This is the reason why, in these peeps at various spots in Wales, we have often chosen those unknown to the tourist, but interesting to those who care for the people as well as for the place, because of some legend or history that paints, as nothing else can do, their life in the days of old. Romance broods over all: the spell of the wizard Merlin has touched vale and hill; Arthur and his Round Table, though belonging originally to the sister-country of Brittany, has migrated hither and left his name and those of his Knights in every part of the land; Taliesin, the marvellous child-bard, still sings beyond the mountain-peaks. The actual history of Wales, too, stained with blood though it often is, has its romance as well; for what can be more romantic than the hopeless struggle for a lost cause as carried on by the last Llewelyn and by the brave Glendower? By its many “caers,” or forts, its ruined castles, its well-made roads, it speaks of a history of constant struggle and rebellion against superior forces--the struggle of the Celt against the Saxon, the rebellion of the freeborn against the conqueror. Some of this history, some of these traditions, we shall read in these pages as we visit the places with which they are connected; and because of these we shall have to turn our backs upon many a spot, better known and more frequented than those we have chosen, but, perhaps, for that very reason, less interesting, since, owing to the crowds of English tourists which beset them, they have lost much of their Celtic character. And let not those of us who “have no Welsh” be daunted by the apparent difficulty of pronouncing the names of these places. A Welshman will tell you that his language is “phonetic”--that is, pronounced exactly as it is spelt! Nor is this rule misleading if we will but bear in mind that _dd_ is sounded like the English _th_ in _breathe_, that _ff_ is _f_, and _f_ is _v_. _W_ is sounded like _oo_; _y_ is _u_ if it comes early in the word, and _i_ if later; _aw_ is _ow_; and _ll_ is best pronounced, on one authority, by pressing the tongue against the front teeth and breathing hard. E. M. W.-B. WALES CHAPTER I WILD WALES Once upon a time, says a famous Welsh legend, a certain witch named Caridwen set to work to brew a cauldron of knowledge that might make her youngest son the wisest man in the world. Now, this cauldron had to boil for a year and a day, and at the end of that time it would yield three drops of precious liquid which would make whoever drank them the wisest of all men. So she set a passing tramp named Gwion Bach to stir the cauldron and to keep it on the boil, and made up her mind to kill him directly the time was up, lest he should learn the secret of the magic liquid.