282 WILD FLOWERS. 



struck her playfully on the arm three times with the 

 bridle, as he exclaimed, ' dos, dos, dos' (go, go, go). 

 Gazing for a moment with yearning sorrow on the 

 husband and the children she loved with all the 

 strength of human love, the naiad obeyed her spirit- 

 doom, and without speaking, signalled to the animals 

 which had accompanied her to follow her once more 

 to the lake; and with the whole of them, she disap- 

 peared beneath the waters,* from whence she has 

 only once more emerged. This occurred when her 

 sons had attained to the age of manhood. The 

 mountain gorgef is still reverentially regarded where 

 she met them, and gave them a bag, telling them 

 that by its contents they might benefit their fellow- 

 creatures so long as the world existed. This bag 

 was, on examination, found to contain the prescrip- 

 tions which compose the book of the Meddygon 

 Myddvai; and the neighbouring peasants still point 

 in confirmation of the tale to a remarkable 

 furrow-like indentation which runs along the side 

 of the mountain, till it terminates abruptly in the 

 still more remarkable Llyn ; and which tradition 

 asserts to have been caused by the plough with 

 which the two water-oxen were ploughing in the 

 field when their mistress signalled them away, and 

 which they carried with them. 



* Though the story of the nymph of the Llyn Fan Fach 

 bears but little resemblance to that of the German Undine, 

 we cannot but be struck with the similar manner in which 

 these two tales blend together the doomed and mystical spirit- 

 nature and the new-born sympathies of human love. 



t That of Cwm Myddvai. 



