qualities of the gods of the Greeks, Egyptians,
and Orientals, and his name is applied by the Welsh poets of the middle
ages to the Supreme Being.

_Y Fuwch Gyfeiliorn_. _The Stray Cow_.

The history of the Fairy Stray Cow appears in _Y Brython_, vol. iii., pp.
183-4. The writer of the story states that he obtained his materials
from a Paper by the late Dr. Pugh, Penhelyg, Aberdovey. The article
alluded to by Gwilym Droed-ddu, the writer of the account in the
_Brython_, appeared in the _Archaeologia Cambrensis_ for 1853, pp. 201-5.
The tale, as given by Dr. Pugh, is reproduced by Professor Rhys in his
Welsh Fairy Tales, and it is much less embellished in English than in
Welsh. I will quote as much of the Doctor's account as refers to the
Stray Cow.

"A shrewd old hill farmer (Thomas Abergroes by name), well skilled in the
folk-lore of the district, informed me that, in years gone by, though
when, exactly, he was too young to remember, those dames (_Gwragedd
Annwn_) were wont to make their appearance, arrayed in green, in the
neighbourhood of Llyn Barfog, chiefly at eventide, accompanied by their
kine and hounds, and that, on quiet summer nights in particular, these
ban-hounds were often to be heard in full cry, pursuing their prey--the
souls of doomed men dying without baptism and penance--along the upland
township of Cefnrhosucha. Many a farmer had a sight of their comely,
milk-white kine; many a swain had his soul turned to romance and poesy by
a sudden vision of themselves in the guise of damsels arrayed in green,
and radiant in beauty and grace; and many a sportsman had his path
crossed by their white hounds of supernatural fleetness and comeliness,
the _Cwn Annwn_; but never had any one been favoured with more than a
passing view of either, till an old farmer residing at Dyssyrnant, in the
adjoining valley of Dyffryn Gwyn, became at last the lucky captor of one
of their milk-white kine. The acquaintance which the _Gwartheg y Llyn_,
the kine of the lake, had formed with the farmer's cattle, like the loves
of the angels for the daughters of men, became the means of capture; and
the farmer was thereby enabled to add the mystic cow to his own herd, an
event in all cases believed to be most conducive to the worldly
prosperity of him who should make so fortunate an acquisition. Never was
there such a cow, never were there such calves, never such milk and
butter, or cheese; and the fame of the _Fuwch Gyfeili