This ludicrous fairy is in France represented by the gobelin. Mothers threaten children with him. 'Le gobelin vous mangera, le gobelin vous emportera.'[21] In the English 'hobgoblin' we have a word apparently derived from the Welsh hob, to hop, and coblyn, a goblin, which presents a hopping goblin to the mind, and suggests the Pwca (with which the Bwbach is also confused in the popular fancy at times), but should mean in English simply the goblin of the hob, or household fairy. In its bugbear aspect, the Bwbach, like the English bogie, is believed to be identical with the Slavonic 'bog,' and the 'baga' of the Cuneiform Inscriptions, both of which are names for the Supreme Being, according to Professor Fiske. 'The ancestral form of these epithets' is found in 'the old Aryan "Bhaga," which reappears unchanged in the Sanskrit of the Vedas, and has left a memento of itself in the surname of the Phrygian Zeus "Bagaios." It seems originally to have denoted either the unclouded sun, or the sky of noonday illuminated by the solar rays.... Thus the same name which to the Vedic poet, to the Persian of the time of Xerxes, and to the modern Russian, suggests the supreme majesty of deity, is in English associated with an ugly and ludicrous fiend, closely akin to that grotesque Northern Devil of whom Southey was unable to think without laughing.'[22] FOOTNOTES: [21] Père l'Abbé, 'Etymologie,' i., 262. [22] Fiske, 'Myths and Myth-makers,' 105. CHAPTER III. Lake Fairies--The Gwragedd Annwn, or Dames of Elfin-Land--St. Patrick and the Welshmen; a Legend of Crumlyn Lake--The Elfin Cow of Llyn Barfog--Y Fuwch Laethwen Lefrith--The Legend of the Meddygon Myddfai--The Wife of Supernatural Race--The Three Blows; a Carmarthenshire Legend--Cheese and the Didactic Purpose in Welsh Folk-Lore--The Fairy Maiden's Papa--The Enchanted Isle in the Mountain Lake--Legend of the Men of Ardudwy--Origin of Water Fairies--Their prevalence in many Lands. I.