s threat, and returning thrust their swords into
the Baron's breast, and washed their hands in his heart's blood. This
act was followed by vigorous action, and the banditti were extirpated,
the females only remaining, and the descendants of these women are
occasionally still to be met with in Montgomeryshire and Merionethshire.

For the preceding information the writer is indebted to _Yr Hynafion
Cymreig_, pp. 91-94, _Archaeologia Cambrensis_, for 1854, pp. 119-20,
_Pennant_, vol. ii, pp. 225-27, ed. Carnarvon, and the tradition was told
him by the Revd. D. James, Vicar of Garthbeibio, who likewise pointed out
to him the very spot where the Baron was murdered.

But now, who were these _Gwylliaid_? According to the hint conveyed by
their name they were of Fairy parentage, an idea which a writer in the
_Archaeologia Cambrensis_, vol. v., 1854, p. 119, intended, perhaps, to
throw out. But according to _Brut y Tywysogion_, _Myf. Arch_., p. 706,
A.D. 1114, Denbigh edition, the _Gwylliaid Cochion Mawddwy_ began in the
time of Cadwgan ab Bleddyn ab Cynvyn.

From Williams's _Eminent Welshmen_, we gather that Prince Cadwgan died in
1110, A.D., and, according to the above-mentioned _Brut_, it was in his
days that the Gwylliaid commenced their career, if not their existence.

Unfortunately for this beginning of the red-headed banditti of Mawddwy,
Tacitus states in his Life of Agricola, ch. xi., that there were in
Britain men with red hair who he surmises were of German extraction. We
must, therefore, look for the commencement of a people of this
description long before the twelfth century, and the Llanfrothen legend
either dates from remote antiquity, or it was a tale that found in its
wanderings a resting place in that locality in ages long past.

From a legend recorded by _Giraldus Cambrensis_, which shall by and by be
given, it would seem that a priest named Elidorus lived among the Fairies
in their home in the bowels of the earth, and this would be in the early
part of the twelfth century. The question arises, is the priest's tale
credible, or did he merely relate a story of himself which had been
ascribed to some one else in the traditions of the people? If his tale
is true, then, there lived even in that late period a remnant of the
aborigines of the country, who had their homes in caves. The Myddvai
Legend in part corroborates this supposition, for that story apparently
belongs to the thirteenth century.

It is