Welsh Journals

ning strikes Sweyn dead; the form of the great Saint Cenydd appears at the window with the famous bell and supported on his wooden leg; his hand is uplifted in anger against the contemplated sacrilege and he is illumined by a halo of light. The Danes retreat terrified, carrying the corpse of their leader on a shield. The inhabitants emerge and kneeling, sing a hymn of thanksgiving for their deliver- ance by the Saint. Gower legends and folklore were given full play. In the Reynoldston episode Merlin "practising unholy rites" at Arthur's Stone is exorcised by an Abbot and "retires discomfited"; after which King Arthur and his Queen appear on the scene with Rheged ap Urien and his sorceress wife Morgan la Faye on horseback, accompanied by some captured Irish prisoners from whom Gower has been liberated. King Arthur crowns Rheged Prince of Gower. In conclusion Arthur's Stone, a splendid con- traption operated by young Ronnie Jefford, trundles off for its traditional drink in the Burry River. At Rhossili the scene where the smugglers make the excisemen drunk with gin in Morgan Beynon's kitchen was re- enacted by members of the Beynon family. At Llanmadoc and Cheriton outside the Farmers Arms there is feasting and dancing "the old four handed Gower dance" accompanied by a fiddler. Then the children sing for Souly cakes the ancient song still sung at Llanmadoc in the 1920s: Souly! Souly! Christendom Every good ladye gie me some Gie me one or gie me none Gie me a penny and I'll be gone Souly! Souly! One verse more My mother liveth at Kimbly Moore My father he's a cobbler That's why I go out this rough weather To get some money to buy some leather. The day fixed for the Pageant was the 14th August. During the pre- ceding week of glorious weather rehearsals were in full swing, and the resources of the Penrice Castle estate staff were engaged in "alterations, levellings, the erection of portcullis and scaffoldings and the painting of scenery".8 All was set for what the South Wales Daily Post anticipated would be "one of the most brilliantly successful functions of its kind ever organised in the sleepy little peninsula or in Wales for that matter." At 11a.m., on the 14th the rain began. "Cefh Bryn was a haze of rain from which drenching squalls swept across the park. The grass was soaked, the