However, There Is One Older Than I, And That
Is The Toad Of Cors Fochnod; And Unless He Knows Her Age No One
Knows It.' To Him Went The Eagle And Asked The Age Of The Owl, And
The Toad Replied:
'I have never eaten anything save what I have
sucked from the earth, and have never eaten half my fill in all the
days of my life; but do you see those two great hills beside the
cross?
I have seen the place where they stand level ground, and
nothing produced those heaps save what I discharged from my body,
who have ever eaten so very little - yet never have I known the owl
anything else but an old hag who cried Too-hoo-hoo, and scared
children with her voice even as she does at present.' So the eagle
of Gwernabwy; the stag of Ferny-side Brae; the salmon trout of Glyn
Llifon; the ousel of Cilgwry; the toad of Cors Fochnod, and the owl
of Coomb Cowlyd are the oldest creatures in the world; the oldest
of them all being the owl."
CHAPTER LIV
Chirk - The Middleton Family - Castell y Waen - The Park - The
Court Yard - The Young Housekeeper - The Portraits - Melin y
Castell - Humble Meal - Fine Chests for the Dead - Hales and
Hercules.
THE weather having become fine, myself and family determined to go
and see Chirk Castle, a mansion ancient and beautiful, and
abounding with all kinds of agreeable and romantic associations.
It was founded about the beginning of the fifteenth century by a St
John, Lord of Bletsa, from a descendant of whom it was purchased in
the year 1615 by Sir Thomas Middleton, the scion of an ancient
Welsh family who, following commerce, acquired a vast fortune, and
was Lord Mayor of London.
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