of giants of incredible bulk and strength, that the very existence of such a race of people has been much questioned. It has been asserted that the stature of man has been ever the same in all ages, and some Scotch mathematicians have even pretended to demonstrate the mathematical impossibility of giants; but, in the scripture, we are told of giants, who were produced by the marriages of the sons of God with the daughters of men. This passage, indeed, has been differently interpreted, so as to render it doubtful whether the word translated giants, does there imply any extraordinary stature. On this point I should observe that the Welsh word for a giant, cawr," very nearly resembles the Hebrew 66 ceuer," which has the same signification; and that cawr, and its plural cowras, give us the probable etymology of the three English words, to cower, to cow, and coward; for the ordinary race of men must necessarily have been cowed, have cowered, and become cowards, before these monstrous giants, who were of such vastly superior size and force. Hence also, the Welsh word, curian, decidere in talos, to fall down back upon one's knees,-a position naturally induced by the intimidation of a giant. But whatever interpretation may be given to this passage in the Bible, there are other parts of scripture, however, which designate giants with their dimensions in so specific a manner, that we cannot possibly doubt, as in the instance of Og, king of Basan, and of Goliah, and his brethren.

Monsieur Le Cat, in a memoir read before the Academy of Sciences at Rouen in France, has given a very full account of most of the giants mentioned by authors, both in ancient and modern times; among these, however, he takes no notice of our Welsh giants, though he, of course, has not forgotten to enumerate the two giants slain by the nephew of Charlemagne, of whom mention is also made in the Welsh history of that prince, in the passage beginning with,

"Ac a phedawr rhefawg y rhwymid Oliver," &c.

And with four ropes they bound Oliver, &c.

The origin of the giants of Wales may be traced back even to an antediluvian source. In the 10th chapter of Genesis, among the sons of Japheth are mentioned Gomer and Magog, and in the fifth verse we are told, that

"By these were the Isles of the Gentiles divided in their lands," &c.

The descendants of Gomer were the Gomerii, and afterwards the letter g being changed into c, of which there are a number of similar instances in the Celtic dialects, they were called Cymmerii, and at last, as are the modern Welsh at this day, Cymry.

Gogledd also, which in the ancient British signifies the north, has a direct reference to the land of Gog.

The names of the three Titanian giants, Cottus, Briareus, and Gyges, are evidently of Celtic origin. Cottus, from coed or coet, the Welsh for a wood or mountain forest; and the ancients describe a race of shepherds, in primitive Europe, as giants, who dwelt in the forests or mountains. From Cottus came the Cotti, Yscotti, Scoti, or Scotch, though our great English lexicographer, Dr. Johnson, would not probably have admitted this derivation of Scotland from coed or coet, a wood, after having told us, in his Tour to the Hebrides, that he could discover no trees in that country.

Briareus comes from Breyr, (in the plural Breyrau,) the Welsh for a baron, nobleman, or occupier of a fortified castle.

Gyges from Ogygia, the name by which Plutarch distinguishes Ireland, and which was probably the Ogygia of Homer, as he describes this country as situated, in a remote part of the world, upon seas unknown.

It has been well observed by the learned author of the CelticResearches, that in a rude state of society, which regarded the prevalence of brute force as the supreme law, a superior degree of bodily strength would necessarily create a distinction of rank, and must, therefore, have been a desirable object. He that was possessed of this qualification, would of course be constituted the leader of a band, and thus acquire the exercise of supreme dominion. The surest means of perpetuating such a distinction amongst his children, must have been to select for his consort the stoutest and most robust of the females. Such a choice, frequently repeated, could not fail of producing in the human race the same effect which experience ascertains in the brute creationthe enlargement and improvement of the species. What we read of the ancient Germans, and, indeed, of their modern descendants under Frederick the Great, sufficiently proves the practicability of aggrandizing the human form beyond its ordinary dimensions. Thus the existence and continuance of a race of men superior to the common standard in size and stature may be very easily accounted for, but we have no documents which inform us when these Welsh Titanians ceased to procreate procerity.

Mr. Bulwer's last novel of Eugene Aram has recalled to the memory of the public, the history of this extraordinary man, who was executed for a murder committed more than fourteeen years before his conviction. It is not, perhaps, very generally known, that he spent the greater portion of this long interval of time, in collecting and arranging the materials of a Celtic Lexicon, and also, a very elaborate dissertation on the legends and traditions of all the different branches of the great Celtic family; comprising, the Welsh, Scotch, Armoric, and Waldensic. In the latter work,

he has deduced the origin of the whole heathen mythology from the institutions of our Celtic ancestors. To a pamphlet published soon after his execution, but now become extremely scarce, giving an account of his remarkable trial, and the whole of his learned and most ingenious defence, there are appended some copious extracts from these collections. If the original manuscripts have been preserved, they would prove an invaluable acquisition to any future compiler of similar works.

But the legends of Wales have not furnished materials to profane authors alone, for they have also been descanted upon by some of the ancient fathers of the church. St. Augustine in particular, in his "De Civitate Dei," alludes more than once to the then existing traditions of the Celtic giants; and in one of his sermons, the thirty-seventh of his discourses to his brethren in the desert, he further expressly mentions his having seen and conversed with men, 66 unum oculum tantum in fronte habentes," having only one eye in their foreheads. One certainly feels much more readily disposed to give credence to the existence of the Welsh giants, than to the reality of these monocular monsters!

I have dwelt longer on the subject of Welsh giants, than perhaps the limits of this essay would properly admit; because all the legends and traditions which relate to them are certainly founded on historic facts.

The Welsh legends may be divided into two classes, namely, into those which are exclusively peculiar to Wales, and those which are common to her, together with other countries.

Of the former number, after the giants, the Uchain Banog, or Ychain Banog, will claim our first attention.

The Uchain Banog, the large horned oxen, were some kind of animals formerly in Wales distinguished by their branching horns; probably either the Moose, the Elk, or the Bison. There is scarcely a lake in the Principality, but it is asserted by the neighbourhood to be the one out of which the Ychain Banog drew the Afanc, another terrible animal, supposed to be the beaver.

In the Triads of Caradawc, one of the three chief master-works of the island of Britain, is described to be "the drawing of the Afanc to land out of the lake by the branching-horned oxen of Hu Gadarn, so that the lake burnt no more.

Under the name of Hu Gadarn, we are told the Supreme Being is figured.

Originally Banog, probably, signified the lofty or mighty giant, from Ban, and Og Ban being high, lofty, or remarkable, and is frequently used to designate high mountains, as BananBrycheinog, or the Brecknock Van, Benllomond, and the high

lands of Tal-y-fan, in the counties of Glamorgan and Carmarthen.

The former existence of a race of animals of this description seems to be established by the monstrous fossile bones which have at different times been discovered in the earth in different parts of the island, and more particularly about three years ago in Gwent, at St. Arvan's, near Chepstow. These exuvia, were formerly supposed to be antediluvian remains of the world before the flood; but our modern geologists assert them to be of a date long posterior to the deluge. In further corroboration of the existence of a larger species of oxen than those now known, I should not omit to mention, that the Welsh had four different sorts of yokes for oxen, the names of which have still remained to us; namely, the Byr-iau, the Mai-iau, the Ceseliau, and the Hiriau, the jugum longum, or long yoke for cattle of extraordinary size. They are all mentioned in the laws of Howell Dda, and the learned Wotton has commented on them at considerable length.

There are not wanting several writers, however, who affect to disbelieve the reality of this gigantic breed of cattle. Both Phornutus, in his "De fabularum poeticarum allegoriis speculatio," an inquiry into the allegories of the fables of the poets; and Palephatus, in his Arora, sive de incredibilibus, on incredible things; declare themselves decidedly against their existence.

"Amen yr Uchain Banog;"

says Dafydd ap Edmund, who wrote in the year 1450.

The Afanc, if it be really the beaver, is an animal somewhat better known. Besides the frequent mention of this amphibious creature, as connected with the Banog, by many of the elder Welsh bards, Giraldus Cambriensis informs us, that in his time, that is in the year 1188, this animal was found in the river Teivi in Cardiganshire. Mr. Thomas Lewis, also, in his WelshEnglish Dictionary, published in 1815, further assures us, that the beaver had been seen within the memory of man, at Nant Francon, in Caernarvonshire. It is now entirely extinct, and we are supplied with its valuable furs from Canada and Hudson's Bay.

Why this harmless animal should ever have been described as an object of terror in our Welsh legends, it is difficult to conceive; unless, indeed, we are to suppose, that its amphibious habits, its extraordinary sagacity, and the strong resemblance of its cry to the voice of an infant, might have inspired our credulous and superstitious ancestors with a sort of mysterious dread; to which its dusky colour may also, perhaps, have not a little contributed.

In Captain Franklin's Travels in North America, lately pub

lished, he tells us, that an English gentleman went out in that country to shoot beavers, but on approaching a troop of them, who were frisking and frolicking about for their amusement, he was so much struck with the close resemblance of their sportive plays and innocent cries to the infantine voices and gambols of his own little children, that he stopped short, and could not find in his heart to level his gun at them: the feelings of this humane sportsman are, indeed, to be envied!

From the Afanc, I shall only extract his fang, for the purposes of etymology; though Johnson, as usual, assigns this word a Saxon origin.

Of other races of animals mentioned in our Welsh legends, and proved by other circumstances to have once existed in their wild state of nature in Wales, we have yet to mention the bear, the wolf, the wild pig, and the deer.

The earliest mention made of the bear is in the legend of "Gwrnerth Ergydlym," printed in the Welsh Archæology, vol. ii. p. 68; we are there told that "Gwrnerth Ergydlym a lladdes yr arth mwyaf erioed a saeth wellten," that is, "the keen-darting man of strength, (perhaps the Cambrian title for Apollo,) slew the largest bear that was ever seen, with an arrow of straw."

What may be the meaning of this enigmatic "arrow of straw," it is now very difficult to form any conjecture; but it appears from several passages in Taliesin, that the Druids made use of straw-reeds, and the spicula, or points of certain trees, in all their sacred rites. The great bard particularly tells us,

"I have been in the city of Felenydd, or Belenydd, whither the straws and sprigs were hastening."

The delivery of straw from one person to another was the solemn form of contracting an engagement among the Celts: and the author of the Celtic Researches very properly observes, that it is probably in allusion to this mode of contract that the Latins used the word stipulor, in their language, to signify, to agree, to contract, to stipulate, from stipula, a straw. So, also, in the same manner, they formed fœdus, fœderis, a treaty, or compact, from the Irish-Celtic, foder, straw, (whence the English fodder ;) and the Welsh-Celtic, fydd, faith; the latter word being derived from fwyd, or bwyd, (i. e.) food, the wheat straw, or stalks furnishing mankind with the principal article of their subsistence -the staff of life.

As the delivery or exchange of a wheat-straw constituted the