IO2 Wild Life in Wales 



there. In fact, a tree-clad mound had suddenly appeared 

 on what was but yesterday a comparatively flat and bare spit 

 of land ; and before the growth of summer was over, all 

 external trace of its origin would probably have been 

 covered up. 



A little below Pare, by the side of the road leading down 

 the valley, are two large Ash trees with particularly fine, 

 pendulous branches, though the trunks are upright and of 

 considerable height. The trees are old, and must, I should 

 think, have been growing where they stand before the 

 discovery of the alleged parent of all our cultivated weeping 

 ashes, 1 and, on that account, are worthy of notice, irrespective 

 of their attractive habit. 



Maesmathew and Cwmtylo, "the Vale of the fair 

 daughters," is the last habitation on this side of the 

 mountain, at the present day, though traces of former 

 dwellings can be made out on some of the higher ridges. 

 Fragments of rock lie thickly scattered round, one huge 

 stone in the middle of a hay field being specially pointed 

 out to me as traditionally believed to have been transported 

 to its present position by a flood, perhaps T Hi mawr, or 

 "the great flood," which resulted from a thunder storm 

 on 2oth June, 1781. There are many stones in the 

 neighbourhood, round which similar traditions cling, Maeni 

 hirion, " tall stones," and the Maen llwid, or "grey stone," 

 on the lower slope of Rallt-llwyd, for example. Some of 

 them are, with livelier imagination, attributed to the handi- 

 work of giants, who had their abode amongst the mountains 

 in former days ; or to the visits of Cythrawl or Brudiwr, 

 a kind of wizards, or demons, of which most hill countries 

 have usually been prolific. Some relics of Roman occupa- 

 tion have from time to time been discovered here. Across 

 a mile of intervening bog, to our left, stands Bryn-llech, 

 " the Slate hill," to which one of the fair daughters had 

 lately been romantically transported by an octogenarian 

 beau. 



Veins of white quartz, some of them containing very fair 



1 The first Weeping Ash is said to have been discovered in Cambridge- 

 shire in the latter part of the eighteenth century. 



