another woman, and that by the time when the fairy came to call her live stock into the lake she had been replaced by another woman who came from the Ty-fry, or the House up Hill'. In that case this version comes closer than any other to the story of Undine supplanted by Bertalda as her knight's favourite.

Mr. Probert Evans having kindly given me the address of an aged farmer who formerly lived in the valley, my friend, Mr. Lywarch Reynolds, was good enough to visit him. Mr. Reynolds shall report the result in his own words, dated January 9, 1899, as follows:

'I was at Pentyrch this morning, and went to see Mr. David Evans, formerly of Cefn Colston.

'The old man is a very fine specimen of the better class of Welsh farmer; is in his eighty-third year; hale and hearty, intelligent, and in full possession of his faculties. He was born and bred in the Rhonda Fechan Valley, and lived there until some forty years ago. He had often heard the lake story from an old aunt of his who lived at the Maerdy Farm (a short distance north of the lake), and who died a good many years ago, at a very advanced age. He calls the lake "ILyn Elferch," and the story, as known to him, has several points in common with the ILyn y Fan legend, which, however, he did not appear to know. He could not give me many details, but the following is the substance of the story as he knows it:-The young farmer, who lived with his mother at the neighbouring farm, one day saw the lady on the bank of the lake, combing her hair, which reached down to her feet. He fell in love at

1 The Ty-fry is a house said to be some 200 years old, and situated about two miles from Rhonda Fechan: more exactly it is about one-fourth of a mile from the station of Ystrad Rhonđa, and stands at the foot of Mynyd yr Eglwys on the Treorky side. It is now surrounded by the cottages of colliers, one of whom occupies it. For this information I have to thank Mr. Probert Evans.

first sight, and tried to approach her; but she evaded him, and crying out, Dali di đim o fi, crâs dy fara! (Thou wilt not catch me, thou of the crimped bread), she sank into the water. He saw her on several subsequent occasions, and gave chase, but always with the same result, until at length he got his mother to make him some bread which was not baked (or not baked so hard); and this he offered to the lady. She then agreed to become his wife, subject to the condition that if he offended her, or disagreed with her three times (ar yr ammod, os byssa fa yn 'i chroesi hi dair gwaith) she would leave him and return into the lake with all her belongings.

'1. The first disagreement (croes) was at the funeral of a neighbour, a man in years, at which the lady gave way to excessive weeping and lamentation. The husband expressed surprise and annoyance at this excessive grief for the death of a person not related to them, and asked the reason for it; and she replied that she grieved for the defunct on account of the eternal misery that was in store for him in the other world.

'2. The second "croes" was at the death of an infant child of the lady herself, at which she laughed immoderately; and in reply to the husband's remonstrance, she said she did so for joy at her child's escape from this wicked world and its passage into a world of bliss.

'3. The third "croes" Mr. Evans was unable to call to mind, but equally with the other two it showed that the lady was possessed of preternatural knowledge; and it resulted in her leaving her husband and returning into the lake, taking the cattle, &c., with her. The accepted explanation of the name of the lake was Lyn El-ferch1 (= Hela 'r ferch), "because of the young man chasing the damsel" (hela'r ferch).

It is to be borne in mind that the sound of h is uncertain in Glamorgan

'The following is the cattle-call, as given to me by Mr. Evans' aged housekeeper, who migrated with the family from Rhonda Fechan to Pentyrch:

'Mr. Evans told me that Dyffryn Safrwch was considered to be a corruption of Dyffryn Safn yr Hwch, "Valley of the Sow's Mouth"; so that the explanation was not due to a minister with whom I foregathered on my tramp near the lake the other day, and from whom I heard it first.'

The similarity between Mr. Evans' version of this legend and that of Lyn y Fan Fach, tends to add emphasis to certain points which I had been inclined to treat as merely accidental. In the Fan Fach legend the young man's mother is a widow, and here he is represented living with his mother. Here also some

pronunciation, whether the language used is Welsh or English. The pronunciation indicated, however, by Mr. Evans comes near enough to the authentic form written Elfarch.

In the Snowdon district of Gwyned the call is drwi, drwi, drŵ-i bach, while in North Cardiganshire it is trwi, trwi, trw-e fach, also pronounced sometimes with a surd r, produced by making the breath cause both lips to vibratetR'wi, tR'wi, which can hardly be distinguished from pR'wi, pR'wi. For the more forcibly the lips are vibrated the more difficult it becomes to start by closing them to pronounce p: so the tendency with R' is to make the preceding consonant into some kind of a t.

thing depends on the young man's bread, but it is abruptly introduced, suggesting that a part of the story has been forgotten. Both stories, however, give one the impression that the bread of the fairies was regarded as always imperfectly baked. In both stories the young man's mother comes to his help with her advice. Mr. Evans' version ascribes supernatural knowledge to the fairy, though his version fails to support it; and her moralizings read considerably later than those which the Fan legend ascribes to the fairy wife. Some of these points may be brought under the reader's notice later, when he has been familiarized with more facts illustrative of the belief in fairies.

III.

On returning from South Wales to Carnarvonshire in the summer of 1881, I tried to discover similar legends connected with the lakes of North Wales, beginning with Geirionyd, the waters of which form a stream emptying itself into the Conwy, near Trefriw, a little below ILanrwst. I only succeeded, however, in finding an old man of the name of Pierce Williams, about seventy years of age, who was very anxious to talk about 'Bony's' wars, but not about lake ladies. I was obliged, in trying to make him understand what I wanted, to use the word morforwyn, that is to say in English, 'mermaid'; he then told me, that in his younger days he had heard people say that somebody had seen such beings in the Trefriw river. But as my questions were leading ones, his evidence is not worth much; however, I feel pretty sure that one who knew the neighbourhood of Geirionyd better would be able to find some fragments of interesting legends still existing in that wild district.

I was more successful at Lanberis, though what I found, at first, was not much; but it was genuine, and to the point. This is the substance of it:-An old woman, called Siân1 Dafyd, lived at Helfa Fawr, in the dingle called Cwm Brwynog, along the left side of which you ascend as you go to the top of Snowdon, from the village of lower ILanberis, or Coed y Dol, as it is there called. She was a curious old person, who made nice distinctions between the virtues of the respective waters of the district: thus, no other would do for her to cure her of the defaid gwylltion2, or cancerous warts, which she fancied that she had in her mouth, than that of the spring of Tai Bach, near the lake called Lyn Ffynnon y Gwas, though she seldom found it out, when she was deceived by a servant who cherished a convenient opinion of his own, that a drop from a nearer spring would do just as well. Old Siân has been dead over thirty-five years, but I have it, on the testimony of two highly trustworthy brothers, who are of her family, and now between sixty and seventy years of age, that she used to relate to them how a shepherd, once on a time, saw a fairy maiden (un o'r Tylwyth Teg) on the surface of the tarn called Lyn Du'r Arđu, and how, from bantering and

This is the Welsh form of the borrowed name Jane, and its pronunciation in North Cardiganshire is Siân, with si pronounced approximately like the ti of such French words as nation and the like; but of late years I find the si made into English sh under the influence, probably, to some extent of the English taught at school. This happens in North Wales, even in districts where there are still plenty of people who cannot approach the English words fish and shilling nearer than fiss and silling. Sion and Siân represent an old importation of English John and Jane, but they are now considered old-fashioned and superseded by John and Jane, which I learned to pronounce Dsion and Dsiên, except that Sion survives as a family name, written Shone, in the neighbourhood of Wrexham.

2 This term dafad (or dafaden), 'a sheep,' also used for 'a wart,' and dafad (or dafaden) wytt, literally a wild sheep,' for cancer or epithelioma, raises a question which I am quite unable to answer: why should a wart have been likened to a sheep?