The new Government, and even the great Protector himself, despite his Welsh descent, cared nothing for Wales as a separate nation; and the national spirit would have fared badly but for a small band of true patriots, the foremost of whom was Morgan Llwyd. This wonderful man was born at Cynfal, a substantial farmhouse situated in one of the most romantic of Merionethshire glens, in the year 1619; and he died in 1659. His life, short as it was, marks the transition from the old Wales to the new, from the condition of poverty, strife, and degrading superstition, to that of freedom, peace, and progress. With the execution of John Roberts of Trawsfynydd, in 1610, perished the last champion of Popery in Wales. With the death of Morgan's own grandfather Huw Llwyd, somewhere about 1630, ended the {192} famous line of poet-magicians who dominated the Welsh mind during the Middle Ages. This Huw Llwyd was, in many respects, a very remarkable man. For many years he had fought on the Continent, in the religious wars of the age; then in his declining years had come to Cynfal, to be the admiration and the terror of his simple neighbours. A belief in witchcraft was then fairly general; and Huw was credited with the possession of unusually extensive authority over the agents of the lower world. In this there was nothing incompatible with a reputation for strict morality, and even sanctity, as one of the very traditions which have been handed down clearly shows. One day Huw was enjoying himself in a tavern in the neighbouring village of Maentwrog. Through the window he descried his friend Archdeacon Edmund Prys go by. Putting his head through the window, he warmly invited him to come in and enjoy the good cheer. The reverend man seems to have been scandalized at the thought; and to show his displeasure he immediately caused two, long horns to grow out of the luckless Huw's head, so that he was unable to withdraw it from the window. Not to be outdone, Huw, that same evening, ordered {193} certain of the devils over whom he had control, to dip the Archdeacon in the mill stream which ran past his house. Such were the merry pranks which parsons and poets played upon each other in early seventeenth-century Wales!