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Brewery of
Eggshells n Treneglwys there is a
certain shepherd's
cot known by the name of Twt y Cymrws because of the strange strife
that occurred
there. There once lived there a man and his wife, and they had twins
whom the woman
nursed tenderly. One day she was called away to the house of a
neighbour at some
distance. She did not much like going and leaving her little ones all
alone in a
solitary house, especially as she had heard tell of the good folk
haunting the neighbourhood. Well,
she went and came back as soon as she could, but on her way back she
was frightened
to see some old elves of the blue petticoat crossing her path though it
was midday.
She rushed home, but found her two little ones in the cradle and
everything seemed
as it was before. But after
a time the good people began to suspect that something was wrong, for
the twins
didn't grow at all. The man
said: "They're not ours." The woman
said: "Whose else should they be?" And so
arose the great strife so that the neighbours named the cottage after
it. It made
the woman very sad, so one evening she made up her mind to go and see
the Wise Man
of Llanidloes, for he knew everything and would advise her what to do. So she
went to Llanidloes and told the case to the Wise Man. Now there was
soon to be a
harvest of rye and oats, so the Wise Man said to her, "When you are
getting
dinner for the reapers, clear out the shell of a hen's egg and boil
some potage
in it, and then take it to the door as if you meant it as a dinner for
the reapers.
Then listen if the twins say anything. If you hear them speaking of
things beyond
the understanding of children, go back and take them up and throw them
into the
waters of Lake Elvyn. But if you don't hear anything remarkable, do
them no injury." So when
the day of the reap came the woman did all that the Wise Man ordered,
and put the
eggshell on the fire and took it off and carried it to the door, and
there she stood
and listened. Then she heard one of the children say to the other: Acorn before oak I knew,
An egg before a hen, But I never heard of an eggshell brew A dinner for harvest men. So she
went back into the house, seized the children and threw them into the
Llyn, and
the goblins in their blue trousers came and saved their dwarfs and the
mother had
her own children back and so the great strife ended. |