VI.

Stones standing at cross-roads are seldom without some superstitious legend. A peasant pointed out to me, on a mountain-top near Crumlyn, Monmouthshire, a cross-roads stone, beneath which, he asserted, a witch sleeps by day, coming forth at night. 'Least they was say so,' he explained, with a nervous look about him, 'but there you! _I_ was never see anything, an' I was pass by there many nights--yes, indeed, often.' The man's eagerness to testify against the truth of the tradition was one of the most impressive illustrations possible of lingering superstitious awe in this connection.

A famous Welsh witch, who used to sleep under a stone at Llanberis, in North Wales, was called Canrig Bwt, and her favourite dish at dinner was children's brains. A certain criminal who had received a death-sentence was given the alternative of attacking this frightful creature, his life to be spared should he succeed in destroying her. Arming himself with a sharp sword, the doomed man got upon the stone and called on Canrig to come out. 'Wait till I have finished eating the brains in this sweet little skull,' was her horrible answer. However, forth she came presently, when the valiant man cut off her head at a blow. To this day they scare children thereabout with the name of Canrig Bwt.