RELICS OP POPULAR SUPERSTITIONS. 101 



mandy, were said to be performed at midniglit on the river. But 

 these tales did not prevent a traveller from paying a visit to these 

 untiallowed places, to see the rainbow and arrowy light often visi- 

 ble there at the noon of night. This traveller, whom I shall call 

 Judge Lloyd, because that name was afterwards borne by a man 

 who resembled him in firmness and sagacity, pursued his way be- 

 tween two walls of rock divided by a httle stream, which sudden- 

 ly leaped through a narrow rent and escaped from sight. He 

 forced himself through the chasm, tempted by a hgbt which 

 shone far within a kind of cavern roofed with sloping rocks, and 

 furnished with a porch composed of dwarf sycamores, whose 

 branches were knit into a pleasant treillis. Here he stopped to re- 

 connoitre, hearing a plaintive voice singing a remnant of ancient 

 Cambrian poetry, ascribed to Llydwarch Hen, the Bard of Ar- 

 thur's court. 



" Y ddeilen hon neus cynnired gwynt 

 Gwae hi o' hi thinged 

 Hi hen!" 



This leaf, is it not blown about by the wind 1 

 Woe to it for its fate ! 



Alas, it is old ! 



The hall of Cyndyllan is gloomy this night, 



Without a covering, without a fire 



He is dead, and I, alas ! am living. 



That hearth — will it not be covered with nettles'? 



Whilst its defender lived 



It warmed the hearts of petitioners." 



The traveller had heard these words in the best days of his 

 youth, and he sighed at their strange concurrence with some pas- 

 sages of his secret history. As his curiosity was sustained and 

 justified by a benevolent desire to discover the reputed haunts of 

 witchcraft, and as music promises gentleness, he hazarded a step 

 towards the threshold. But a lean, hag-like figure, attired in the 

 ragged remnant of a black silk cassock, brandished a formidable 

 staff across his path. To the Judge's courteous quesrion, this hid- 

 eous sentinel replied, " JVid ychwi mo mhabsanti signifying, 

 " Thou art not my patron-saint or confessor and added, with 

 something hke the fervent wildness of an ancient bard, " If thou 

 comest to wound the sleeping fawn, beware lest the stag trample 

 on thee." The intrepid Judge only answered by uncovering his 

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