THE BETONT. 283 



So runs the fable ; while for the fact, I can only 

 say that a family, who acknowledged no name or 

 title but that of the Meddygon Myddvai, still exists, 

 or very recently existed amongst the peculiar people 

 inhabiting this mountain district, and that on the 

 strength of their ancestral fame, and the posses- 

 sion of a copy of the celebrated manuscript they 

 were actually the hereditary, though not legally, 

 qualified practitioners, to whose sagacity difficult 

 cases from all parts of the county were submitted. 

 Mr. Lewis Morris, writing in the year 1796, states 

 that the then possessor of these traditionary honours 

 had so little inclination for the practice that he had 

 wholly abandoned it; but it seems that his successor 

 viewed the matter in a different light, as I can recol- 

 lect being told by an old servant of several amongst 

 her acquaintances who had sought the advice of the 

 Meddygon Myddvai; though with what success I 

 know not. It is far from surprising* that success in 

 the art of healing should, in early ages, have been 

 regarded as springing from a more than human 

 power. Most countries attach some such super- 

 stitions to their earlier medical experience. We 

 may instance the Irish legend of Murogh O'Ley, 

 who so lately as in the year 1668 was carried off to 

 the mystical Isle of O 'Brazil, or Begara, which only 

 rises above the waves once in seven years, and then 

 only appears to the inhabitants of the South Arran 

 Isles ; and of which Martin says, "whether it be reall 

 and firm land, kept hidden by the special ordinance 

 of God, as the terrestrial paradise, or else some illu- 

 sion of airy clouds appearing on the surface of the 



