After fasting in that situation for two days,two little men of pigmy stature appeared to him,saying,"If you will come with us,we will lead you into a country full of delights and sports."Assenting and rising up,he followed his guides through a path,at first subterraneous and dark,into a most beautiful country,adorned with rivers and meadows,woods and plains,but obscure,and not illuminated with the full light of the sun.All the days were cloudy,and the nights extremely dark,on account of the absence of the moon and stars.The boy was brought before the king,and introduced to him in the presence of the court;who,having examined him for a long time,delivered him to his son,who was then a boy.
These men were of the smallest stature,but very well proportioned in their make;they were all of a fair complexion,with luxuriant hair falling over their shoulders like that of women.They had horses and greyhounds adapted to their size.They neither ate flesh nor fish,but lived on milk diet,made up into messes with saffron.
They never took an oath,for they detested nothing so much as lies.
As often as they returned from our upper hemisphere,they reprobated our ambition,infidelities,and inconstancies;they had no form of public worship,being strict lovers and reverers,as it seemed,of truth.
The boy frequently returned to our hemisphere,sometimes by the way he had first gone,sometimes by another:at first in company with other persons,and afterwards alone,and made himself known only to his mother,declaring to her the manners,nature,and state of that people.Being desired by her to bring a present of gold,with which that region abounded,he stole,while at play with the king's son,the golden ball with which he used to divert himself,and brought it to his mother in great haste;and when he reached the door of his father's house,but not unpursued,and was entering it in a great hurry,his foot stumbled on the threshold,and falling down into the room where his mother was sitting,the two pigmies seized the ball which had dropped from his hand,and departed,shewing the boy every mark of contempt and derision.On recovering from his fall,confounded with shame,and execrating the evil counsel of his mother,he returned by the usual track to the subterraneous road,but found no appearance of any passage,though he searched for it on the banks of the river for nearly the space of a year.But since those calamities are often alleviated by time,which reason cannot mitigate,and length of time alone blunts the edge of our afflictions,and puts an end to many evils,the youth having been brought back by his friends and mother,and restored to his right way of thinking,and to his learning,in process of time attained the rank of priesthood.Whenever David II.bishop of St.David's,talked to him in his advanced state of life concerning this event,he could never relate the particulars without shedding tears.He had made himself acquainted with the language of that nation,the words of which,in his younger days,he used to recite,which,as the bishop often had informed me,were very conformable to the Greek idiom.When they asked for water,they said Ydor ydorum,which meant bring water,for Ydor in their language,as well as in the Greek,signifies water,from whence vessels for water are called {Greek text which cannot be reproduced};and Dur also,in the British language,signifies water.When they wanted salt they said,Halgein ydorum,bring salt:salt is called {Greek text}in Greek,and Halen in British,for that language,from the length of time which the Britons (then called Trojans,and afterwards Britons,from Brito,their leader)remained in Greece after the destruction of Troy,became,in many instances,similar to the Greek.
It is remarkable that so many languages should correspond in one word,{Greek}in Greek,Halen in British,and Halgein in the Irish tongue,the g being inserted;Sal in Latin,because,as Priscian says,"the s is placed in some words instead of an aspirate,"as {Greek}in Greek is called Sal in Latin,{Greek}-semi -{Greek}-septem -Sel in French -the A being changed into E -Salt in English,by the addition of T to the Latin;Sout,in the Teutonic language:there are therefore seven or eight languages agreeing in this one word.If a scrupulous inquirer should ask my opinion of the relation here inserted,I answer with Augustine,"that the divine miracles are to be admired,not discussed."Nor do I,by denial,place bounds to the divine power,nor,by assent,insolently extend what cannot be extended.But I always call to mind the saying of St.Jerome;"You will find,"says he,"many things incredible and improbable,which nevertheless are true;for nature cannot in any respect prevail against the lord of nature."These things,therefore,and similar contingencies,I should place,according to the opinion of Augustine,among those particulars which are neither to be affirmed,nor too positively denied.
CHAPTER IX
Passage over the rivers Lochor and Wendraeth;and of Cydweli Thence we proceeded towards the river Lochor,{93}through the plains in which Howel,son of Meredyth of Brecheinoc,after the decease of king Henry I.gained a signal victory over the English.