Spenser's English Rivers. 99 



Which thousand sprights with long enduring paines 

 Doe tosse, that it will stonn thy feeble braines ; 

 And oftentimes great grones, and grievous stownds, 

 When too huge toile and labour them constraines, 

 And oftentimes loud strokes, and ringing sowndes, 

 From under that deepe rock most horribly rebowndes."^ 



The poet then tells how Merlin, ere he died, planned to encircle 

 Cairmardin with a brazen wall, and enjoined his sprites to 

 accomplish this work. But, lured from this task by the Lady 

 of the Lake, he first bound his sprites to labor at the wall until 

 it should be done, and then followed the lady away in hopeless 

 love, never to return. For she, by false and magic practice, 

 subdued him, and buried him for ever 'tnider beare.' The noise 

 in the cavern of Cairmardin is the sound of the sprites still 

 fashioning the brazen wall. 



As for the geography of this passage, which now concerns us, 

 Spenser locates the cave of Merlin at Maridimum, that is, Cayr- 



Merdin, now Carmarthen, 



a litle space 

 From the swift Barry, tombling downe apace 

 Emongst the woody hilles of Dynevowre. 



In point of fact, Spenser is here confusing two localities. Car- 

 marthen and the hills of Dynevor are not 'a litle space' from the 

 cave and the Barry, but more than fifty miles in a straight line 

 f lu-ther west and a little north. Both places lie along the southern 

 coast of Wales. Carmarthen is near the mouth of the Towy, and 

 some fourteen miles up the river, near Llandilo, is the ancient 

 Dynevor Castle amid the hills. On the other hand, the Barry is a 

 little stream, perhaps ten miles long, now known as the Cadoxton 

 river, which reaches the sea about six miles southwest of Cardiff, 

 opposite a tiny island or promontory called Barry. 



Warton, in his note on this passage,'^- refers to the Itinerary of 

 Giraldus Cambrensis i. 6. Here we find a part of the material 

 for Spenser's description. Giraldus is speaking of the island of 

 Barry, whence his family came : 'Est autem hie notabile, quod 

 in ipso insulae introitu, in rupe marina apparet rima permodica, 

 ad quam, si aurem apponas, audies operas strepitum quasi fab- 



"' Stanzas 7-9. 



*^" Todd's Spenser 4. 336. 



