The May-pole was once most popular in Wales, but the old custom has entirely died out, though we still hear occasionally of a May Queen being selected in some places. A PRESENT-DAY WELSH QUEEN OF MAY. The May-pole in Wales was called Bedwen, because it was always made of birch which is called in Welsh Bedwen, a tree associated with the gentler emotions; and as I have already observed in another chapter, to give a lover a birchen branch, is for a maiden to accept his addresses. Games of various sorts were played around the bedwen. The fame of a village depended on its not being stolen away, and parties were constantly on the alert to steal the bedwen, a feat which, when accomplished, was celebrated with peculiar festivities. This rivalry for the possession of the May-pole was probably typical of the ancient idea that the first of May was the boundary day dividing the confines of winter and summer, when a fight took place between the powers of the air, on the one hand striving to continue the reign of winter on the other to establish that of summer. Here may be cited the Mabinogi of Kilhwch and Olwen, where it speaks of the daughter of Lludd Llaw Eraint. She was the most splendid maiden in the three Islands of the mighty, and in three islands adjacent, and for her does Gwyn Ap Nudd, the fairy King, fight every first of May till the day of doom. She was to have been the bride of Gwythyr, the son of Greidawl, when Gwyn Ap Nudd carried her off by force. The bereaved bridegroom followed, and there was a bloody struggle, in which Gwyn was victorious, and he acted most cruelly, for he slew an old warrior, took out his heart from his breast, and constrained the warrior's son to eat the heart of his father. When Arthur heard of this he summoned Gwyn Ap Nudd before him, and deprived him of the fruits of his victory. But he condemned the two combatants to fight for the maiden Olwen henceforth for ever on every first of May till doomsday; the victor on that day to possess the maiden. In former times a fire of logs was kindled on the first day of May, around which it was customary for men and women, youths and maidens, to dance hand in hand, singing to the harp, and some of the men would leap over the fire, even at the peril of being burnt. The origin of such strange custom is undoubtedly to be traced to the "belltaine" fires of the Druids. It seems these bon-fires were lighted in some parts of Wales on Midsummer Eve, and the "Glain Nadrodd" (snake-stones) were also, according to Welsh traditions, associated with the same time of the year.