16 BIRD HAUNTS AND NATURE MEMORIES 



from the far side of the same wall a pack of harriers 

 yelped a welcome. Against the dark green background 

 of sombre firs the pale shoots of the larches stood out in 

 delicate freshness ; a flicker of white wings showed v/here 

 the chainnches were busy amongst the little tufts, not, 

 like the pigeons, devouring, but ridding them of tiny 

 insect pests. Anemones, pink-tinged, had pushed through 

 the carpet of last autumn's leaves, and primroses in clumps 

 gave colour to the banks. 



Beyond the park, and a little to the left of the road, 

 stands the ruined church of Llanidan, famous in history. 

 Here was perhaps still is the Maen Mordhwyd, or stone 

 of the thigh, built into the church wall. Giraldus de 

 Barri, priest and scribe, describes the stone as he found it 

 when he visited the place in 1188; it was small, shaped 

 like a thigh, and possessed wonderful homing instincts; 

 " whatever distance it may be carried, it returns, of its 

 own accord, the following night, as has often been ex- 

 perienced by the inhabitants." Hugh Lupus, we learn 

 from the same veracious source, who did not like any- 

 thing but himself to have power, determined to subdue 

 its wandering proclivities. Chaining it to a much heavier 

 stone, he pitched the two into the Straits, but next day 

 it was back in its accustomed station. " A country- 

 man also, to try the power of the stone, fastened it to his 

 thigh, which immediately became putrid, and the stone 

 returned to its original situation." Giraldus failed to 

 finish the story; what became of the countryman's own 

 thigh ? Here in the early days of the eighteenth century 

 Henry Rowlands, vicar of Llanidan, wrote " Mona 

 Antiqua Restaurata," dealing with all the antiquities 

 of Anglesey from a point of view very remote from that 

 of the higher critics. The marshes and bogs which fill 

 the inlets and valleys of the rugged western shores were, 

 to Rowlands, relics of the Deluge, the " dreggy sediments 



