Page:Bird Haunts and Nature Memories - Thomas Coward (Warne, 1922).pdf/40

18 of rabbit, stock-dove and sheld-duck. The intertwisted, wide-spreading rootlets of the marram grass barely hold the shifting sand, but in the hollows between the dunes dwarf willow has a firmer hold; bees hum amidst the yellow catkins, the titlark sings as it emulates the skylark in these hollows. Marram is Newborough's crop to-day; it is harvested, dried, and taken to the village, where skilled fingers plait ropes and matting. tough and durable, which is exported in considerable quantity; the star grass, which binds the sand and saves the land from further encroachment, feeds the inhabitants of Newborough.

A little rocky peninsula tips the seaward limits of the Warren, where a lighthouse and a few pilots' cottages are all that remain of the village of Llanddwyn; the village itself has lain for centuries beneath the drifted sand, or sunk in the peaty hollows where pools of water lie, thick with the beautiful flowers of the buck~bean and great masses of yellow flags. Llanddwyn Island was once isolated, and even now a storm sweeps heavy seas above its stone causeway; it is sacred to the memory of St. Deuwnn or Ddwyn, an early British lady. Baring-Gould calls her Dwynwen and says that she was a princess, probably daughter of a king of Brecknock. Her own love affairs did not run smoothly, but she became the patron saint of lovers and adopted as her motto: "Nothing wins hearts like cheerfulness." She fell in love with one Maelon, but something went wrong and he spread ugly reports about her; she prayed to be relieved of her passion, and was relieved by an angel who administered drops of heavenly balm. Maelon also was dosed, but with different results; he became a lump of ice. She retired to the peninsula, quite a pleasant place to live in if she was interested in birds and flowers, and prayed that Maelon might be thawed but have no more to do with her, and