Hordley, Ellesmere.
_Welsh Legend of the Redbreast._--According to my old nurse (a
Carmarthenshire woman), the redbreast, like Prometheus, is the victim
~philanthrôpou tropou~. Not only the babes in the wood, but
mankind at large, are indebted to these deserving favourites. How could
any child help regarding with grateful veneration the little bird with
bosom red, when assured--
"That far, far, far away is a land of woe, darkness, spirits
of evil, and _fire_. Day by day does the little bird bear in
his bill a drop of water to quench the flame. So near to the
burning stream does he fly, that his dear little feathers are
_scorched_: and hence he is named Bron-_rhuddyn_.[5] To serve
little children, the robin dares approach the Infernal Pit. No
good child will hurt the devoted benefactor of man. The robin
returns from the land of _fire_, and therefore he feels the
_cold_ of winter far more than his brother birds. He shivers
in the brumal blast; hungry, he chirps before your door. Oh!
my child, then, in gratitude throw a few crumbs to poor
red-breast."
Why, a Pythagorean would have eaten a peacock sooner than one of us
would have injured a robin.