Of Level Vawr, or the Great Level, a mining establishment;
but when I asked him the name of the hill with the singular peak,
on the other side of the valley, he shook his head and said he did
not know. Near the top of the hill I came to a village consisting
of a few cottages and a shabby-looking church. A rivulet
descending from some crags to the east crosses the road, which
leads through the place, and tumbling down the valley, joins the
Ystwyth at the bottom. Seeing a woman standing at the door, I
inquired the name of the village.
"Spytty Ystwyth," she replied, but she, no more than the boy down
below, could tell me the name of the strange-looking hill across
the valley. This second Spytty or monastic hospital, which I had
come to, looked in every respect an inferior place to the first.
Whatever its former state might have been, nothing but dirt and
wretchedness were now visible. Having reached the top of the hill
I entered upon a wild moory region. Presently I crossed a little
bridge over a rivulet, and seeing a small house on the shutter of
which was painted "cwrw," I went in, sat down on an old chair,
which I found vacant, and said in English to an old woman who sat
knitting by the window: "Bring me a pint of ale!"
"Dim Saesneg!" said the old woman.
"I told you to bring me a pint of ale," said I to her in her own
language.
"You shall have it immediately, sir," said she, and going to a
cask, she filled a jug with ale, and after handing it to me resumed
her seat and knitting.
"It is not very bad ale," said I, after I had tasted it.
"It ought to be very good," said the old woman, "for I brewed it
myself."
"The goodness of ale," said I, "does not so much depend on who
brews it as on what it is brewed of. Now there is something in
this ale which ought not to be. What is it made of?"
"Malt and hop."
"It tastes very bitter," said I. "Is there no chwerwlys (13) in
it?"
"I do not know what chwerwlys is," said the old woman.
"It is what the Saxons call wormwood," said I.
"Oh, wermod. No, there is no wermod in my beer, at least not
much."
"Oh, then there is some; I thought there was. Why do you put such
stuff into your ale?"
"We are glad to put it in sometimes when hops are dear, as they are
this year. Moreover, wermod is not bad stuff, and some folks like
the taste better than that of hops."
"Well, I don't. However, the ale is drinkable.
