) is one of these quoits. The story is that the king one day flung it from the summit of Pen Arthur, a mile away. There is another large rock beside it, which was similarly flung down by a lady of Arthur’s acquaintance, whose gigantic proportions may be guessed from the fact that this boulder was a pebble in her shoe, which annoyed her.

Upon this hint there opens out before the inquirer a wealth of incident and illustration, in connection with gigantic Britons of old time who hurled huge rocks about as pebbles. There is the story of the giant Idris, who dwelt upon Cader Idris, and who found no less a number than three troublesome pebbles in his shoe as he was out walking one day, and who tossed them down where they lie on the road from Dolgelley to Machynlleth, three bulky crags. There are several legends about Mol Walbec’s pebbles in Breconshire. This lusty dame has a full score of shadowy castles on sundry heights in that part of Wales; and she is said to have built the castle of Hay in one night. In performing this work she carried the stones in her apron; one of these—a pebble about a foot thick and nine feet long—fell into her shoe. At first she did not notice it, but by-and-by it began to annoy her, and she plucked it out and threw it into Llowes churchyard, three miles away, where it now lies. In many parts of Wales where lie rude heaps of stones, the peasantry say they were carried there by a witch in her apron.

The gigantic creatures whose dimensions are indicated by these stones reappear continually in Welsh folk-lore. Arthur is merely the greatest among them; all were of prodigious proportions. Hu Gadarn, Cadwaladr, Rhitta Gawr, Brutus, Idris, are all members of the shadowy race whose ‘quoits’ and ‘pebbles’ are scattered about Wales. The remains at Stonehenge have been from time immemorial called by the Cymry the Côr Gawr, Circle or Dance of Giants. How the Carmarthen enchanter, Merlin, transported these stones hither from Killara mountain in Ireland by his magic art, everybody knows. It is only necessary that a stone should be of a size to make the idea of removing it an apparently hopeless one—that Merlin or some other magician brought it there by enchantment, or that Arthur or some other giant tossed it there with his mighty arm, is a matter of course.[177]The giant of Trichrug, (a fairy haunt in Cardiganshire,) appears to have been the champion pebble-tosser of Wales, if local legend may be trusted. Having invited the neighbouring giants to try their strength with him in throwing stones, he won the victory by tossing a huge rock across the sea into Ireland. His grave is traditionally reported to be on that mountain, and to possess the same properties as the Expanding Stone, for it fits any person who lies down in it, be he tall or short. It has the further virtue of imparting extraordinary strength to any one lying in it; but if he gets into it with arms upon his person they will be taken from him and he will never see them more.

FOOTNOTE:[177]It is noteworthy that most of the great stones of these legends appear to have really been transported to the place where they are now found, being often of a different rock than that of the immediate locality. To what extent the legends express the first vague inductions of early geological observers, is a question not without interest.

FOOTNOTE:

[177]It is noteworthy that most of the great stones of these legends appear to have really been transported to the place where they are now found, being often of a different rock than that of the immediate locality. To what extent the legends express the first vague inductions of early geological observers, is a question not without interest.

The gigantic stone-tossers of Wales associate themselves without effort with the mythology of the heavens. One of their chiefest, Idris, was indeed noted as an astrologer, and is celebrated as such in the Triads:

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