rude song: {50} one man imitating the profession of a shoemaker;
another, that of a tanner. Now you may see a girl with a distaff,
drawing out the thread, and winding it again on the spindle; another
walking, and arranging the threads for the web; another, as it were,
throwing the shuttle, and seeming to weave. On being brought into
the church, and led up to the altar with their oblations, you will
be astonished to see them suddenly awakened, and coming to
themselves. Thus, by the divine mercy, which rejoices in the
conversion, not in the death, of sinners, many persons from the
conviction of their senses, are on these feast days corrected and
mended.

This country sufficiently abounds with grain, and if there is any
deficiency, it is amply supplied from the neighbouring parts of
England; it is well stored with pastures, woods, and wild and
domestic animals. River-fish are plentiful, supplied by the Usk on
one side, and by the Wye on the other; each of them produces salmon
and trout; but the Wye abounds most with the former, the Usk with
the latter. The salmon of the Wye are in season during the winter,
those of the Usk in summer; but the Wye alone produces the fish
called umber, {51} the praise of which is celebrated in the works of
Ambrosius, as being found in great numbers in the rivers near Milan;
"What," says he, "is more beautiful to behold, more agreeable to
smell, or more pleasant to taste?" The famous lake of Brecheinoc
supplies the country with pike, perch, excellent trout, tench, and
eels. A circumstance concerning this lake, which happened a short
time before our days, must not be passed over in silence. "In the
reign of king Henry I., Gruffydd, {52} son of Rhys ap Tewdwr, held
under the king one comot, namely, the fourth part of the cantred of
Caoc, {53} in the cantref Mawr, which, in title and dignity, was