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"Did you ever hear of William Lleyn?" said the old gentleman. "Yes," said I; "he was a pupil of Hiraethog, and wrote an elegy on his death, in which he alludes to Gruffydd's skill in an old Welsh metre, called the Cross Consonancy, in the following manner: "In Eden's grove from Adam's mouth Upsprang a muse of noble growth; So from thy grave, O poet wise, Cross Consonancy's boughs shall rise."
To the east, beyond the Conway, lie the Hiraethog mountains, with lower heights and wider reaches; further east again, over the Clwyd, are the still lower hills of Flint. To the south, 30 miles as the crow flies, over the slate country, the Berwyns are seen clearly. West of these the hills fade away into the broad peninsula of Dyved.
Llangollen is a small town or large village of white houses with slate roofs, it contains about two thousand inhabitants, and is situated principally on the southern side of the Dee. At its western end it has an ancient bridge and a modest unpretending church nearly in its centre, in the chancel of which rest the mortal remains of an old bard called Gryffydd Hiraethog.
"Yes, indeed, you have, whatever, because I am not used to be out in the night. The rabbits have frightened me too, they are looking so large in this light." "I am sorry. It is very brave of you to walk all the way from Caer Madoc alone." "To Abersethin it is not so far," said the girl. "Do you live at Abersethin?" "Yes, not far off; round the edge of the cliffs, under Moel Hiraethog." "Oh!
Ancestors," she repeated, with a sort of scheduling tone, as though making sure of the fresh information; "I do not know much English, but there's good you are speaking it! Can you speak Welsh?" "Ha! ha! ha!" laughed Cardo, and his voice woke the echoes from Moel Hiraethog, the hill which they were nearing, and which they must compass before reaching the valley of the Berwen. "Ha! ha! ha!
We got on the subject of bards, and I mentioned to him Gruffydd Hiraethog, the old poet buried in the chancel of Llangollen church. The old clerk was not aware that he was buried there, and said that though he had heard of him he knew little or nothing about him. "Where was he born?" said he.
"In Denbighshire," I replied, "near the mountain Hiraethog, from which circumstance he called himself in poetry Gruffydd Hiraethog." "When did he flourish?" "About the middle of the sixteenth century." "What did he write?" "A great many didactic pieces," said I in one of which is a famous couplet to this effect: "He who satire loves to sing On himself will satire bring."
In a week or two we shall have it tossed about in the sun, and carried down through the lanes into the haggard, and the lads and lasses will have a jolly supper in the evening, and will give us some singing that will wake the echoes from Moel Hiraethog yonder. Then the lanes are at their best, with the long wisps of sweet hay caught on the wild rose bushes."
"Yes, I think," the old man would answer, looking round him as if just awakening to the fact. "Yes, look at the mist now rolling away from Moel Hiraethog, and look at those rocks on Traeth y daran which looked so grey ten minutes ago; see them, all tipped with gold, and, oh, anwl, look at those blue shadows behind them, and the bay all blue and silver!"
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