Ystradffin is scarcely a village, but it boasts of attachment to the memory of a seventeenth-century cattle-raider named Twm Shon Catti (otherwise Tom Jones, the son of Catherine), who made use of a cave in the side of the Dinas by Towy for purposes of concealment. This hero of tradition at length determined to mend his ways, and, we are told, set about it by wooing an heiress. He secured her hand in the literal sense, and vowed to cut it off unless she gave it to him in the matrimonial sense. So stern a courtship was irresistible. Afterwards Twm Shon Catti became respectable, and died holding high office in the county. But the cave over Towy keeps the memory of his naughty youth and early manhood still green. From Ystradffin the river descends circuitously some eleven miles to the well-known fishing and tourist townlet of Llandovery, gambolling gaily in its rocky pools as if resolved to make the most of its youth ere coming to the long green valley which extends from Llandovery to Carmarthen. Here it receives two voluminous aids in the Bran from the north-east, and the Gwedderig from the east, both yielding pleasant prospects even for the few miles their valleys are visible from Llanymddyfri (_i.e._ "the Church amid the Waters"), or, as we know it, Llandovery. Green hills embrace Llandovery as if they loved it. The little town is not so interesting as its situation, apart from its old inn, the "Castle," a mellow, time-worn house. The very rooms here in which you sup on eggs and bacon (if you are lucky enough) may have known that worthy, the Vicar of Llandingat, who, in the seventeenth century, daily came hither for his ale, attended by a goat as thirsty as himself. One day, it is said, this goat drank well rather than wisely, and thenceforward declined to cross the threshold of the "Castle" with its master. One may hope that the Vicar learnt a lesson from the goat.