carters are obliged to have recourse to its oaths and execrations to make
their horses get on!"

I said nothing more to the boy on the subject of language, but again
asked him the name of the crag. "It is called Craig y Gorllewin," said
he. I thanked him, and soon left him and his team far behind.

Notwithstanding what the boy said about the milk-and-water character of
native Welsh oaths, the Welsh have some very pungent execrations, quite
as efficacious, I should say, to make a horse get on as any in the
English swearing vocabulary. Some of their oaths are curious, being
connected with heathen times and Druidical mythology; for example that
Cas Andras, mentioned by the boy, which means hateful enemy or horrible
Andras. Andras or Andraste was the fury or Demigorgon of the Ancient
Cumry, to whom they built temples and offered sacrifices out of fear.
Curious that the same oath should be used by the Christian Cumry of the
present day, which was in vogue amongst their pagan ancestors some three
thousand years ago. However, the same thing is observable amongst us
Christian English: we say the Duse take you! even as our heathen Saxon
forefathers did, who worshipped a kind of Devil so called, and named a
day of the week after him, which name we still retain in our hebdomadal
calendar like those of several other Anglo-Saxon devils. We also say: Go
to old Nick! and Nick or Nikkur was a surname of Woden, and also the name
of a spirit which haunted fords and was in the habit of drowning
passengers.

Night came quickly upon me after I had passed the swearing lad. However,
I was fortunate enough to reach Llan Rhyadr, without having experienced
any damage or impediment from Diawl, Andras, Duse, or Nick.

CHAPTER LXIX

Church of Llan Rhyadr--The Clerk--The Tablet--Stone--First View of the
Cataract.

The night was both windy and rainy like the preceding one, but the
morning which followed, unlike that of the day before, was dull and
gloomy. After breakfast I walked out to take another view of the little
town. As I stood looking at the church a middle-aged man of a remarkably
intelligent countenance came up and asked me if I should like to see the
inside. I told him I should, whereupon he said that he was the clerk and
would admit me with pleasure. Taking a key out of his pocket he unlocked
the door of the church and we went in. The inside was sombre, not so
much owing to the gloominess of the day as the heavi