all kinds of myths and legends. Many of the
professedly Christian Welsh bards when speaking of the Deity have called
Him Hu, and ascribed to the Creator the actions of the creature. Their
doing so, however, can cause us but little surprise when we reflect that
the bards down to a very late period cherished a great many druidical and
heathen notions, and frequently comported themselves in a manner more
becoming heathens than Christian men. Of the confounding of what is
heavenly with what is earthly we have a remarkable instance in the ode of
Iolo Goch to the ploughman, four lines of which, slightly modified, we
have given above. In that ode the ploughman is confounded with the
Eternal, and the plough with the rainbow:--

'The Mighty Hu who reigns for ever,
Of mead and song to men the giver,
The emperor of land and sea
And of all things which living be,
Did hold a plough with his good hand,
Soon as the deluge left the land,
To show to men, both strong and weak,
The haughty hearted and the meek,
There is no trade the heaven below
So noble as to guide the plough.'

To the Deity under the name of Hu there are some lines by one Rhys, a
Welsh bard of the time of Queen Elizabeth, though they are perhaps more
applicable to the Universal Pan or Nature than to the God of the
Christians:--

'If with small things we Hu compare,
No smaller thing than Hu is there,
Yet greatest of the great is He,
Our Lord, our God of Mystery;
How swift he moves! a lucid ray,
A sunbeam wafts him on his way;
He's great on land, and great on ocean,
Of one more great I have no notion;
I dread lest I should underrate
This being, infinitely great.'

{22} The poetical translations in this notice are taken from Borrow's
'Songs of Europe.'

{25a}

'Oedd balch gwalch golchiad ei lain,
Oedd beilch gweilch gweled ei werin.'

In this couplet there is three-fold rhyme. We have the alliteration of
lch in the first line:--

'ba_lch_ gwa_lch_ go_lch_iad;'

and of the _w_ in the second:--

'g_w_eilch g_w_eled _w_erin;'

secondly, we have the rhymes of balch and gwalch; and thirdly, the
rhyming at the lines' ends.

{25b} Of this celebrated place we are permitted to extract the following
account from Mr. Borrow's unpublished work, 'Celtic Bards, Chiefs, and
Kings':--

'After wandering for many miles towards the south, over a bleak moory
country, you come to