362 WILD FLOWEBS OF AUGUST. 



the deep hollows of the mountains are plunged into 

 sombre shadow, while their solemn brows, in long 

 succession, catch the sunny smile that rests not long 

 upon them, lest it should illumine too much their 

 sullen dignity. The setting sun is lost in a coloured 

 haze of lurid crimson, and amidst the impending 

 gloom of evening, and the rising mists that now slowly 

 creep along the huge sullen mountain crowns, I find 

 myself alone and deserted amidst the cliffs and fissures 

 of the Skirrid Vawr,* struggling for egress from its 

 masses of broken stones, wild thickets, wet ravines, 

 and thick-set masses of entangled brakes. 



* The Skirrid Vawr, or Great Skirrid, is a remarkable precipitous hill near 

 Abergavenny, Monmouthshire, presenting in its contour the singular appearance 

 of a couchant beast of prey with a cub at its feet. It would appear that at 

 some distant period this lofty mass of old red sandstone has undergone the 

 phenomenon termed a landslip, a huge mass having been precipitated from the 

 summit to the base of the hill, and a steep precipice and yawning gap now 

 intervene between the two masses. To add to the picturesque effect, the 

 young cub, if the fallen rock may be so termed, is now luxuriantly overgrown 

 with wood. This circumstance has been seized upon by superstition to impart 

 a " holy" character to the hill, it having been imagined that this rock was 

 " rent" at the crucifixion of Our Saviour, and so it bears the appellation of 

 " The Holy Mountain" to this day among the people of the neighbourhood. 

 Possibly this landslip of the Skirrid Vawr may have been coincident with the 

 celebrated journey of Marclay Hill, in Herefordshire, noticed by the old 

 chroniclers, ami which is another member of the old red formation. 



