n of a
journey which he had made through the air with the Fairies. Addressing
these beings, he says:--"Atolwg, lan gynnulleidfa, yr wyf yn deall mai
rhai o bell ydych, a gymmerwch chwi Fardd i'ch plith sy'n chwennych
trafaelio?" which in English is--"May it please you, comely assembly, as
I understand that you come from afar, to take into your company a Bard
who wishes to travel?"

The poet's request is granted, and then he describes his aerial passage
in these words:--

"Codasant fi ar eu hysgwyddau, fel codi Marchog Sir; ac yna ymaith a ni
fel y gwynt, tros dai a thiroedd, dinasoedd a theyrnasoedd, a moroedd a
mynyddoedd, heb allu dal sylw ar ddim, gan gyflymed yr oeddynt yn hedeg."
This translated is:--

"They raised me on their shoulders, as they do a Knight of the Shire, and
away we went like the wind, over houses and fields, over cities and
kingdoms, over seas and mountains, but I was unable to notice
particularly anything, because of the rapidity with which they flew."

What the poet writes of his own flight with the Fairies depicts the then
prevailing notions respecting aerial journeys by Fairy agencies, and they
bear a striking resemblance to like stories in oriental fiction. That
the belief in this form of transit survived the days of _Bardd Cwsg_ will
be seen from the following tale related by my friend Mr. E. Hamer in his
Parochial Account of Llanidloes:--

_A Man Carried Through the Air by the Fairies_.

"One Edward Jones, or 'Ned the Jockey,' as he was familiarly called,
resided, within the memory of the writer, in one of the roadside cottages
a short distance from Llanidloes, on the Newtown road. While returning
home late one evening, it was his fate to fall in with a troop of
Fairies, who were not pleased to have their gambols disturbed by a
mortal. Requesting him to depart, they politely offered him the choice
of three means of locomotion, viz., being carried off by a 'high wind,
middle wind, or low wind.' The jockey soon made up his mind, and elected
to make his trip through the air by the assistance of a high wind. No
sooner had he given his decision, than he found himself whisked high up
into the air and his senses completely bewildered by the rapidity of his
flight; he did not recover himself till he came in contact with the
earth, being suddenly dropped in the middle of a garden near Ty Gough, on
the Bryndu road, many miles distant from the spot whence he started on
his aerial jour