As the villager went on his way a little distance, what should meet him but a man of insane appearance, and with nothing on but his shirt. As he saw the man making full pelt for the waters of the lake, he rushed at him to prevent him from proceeding any further. But as to the sequel there is some doubt: one version makes the villager conduct the man back about a mile from the lake to a farm house called Dyffrydan, which was on the former's way home. Others seem to think that the man in his shirt rushed irresistibly into the lake, and this I have no doubt comes nearer the end of the story in its original form. Lately I have heard a part of a similar story about Llyn Cynnwch, which has already been mentioned, p. 135, above. My informant is Miss Lucy Griffith, of Glynmalden, near Dolgelley, a lady deeply interested in Welsh folklore and Welsh antiquities generally. She obtained her information from a Dolgelley ostler, formerly engaged at the Ship Hotel, to the effect that on Gwyl Galan, 'the eve of New Year's Day,' a person is seen walking backwards and forwards on the strand of Cynnwch Lake, crying out:--
The ostler stated also that lights are to be seen on Cader Idris on the eve of New Year's Day, whatever that statement may mean. The two lake stories seem to suggest that the Lake Spirit was entitled to a victim once a year, whether the sacrifice was regarded as the result of accident or design. By way of comparison, one may mention the notion, not yet extinct, that certain rivers in various parts of the kingdom regularly claim so many victims: for some instances at random see an article by Mr. J. M. Mackinlay, on Traces of River Worship in Scottish Folklore, a paper published in the Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland, 1895-6, pp. 69-76. Take for example the following rhyme:--
Tweed said to Till 'What gars ye rin sae still?' Till said to Tweed 'Though ye rin wi' speed
An' I rin slaw, Yet whar ye droon ae man I droon twa.'
In the neighbourhood of Ystrad Meurig, between the Teifi and the Ystwyth basins, almost everybody can relate tales about the fairies, but not much that is out of the ordinary run of such stories elsewhere. Among others, Isaac Davies, the smith living at Ystrad Meurig, had heard a great deal about fairies, and he said that there were rings belonging to them in certain fields at Tan y Graig and at Llanafan. Where the rings were, there the fairies danced until the ground became red and bare of grass. The fairies were, according to him, all women, and they dressed like foreigners, in short cotton dresses reaching only to the knee-joint. This description is somewhat peculiar, as the idea prevalent in the country around is, that the fairy ladies had very long trains, and that they were very elegantly dressed; so that it is a common saying there, that girls who dress in a better or more showy fashion than ordinary look like Tylwyth Teg, and the smith confessed he had often heard that said. Similarly Howells, pp. 113, 121-2, finds the dresses of the fairies dancing on the Freni, in the north-east of Pembrokeshire, represented as indescribably elegant and varying in colour; and those who, in the month of May, used to frequent the prehistoric encampment of Moedin [90] or Moydin--from which a whole cantred takes its name in Central Cardiganshire--as fond of appearing in green; while blue petticoats are said, he says, to have prevailed in the fairy dances in North Wales [91].