tadod yr iâr, gan ei gosod o flaen y tan disglaer a losgai ar yr alch. Pan yn edrych arni yn pobi, anghofiod y 'crimbil' yn hottol, ac yr oed wedi syrthio i rywfath o brudlewyg, pryd y synnwyd hi gan sain cerdoriaeth y tu allan i'r ty, yn debyg i'r hyn a glywod ychydig nosweithiau cyn hynny ar ben y croesffyrd. Yr oed y pluf erbyn hyn wedi syrthio ymaith odiar y iâr, ac erbyn edrych yr oed y'crimbil' wedi diflannu. Edrychai y fam yn wyttt o'i deutu, ac er ei tawenyd clywai lais ei mab colledig yn galw arni y tu attan. Rhedod i'w gyfarfod, gan ei gofleidio yn wresog; a phan ofynod ym mha le yr oed wedi bod cyhyd, nid oed gando gyfrif yn y byd i'w rodi ond mai yn gwrando ar ganu hyfryd yr oed wedi bod. Yr oed yn deneu a threuliedig iawn ei wed pan adferwyd ef. Dyna ystori 'Y Plentyn Cottedig.'

'At a farm house still remaining in the parish of ILanfabon, which is called the Berth Gron, there lived once upon a time a young widow and her infant child. After losing her husband her only comfort in her bereavement and solitary state was young Griff, her son. He was about three years old and a fine child for his age. The parish was then crammed full of Bendith y Mamau, and when the moon was bright and full they were wont to keep people awake with their music till the break of day. The fairies of ILanfabon were remarkable on account of their ugliness, and they were equally remarkable on account of the tricks they played. Stealing children from their cradles during the absence of their mothers, and luring men by means of their music into some pestilential and desolate bog, were things that seemed to afford them considerable amusement. It was no wonder then that mothers used to be daily on the watch lest they should lose their children. The widow alluded to was remarkably careful about her son, so much so, that it made some of the neighbours say that she was

too anxious about him and that some misfortune would overtake her child. But she paid no attention to their words, as all her joy, her comfort, and her hopes appeared to meet together in her child. However, one day she heard a moaning voice ascending from near the cow-house, and lest anything had happened to the cattle, she ran there in a fright, leaving the door of the house open and her little son in the cradle. Who can describe her grief on her coming in and seeing that her son was missing? She searched everywhere for him, but it was in vain. About sunset, behold a little lad made his appearance before her and said to her quite distinctly, "Mother." She looked minutely at him, and said at last, "Thou art not my child." "I am truly," said the little one. But the mother did not seem satisfied about it, nor did she believe it was her child. Something whispered to her constantly, as it were, that it was not her son. However, he remained with her a whole year, but he did not seem to grow at all, whereas Griff, her son, was a very growing child. Besides, the little fellow was getting uglier every day. At last she resolved to go to the "wise man," in order to have information and light on the matter. There happened then to be living at Castell y Nos, "Castle of the Night," a man who was remarkable for his thorough acquaintance with the secrets of the evil one. When she had laid her business before him and he had examined her, he addressed the following remark to her: "It is a crimbil1, and thy own child is with those old Bendith somewhere or other: if thou wilt follow my directions faithfully and minutely thy child will be restored to thee soon. Now, about noon to-morrow cut an egg through the middle; throw the one half away from thee, but keep the other in thy hand, and proceed to mix it backwards and forwards. 'Applied in Glamorgan to a child that looks poorly and does not grow.

See that the little fellow be present paying attention to what thou art doing, but take care not to call his attention to it-his attention must be drawn to it without calling to him—and very probably he will ask what thou wouldst be doing. Thou art to say that it is mixing a pasty for the reapers that thou art. Let me know what he will then say." The woman returned, and on the next day she followed the cunning man's1 advice to the letter: the little fellow stood by her and watched her minutely; presently he asked, "Mother, what are you doing?" "Mixing a pasty for the reapers, my boy." "Oh, that is it. I heard from my father-he had heard it from his father and that one from his fatherthat an acorn was before the oak, and that the oak was in the earth; but I have neither heard nor seen anybody

'In Cardiganshire a conjurer is called dyn hysbys, where hysbys (or, in older orthography, hyspys) means 'informed': it is the man who is informed on matters which are dark to others; but the word is also used of factsY mae'r peth yn hysbys, 'the thing is known or manifest.' The word is divisible into hy-spys, which would be in Irish, had it existed in the language, so-scese for an early su-squestia-s, the related Irish words being ad-chiu, ‘I see,’ pass. preterite ad-chess, 'was seen,' and the like, in which ci and ces have been equated by Zimmer with the Sanskrit verb caksh, 'to see,' from a root quas. The adjective cynnil applied to the dyn hyspys in Glamorgan means now, as a rule, 'economical' or 'thrifty,' but in this instance it would seem to have signified 'shrewd,' 'cunning,' or 'clever,' though it would probably come nearer the original meaning of the word to render it by smart,' for it is in Irish conduail, which is found applied to ingenious work, such as the ornamentation on the hilt of a sword. Another term for a wizard or conjurer is gwr cyfarwyd, with which the reader is already familiar. Here cyfarwyd forms a link with the kyvarbyd of the Mabinogion, where it usually means a professional man, especially one skilled in story and history; and what constituted his knowledge was called kyvarbydyt, which included, among other things, acquaintance with boundaries and pedigrees, but it meant most frequently perhaps story; see the (Oxford) Mabinogion, pp. 5, 61, 72, 93. All these terms should, strictly speaking, have gwr-gwr hyspys, gwr cynnil, and gwr cyfarwyd—but for the fact that modern Welsh tends to restrict gwr to signify a husband' or‘a married man,' while dyn, which only signifies a mortal, is made to mean man, and provided with a feminine dynes,woman,' unknown to good Welsh literature. Thus the spoken language is in this matter nearly on a level with English and French, which have quite lost the word for vir and ȧvýp.

mixing the pasty for the reapers in an egg-shell." The woman observed that he looked very cross as he spoke, and that it so added to his ugliness that it made him highly repulsive.

'That afternoon the woman went to the cunning man in order to inform him of what the dwarf had said. "Oh," said he, "he is of that old breed; now the next full moon will be in four days-thou must go where the four roads meet above Rhyd y Gloch 1, at twelve o'clock the night the moon is full. Take care to hide thyself at a spot where thou canst see the ends of the crossroads; and shouldst thou see anything that would excite thee take care to be still and to restrain thyself from giving way to thy feelings, otherwise the scheme will be frustrated and thou wilt never have thy son back." The unfortunate mother knew not what to make of the strange story of the cunning man; she was in the dark as much as ever. At last the time came, and by the appointed hour she had concealed herself carefully behind a large bush close by, whence she could see everything around. She remained there a long time watching; but nothing was to be seen or heard, while the profound and melancholy silence of midnight dominated over all. At last she began to hear the sound of music approaching from afar; nearer and nearer the sweet sound continued to come, and she listened to it with rapt attention. Ere long it was close at hand, and she perceived that it was a procession of Bendith y

1

1 Rhyd y Gloch means 'the Ford of the Bell,' in allusion, as the story goes, to a silver bell that used in former ages to be at ILanwonno Church. The people of Lanfabon took a liking to it, and one night a band of them stole it; but as they were carrying it across the Taff the moon happened to make her appearance suddenly, and they, in their fright, taking it to be sunrise, dropped the bell in the bed of the river, so that nothing has ever been heard of it since. But for ages afterwards, and even at the present day indeed, nothing could rouse the natives of Lanfabon to greater fury than to hear the moon spoken of as haul ILanfabon,' the sun of Lanfabon.'

Mamau going somewhere or other. They were hundreds in point of number, and about the middle of the procession she beheld a sight that pierced her heart and made the blood stop in her veins-walking between four of the Bendith she saw her own dear little child. She nearly forgot herself altogether, and was on the point of springing into the midst of them violently to snatch him from them if she could; but when she was on the point of leaping out of her hiding place for that purpose, she thought of the warning of the cunning man, that any disturbance on her part would frustrate all, so that she would never get her child back. When the procession had wound itself past, and the sound of the music had died away in the distance, she issued from her concealment and directed her steps homewards. Full of longing as she was for her son before, she was much more so now; and her disgust at the little dwarf who claimed to be her son had very considerably grown, for she was now certain in her mind that he was one of the old breed. She knew not how to endure him for a moment longer under the same roof with her, much less his addressing her as "mother." However, she had enough restraining grace to behave becomingly towards the ugly little fellow that was with her in the house. On the morrow she went without delay to the "wise man" to relate what she had witnessed the previous night, and to seek further advice. The cunning man expected her, and as she entered he perceived by her looks that she had seen something that had disturbed her. She told him what she had beheld at the cross-roads, and when he had heard it he opened a big book which he had; then, after he had long pored over it, he told her, that before she could get her child back, it was necessary for her to find a black hen without a single white feather, or one of any other