Bran Fendigaid, a Welsh King in ancient times, had a palace at Harlech, and had a sister named Bronwen, or White Breast, whom Matholwch the King of Ireland married on account of her wonderful beauty. After a while, however, the foster brothers of Matholwch began to treat Bronwen very cruelly till at last she found means to send a message to her brother Bran, in Wales; and this she did by writing a letter of her woes, which she bound to a bird's wing which she had reared. The bird reached Bronwen's brother, Bran, who, when he read the letter sailed for Ireland immediately, and during a fearful warfare in that country he was poisoned with a dart in his foot. His men had been bidden by their dying chief to cut off his head and bear it to London and bury it with the face towards France. They did as they were bidden by Bran previous to his death, and various were the adventures they encountered while obeying this injunction. At Harlech they stopped to rest, and sat down to eat and drink. While there, they heard three birds singing a sweet song, "at a great distance over the sea," though it seemed to them as though they were quite near. These were the birds of Rhiannon. Their notes were so sweet that warriors were known to have remained spell-bound for 80 years listening to them. The birds sang so sweetly that the men rested for seven years, which appeared but a day. Then they pursued their way to Gwales in Pembrokeshire, and there remained for four score years, during which the head of Bran was uncorrupted. At last they went to London and buried it there. The old Welsh poets often allude to the birds of Rhiannon, and they are also mentioned in the Triads; and the same enchanting fancy reappears in the local story of Shon ap Shenkin, which I just gave. Mr. Ernest Rhys in the present day sings:-- "O, the birds of Rhiannon they sing time away,-- Seven years in their singing are gone like a day." In the region of myth and romance Rhiannon, the songs of whose birds were so enchanting, was the daughter of Heveydd Hen, who by her magic arts foiled her powerful suitor, Gwawl ap Clud, and secured as her consort the man of her choice, Pwyll, Prince of Dyfed. In Welsh Mythology several members of the kingly families are represented as playing the role of magicians. It may be added that it is interesting to compare both the story of Shion ap Shenkin, and that of the birds of Rhiannon, with Longfellow's "Golden Legend," originally written in the thirteenth century by Jacobus de Voragine, in which Monk Felix is represented as listening to the singing of a snow-white bird for a hundred years, which period passed as a single hour.