names have perished, and who all appear to have, for once, united, and made a bold stand against the advance of Ida. We have now the light of these ancient bards to guide us through this remote period, and some of them fought in the battles of which they have left us descriptions. Chief amongst these British warriors appears to have been Urien; Taliesin calls him the "shield of heroes, the thunderbolt of the Cymry," and compares his onset to "the rushing of mighty waves, and fiery meteors blazing athwart the heavens." Ida, they designated the flame-man, or flame-bearer, so terrible was the devastation which he made. Many battles were fought between these renowned chieftains. It was on the night which ushers in the Sabbath, when the "Flame-bearer" approached, with his forces divided into four companies, to surround Goddeu and Reged, provinces over which Urien governed. Ida spread out his forces from Argoedd to Arfynnydd, and having assumed this threatening position, he daringly demanded submission and hostages from the Britons. Urien indignantly spurned the proposition, and turning to his brother chieftains, exclaimed: "Let us raise our banners where the mountain winds blow--let us dash onward with our forces over the border--let each warrior lift his spear above his head, and rush upon the destroyer, in the midst of his army, and slay him, together with his followers." Taliesin, who was present, and fought under the banner of Urien, thus describes the "Battle of the Pleasant Valley:" "When the shouts of the Britons ascended, louder than the roaring of the waves upon the storm-tossed shore, neither field nor forest afforded safety to the foe: I saw the warriors in their brave array, I saw them after the morning's strife--oh, how altered! I saw the conflict between the perishing hosts, the blood that gushed forward and soaked into the red ground:--the valley which was defended by a rampart was no longer green. Wan, weary men, pale with affright, and stained with blood, dropped their arms and staggered across the ford; I saw Urien, with his red brow--his sword fell on the bucklers of his enemies with deadly force--he rushed upon them like an eagle enraged." In this battle, the Britons appear to have been victorious--others followed in which they were defeated, for the "flame-bearing man" spread terror wherever he trod. He, however, at last fell by Owen the son of Urien, one of the poets, who also perished by the hand of one of his own countrymen, and his death was bemoaned by the British bard Llywarch, in such a plaintive strain that there are few compositions which excel this ancient elegy, for its beautiful pathos and wild, mournful images; some of these are as follows: "I bear a head from the mountains; the body will ere night be buried under the cairn of stones and earth! Where is he that supported and feasted me? Euryddiel will be joyless to-night. Whom shall I praise, now Urien is no more? The