behind talking about this, the oxen had proceeded very far, and I did not find their footmarks as they came through portions of the parish of Dolyd-Elan (Lueđog) until I reached a pass called ever since Bwlch Rhiw'r Ychen, "the Pass of the Slope of the Oxen," between the upper parts of Dolyđelan and the upper part of Nanhwynen. In coming over this pass one of the oxen dropped one of its eyes on an open spot, which for that reason is called Gwaun Lygad Ych, "the Moor of the Ox's Eye." The place where the eye fell has become a pool, which is by this time known as Pwtt Lygad Ych, "the Pool of the Ox's Eye," which is at no time dry, though no water rises in it or flows into it except when rain falls; nor is there any flowing out of it during dry weather. It is always of the same depth; that is, it reaches about one's knee-joint, according to those who have paid attention to that for a considerable number of years. There is a harp melody, which not all musicians know it is known as the Ychain Mannog air, and it has a piteous effect on the ear, being as plaintive as were the groanings of these Ychain under the weight of the afanc, especially when one of the pair lost an eye. They pulled him up to ILyn Cwm Ffynnon Las, "the Lake of the Dingle of the Green Well," to which he was consigned, for the reason, peradventure, that some believed that there were in that lake uncanny things already in store. In fact, it was but fitting that he should be permitted to go to his kind. But whether there were uncanny things in it before or not, many think that there is nothing good in it now, as you will understand from what follows. There is much talk of ILyn Cwm Ffynnon Las besides the fact that it is always free from ice, except in one corner where the peat water of clear pools comes into it, and that it has also a variety of dismal hues. The cause of this is, as I suppose, to be

sought in the various hues of the rocks surrounding it; and the fact that a whirlwind makes its water mixed, which is enough to give any lake a disagreeable colour. Nothing swims on it without danger, and I am not sure that it would be very safe for a bird to fly across it or not. Throw a rag into its water and it will go to the bottom, and I have with my own ears heard a man saying that he saw a goat taking to this lake in order to avoid being caught, and that as soon as the animal went into the water, it turned round and round, as if it had been a top, until it was drowned. . . . Some mention that, as some great man was hunting in the Snowdon district (Eryri), a stag, to avoid the hounds when they were pressing on him, and as is the habit of stags to defend themselves, made his escape into this lake: the hunters had hardly time to turn round before they saw the stag's antlers (mwnglws) coming to the surface, but nothing more have they ever seen. . . . A young woman has been seen to come out of this lake to wash clothes, and when she had done she folded the clothes, and taking them under her arm went back into the lake. One man, whose brother is still alive and well, beheld in a canoe, on this same lake still, an angler with a red cap on his head; but the man died within a few days, having not been in his right mind during that time. Most people regard this as the real truth, and, as for myself, I cannot refuse to believe that such a vision might not cause a man to become so bewildered as to force on a disease ending with his death. . . .'

The name ILyn Cwm Ffynnon Las would have led one to suppose that the pool meant is the one given in the ordnance maps as ILyn y Cwm Ffynnon, which I presume to be gibberish for ILyn Cwm y Ffynnon, and situated in the mountains between Pen y Gwryd and the upper valley of ILanberis; but from the writer on the parish of

Bedgelert in the Brython for 1861, pp. 371-2, it appears that this is not so, and that the tarn meant was in the upper reach of Cwm Dyli, and was known as Lyn y Ffynnon Las, 'Lake of the Green Well,' about which he has a good deal to say in the same strain as that of ILwyd in the letter already cited. Among other things he remarks that it is a very deep tarn, and that its bottom has been ascertained to be lower than the surface of ILyn Lydaw, which lies 300 feet lower. And as to the afanc, he remarks that the inhabitants of Nant Conwy and the lower portions of the parish of Dolwyđelan, having frequent troubles and losses inflicted on them by a huge monster in the river Conwy, near Bettws y Coed, tried to kill it but in vain, as no harpoon, no arrow or spear made any impression whatsoever on the brute's hide; so it was resolved to drag it away as in the ILwyd story. I learn from Mr. Pierce (Elis o'r Nant), of Dolwydelan, that the lake is variously known as ILyn (Cwm) Ffynnon Las, and ILyn Glas or Glaslyn: this last is the form which I find in the maps. It is to be noticed that the Nant Conwy people, by dragging the afanc there, got him beyond their own watershed, so that he could no more cause floods in the Conwy.

Here, as promised at p. 74, I append Lewis Glyn Cothi's words as to the afanc in ILyn Syfađon. The bard is dilating in the poem, where they occur, on his affection for his friend ILywelyn ab Gwilym ab Thomas Vaughan, of Bryn Hafod in the Vale of Towy, and averring that it would be as hard to induce him to quit his friend's hospitable home, as it was to get the afanc away from the Lake of Syfadon, as follows:

Yr avanc er ei ovyn

Wyv yn tech ar vin y llyn;
O don Lyn Syfadon vo

Ni thynwyd ban aeth yno:

Ni'm tyn mèn nag ychain gwaith,
Odiyma hedyw ymaith 1.

The afanc am I, who, sought for, bides
In hiding on the edge of the lake;

Out of the waters of Syfadon Mere

Was he not drawn, once he got there.

So with me: nor wain nor oxen wont to toil
Me to-day will draw from here forth.

From this passage it would seem that the Syfađon story contemplated the afanc being taken away from the lake in a cart or waggon drawn by oxen; but whether driven by Hu, or by whom, one is not told. However, the story must have represented the undertaking as a failure, and the afanc as remaining in his lake: had it been otherwise it would be hard to see the point of the comparison.

VI.

The parish of ILanfachreth and its traditions have been the subject of some contributions to the first volume of the Taliesin published at Ruthin in 1859-60, pp. 132-7, by a writer who calls himself Cofiadur. It was Glasynys, I believe, for the style seems to be his : he pretends to copy from an old manuscript of Hugh Bifan's-both the manuscript and its owner were fictions of Glasynys' as I am told. These jottings contain two or three items about the fairies which seem to be genuine :

'The bottom of Lyn Cynnwch, on the Nannau estate, is level with the hearth-stone of the house of Dôl y Clochyd. Its depth was found out owing to the sweetheart of one of Siwsi's girls having lost his way to her from Nannau, where he was a servant. The

The lines are copied exactly as given at p. 189 (I. vi. 25-30) of The Poetical Works of Lewis Glyn Cothi, edited for the Cymmrodorion by Gwallter Mechain and Tegid, and printed at Oxford in the year 1837.

poor man had fallen into the lake, and gone down and down, when he found it becoming clearer the lower he got, until at last he alighted on a level spot where everybody and everything looked much as he had observed on the dry land. When he had reached the bottom of the lake, a short fat old gentleman came to him and asked his business, when he told him how it happened that he had come. He met with great welcome, and he stayed there a month without knowing that he had been there three days, and when he was going to leave, he was led out to his beloved by the inhabitants of the lake bottom. He asserted that the whole way was level except in one place, where they descended about a fathom into the ground; but, he added, it was necessary to ascend about as much to reach the hearth-stone of Dôl y Clochy. The most wonderful thing, however, was that the stone lifted itself as he came up from the subterranean road towards it. It was thus the sweetheart arrived there one evening, when the girl was by the fire weeping for him. Siwsi had been out some days before, and she knew all about it though she said nothing to anybody. This, then, was the way in which the depth of Lyn Cynnwch came to be known.'

Then he has a few sentences about an old house called Ceimarch :-' Ceimarch was an old mansion of considerable repute, and in old times it was considered next to Nannau in point of importance in the whole district. There was a deep ditch round it, which was always kept full of water, with the view of keeping off vagabonds and thieves, as well as other lawless folks, that they might not take the inmates by surprise. But, in distant ages, this place was very noted for the frequent visits paid it by the fair family. They used to come to the ditch to wash themselves, and to cross the water