Like many another thing of beauty, the /Wye/ is born amidst surroundings dreary and dismal. Plinlimmon, the monarch of the vast waste of hills that forms the southern portion of the Cambrian system, has three heads. But no one can point the finger of scorn at him on that account, for great are his cares as he stands there in that region of morass and bog, the father of five rivers. His chief head, towering to the sky, gathers from the heavy clouds as they drift across the land the raindrops and the mist, and these, trickling down his shoulders, are gathered into five different courses, and, hurrying on their way, form the five rivers--the Severn, the Wye, the Rheidol, which flows to Aberystwyth, and the Dulas and the Llyffnant, which by different courses flow to the Dovey. Moreover, the rugged, austere mountain has long been spoken lightly of; for a shepherd--it would never do to call him an humble shepherd--who, in the early part of the present century, had the right to sell ale and small beer in his cottage up amongst the mountain-tops, had a board hung out with this modest sentence, which, to be sure, soon became classic, painted upon it: "The notorious hill of Plinlimmon is on these premises, and it will be shown with pleasure to any gentleman travellers who wishes to see it." So, what with the clouds and mists resting upon his head, the large family of rivers he has to feed, and the slighting language that is held towards him, the "notorious hill of Plinlimmon" is bald and sad and sodden. Unless, therefore, the traveller is fond of dreariness and dankness, he will scarcely find this a profitable journey to make--this climb to the very source of the Wye. [Illustration: _Photos: Hudson._ VIEWS IN THE LOWER ELAN VALLEY (_p. 128_).] Legend, however, weaves a charm over many an else dreary waste, and up amongst the scramble of hills of which Plinlimmon is monarch, legend and history unapocryphal combine to fill the home of mists with interest for all who love a stirring tale. Here, at the very source of the Wye, Owain Glyndwr--the Owen Glendower of Shakespeare's _King Henry IV._--who could call spirits from the vasty deep, had his stronghold, and gathered around him his vicious little band of followers:-- "Three times hath Henry Bolingbroke made head Against my power: thrice from the banks of Wye And sandy-bottomed Severn have I sent him Bootless home, and weather-beaten back."