3o BIRD HAUNTS AND NATURE MEMORIES 



Bradley says, " good to die here." On this cross are the 

 lines : 



" Safe in this island 



Where each saint would be 



How wilt thou smile 



Upon life's stormy 



When the lighthouse was built and the present farms 

 replaced the older dwellings, the bones of hundreds of 

 " saints " were discovered and reinterred. Coins, gold 

 in some instances, were also brought to light, for the pil- 

 grims did not always come empty-handed; "the road 

 to heaven and the gate to paradise," as the bards called 

 it, was worthy of toll. Twenty thousand may be far 

 above the mark; one cynic says " it would be much more 

 facile to find graves in Bardsey for so many saints, than 

 saints for so many graves." But at Mecca all are saints; 

 the travel-stained, footsore pilgrim who washed in the 

 healing wells thought so, at any rate. What do we 

 really know of those early inhabitants ? Tradition tells 

 of the Armorican refugees, and of the survivors, a century 

 later, of the massacre at Bangor Is-y-coed; of St. Beuno 

 ending his days here, though Nevin and Clynnog both 

 claim him; of Bishop Hywyn, and of Archbishop Dubri- 

 cius. Did not this last crown King Arthur in 506, and 

 were not his bones removed half a century later to 

 Llandaff ? 



Doubtless when the population was so extensive sea- 

 fowl were much in request. Even to-day the shear- 

 water is relished on some of the Scottish islands, and, as 

 was the case with the puffin, a considerable business 

 was done in " pickled " shearwater. The birds were 

 salted, packed in barrels, and exported for inland con- 

 sumption. There is no record of an export trade from 

 Bardsey, though, not so very long ago, puffins were 

 shipped from Puffin Island. We were advised to take 



