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I find that great uncertainty prevails as to the old name of the lake, as I learn from a communication in 1894 from
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Mr. Llewellyn Williams, living at Porth, only some five miles from the spot, that one of his informants assured him that the name in use
among former generations was Llyn Alfach. Mr. Williams made inquiries at the Rhondda Fechan about the lake legend. He was told that
the water had long since been known as Llyn y Forwyn, from a morwyn, or damsel, with a number of cattle having been drowned in it.
The story of the man who mentioned the name as Llyn Alfach was similar: the maid belonged to the farm of Penrhys, he said, and the
young man to the Rhonda Fechan, and it was in consequence of their third dispute, he added, that she left him and went back to her
previous service, and afterwards, while taking the cattle to the water, she sank accidentally or purposely into the lake, so that she was
never found any more. Here it will be seen how modern rationalism has been modifying the story into something quite uninteresting but
without wholly getting rid of the original features, such as the three disputes between the husband and wife. Lastly, it is worth mentioning
that this water appears to form part of a bit of very remarkable scenery, and that its waves strike on one side against a steep rock believed
to contain caves, supposed to have been formerly inhabited by men and women. At present the place, I learn, is in the possession of
Messrs. Davis and Sons, owners of the Ferndale collieries, who keep a pleasure boat on the lake. I have appealed to them on the question
of the name Nelferch or Alfach, in the hope that their books would help to decide as to the old form of it. Replying on their behalf, Mr. J.
Probert Evans informs me that the company only got possession of the lake and the adjacent land in 1862, and that 'Llyn y Vorwyn' is the
name of the former in the oldest plan which they have. Inquiries have also been made
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in the neighbourhood by my friend, Mr. Reynolds, who found the old tenants of the Rhondda Fechan Farm gone, and the neighbouring
farm house of Dyffryn Safrwch supplanted by colliers' cottages. But he calls my attention to the fact, that perhaps the old name was
neither Nelferch nor Alfach, as Elfarch, which would fit equally well, was once the name of a petty chieftain of the adjoining Hundred of
Senghenydd, for which he refers me to Clark's Glamorgan Genealogies, p. 511. But I have to thank him more especially for a longer
version of the fairy wife's call to her cattle, as given in Glanffrwd's Plwyf Llanwyno, 'the Parish of Llanwynno (Pontypridd, 1888), p. 117,
as follows:--
Prw me, prw me,
Prw 'ngwartheg i dre';
Prw Melen a Ioco,
Tegwen a Rhuddo,
Rhudd-frech a Moel-frech,
Pedair Lliain-frech;
Lliain-frech ag Eli,
A phedair Wen-ladi,
Ladi a Chornwen,
A phedair Wynebwen;
Nepwen a Rhwynog,
Tali Lieiniog;
Brech yn y Glyn
Dal yn dyn;
Tair lygeityn,
Tair gyffredin,
Tair Caseg ddu, draw yn yr eithin,
Deuwch i gyd i lys y Brenin;
Bwla, bwla,
Saif yn flaena',
Saf yn ol y wraig o'r Ty-fry,
Fyth nis godri ngwartheg i!
The last lines--slightly mended--may be rendered:
Bull, bull!
Stand thou foremost.
Back! thou wife of the House up Hill:
Never shalt thou milk my cows.
This seems to suggest that the quarrel was about
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another woman, and that by the time when the fairy came to call her live stock into the lake she had been replaced by another woman who
came from the Ty-fry, or the House up Hill 1. In that case this version comes closer than any other to the story of Undine supplanted by
Bertalda as her knight's favourite.
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