Rush-lights 229 



remembers the incident. It is only fair to add that the 

 farmer in question was not the genial tenant of Cwmffynon, 

 though the eyrie is on his holding. It has elsewhere been 

 remarked that most of the Welsh farmers persist in refusing 

 to recognise in the Buzzard, and most of the other birds of 

 prey, some of their best friends. 



At Cwmfrynon, where I had tea, I made my first 

 acquaintance with the Rush-light, or Canwyll frwyn 

 (literally " rush candle "), as it is called, in actual use, 

 though, later, it was seen in several other houses. In many 

 places it is the only artificial light that is made use of, and 

 as neither its illuminating power nor its endurance are very 

 great, the inhabitants do not generally sit up long after 

 daylight has left them. To make the lights, the largest 

 rushes are gathered in autumn, and having been peeled, 

 except a narrow strip of skin which is left to hold the pith 

 together, are steeped in tallow, and hung up to cool like 

 tallow candles. When hard they are stored in bunches, 

 hung to the rafters, for winter use. The lights are held, 

 when lit, in simple iron frames, sometimes suspended from 

 the rafters, at others as standards on the table. One of 

 the latter, with canwyll burning, is shown in the illustra- 

 tion. The light it gives is scarcely equal to that of a 

 common wax " vesta " match. The house at Cwmfrynon 

 has an old-fashioned ingle in which the peat fire burns on 

 the hearth, and at the sides of which are fixed settles on 

 which you can sit and look up to the sky through the 

 spacious chimney. 



On the Twrch, above Afon Fechan (" the little river "), is 

 Rhyd-y-bod, which may mean " The ford of the kite," or 

 " hawk." The first stream that joins the one up which I 

 fished is Nant-y-barcud, or "The brook of the kite" ; but 

 Kite here must be understood to mean Buzzard, though the 

 name generally applied to that bird, locally, is Barcutan : 

 elsewhere it is known as Bwncath, Bod-y-gwerni, and 

 Cyffredin. The next stream that comes down from Aran is 

 Nant-y-llyn, which carries off the overflow from Llyn 

 Lliwbran, " The Dark Lake," that nestles under the peak of 

 Aran Benllyn. This llyn is well stocked with nice trout, 



