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In other tales she drops the twins into the river; but in one case the witch who has been credited with the change bathes the child at a mountain spout, or pistyll, and exacts a promise from the mother to duck him in cold water every morning for three months. It is not very surprising to learn that "at the end of that time there was no finer infant in the Cwm."
I went towards it down a descent which continued for a long, long way; so great was the light cast by the blazes and that wonderful glowing object, that I could distinctly see the little stones upon the road. After walking about half-an-hour, always going downwards, I saw a house on my left hand and heard a noise of water opposite to it. It was a pistyll.
I stopped and spoke to him. He had no English, but I found him a very sensible man. I talked to him about the source of the Dyfi. He said it was a disputed point which was the source. He himself was inclined to believe that it was the Pistyll up the bwlch. I asked him of what religion he was.
As I went away he said that both he and his family should be always happy to see me at Ty yn y Pistyll, which words, interpreted, are the house by the spout of water. I went up the field with the lane on my right, down which ran a runnel of water, from which doubtless the house derived its name.
"Not at all, sir; I was glad to come with you, for we are very lonesome at Rhyadr, except during a few weeks in the summer, when the gentry come to see the Pistyll. Moreover, I have sheep lying about here which need to be looked at now and then, and by coming hither with you I shall have an opportunity of seeing them." We frequently passed sheep feeding together in small numbers.
Our discourse turning on the latter Welsh poets I asked him if he had been acquainted with Jonathan Hughes, who the reader will remember was the person whose grandson I met and in whose arm-chair I sat at Ty yn y pistyll, shortly after my coming to Llangollen.
She took me by a winding path up a steep bank on the southern side of the fall to a small plateau, and told me that was the best place to see the Pistyll from.
On my telling her in Welsh that I was come to see the Pistyll she smiled again, and said that I was welcome, then taking me round the house, she pointed to a path and bade me follow it. I followed the path which led downward to a tiny bridge of planks, a little way below the fall. I advanced to the middle of the bridge, then turning to the west, looked at the wonderful object before me.
"I am going to see the Pistyll Rhyadr," said I We had then just come to the top of a rising ground. "Yonder's the Pistyll!" said he, pointing to the west. I looked in the direction of his finger, and saw something at a great distance, which looked like a strip of grey linen hanging over a crag. "That is the waterfall," he continued, "which so many of the Saxons come to see.
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