a child or its mother either.

Early tradition attributes the building of Stonehenge to the power of
Merlin. It was believed that those mighty stones were whirled through the
air, at his command, from Ireland to Salisbury Plain; and that he arranged
them in the form in which they now stand, to commemorate for ever the
unhappy fate of three hundred British chiefs, who were massacred on that
spot by the Saxons.

At Abergwylly, near Carmarthen, is still shewn the cave of the prophet and
the scene of his incantations. How beautiful is the description of it
given by Spenser in his _Faerie Queene_! The lines need no apology for
their repetition here, and any sketch of the great prophet of Britain
would be incomplete without them:

"There the wise Merlin, whilom wont (they say,)
To make his wonne low underneath the ground,
In a deep delve far from the view of day,
That of no living wight he mote be found,
Whenso he counselled with his sprites encompassed round.

And if thou ever happen that same way
To travel, go to see that dreadful place;
It is a hideous, hollow cave, they say,
Under a rock that lies, a little space
From the swift Barry, tumbling down apace
Amongst the woody hills of Dynevoure;
But dare thou not, I charge, in any case,
To enter into that same baleful bower,
For fear the cruel fiendes should thee unwares devour!

But, standing high aloft, low lay thine eare,
And there such ghastly noise of iron chaines
And brazen caudrons thou shalt rombling heare,
Which thousand sprites with long-enduring paines
Doe tosse, that it will stun thy feeble braines;
And often times great groans and grievous stownds,
When too huge toile and labour them constraines;
And often times loud strokes and ringing sounds
From under that deep rock most horribly rebounds.

The cause, they say, is this. A little while
Before that Merlin died, he did intend
A brazen wall in compass, to compile
About Cayr Merdin, and did it commend
Unto these sprites to bring to perfect end;
During which work the Lady of the Lake,
Whom long he loved, for him in haste did send,
Who thereby forced his workmen to forsake,
Them bound till his return their labour not to slake.

In the mean time, through that false ladie's traine,
He was