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about the year 1368, says in one of his poems, as quoted in Dr. Davies' dictionary

Medyg ni wnai mod y gwnaeth
Mydfai, o chai dyn medfaeth.

A Physician he would not make

As My fai made, if he had a mead fostered man.

Of the above lands bestowed upon the Medygon, there are two farms in Myđfai parish still called "ILwyn Ifan Fedyg," the Grove of Evan the Physician; and "ILwyn Meredyd Fedyg," the Grove of Meredith the Physician. Esgair ILaethdy, mentioned in the foregoing legend, was formerly in the possession of the above descendants, and so was Ty newyd, near Myđfai, which was purchased by Mr. Holford, of Cilgwyn, from the Rev. Charles Lloyd, vicar of ILandefafte, Breconshire, who married a daughter of one of the Međygon, and had the living of ILandefalte from a Mr. Vaughan, who presented him to the same out of gratitude, because Mr. Lloyd's wife's father had cured him of a disease in the eye. As Mr. Lloyd succeeded to the above living in 1748, and died in 1800, it is probable that the skilful oculist was John Jones, who is mentioned in the following inscription on a tombstone at present fixed against the west end of Mydfai Church :

HERE

Lieth the body of Mr. DAVID JONES, of Mothvey, Surgeon, who was an honest, charitable, and skilful man.

He died September 14th, Anno Dom 1719, aged 61.

JOHN JONES, Surgeon,

Eldest son of the said David Jones, departed this life
the 25th of November, 1739, in the 44th year
of his Age, and also lyes interred hereunder.

These appear to have been the last of the Physicians who practised at Mydfai. The above John Jones resided for some time at ILandovery, and was a very eminent surgeon. One of his descendants, named

John Lewis, lived at Cwmbran, Myđfai, at which place his great-grandson, Mr. John Jones, now resides.

'Dr. Morgan Owen, Bishop of ILandaff, who died at Glasalt, parish of Myđfai, in 1645, was a descendant of the Međygon, and an inheritor of much of their landed property in that parish, the bulk of which he bequeathed to his nephew, Morgan Owen, who died in 1667, and was succeeded by his son Henry Owen ; and at the decease of the last of whose descendants, Robert Lewis, Esq., the estates became, through the will of one of the family, the property of the late D. A. S. Davies, Esq., M.P. for Carmarthenshire.

'Bishop Owen bequeathed to another nephew, Morgan ap Rees, son of Rees ap John, a descendant of the Medygon, the farm of Rhyblid, and some other property. Morgan ap Rees' son, Samuel Rice, resided at Loughor, in Gower, Glamorganshire, and had a son, Morgan Rice, who was a merchant in London, and became Lord of the Manor of Tooting Graveney, and High Sheriff in the year 1772, and Deputy Lieutenant of the county of Surrey, 1776. He resided at Hill House, which he built. At his death the whole of his property passed to his only child, John Rice, Esq., whose eldest son, the Rev. John Morgan Rice, inherited the greater portion of his estates. The head of the family is now the Rev. Horatio Morgan Rice, rector of South Hill with Callington, Cornwall, and J.P. for the county, who inherited, with other property, a small estate at Loughor. The above Morgan Rice had landed property in ILanmadock and ILangenith, as well as Loughor, in Gower, but whether he had any connexion with Howel the Physician (ap Rhys ap Lywelyn ap Philip the Physician, and lineal descendant from Einion ap Rhiwatton), who resided at Cilgwryd in Gower, is not known.

'Amongst other families who claim descent from the Physicians were the Bowens of Cwmydw, Myđfai; and Jones of Dollgarreg and Penrhock, in the same parish; the latter of whom are represented by Charles Bishop, of Dollgarreg, Esq., Clerk of the Peace for Carmarthenshire, and Thomas Bishop, of Brecon, Esq.

'Rees Williams of Myđfai is recorded as one of the Međygon. His great-grandson was the late Rice Williams, M.D., of Aberystwyth, who died May 16, 1842, aged 85, and appears to have been the last, although not the least eminent, of the Physicians descended from the mysterious Lady of ILyn y Fan'.'

This brings the legend of the Lady of the Fan Lake into connexion with a widely-spread family. There is another connexion between it and modern times, as will be seen from the following statement kindly made to me by the Rev. A. G. Edwards, Warden of the Welsh College at ILandovery, since then appointed Bishop of St. Asaph: 'An old woman from Mydfai, who is now, that is to say in January 1881, about eighty years of age, tells me that she remembers "thousands and thousands of people visiting the Lake of the Little Fan on the first Sunday or Monday in August, and when she was young she often heard old men declare that at that time a commotion took place in the lake, and that its waters boiled, which was taken to herald the approach of the Lake Lady and her Oxen." The custom of going up to the lake on the first Sunday in August was a very well known one in years gone by, as I have learned from a good many people, and it is corroborated by Mr. Joseph Joseph of Brecon, who kindly writes as follows, in reply to some queries

This is not quite correct, as I believe that Dr. C. Rice Williams, who lives at Aberystwyth, is one of the Međygon. That means the year 1881, when this chapter was written, excepting the portions concerning which the reader is apprised of a later date.-J. R.

of mine: 'On the first Sunday in the month of August, Lyn y Fan Fach is supposed to be boiling (berwi). I have seen scores of people going up to see it (not boiling though) on that day. I do not remember that any of them expected to see the Lady of the Lake.' As to the boiling of the lake I have nothing to say, and I am not sure that there is anything in the following statement made as an explanation of the yearly visit to the lake by an old fisherwoman from ILandovery: 'The best time for eels is in August, when the north-east wind blows on the lake, and makes huge waves in it. The eels can then be seen floating on the waves.'

Last summer I went myself to the village of Myđfai, to see if I could pick up any variants of the legend, but I was hardly successful; for though several of the farmers I questioned could repeat bits of the legend, including the Lake Lady's call to her cattle as she went away, I got nothing new, except that one of them said that the youth, when he first saw the Lake Lady at a distance, thought she was a goose-he did not even rise to the conception of a swan-but that by degrees he approached her, and discovered that she was a lady in white, and that in due time they were married, and so on. My friend, the Warden of ILandovery College, seems, however, to have found a bit of a version which may have been still more unlike the one recorded by Mr. Rees of Tonn: it was from an old man at Mydfai last year, from whom he was, nevertheless, only able to extract the statement 'that the Lake Lady got somehow entangled in a farmer's "gambo," and that ever after his farm was very fertile.' A 'gambo,' I ought to explain, is a kind of a cart without sides, used in South Wales: both the name and the thing seem to have come from England,

though I cannot find such a word as gambo or gambeau in the ordinary dictionaries.

Among other legends about lake fairies, there are, in the third chapter of Mr. Sikes' British Goblins, two versions of this story: the first of them differs but slightly from Mr. Rees', in that the farmer used to go near the lake to see some lambs he had bought at a fair, and that whenever he did so three beautiful damsels appeared to him from the lake. They always eluded his attempts to catch them: they ran away into the lake, saying, Cras dy fara, &c. But one day a piece of moist bread came floating ashore, which he ate, and the next day he had a chat with the Lake Maidens. He proposed marriage to one of them, to which she consented, provided he could distinguish her from her sisters the day after. The story then, so far as I can make out from the brief version which Mr. Sikes gives of it, went on like that of Mr. Rees. The former gives another version, with much more interesting variations, which omit all reference, however, to the Physicians of Myđfai, and relate how a young farmer had heard of the Lake Maiden rowing up and down the lake in a golden boat with a golden scull. He went to the lake on New Year's Eve, saw her, was fascinated by her, and left in despair at her vanishing out of sight, although he cried out to her to stay and be his wife. She faintly replied, and went her way, after he had gazed at her long yellow hair and pale melancholy face. He continued to visit the lake, and grew thin and negligent of his person, owing to his longing. But a wise man, who lived on the mountain, advised him to tempt her with gifts of bread and cheese, which he undertook to do on Midsummer Eve, when he dropped into the lake a large cheese and a loaf of bread. This he did repeatedly, until at last

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