Page:My people stories of the peasantry of West Wales.djvu/269

 and she is set on mischief, and why brawls she loudly about me? Ach, indeed! Bad is this for your male son.” For this God cursed his belongings: two horses sickened and perished, great rain fell upon his hay, which was ripe to be stacked; a cow destroyed her calf. The congregation was sore and murmured against him: “Pity now that our hay is rotting because of the bad sin of Evan Rhiw.” A body of them wailed to Bern-Davydd.

“Speech him to the Great Harvester about this man Evan Rhiw,” they said.

“Children bach,” said Bern-Davydd, “run you about and about, and I will go to the top of the old moor and sing this lamentation to Him: ‘Now then, why for you see our costly hay ruined? Is it a light thing that our precious animals starve throughout the hard days?’” They looked at one another and