The Legend Of Llyn Y Ddau Ychain

: FAIRY, OR MYTHIC ANIMALS.
: Welsh Folk-lore

The speckled cow had two calves, which, when they grew up, became strong

oxen. In those days there was a wicked spirit that troubled

Cerrig-y-drudion Church, and the people greatly feared this spirit, and

everybody was afraid, even in the day-time, to pass the church, for

there, day after day, they saw the evil one looking out of the church

windows and grinning at them. They did not know what to do to get rid of

this spirit, but at last they consulted a famous conjuror, who told them

that no one could dislodge their enemy but the Dau ychain Banawg. They

knew of the two long-horned cattle which fed on Waen Banawg. There,

therefore, they went, and brought the powerful yoke to the church. After

considerable difficulty they succeeded in dislodging the spirit, and in

securing it to a sledge to which these oxen were yoked, and now

struggling to get free, he was dragged along by the powerful oxen towards

a lake on Hiraethog Mountain, but so ponderous was their load and so

fearful was the spirit's contentions that the sledge ploughed the land

between the church and the lake as they went along, leaving in the course

that they took deep furrows, and when they came to the hill so terrible

were the struggles of the oxen to get along that the marks of their hoofs

were left in the rocks where they may still be seen. When at last they

reached the lake the spirit would not yield, and therefore oxen, sledge,

and spirit were driven into the lake, and thus was the country rid of the

evil one, and hence the name of the lake--the Lake of the Two Oxen--for

the oxen likewise perished in the lake.



The foregoing legend is evidently founded on the older and more obscure

story of Hu Gardarn, or Hu the Mighty, who with his Dau ychain Banawg

drew to land the avanc out of Llyn Llion, so that the lake burst out

no more to deluge the earth. For, be it known, it was this avanc that

had occasioned the flood. However, there is a rival claimant for the

honour of having destroyed the avanc, whatever that might have been,

for, in Hindu Mythology, Vishnu is credited with having slain the monster

that had occasioned the Deluge.



This last bit of Folk-lore about Hu Gadarn, which is found in the

Triads, shows how widespread, and how very ancient, Welsh tales are.

Hu Gadarn is by some writers identified with Noah. He was endowed, it

would seem, with all the qualities of the gods of the Greeks, Egyptians,

and Orientals, and his name is applied by the Welsh poets of the middle

ages to the Supreme Being.