ignan. She used to
appear and shriek on one of the castle towers as often as the head of
the family, or a King of France, was to die, or when any disaster was
about to happen to the realm, or to the town of Luxemburg. She was also
the author of certain presages of plenty or famine. Similar legends are
told of the castles of Argouges and Ranes in Normandy. If the Irish
Banshee tales could be minutely examined, it is probable that they would
resolve themselves into stories of supernatural ancestresses. To the
Vila of the Illyrian story, and the fairy of Sir Francis Palgrave's
Spanish story, noble families attribute their origin. A family in the
Tirol is descended from the lady who insisted on her husband's pouring
water with his right hand; and the members of a noble Greek family have
the blood of a Nereid in their veins.[232]

Though the heroine of the Van Pool might never return to her husband,
she was drawn back to earth by the care of her three sons, who, by means
of her instructions, became celebrated physicians. On one occasion she
accompanied them to a place still called Pant-y-Meddygon (the hollow, or
dingle, of the physicians), and there pointed out to them the various
herbs which grew around, and revealed their medicinal virtues. It is
added that, in order that their knowledge should not be lost, the
physicians wisely committed the same to writing for the benefit of
mankind throughout all ages. A collection of medical recipes purporting
to be this very work still exists in a manuscript preserved at Jesus
College, Oxford, which is now in course of publication by Professor Rhys
and Mr. J. Gwenogvryn Evans, and is known as the Red Book of Hergest. An
edition of the "Meddygon Myddfai," as this collection is called, was
published by the Welsh MSS. Society thirty years ago, with an English
translation. It professes to have been written under the direction of
Rhiwallon the Physician and his sons Kadwgan, Gruffydd, and Einion; and
they are called "the ablest and most eminent of the physicians of their
time and of the time of Rhys Gryg, their lord, and the lord of Dinevor,
the nobleman who kept their rights and privileges whole unto them, as
was meet." This nobleman was Prince of South Wales in the early part of
the thirteenth century; and his monumental effigy is in the cathedral
of St. David's. Mr. Gwenogvryn Evans, than whom there is no higher
authority, is of opinion that the manuscript was written at the end of
the