Being Particularly Attached To Family Descent, They Revenge With
Vehemence The Injuries Which May Tend To The Disgrace Of Their
Blood; and being naturally of a vindictive and passionate
disposition, they are ever ready to avenge not only recent but
Ancient affronts; they neither inhabit towns, villages, nor
castles, but lead a solitary life in the woods, on the borders of
which they do not erect sumptuous palaces, nor lofty stone
buildings, but content themselves with small huts made of the
boughs of trees twisted together, constructed with little labour
and expense, and sufficient to endure throughout the year. They
have neither orchards nor gardens, but gladly eat the fruit of both
when given to them. The greater part of their land is laid down to
pasturage; little is cultivated, a very small quantity is
ornamented with flowers, and a still smaller is sown. They seldom
yoke less than four oxen to their ploughs; the driver walks before,
but backwards, and when he falls down, is frequently exposed to
danger from the refractory oxen. Instead of small sickles in
mowing, they make use of a moderate-sized piece of iron formed like
a knife, with two pieces of wood fixed loosely and flexibly to the
head, which they think a more expeditious instrument; but since
"Segnius irritant animos demissa per aures,
Quam quae sunt oculis subjecta fidelibus,"
their mode of using it will be better known by inspection than by
any description. The boats (26) which they employ in fishing or in
crossing the rivers are made of twigs, not oblong nor pointed, but
almost round, or rather triangular, covered both within and without
with raw hides. When a salmon thrown into one of these boats
strikes it hard with his tail, he often oversets it, and endangers
both the vessel and its navigator. The fishermen, according to the
custom of the country, in going to and from the rivers, carry these
boats on their shoulders; on which occasion that famous dealer in
fables, Bleddercus, who lived a little before our time, thus
mysteriously said: "There is amongst us a people who, when they go
out in search of prey, carry their horses on their backs to the
place of plunder; in order to catch their prey, they leap upon
their horses, and when it is taken, carry their horses home again
upon their shoulders."
CHAPTER XVIII
Of the antiquity of their faith, their love of Christianity and
devotion
In ancient times, and about two hundred years before the overthrow
of Britain, the Welsh were instructed and confirmed in the faith by
Faganus and Damianus, sent into the island at the request of king
Lucius by pope Eleutherius, and from that period when Germanus of
Auxerre, and Lupus of Troyes, came over on account of the
corruption which had crept into the island by the invasion of the
Saxons, but particularly with a view of expelling the Pelagian
heresy, nothing heretical or contrary to the true faith was to be
found amongst the natives.
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