"Yes" said the boy, "they'll all use the same English words; if
they didn't the horses wouldn't mind them."
"What a triumph," thought I, "for the English language that the
Welsh carters are obliged to have recourse to its oaths and
execrations to make their horses get on!"
I said nothing more to the boy on the subject of language, but
again asked him the name of the crag. "It is called Craig y
Gorllewin," said he. I thanked him, and soon left him and his team
far behind.
Notwithstanding what the boy said about the milk-and-water
character of native Welsh oaths, the Welsh have some very pungent
execrations, quite as efficacious, I should say, to make a horse
get on as any in the English swearing vocabulary. Some of their
oaths are curious, being connected with heathen times and Druidical
mythology; for example that Cas Andras, mentioned by the boy, which
means hateful enemy or horrible Andras. Andras or Andraste was the
fury or Demigorgon of the Ancient Cumry, to whom they built temples
and offered sacrifices out of fear. Curious that the same oath
should be used by the Christian Cumry of the present day, which was
in vogue amongst their pagan ancestors some three thousand years
ago. However, the same thing is observable amongst us Christian
English: we say the Duse take you! even as our heathen Saxon
forefathers did, who worshipped a kind of Devil so called, and
named a day of the week after him, which name we still retain in
our hebdomadal calendar like those of several other Anglo-Saxon
devils. We also say: Go to old Nick! and Nick or Nikkur was a
surname of Woden, and also the name of a spirit which haunted fords
and was in the habit of drowning passengers.
Night came quickly upon me after I had passed the swearing lad.
However, I was fortunate enough to reach Llan Rhyadr, without
having experienced any damage or impediment from Diawl, Andras,
Duse, or Nick.
CHAPTER LXIX
Church of Llan Rhyadr - The Clerk - The Tablet - Stone - First View
of the Cataract.
THE night was both windy and rainy like the preceding one, but the
morning which followed, unlike that of the day before, was dull and
gloomy. After breakfast I walked out to take another view of the
little town. As I stood looking at the church a middle-aged man of
a remarkably intelligent countenance came up and asked me if I
should like to see the inside. I told him I should, whereupon he
said that he was the clerk and would admit me with pleasure.
Taking a key out of his pocket he unlocked the door of the church
and we went in.
