III.

There is a curious legend regarding three stones which once stood on the top of Moelfre Hill, in Carnarvonshire, but which were long ago rolled to the bottom of the hill by 'some idle-headed youths' who dug them up. They were each about four feet high, standing as the corners of a triangle; one was red as blood, another white, and the third a pale blue. The tradition says that three women, about the time when Christianity first began to be known in Britain, went up Moelfre Hill on a Sabbath morning to winnow their corn. They had spread their winnowing sheet upon the ground and begun their work, when some of their neighbours came to them and reprehended them for working on the Lord's day. But the women, having a greater eye to their worldly profit than to the observance of the fourth commandment, made light of their neighbours' words, and went on working. Thereupon they were instantly transformed into three pillars of stone, each stone of the same colour as the dress of the woman in whose place it stood, one red, one white, and the third bluish.

Legends of the turning to stone of human beings occur in connection with many of the meini hirion (long stones). Near Llandyfrydog, Anglesea, there is a maenhir of peculiar shape. From one point of view it looks not unlike the figure of a humpbacked man, and it is called 'Carreg y Lleidr,' or the Robber's Stone. The tradition connected with it is that a man who had stolen the church Bible, and was carrying it away on his shoulder, was turned into this stone, and must stand here till the last trump sets him free.

At Rolldritch (Rhwyldrech?) there is or was a circle of stones, concerning which tradition held that they were the human victims of a witch who, for some offence, transformed them to this shape. In connection with this circle is preserved another form of superstitious belief very often encountered, namely, that the number of stones in the circle cannot be correctly counted by a mortal.[178]

It is noteworthy that the only creature which shares with man the grim fate of being turned to stone, in Welsh legends, is the serpent. The monkish account of St. Ceyna, one of the daughters of Prince Brychan, of Breconshire, relates that having consecrated her virginity to the Lord by a perpetual vow, she resolved to seek some desert place where she could give herself wholly up to meditation. So she journeyed beyond the river Severn, 'and there meeting a woody place, she made her request to the prince of that country that she might be permitted to serve God in that solitude. His answer was that he was very willing to grant her request, but that the place did so swarm with serpents that neither man nor beast could inhabit it. But she replied that her firm trust was in the name and assistance of Almighty God to drive all that poisonous brood out of that region. Hereupon the place was granted to the holy virgin, who, prostrating herself before God, obtained of him to change the serpents and vipers into stones. And to this day the stones in that region do resemble the windings of serpents, through all the fields and villages, as if they had been framed by the hand of the sculptor.' The scene of this legend is mentioned by Camden as being at a place near Bristol, called Keynsham, 'where abundance of that fossil called by the naturalists Cornu Ammonis is dug up.'

FOOTNOTE:

[178] Roberts, 'Camb. Pop. Ant.,' 220.