looks over Oswestry and the red hills of Llanymynech, over the wooded and park-like country round Meifod and Llanyfyllin, and the background ranges of the Berwyns, while to the north-east are the gorges of the Vyrnwy (or Verniew), which unites itself with the Severn near the conical mound of Belan Bank, and seems to have been regarded by Dean Merivale as a possible route of Ostorius (History of Roman Empire, vi, 37). To the east are the rich champaigns of the Severn, with Shrewsbury spires in the distance, and a score or more of historical and ancestral demesnes, some of which-e.g., Wattlesborough Castle, near Rowton and Alberbury-have never been bought or sold since the Conquest, lying between. At the At the very foot of the grand escarpment northward and opposite the stiffest crags of the Breidden, under the modern pillar, is the village of Criggion, with its picturesque church of red sandstone. To the south stretches the Long Mountain, a marked, if monotonous, feature of the Welshpool district. There is a look-out too on the Red Castle, or Powis Castle, lying in its undulating park of noble and most venerable oaks, and only faintly marred by an entrance which, if it seems insignificant and mean in its close propinquity to the town of Welshpool, yet helps to symbolise the relations of an old feudal castle to the humble dwellers who pitched their habitations round about it. Leaving the curious in geology to approach this Breidden group under the guidance of Murchison, and only reminding the botanist that in scaling these historic heights he may meet, as nowhere else in Britain, the Potentilla rupestris, and also the Lychnis viscaria, Geranium sanguineum, Veronica spicata and hybrida, and Saxifraga hypnoidesmost of which, we are told in the Records of the Rocks, flourish also on the volcanic rocks of Stanner, near Kington, we recommend our readers to explore for themselves this extremely interesting object of pilgrimage; and we offer a suggestion as to the ascent of the Romans which would, we suspect, furnish the most expeditious

and unobstructed route to the master-situation which the Ordnance authorities have acutely designated "Old Fortress". In one form or other it struck most of the antiquaries with whom we lately made the ascent that in all likelihood the Romans, having crossed the ford at Old Mills, took a different route from Trewern up the hills, and ascended by a more sheltered route, and a pass very distinctly traceable between Cefn Eithin and Moel-y-Golfa, the former of which would hide them for some distance from the garrison of the “old fortress" on the north. This would be, for a considerable distance, a relief to a harassed and toilsome march; it would, if followed out in its fullest extent, lead us to the picturesque wooded mound of Belle Isle and Bauseley Hill-which are said to be corruptions of a name spelt in half-a-dozen different ways-to the west of which is Bulthey, or Builthy, a pass on the Alberbury side of the Breidden range. We do not suppose the Romans to have taken this route further than the east end of the spur of Cefn Eithin, the Gorse Ridge, and perhaps one portion of the invading force may have pressed upwards on the north side of this ridge or spur, and another by the south. The two bands may have joined somewhat to the left of Cefn-y-Castel, and near what is called in the Ordnance Map "the New Pieces", and there girded themselves for a hand-tohand encounter with the British, whom we take to have been in possession of the heights, and of whose huts or cyttiau it is palpable to the observant pedestrian that the loose-piled stones remain to this day as souvenirs. If such a route appears to some ultraRoman admirers of antique prowess to have been stripped of its gravest difficulties, we submit that nevertheless it affords scope for a sufficiently arduous assault, as will be patent to the tourist who scales the Breidden without military harness and impedimenta. It may be added that on the summit of Bauseley Hill, connected with this group or range of hills, as well as with the ancestral possessions of the Corbets and

Leightons, in a younger branch of which family it still remains, is another still perfect British entrenchment with two concentric ditches on the western side, each with a counterscarp of ten feet, and a naturally fortified sheer east side. With these shelters and defences to flee to, we see at once how the gallant Caradoc might still have made head, or bided his time for a new revolt, except for the treachery of the infamous Cartismandua.

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In re-shaping and re-modelling the foregoing paper since its original appearance in a weekly Review, it has become necessary to omit some prefatory sentences of praise and compliment to the "bright, pleasant, and exceptionally cultivated " Town of Welshpool; one of the eyes of Montgomeryshire, the chosen rendezvous of the topographical pilgrim who bends his steps toward the Breidden'; the home of a compact body of antiquaries, to which the Powys-Land Club affords a local habitation, a library, and museum. And yet the writer's wish can be no father to the thought of such omission, seeing that on two separate occasions he has realised on a topographical tour how vast a help in a partially strange district have been such solid and acute contributions towards the elucidation of the problem above mooted, as he has received from Mr. Morris C. Jones, F.S.A., the Honorary Secretary of the Powys-Land Club; the Rev. D. P. Lewis, Rural Dean, and Vicar of Guilsfield; and the Rev. D. R. Thomas, the Vicar of Meifod, and author of the History of the Diocese of St. Asaph. It was they, with one or two others, who with timely supply of topographic hints and materials, "pressed the bashful stranger to his food", and assisted his digestion of the conclusions which have been set forth in the above paper. It will ill beseem him therefore to withhold from them his thanks, any more than to record the collateral assistance and insight which he derived from the Powys-Land Museum, an institution admirably fulfilling its purpose of collecting books and specimens of archæologic interest, whether local or general, for the reference of antiquaries. There remains

a grand field for the Society yet to work-camps, castles, fortified mounds, and timbered houses, as well as the airier legend structures of one of the most picturesque and diversified of North-Welsh counties. If it cannot, at this late date, solve the 'Breidden' problem, which our historians appear to have given up, it may leave the question with a clear conscience, when it has used its influence to furnish a satisfactory plan of that famous bastion of hills; and, that done, it may, amongst other enquiries and exploration of "fresh fields and pastures new", continually keep an open eye for the slightest corroboration of the claim set up by the neighbourhood of Welshpool, to include the site of Caractacus's last battle-field.

CHILDREN'S RHYMES ON NEW-YEAR'S

MORN.

BY THE REV. ELIAS OWEN, M.A.

ON New Year's Day, just as the day dawns, or even before it is light, the village children of certain parts of Montgomeryshire usher in the day with childish songs. They go from house to house singing their little ditty, and for their rhyme they expect a copper. This custom prevails in Caersws, and when I lived there I did not heed the words which formed the burden of the song; this year, however, having left Caersws and come to Ruthin to live, where the Montgomeryshire custom does not prevail, I was pleased to hear my little children chant their new year's day rhyme as they had heard it in Caersws, and I thought when listening to them, that perhaps I had better send the verses, doggerel as they are, to the Powys-Land Collections for preservation. I do so now. I may as well state that the juvenile singers of the lines form a kind of partnership for the morning, and they proceed in companies of two or more, for the distance of a mile or so around their own village, and having sung their song and received the expected penny, they divide the spoils between themselves when their labours have come to an end. The children of one village do not intrude themselves upon another village. This would, I feel sure, be resented in a very demonstrative manner. Every house is visited by these little folk, and company after company presents itself at the same door, and possibly the same band comes more than once to the same house, and thus a perpetual song goes on up to twelve o'clock, when all ceases.

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