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166 CYMRÜ PU. May 5th, 1888. ing interest in his own plans Lhat 1»ö in- sisted on passing them there and then, with altnost the impression of infallibility stamped on each rule. The grander old metres of Glamorgan were thus tlirust aside as useless and obsolete, except that the chief bards of that chaîr declared publicly they would not give them up, and they kept their word with a considerable amount of faith and tenacious resolve, and worked with double assurance andindustry until time gave them their sweet revenge î When a bard—the Bard of Wales —appeared at the end of the seventeenth century Goronwy Owen pronounced in favour of the old system. He was the ereatest bard and the íinest Welsh scholar Wales ever produced; and he wrote to inform his f riends that he would like to see the true primitive inetres reinstated in their former dignity and sense regarded more than a hideous jingle of words. And this frotn North Wales, from among the followers of those who more than three hundred yeais before had written Ichabod over tha door of the Bardic Temple of Tir Iarll ! Men pass away, systems change and die, but principles live for ever. The spirits of Llawdden and Gwilym Tew rejoiced in Paradise that the metres in which they had sung theirsacred cantDS had been resurrected and wel- comed in their prison garbs, even in the land of Pwllygwepra t I believe it is possible to find out the namesof severalof the bards who took part in the eisteddfod of Penrhys Monastery, under the uresidency of Owain Glyndwr. However, itis a fact that in the year 1414 Henry V., to revenge on the friars and bards in particular, and the people of Gwent and Morganwg in general, ordered the complete de- molishment of Penrhys Monastery. The old building was destroyed, the monks perished in the persecution, but the chair-poem of Penrhys Eisteddfod is still read, the Welsh language still floutishes, and the patriotic fire which burnt in the bosoms of the bards and f riars of Penrhys still burus in tbe hearts of their brave country- men and descendants of some of tbem on the bills and in the valleys of fair Morganwg. Four hundred and seventy-four years ago Henry V.'s army of destruction marched up the Valley of the Rhondda. The fiames and smoke ascending from the Welsh Monastery of Penrhys soon testified to the fidelity with which the king's command wascarried out and the manner in which their work of destruction and revenge had been performed. The peace of Penrhys was not restored entirely for centuries, as the "History of the Penrhys Robbers " proves. But more of this in the article on " Buried Treasures in Glamorgan." MAY 5, 1888. NOTES. THE SIN-EATER (ante Feb. 25. 1888).—I find in a volume of Blachwood's (Nov., 1875) a little more information on this interesting superstition The writer says :— '• The Scapegoat is a dark and narrow supersti- tion still surviving in North and Souih Wales and the Borders. It is hard to say which is the most degraded, the employers or the employed in the transaction. (A man who gains his livíng by sucli services, is hired when a iuneral takes place, is given a loaf of bread and a maple bowl of beer or tnilk, and a sixpence, for which he bears away all the sins of the deceased and prevents him or her walking after death.) The scapesoat in this case is currently called a ' Sin-eater.' Of such it would be no stretch of imagination to believe that like Sion-y-Cuit, the Welsh Faust, they had sold them- selves to the devil." M. E. C. F. WEAPONS OF THE CELTS IN THE YEAR 55 B.C. —The defensive arms of the Celtic inhabi- tants of Britain who opposed Csesar's landing seem to have been the round target and the upright shield; the leaf-shaped sword and the dagger; the lance with bronze head; the bow and arrow pointed with flint, or, it may be, bronze in some instances; the heavy club loaded with stone, attached by a thong of hide, and also the sling ; the Celt used as a battle-axe, of which there were different types; the torque, which protected the throat and neck; and the armillee, shielding the vulnerable part of the right arm, which used the weapon oí defence fP-12, Roman Britain, by the Rev. H. M. Scarth, M.A., published by the Society for Piomoting Christian Rnowledge.] An Old Volunteer. QUERIES. "ELIGOGS."—I have lately been presented with a basket of vari-coloured eggs, respecting which I should be obliged if a Cymru Fu corre- spondent in the neighbourhood of Haverfordwest, whence they came, could give me a little informa- tion. They are in size about two inches long, and locally are called "Eligogs." What kind of birds lay them, and is it true that they are hatched in the claws ? A. Ceihiog-Hoohes. Newcastle-on'Tyne. IOAN CAIN CEIRIOG.—Can any of the nume- rous Bards and readers of the Cym.ru Fu column,