The Canwyll Corph, or corpse candles, are mysterious lights, which, by some superhuman and invisible means, follow, in the night after a funeral, the same track to the churchyard through which the body of the deceased was, during the day, carried to the grave. The writer well remembers in his early youth being taught to believe that he actually saw these funereal lights as they seemed to flit before him along the devious path. The Cwn Annwn are the hell hounds which hunt through the air the soul of the wicked man, the instant it quits the body. There is something extremely terrific in this idea, which produces an astonishing effect on the superstitious feelings of the vulgar. It has been supposed by a late writer,* and with great probability of truth, that the popular tales of the howling of the Cwn Annwn, are to be attributed to the noises made in the air by the wild geese or other birds of passage, in their dusky flight from one country to another. This certainly seems the most rational way of accounting for the extraordinary stories we hear on this subject, in almost every mountain village. The mention of the legends of the Canwyll Corph, reminds me that the Welsh word canwyll, is the radix of the English candle, the French chandelle, and the Latin candela; neither of which admit of any rational or satisfactory analysis; whilst canwyll can be resolved into its primary elements, can, white or bright, and gwyll, darkness, because it makes darkness white or to shine. After these appalling aerial noises and supernatural appearances, that mysterious and magic personage, the fury Andras, or magician Malen, for she is known by both names, claims a moment of our attention, not only on account of the many legends and traditions respecting her, but also because to this day the inhabitants of Wales make frequent allusions to her in their familiar conversation. Richards+ says, "The goddess or fury, Andrasta, to whom the ancient Britons offered up human sacrifices; she was otherwise known by the name of Malen or Maalen, and the vulgar often call her Y Fall, i. e. the false or evil one, and Mam y Drwg, or the mother of wickedness." Baxter, in his Glossary, page 16, makes this mention of her: "Etiam hodie Andras populari dicto Britannis nostris Dea Malen, sive Domina, quam vulgus nostrum nunc appellitat Y Fall, sive Faunam fatuam, et Mamy Drwg, seu Diaboli matrem, alias Y Wrach,' sive Matrem vetulam. Andrastæ autem isti Britanni veteres humanas hostias immaniter immolebant." Mr. Baxter further supposes that the memory of this Andras * Mr. Theophilus Jones, in his History of Brecknockshire. + Antiquæ Linguæ Britannica Thesaurus, by Thomas Richards; Bristol, 1753. remains among us to this very day, for he observes that men, when in a passion, frequently exclaim, " mae rhyw Andras arno chwi," some Andras possesses you; and again, “Ffei Andras!” This Andras or Malen is feigned to have had a magic horse, on the back of which witches are said to have been carried through the air, whence sprung the proverbial expression, "a gasgler ar farch Malen dan ei dor ydd a," that is, "what is got on the back of Malen's horse will be soon spent under his belly." From hence we have the old English proverb, "what is got on the devil's back is spent under his belly." It is curious to observe, how almost all the old English fairy tales and proverbial expressions have their origin in some ancient Welsh legend or tradition. It appears that our Welsh ancestors were always much addicted to the study of magic, astrology, and all the mysteries of the Rosicrucian philosophy. Wood, in his Athenæ, gives us the following curious list of books, published by a Breconshire gentleman, Mr. Thomas Vaughan, of Tretower, third son of William Vaughan, by his wife Lady Frances Somerset, so late as the sixteenth century. First, we have the "Anima magica abcondita," or "a Discourse of the Universal Spirit of Nature, with the strange, abstruse, and miraculous Ascent and Descent:" London, 1650, octavo. Then we have the "Anthroposophia Theomagica, or "a Discourse of the Nature of Man, and his State after Death" London, 1640. Thirdly, we are presented with the "Magia Adamica," or " the Antiquity of Magic, and the descent thereof from Adam fully proved:" 1650. And, as if this was not enough, there is also printed with it, another little mystic tract, entitled "A perfect and full discovery of the Cœlum Terræ," or "the Magician's Heavenly Chaos," &c. Without going through the whole of this singular catalogue of our countryman's productions in the black art, I shall only further mention the "Lumen de Lumine," or "the Light of Light, and the " Euphrates," or "the Waters of the East, being a short Account of the Secret Fountain, whose Water flows from Fire," &c. All these may be considered as so many magical, mystic, and metaphysical legends. For the satisfaction of those who may feel any inclination to consult this oracle of the occult sciences, I will only add, that all these books are preserved in the Bodleian Library at Oxford, and I believe also in the British Museum. To recur to the general division of my subject with which I commenced, after having enumerated some of the legendary and traditionary tales of Wales which are peculiar to herself, I must now observe that she also abounds in those which are shared by other countries of Europe in common with her. Among our Welsh manuscripts may be found a great number of legends of that description which are known on the continent by the name of "Romances of Chivalry," in which history and fable were strangely blended together for the amusement of our ancestors. Of this class, the most distinguished are the San Greal; the Knights of the Round Table; the Bruty Tywysogion; and a series of chivalric romances descriptive of Charlemagne and his twelve peers, under the title of Historia Caroli Magni, although written in the Welsh language. It appears that our Welsh bards went about from castle to castle reciting these romances, as was the custom with the Provençal troubadours, and the northern trouveres in France. Of those legends which comprise the lives and miracles of the saints, such, for instance, as the "Y Fernagl," the Sudarium Sanctum, or miraculous impression of the sacred effigies on the holy handkerchief, I shall make no mention, conceiving it would be irreverent and altogether improper to mingle things sacred with profane. Although I have as yet but very slightly touched on some few only out of the great number of the legends and traditions which crowd together on my memory, yet I find I have already trespassed largely on your indulgence, having approached those limits usually allotted to papers of this description: I must, therefore, entirely omit all the traditionary stories of the "Eirw;" of the "Lysan Gwaed Gwyr," or herb of the blood of men; of the "Carnau;" of the "Plant Annwn," or children of the deep; and a hundred of a similar description. I shall only record that the hollow roar of the Eirw, like the fall of a distant cataract, is still heard to murmur in the mountains; that the Llysau* Gwaer Gwyd, the plant of the blood of men; the Sambucus Ebulus, or English dwarf elder; is even now seen to thrive in those spots where bloody battles are said to have been fought in ancient times; and that the carneddau, by pointing out to us at this day these fields of carnage, have proved the most durable military monuments in the world. Such, indeed, is the redundancy of legendary tales and traditionary stories in the Principality, and so pregnant with matter, so richly expressive is her ancient language, that almost every word in it, more especially the dissyllables and polysyllables, involves either a legend, an historical fact, an invention, a moral precept, a proverb, a prudential maxim, or a poetical allegory, illustrative of its etymology. * Llysau is plural for plant. CASGLWR. ON THE ARTIFICIAL CULTURE OF TRUFFLES IN WOODS, ORCHARDS, AND GARDENS; MORE PARTICULARLY IN THE CWMS (DINGLES), AND LLWYNS (GROVES) OF THE PRINCIPALITY. Honos erit huic quoque pomo.-VIRG. THE ignorance of any mode of raising Truffles by artificial culture has long been a subject of reproach to modern horticulture. The secret, however, is at length discovered, and the attainment of this desideratum may justly be deemed one of the greatest victories ever yet obtained by art over nature. After more than a century lost in fruitless attempts, the first successful experiments have been made in Italy. From thence the art passed into France, and more recently into Germany, always with the same happy results; and it may now be safely asserted, that this precious tuber may be propagated by means of artificial culture, if not with equal facility, at least with the same certainty of success, as the mushroom. Indeed, our great English botanist, Ray, has described the Trufle by the designation of" the subterraneous mushroom." It is from the treatise of a German on this subject, Alexander de Bornhobz, that we have principally collected our materials for this paper; and as the work has not yet, as far as we know, been translated into English, it will at least have the recommendation of novelty in its favor. That plants have their predilections and their aversions, their sympathies and their antipathies, has long been known. A cen tury has now passed since Philips told us, in Miltonian verse, that "The prudent will observe what passions reign The colewort's rankness, but with am'rous twine, Close neighbouring. The Herefordian plant Or walnut, (whose malignant touch impairs Philips's Cyder. But it was not until very lately discovered that, in addition to the many other valuable properties of the oak, it possesses the singular quality of impregnating, in certain situations, the soil beneath its shade, with the prolific faculty of producing and propagating truffles, provided the earth be sufficiently saturated with the quercine matter. The two essential requisites for the formation of an artificial trufle bed, are a moist and shaded situation, though not altogether impervious to the sun, and a profusion of oak leaves. From the comparative moisture of our climate and soil, it may fairly be presumed that England, and more particularly Wales, possesses superior advantages over other countries for the cultivation of this new article of home production; and we may anticipate the period when our Cambrian groves of lofty oak will become as celebrated for the nurture and protection they will be made to afford to this luxurious esculent, as they have formerly been famed in the olden time, from their having formed the living temples of the Druids. One of the many advantages which the artificial culture of trufles must introduce into this country will be the extension of the spade husbandry, and the consequently more extended employment of the labouring poor. Not that we are not fully aware that the spade might, beneficially to the public, and profitably to the owners and occupiers of the soil, be substituted for the plough in the preparatory tillage for raising many articles of ordinary domestic consumption, such as the parsnip, the carrot, the potato, the rhubarb plant, and a long et cætera of culinary vegetables; perhaps, also for wheat itself, if, according to the system of Tull, we are to believe that the more complete the communication of the soil, the proportionably greater will be the returns; so much so, as in many cases to dispense with the necessity for manure, and always to compensate the dif * Tull's Horse-hoeing Husbandry. |