[20] It is but right to state that the learned are divided with respect to the meaning of ‘Cumro,’ and that many believe it to denote an original inhabitant.[21a] Yehen banog: humped or bunched oxen, probably buffaloes. Banog is derived from ban—a prominence, protuberance, or peak.[21b] Above we have given what we believe to be a plain and fair history of Hu Gadarn; but it is necessary to state, that after his death he was deified, and was confounded with the Creator, the vivifying power and the sun, and mixed up with all kinds of myths and legends. Many of the professedly Christian Welsh bards when speaking of the Deity have called Him Hu, and ascribed to the Creator the actions of the creature. Their doing so, however, can cause us but little surprise when we reflect that the bards down to a very late period cherished a great many druidical and heathen notions, and frequently comported themselves in a manner more becoming heathens than Christian men. Of the confounding of what is heavenly with what is earthly we have a remarkable instance in the ode of Iolo Goch to the ploughman, four lines of which, slightly modified, we have given above. In that ode the ploughman is confounded with the Eternal, and the plough with the rainbow:—

‘The Mighty Hu who reigns for ever,
Of mead and song to men the giver,
The emperor of land and sea
And of all things which living be,
Did hold a plough with his good hand,
Soon as the deluge left the land,
To show to men, both strong and weak,
The haughty hearted and the meek,
There is no trade the heaven below
So noble as to guide the plough.’

To the Deity under the name of Hu there are some lines by one Rhys, a Welsh bard of the time of Queen Elizabeth, though they are perhaps more applicable to the Universal Pan or Nature than to the God of the Christians:—

‘If with small things we Hu compare,
No smaller thing than Hu is there,
Yet greatest of the great is He,
Our Lord, our God of Mystery;
How swift he moves! a lucid ray,
A sunbeam wafts him on his way;
He’s great on land, and great on ocean,
Of one more great I have no notion;
I dread lest I should underrate
This being, infinitely great.’[22] The poetical translations in this notice are taken from Borrow’s ‘Songs of Europe.’[25a]

‘Oedd balch gwalch golchiad ei lain,
Oedd beilch gweilch gweled ei werin.’

In this couplet there is three-fold rhyme. We have the alliteration of lch in the first line:—

‘balch gwalch golchiad;’

and of the w in the second:—

‘gweilch gweled werin;’

secondly, we have the rhymes of balch and gwalch; and thirdly, the rhyming at the lines’ ends.[25b] Of this celebrated place we are permitted to extract the following account from Mr. Borrow’s unpublished work, ‘Celtic Bards, Chiefs, and Kings’:—

‘After wandering for many miles towards the south, over a bleak moory country, you come to a place called Ffair Rhos, or something similar, a miserable village consisting of a few half-ruined cottages, situated on the top of a hill. From the hill you look down on a wide valley of a russet colour, along which a river runs towards the south. The whole scene is cheerless; sullen hills are all around. Descending the hill you enter a large village divided into two by the river, which here runs from east to west, but presently takes a turn. There is much mire in the street; immense swine lie in the mire, who turn up their snouts at you as you pass. Women in Welsh hats stand in the mire, along with men without any hats at all, but with short pipes in their mouths. They are talking together; as you pass, however, they hold their tongues, the women leering contemptuously at you, the men glaring sullenly at you, and causing tobacco-smoke to curl in your face. On your taking off your hat, however, and inquiring the way to the Monachlog, everybody is civil enough, and twenty voices tell you the way to the monastery. You ask the name of the river: “The Teivi, Sir, the Teivi.” The name of the bridge: “Pont y Rhyd Fendigaid—the Bridge of the Blessed Ford, Sir!” You cross the bridge of the Blessed Ford, and presently leaving the main road you turn to the east, by a dunghill, up a narrow lane, parallel with the river. After proceeding a mile up the lane amidst trees and copses, and crossing a little brook which runs into the Teivi, out of which you drink, you see before you in the midst of a field, in which are tombstones and broken ruins, a rustic-looking church; a farmhouse is near it, in the garden of which stands the framework of a large gateway. You cross over into the churchyard, stand on a green mound and look about you. You are now in the very midst of the Monachlog Ystrad Flur, the celebrated monastery of Strata Florida, to which in old times popish pilgrims from all parts of the world repaired. The scene is solemn and impressive. On the north side of the river a large bulky hill, called Bunk Pen Bannedd, looks down upon the ruins and the church; and on the south side, some way behind the farmhouse, is another hill which does the same. Rugged mountains form the background of the valley to the east, down from which comes murmuring the fleet but shallow Teivi. Such is the scenery which surrounds what remains of Strata Florida; those scanty broken ruins compose all that remains of that celebrated monastery in which kings, saints, and mitred abbots were buried, and in which, or in whose precincts, was buried Dafydd ab Gwilym, the greatest genius of the Cimbric race, and one of the first poets of the world.’

[28] It must be mentioned, however, in justice to Douglas, that in the autobiography of Dr. Carlyle, lately published, we find that ‘John Douglas, who has for some time been Bishop of Salisbury, and who is one of the most able and learned men on that bench, had at this time (1758, some years after Gronwy had left him) but small preferment.’[33] In a late number of the Transactions of the Dublin Ossianic Society—a most admirable institution—there is an account of the early life of Fin ma Coul, in which the burnt finger is mentioned; but that number did not appear till more than a year subsequent to the publication of the ‘Romany Rye,’ and contains not the slightest allusion either to Fafnisbane, i.e. the slayer of Fafnir, or Taliesin—to the Eddacal or the Cumric legend.