Book-bot.com - read famous books online for free

Welsh Fairy Tales by William Elliot Griffis
page 14 of 173 (08%)
Finding that neither was possible, the Afang looked about, for some
big tree to wrap its tail around. But all his writhings or plungings
were of no use. The drovers plied their whips and the oxen kept on
with one long pull together and forward. They strained so hard, that
one of them dropped its eye out. This formed a pool, and to this day
they call it The Pool of the Ox's Eye. It never dries up or overflows,
though the water in it rises and falls, as regularly as the tides.

For miles over the mountains the sturdy oxen hauled the monster. The
pass over which they toiled and strained so hard is still named the
Pass of the Oxen's Slope. When going down hill, the work of dragging
the Afang was easier.

In a great hole in the ground, big enough to be a pond, they dumped
the carcass of the Afang, and soon a little lake was formed. This
uncanny bit of water is called "The Lake of the Green Well." It is
considered dangerous for man or beast to go too near it. Birds do not
like to fly over the surface, and when sheep tumble in, they sink to
the bottom at once.

If the bones of the Afang still lie at the bottom, they must have sunk
down very deep, for the monster had no more power to get out, or to
break the river banks. The farmers no longer cared anything about the
creature, and they hardly every think of the old story, except when a
sheep is lost.

As for Gadern and his brave and lovely sweetheart, they were married
and lived long and happily. Their descendants, in the thirty-seventh
generation, are proud of the grand exploit of their ancestors, while
all the farmers honor his memory and bless the name of the lovely girl
DigitalOcean Referral Badge