No. 1. _Cron Annwn_.--When a storm sounds over the mountains, the Welsh
peasant will tell you that his ear discerns the howl of the _Cron Annwn_
mingling with that of the wind, yet as clearly distinct from it as is
the atmosphere in a diving-bell from that of the surrounding waters.
These dogs of Annwn, or "couriers of the air," are spirit hounds, who
hunt the souls of the dead; or, as occasionally said, they foretell, by
their expectant cries, the approaching death of some man of evil deeds.
Few have ever pretended to see them; for few, we presume, would linger
until they dawned on the sight; but they are described by Taliesin, and
in the _Mabinogion_, as being of a clear shining white, with red ears;
colouring which confirms the author of the _Mythology of the Ancient
Druids_ in the idea that these dogs were "a mystical transformation of
the Druids with their white robes and red tiaras." Popular superstition,
however, which must always attribute ugliness to an object of fear,
deems that they are either jet black, with eyes and teeth of fire, or of
a deep red, and dripping all over with gore. "The nearer," says the Rev.
Edmund Jones, "they are to a man, the _less_ their voice is, and the
farther the louder, sometimes swelling like the voice of a great hound,
or a blood-hound."
They are _sometimes_ accompanied by a female fiend, called _Malt y
nos_--Mathilda or Malen of the night, a somewhat ubiquitous character,
with whom we meet under a complication of names and forms.
Jones of Brecon, who tells us that the cry of the Cron Annwn is as
familiar to the inhabitants of Ystrad Fellte and Pont Neath-vaughan [in
Glamorganshire] as the watchman's rattle in the purlieus of Covent
Garden--for he lived in the days when watchmen and their rattles were
yet among the things of this world--considers that to these dogs, and
not to a Greek myth, may be referred the hounds, _Fury_, _Silver_,
_Tyrant_, &c., with which Prospero hunts his enemies "soundly," in the
_Tempest_. And they must recall to the minds of our readers the _wisk_,
_wisked_, or _Yesk_ hounds of Devon, which are described in the
_Athenæum_ for March 27. 1847, as well as the _Maisne Hellequin_ of
Normandy and Bretagne.
There has been much discussion respecting the signification of the word
_Annwn_, which has been increased by the very frequent mistake of
writing it _Anwn_, which means, _unknown_, _strange_, and is applied to
the people who dwell in the antipodes of the speaker; while _Annwn_ is
an adaptation of _annwfn_, a _bottomless_ or _immeasurable pit_,
_voidless_ {295} _space_, and also Hell. Thus we find, that when _Pwyl_,
or _Reason_, drives these dogs off their track, the owner comes up, and,
reproving him, declares that he is a crowned king, lord of Annwn and
Pendaran, i.e. chief of thunder. (See _Myth. Ant. Druids_, p. 418.)
This Prince of Darkness is supposed to be the spouse of Andraste, now
corrupted into Andras, and equivalent with _Malt y nos_, the Diana or
Hecate of the ancient Britons.
These dogs sometimes appear singly, on which occasions they sit by the
side of a stream, howling in so unearthly a manner, that the hapless man
who finds one in his path usually loses his senses. This seems to have a
connection with the "Manthe Doog" of the Isle of Man; but the tradition
is not, we suspect, genuine.
Seleucus.
No. 2. _Cyoeraeth or Gwrach-y-rhybin._--Another instance of the grand,
though gloomy superstitions of the Cymry, is that of the _Cyoeraeth_, or
hag of the mist, an awful being who is supposed to reside in the
mountain fog, through which her supernatural shriek is frequently heard.
She is believed to be the very personification of ugliness, with torn
and dishevelled hair, long black teeth, lank and withered arms and
claws, and a most cadaverous appearance; to this some add, wings of a
leathery and bat-like substance.
The name _Cy-oer-aeth_, the last two syllables of which signify
_cold-grief_, is most descriptive of the sad wail which she utters, and
which will, it is said, literally freeze the veins of those who hear it;
she is _rarely_ seen, but is heard at a cross-road, or beside a
stream--in the latter case she splashes the water with her
hands--uttering her lamentation, as if in allusion to the relatives of
those about to die. Thus, if a man hears her cry _fy nqwsaig, fy
nqwsaig_, &c., his wife will surely die, and he will be heard to mourn
in the same strain ere long; and so on with other cases. The cadence of
this cry can never be properly caught by any one who has not heard, if
not a Cyoeraeth, at least a native of Wales, repeat the strain. When
merely an inarticulate scream is heard, it is probable that the hearer
himself is the one whose death is fore-mourned.
Sometimes she is supposed to come like the Irish _banshee_, in a dark
mist, to the windows of those who have been long ill; when flapping her
wings against the pane, she repeats their names with the same prolonged
emphasis; and then it is thought that they must die.
It is this hag who forms the torrent beds which seam the mountain side;
for she gathers great stones in her cloak to make her ballast, when she
flies upon the storm; and when about to retire to her mountain cave, she
lets them drop progressively as she moves onwards, when they fall with
such an unearthly weight that they lay open the rocky sides of the
mountain.
In some parts of South Wales this hag of the mists either loses her
sway, or divides it with a more dignified personage, who, in the form of
an old man, and under the name of _Brenhin Llwyd_, the _grey king_, sits
ever silent in the mist.
Any one who has witnessed the gathering and downward rolling of a
genuine mountain fog must fully appreciate the spirit in which men first
peopled the cloud with such supernatural beings a those above described;
or with those which dimly, yet constantly, pervade the much-admired
_Legend of Montrose_.
Seleucus.
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