a paper directing him to seek her
till the soles were worn out, and then he should find her again. By the
aid of a mantle of invisibility, and a chair which bore him where he
wished, he arrived in the nick of time to prevent her marriage with
another bridegroom. The proper reconciliation follows, and her true
husband bears her home in triumph. Not so happy was the hero of a
Corsican saga, who insisted on seeing his wife's naked shoulder and
found it nothing but bones--the skeleton of their love which he had thus
murdered.[197]

At the foot of the steep grassy cliffs of the Van Mountains in
Carmarthenshire lies a lonely pool, called Llyn y Fan Fach, which is the
scene of a variant of Melusina, less celebrated, indeed, but equally
romantic and far more beautiful. The legend may still be heard on the
lips of the peasantry; and more than one version has found its way into
print. The most complete was written down by Mr. William Rees, of Tonn
(a well-known Welsh antiquary and publisher), from the oral recitation
of two old men and a woman, natives of Myddfai, where the hero of the
story is said to have dwelt. Stated shortly, the legend is to the
following effect: The son of a widow who lived at Blaensawdde, a little
village about three-quarters of a mile from the pool, was one day
tending his mother's cattle upon its shore when, to his astonishment, he
beheld the Lady of the Lake sitting upon its unruffled surface, which
she used as a mirror while she combed out her graceful ringlets. She
imperceptibly glided nearer to him, but eluded his grasp and refused the
bait of barley bread and cheese that he held out to her, saying as she
dived and disappeared:

"Cras dy fara;
Nid hawdd fy nala!"
("Hard-baked is thy bread;
It is not easy to catch me!")

An offer of unbaked dough, or _toes_, the next day was equally
unsuccessful. She exclaimed:

"Llaith dy fara!
Ti ni fynna'."
("Unbaked is thy bread!
I will not have thee.")

But the slightly baked bread, which the youth subsequently took, by his
mother's advice, was accepted: he seized the lady's hand and persuaded
her to become his bride. Diving into the lake she then fetched her
father--"a hoary-headed man of noble mien and extraordinary stature, but
having otherwise all the force and strength of youth"--who rose from the
depths with _two_ ladies and was ready to consent to the match, provided
the young man could distinguish which of the tw