renegadetribune--2020-08-04--The Birkenau Gas Chambers in October of 1941 Technico-Historical Fantasies of a “Technician”

The Birkenau Gas Chambers in October of 1941 “ Show me or draw me a Nazi gas chamber !
” This has been Dr. Robert Faurisson ’ s famous challenge to orthodox historians for several decades now .
Jean-Claude Pressac and Prof. Robert J. van Pelt were among those who tried to meet Faurisson ’ s demand – and who failed miserably .
That doesn ’ t stop others from trying , though .
Here is the next candidate who risked to be exposed as an incompetent dabbler at best : Michael T. Allen , writing in the mainstream journal @ @ @ @ @ @ @ following paper , Italian revisionist Carlo Mattogno expertly deconstructs Allen ’ s delusions , which are based on the usual misrepresentations , misunderstandings and distortions .
In 2002 an article by Michael Thad Allen entitled “ The Devil in the Details : The Gas Chambers of Birkenau , October 1941 ” appeared in the magazine Holocaust and Genocide Studies .
[ 1 ] Michael T. Allen was associate professor of German history at the Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta , Georgia .
He is the author of numerous articles and two books @ @ @ @ @ @ @ including “ The Business of Genocide ” ( 2002 ) I shall leave aside his preliminary statements on the allegedly insidious methods of the “ deniers , ” on the so-called “ devastating critique ” by Pressac and van Pelt ( a critique so “ devastating ” that they have been very careful to avoid criticizing my own arguments on Auschwitz ) and on the habitually wrong interpretation of terms and expressions such as Sonderbehandlung , Sondermassnahmen and Badeanstalten für Sonderaktionen , on the subject of which I refer the reader to my @ @ @ @ @ @ @ shall also leave aside the “ criminal evidence , ” which , according to Allen , “ can be explained in no other way than by reference to mass murder using Zyklon-B ” – an interpretation that I have refuted in a number of articles that appeared in this journal , [ 3 ] I shall finally leave aside the presumed merits or demerits of Pressac and van Pelt ( pp .
191f . )
and shall pass on directly to the central topic of the article , which Allen describes in the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ one otherwise insignificant component , the forced-air ventilation system , demonstrates that the ZBL [ 4 ] -Auschwitz planned Morgue 1 of Crematoria II and III ( buildings constructed as mirror images of each other ) from the beginning of October 1941 as a gigantic Zyklon-B facility .
SS engineers based their design upon similar fumigation rooms brought to their attention by subcontractors .
The SS quickly adapted this technology ( originally meant to exterminate nothing more than vermin in clothing ) in a drive to eliminate ‘ racial vermin.
’ ” ( @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of the fact that the Leichenkeller 1 of the new crematorium ( the future crematorium II ) was designed from the start as a homicidal gas chamber using Zyklon B is said to be the uniqueness of its ventilation system , which was planned for this room but not for Leichenkeller 2 : “ In particular , Morgue 1 [ = Leichenkeller 1 ] had ventilation systems that differed not only from Morgue 2 [ = Leichenkeller 2 ] , but from any other existing SS crematoria.
” ( p. 199 ) The @ @ @ @ @ @ @ contrary , it represents a significant withdrawal with respect to Pressac ’ s theses , which van Pelt plagiarized unashamedly .
It was , in fact , adopted by George Wellers as far back as 1981 .
In a book dedicated to the gas chambers , he reproduces ( for the first time , as far as I know ) cross-sections of Leichenkeller 1 and 2 of the planned crematorium II , [ 5 ] calling attention to the fact that Leichenkeller 1 was equipped with Entlüftung ( de-aeration ) and Belüftung ( @ @ @ @ @ @ @ not .
[ 6 ] What does , however , constitute a novelty is the historical context in which Allen places his thesis and , first and foremost , the central argument with which he attempts to justify it .
He states that in the summer of 1941 discussions began at Auschwitz regarding gas chambers for disinfestation by means of Zyklon B .
In particular , on 3 July , the SS-Neubauleitung ( New Construction Office ) registered the arrival of the article by G. Peters and E. Wünstiger “ Entlausung mit Zyklon-Blausäure @ @ @ @ @ @ @ hydrocyanic acid in circulatory gassing chambers ) , which had been sent three days earlier by the Heerdt-Lingler company at the request of the Friedrich Boos firm .
[ 7 ] From the documentation on this type of equipment , which was planned for the Aufnahmegebäude ( reception building ; BW 160 ) , [ 8 ] Allen deduces the following scenario : “ The dense context suggests that the SS and these specialists discussed fumigation machinery and the gassing of human beings simultaneously , likely at multiple sites , in the fall @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Obviously , Allen does not present even the least documentary evidence for these assumed discussions , but he has now set up his false principle , from which he will be subsequently able to draw his false conclusions .
First , however , he nails it down a few more times .
After having affirmed without proof that “ it is reasonable to assume that both executives of these chemical firms [ Degesch and Tesch ] consulted with the SS about systematic murder.
” ( p. 194 ) , he declares once more @ @ @ @ @ @ @ chambers were not ( yet ) designed for killing , all involved – the SS , Degesch , and Tesch & Stabenow – conceived of them as a system for managing prisoners as ‘ human material ’ in the style of a modern factory.
” ( ibid . )
Allen then notes that the Degesch Kreislauf ( recirculating ) disinfestation chambers were never set up at Auschwitz , but adds : “ nevertheless , they stimulated technological innovation and provided a conceptual blueprint for the gas chambers of Birkenau .
First , ZBL @ @ @ @ @ @ @ one in which prisoners ’ bodies were managed as so much raw material in a modern factory .
[ … ] Second , if more trivial , the Degesch chambers provided a precedent for how to engineer the ventilation system for Zyklon-B killing chambers.
” ( p. 195 ) At this point the initial conjecture changes into an established fact !
Allen still attempts to prop it up with a fanciful appeal to presumed homicidal gassings in disinfestation chambers by means of the Degesch-Kreislauf system ( p. 196 ) , bringing in as @ @ @ @ @ @ @ testimonies , one dated October 23 , 1959 , the other “ undated , ” of two illustrious nobodies : Irmgard Berger and Kaufmann-Grasowska !
( Note 29 on p .
212 . )
This is really an irrefutable argument !
After having brought in this insubstantial “ support , ” Allen then comes up with his main argument which he introduces in a section entitled “ Other Precedents for the Gas Chambers.
” Here is the most important passage : “ The Degesch chambers are relatively well known , at least among @ @ @ @ @ @ @ is that the SS had other prototypes available .
The Degesch ’ s ten-cubic-meter boxes were not only gas chambers presented at this time to the ZBL-Auschwitz or to SS Main Office for Budgets and Buildings [ = Hauptamt Haushalt und Bauten ] .
For example , Kori GmbH , a firm that played the same role as subcontractor at Majdanek that Topf & Söhne played at Auschwitz , presented the ZBL-Lublin with diagrams of a building it had constructed in Alt-Drewitz .
This was less a machine like the Degesch chambers than @ @ @ @ @ @ @ central mechanical core contained blowers and a system of ducts for introducing Zyklon-B .
Rooms on either side could be filled with clothing and disinfected .
Here again , as the diagram shows , air was pumped into the chambers from the top .
Blowers evacuated air through vents in the floor .
In this case , rather than conventional metal ductwork , Kori installed the ducts in underground canals beneath the building.
” ( p. 196 ) On p. 197 , Allen shows a “ Schnitt A-B ” ( section A-B ) @ @ @ @ @ @ @ upon in this fashion ( see document 1 ) : “ Diagram of Kori Zyklon-B gas chamber , ‘ Anordnung einer Luftheizungs-Anlage für die Entlausungsanstalt in Alt-Drewitz ’ [ arrangement of an air-heating unit for the delousing installation at Alt-Drewitz ] , dated July 5 , 1940 ” From this sketch , Allen draws two conclusions : “ Although no document directly links such designs to Auschwitz ( unsurprising since conceptual work is rarely put to paper ) , the fumigation building in Alt-Drewitz can still be seen as a model for Morgue @ @ @ @ @ @ @ dug-out tunnels for ventilation.
” ( p. 195 ) A few pages on , he adds : “ Underground ducts were part of existing Zyklon-B fumigation chambers , as can be seen in the ZBL-Lublin diagrams of the installation at Alt-Drewitz.
” ( p. 201 ) Thus , Allen has uncovered the missing link in the evolutionary chain stretching from the disinfestation chambers to the homicidal gas chamber of Leichenkeller 1 – a truly paradigmatic discovery !
Unfortunately , such a conclusion is invalidated outright by the fact that , while the archives @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ) do contain documents relating to disinfestation equipment of various kinds , none of them is of the type dealt with by Allen ; the latter , by contrast is in the archives of the former Majdanek camp .
Therefore , no document links the design to Auschwitz , whether it be “ directly ” or “ indirectly , ” i.e .
between the design and the SS-Neubauleitung ( later SS-Bauleitung and finally Zentralbauleitung ) at Auschwitz there is absolutely no link : but then how can one seriously argue that the engineers @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the drawing of the installation for Alt-Drewitz in their design of Leichenkeller 1 ?
Here it would be necessary to bring in telepathy between Lublin and Auschwitz rather than the argument that “ conceptual work is rarely put to paper ” !
Document 1 : Air-heating unit at Alt-Drewitz as a proposal for a delousing installation at the Majdanek camp .
according to M.T .
Allen .
Actually , the two installations have only one insignificant architectural detail in common – an underground duct – and it is only to drive home his @ @ @ @ @ @ @ an importance out of all proportion to the fact that Leichenkeller 1 was designed with a double underground ventilation duct .
However , Allen ’ s conclusion is radically demolished by the very design on which it is based .
Incredibly , Michael Thad Allen , in spite of being “ assistant professor of modern German history and the history of technology at the Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta , ” failed to understand that the document in question – the Kori drawing J.-Nr .
9081 , entitled “ Anordnung einer Luftheizungs-Anlage @ @ @ @ @ @ @ dated “ Bln .
[ Berlin ] , den 5 .
Juli 1940 ” [ 9 ] – does not refer to a Zyklon-B disinfestation unit but to Heißluft ( hot air ) produced by coal combustion !
If – instead of letting loose the usual stupidities against the “ deniers ” – our “ technologist ” had looked at the book Concentration Camp Majdanek , [ 10 ] which I have written together with Jürgen Graf , he would have saved himself from this egregious blunder .
On p. 130f .
I @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to the unit in question and in which it is said : “ This is also where the entranceways to the 4 coke bunkers are planned , which , however , are joined into one common bunker along the length of the Delousing Room so as to be able to accommodate a larger supply of coke – as the ground plan on Diagram J.-Nr .
9081 indicates.
” There , I explained the design and operation of the unit as follows : “ As per this project , the eight delousing chambers were @ @ @ @ @ @ @ high and 3.5 m long and were heated with a coke-fueled calorifer or air heater located between each pair of chambers behind the outside walls .
On the inside an opening in the top , connected to the air heater , allowed warm air to exit ; on the opposite side , on the floor of each pair of chambers , was a ventilation opening also connected to the air heater via an underground air channel .
In structural terms the facility was very similar to the model designed by Kori on July @ @ @ @ @ @ @ facility of Alt-Drewitz .
Delousing proceeded not with Zyklon B , but with hot air.
” Moreover , on p. 286 of the book mentioned , there are reproductions of the three main sections of Drawing 9081 .
Aside from this book , even a cursory analysis of the drawing would reveal that we are dealing with a delousing facility by means of hot air .
In Section a-b , on the left , one can clearly read “ Kohleneinwurf ” ( coal feed chute , see document 2 ) , but perhaps @ @ @ @ @ @ @ disinfestation chambers required combustion of coal ?
And if he had gone to the trouble of reading Pressac ’ s first book on Auschwitz with a little bit of attention , he could have saved himself the trouble of coming up with his absurd conjectures regarding the ventilation installed in “ Leichenkeller 1.
” In his analysis of Drawing 932 , dated January 23 , 1942 , of the planned Crematorium II , Pressac writes : [ 11 ] “ Leichenkeller 2 was to be temporary storage for newly arrived and recorded corpses @ @ @ @ @ @ @ days ) .
Leichenkeller 1 was to take corpses several days old , beginning to decompose and thus requiring the room to be well-ventilated , to be incinerated as soon as possible .
There is nothing on this drawing that indicates the future ‘ special ’ use of this crematorium .
Quite the contrary , it looks a perfectly ‘ normal , ’ though very high-capacity , incineration facility.
” Document 2 : Cross section of the planned hot air disinfestation unit at the Majdanek camp – see “ Kohleneinwurf ” ( coal @ @ @ @ @ @ @ on the detail of the ventilation equipment of Leichenkeller 1 , Allen at the same time discards the whole array of “ traces ” which , according to Pressac , constitute the proof that this space was subsequently transformed to make it suitable for criminal purposes ; their absence makes the drawing of 23 January absolutely “ normal.
” For example , the technicians of the Zentralbauleitung are said to have taken 13 months to realize that the door of Leichenkeller 1 – this alleged gas chamber – would need to open towards @ @ @ @ @ @ @ [ 12 ] and 17 months to understand that the concrete roof of Leichenkeller 1 required holes for the introduction of Zyklon B pellets .
They first built it without those alleged openings and had to install them later in great haste with hammer and chisel !
[ 13 ] But , against the thesis of Michael Thad Allen , there is another , more obvious fact in connection with the position of the Leichenkeller .
In a strenuous effort to attribute at any cost an exceptional character to the underground ventilation ducts @ @ @ @ @ @ @ “ Excavation of earthen ducts required considerable work , for the water table at Birkenau can rise to one meter above the floor level of the cellars of Crematoria I and II .
That the SS wanted to sink basements at all demands explanation .
( Crematoria IV and V were totally above ground ) .
The SS had to line the walls with bituminous paper , which proved extraordinarily hard to get during wartime .
All of these factors amounted to a great deal of extra trouble for an ‘ ordinary ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ if the Bauleitung had already decided in October of 1941 to make Leichenkeller 1 into a homicidal gas chamber , why go to the trouble of putting it underground ?
The first drawings for the new crematorium of November 1941 , presented by J.-C. Pressac , [ 14 ] show in fact clearly two morgues , completely underground , because the crematorium was to be built at Auschwitz .
When , however , the project was moved to Birkenau where the water table was higher , the morgues became semi-interred , i.e .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ but this required measures that were much more complex than those described regarding the two lower ventilation ducts .
If , then , Leichenkeller 1 was a gas chamber for Zyklon B , why did the Bauleitung and later the Zentralbauleitung not build it above grade ?
The only reasonable explanation is that the two Leichenkeller were simply designed as morgues , interred or semi-interred to be cooler , as Pressac has correctly noted .
Let us now go into Allen ’ s convoluted suspicions with respect to the ventliation ducts .
According @ @ @ @ @ @ @ dated September 21 , 1943 , the two Entlüftung ( exhaust ) channels ran at the floor level of the room but outside the longitudinal walls .
[ 15 ] Allen was struck , astonishingly , by this arrangement and considers it a kind of new “ criminal trace , ” in keeping with the tenet of the Holocaust historians that anything which , in their documentary or technical historical ignorance , they can not understand “ can be explained in no other way than by reference to mass murder using Zyklon-B.
” @ @ @ @ @ @ @ explanation is that placing a double exhaust duct of 50 cm diameter [ 16 ] on the floor , along the side walls would have reduced the usable width of the room by one meter , resulting in the loss of 30 sqm of usable space , and would have made cleaning and washing operations difficult while making the ducts more easily subject to damage .
The topic of ventilation of the two morgues of Crematorium II ( and III ) brings in another technical question of fundamental importance , which not only @ @ @ @ @ @ @ presumption of the official historiography : the question of rate of air changes .
In the section “ Ventilation System ” of my study Auschwitz .
The End of a Legend [ 17 ] I have shown not only that the rate of air changes foreseen for the two morgues was practically identical to that used in the case of civilian morgues , but also that the rate of air changes for Morgue 1 – 9.49 volumes per hour – was less than that of Morgue 2 – 11.08 volumes per hour – @ @ @ @ @ @ @ thus less well ventilated than the alleged undressing rooom .
In this way , the brilliant criminal technicians of the Zentralbauleitung , after more than a year devoted to the projects of gas chambers for disinfestation by Zyklon B , would have come to this stupendous result .
Allen has also completely neglected the official historical context , i.e .
the alleged development of the extermination equipment at Auschwitz , which deals another mortal blow to his theses .
He declares that the technicians of the Auschwitz Bauleitung , from October 1941 onwards @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in Morgue 1 of the new crematorium , taking their inspiration from the Zyklon B disinfestation chambers , whereas , five months later , in March of 1942 , when they “ planned ” the use of the alleged “ Bunker 1 ” at Birkenau , they did not even equip it with a ventilation device .
This also goes for the alleged “ Bunker 2 ” which was “ conceived ” during May or June .
Then why did the Zyklon B disinfestation chambers not “ stimulate ( d ) technological innovation @ @ @ @ @ @ @ blueprint for the gas chambers ” in the case of these “ Bunkers ?
” According to van Pelt , “ more than 200,000 jews ” [ 18 ] were murdered in these “ Bunkers , ” so we are apparently dealing with major extermination installations ; this renders Allen ’ s thesis even more nonsensical .
Michael Thad Allen ’ s article abounds with other fantastic and aberrant theses which are not even worth being refuted .
I will limit myself to one example only .
On pp .
201 – 203 @ @ @ @ @ @ @ translation , the last paragraph of a section from the “ Bericht des Amtes II-Bauten des Hauptamtes Haushalt und Bauten über die Arbeiten im Jahre 1941 ” ( Report of Department II , Buildings , of the Main Office of Budget and Buildings Concerning Works during 1941 ) which reads as follows : [ 19 ] “ The Reichsführer-SS had ordered the following additional building projects : Building of PoW camps within the territory of the Reich and the Government General .
The following were built : Within the Reich , small camps @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , Mauthausen , large camps at Auschwitz for 150,000 PoWs .
In the Government General at Lublin for 150,000 PoWs and at Debica for 5000 PoWs .
Typical plans for camp lay-out , as well as for quarantine , troop , housing and work sections , including the various administrative buildings , were elaborated with the aim of providing for aesthetically , technically and hygienically satisfactory structures .
The realization of the projects was based on these guidelines .
Conceptual plans for delousing units , both of permanent and of provisional type , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ police and KL , as well as provisional and permanent crematoria , incineration units and execution installations of various types ” “ This report , which again lumps the Zyklon-B delousing machinery with ‘ execution installations , ’ was distributed throughout the branches of the SS ’ s Bauinspektionen , Zentralbauleitungen , and smaller Bauleitungen .
The fact that systematic killing was planned at Auschwitz-Birkenau was thus common knowledge among SS engineers.
” Considering that the “ Entlausungsanstalten ” ( delousing facilities ) not only included Zyklon B chambers but also Heißluftanlagen and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ) , how can one seriously deduce from the term “ Exekutionsanlagen ” ( which refers to gallows or shooting areas for the execution of prisoners condemned to death by the special SS tribunals ; those were found in all the camps mentioned , as were , in the same way , Entlausungsanstalten , Krematorien and Verbrennungsstätten ) that at Auschwitz-Birkenau “ systematic killing was planned ?
” But then , what can one expect from an Assistant Professor of History , Technology , and Society who is not even capable of distinguishing @ @ @ @ @ @ @ using Heißluft ?
What is really paradoxical in this matter is that a link – two links , to be exact – between disinfestation units using Zyklon B and the alleged homicidal gas chambers at Auschwitz actually do exist , but not along the lines imagined by Allen ’ s flights of fancy .
As I have demonstrated in an article mentioned above , the Zentralbauleitung had , in January of 1943 , entertained the idea of using Morgue 1 of Crematorium II ( the “ Vergasungskeller ” ) temporarily as a provisional @ @ @ @ @ @ @ himself confirms this thesis when he quotes the following statement by Walter Dejaco ( former SS-Untersturmführer and head of the planning department at Zentralbauleitung ) dating from 4 March 1962 : “ The rooms , which were later employed as gas chambers , were designated by us as corpse storage rooms and delousing rooms , and were so planned by us.
” ( p. 196 ; my emphasis ) The second link is one that actually came from the propagandists of the secret resistance movement of Auschwitz who created the story of the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ it from the disinfestation units employing hydrocyanic acid that they called the alleged homicidal gas chambers “ Degasungskammer ” – a corruption of the term Begasungskammer , the normal designation of disinfestation chambers using the Zyklon B Kreislauf !
But this is another story , which I have told in my book on the so-called “ Bunkers ” at Birkenau .
[ 21 ]

The Birkenau Gas Chambers in October of 1941
Technico-Historical Fantasies of a “Technician”
By Carlo Mattogno
Published: 2012-07-31
“Show me or draw me a Nazi gas chamber!” This has been Dr. Robert Faurisson’s famous challenge to orthodox historians for several decades now. Jean-Claude Pressac and Prof. Robert J. van Pelt were among those who tried to meet Faurisson’s demand – and who failed miserably. That doesn’t stop others from trying, though. Here is the next candidate who risked to be exposed as an incompetent dabbler at best: Michael T. Allen, writing in the mainstream journal Holocaust and Genocide Studies. In the following paper, Italian revisionist Carlo Mattogno expertly deconstructs Allen’s delusions, which are based on the usual misrepresentations, misunderstandings and distortions.
In 2002 an article by Michael Thad Allen entitled “The Devil in the Details: The Gas Chambers of Birkenau, October 1941” appeared in the magazine Holocaust and Genocide Studies.[1]
Michael T. Allen was associate professor of German history at the Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta, Georgia. He is the author of numerous articles and two books on the history of the Holocaust, including “The Business of Genocide” (2002)
I shall leave aside his preliminary statements on the allegedly insidious methods of the “deniers,” on the so-called “devastating critique” by Pressac and van Pelt (a critique so “devastating” that they have been very careful to avoid criticizing my own arguments on Auschwitz) and on the habitually wrong interpretation of terms and expressions such as Sonderbehandlung, Sondermassnahmen and Badeanstalten für Sonderaktionen, on the subject of which I refer the reader to my specific study.[2] I shall also leave aside the “criminal evidence,” which, according to Allen, “can be explained in no other way than by reference to mass murder using Zyklon-B” – an interpretation that I have refuted in a number of articles that appeared in this journal,[3] I shall finally leave aside the presumed merits or demerits of Pressac and van Pelt (pp. 191f.) and shall pass on directly to the central topic of the article, which Allen describes in the following way:
“An examination of one otherwise insignificant component, the forced-air ventilation system, demonstrates that the ZBL[4]-Auschwitz planned Morgue 1 of Crematoria II and III (buildings constructed as mirror images of each other) from the beginning of October 1941 as a gigantic Zyklon-B facility. SS engineers based their design upon similar fumigation rooms brought to their attention by subcontractors. The SS quickly adapted this technology (originally meant to exterminate nothing more than vermin in clothing) in a drive to eliminate ‘racial vermin.’” (p. 193)
The “proof” of the fact that the Leichenkeller 1 of the new crematorium (the future crematorium II) was designed from the start as a homicidal gas chamber using Zyklon B is said to be the uniqueness of its ventilation system, which was planned for this room but not for Leichenkeller 2:
“In particular, Morgue 1 [= Leichenkeller 1] had ventilation systems that differed not only from Morgue 2 [= Leichenkeller 2], but from any other existing SS crematoria.” (p. 199)
The thesis is not new; on the contrary, it represents a significant withdrawal with respect to Pressac’s theses, which van Pelt plagiarized unashamedly. It was, in fact, adopted by George Wellers as far back as 1981. In a book dedicated to the gas chambers, he reproduces (for the first time, as far as I know) cross-sections of Leichenkeller 1 and 2 of the planned crematorium II,[5] calling attention to the fact that Leichenkeller 1 was equipped with Entlüftung (de-aeration) and Belüftung (aeration) ducts whereas Leichenkeller 2 was not.[6]
What does, however, constitute a novelty is the historical context in which Allen places his thesis and, first and foremost, the central argument with which he attempts to justify it.
He states that in the summer of 1941 discussions began at Auschwitz regarding gas chambers for disinfestation by means of Zyklon B. In particular, on 3 July, the SS-Neubauleitung (New Construction Office) registered the arrival of the article by G. Peters and E. Wünstiger “Entlausung mit Zyklon-Blausäure in Kreislauf-Begasungskammern” (Delousing with Zyklon hydrocyanic acid in circulatory gassing chambers), which had been sent three days earlier by the Heerdt-Lingler company at the request of the Friedrich Boos firm.[7] From the documentation on this type of equipment, which was planned for the Aufnahmegebäude (reception building; BW 160),[8] Allen deduces the following scenario:
“The dense context suggests that the SS and these specialists discussed fumigation machinery and the gassing of human beings simultaneously, likely at multiple sites, in the fall of 1941.” (p. 194)
Obviously, Allen does not present even the least documentary evidence for these assumed discussions, but he has now set up his false principle, from which he will be subsequently able to draw his false conclusions. First, however, he nails it down a few more times. After having affirmed without proof that
“it is reasonable to assume that both executives of these chemical firms [Degesch and Tesch] consulted with the SS about systematic murder.” (p. 194),
he declares once more without any proof:
“although these chambers were not (yet) designed for killing, all involved – the SS, Degesch, and Tesch & Stabenow – conceived of them as a system for managing prisoners as ‘human material’ in the style of a modern factory.” (ibid.)
Allen then notes that the Degesch Kreislauf (recirculating) disinfestation chambers were never set up at Auschwitz, but adds:
“nevertheless, they stimulated technological innovation and provided a conceptual blueprint for the gas chambers of Birkenau. First, ZBL engineers consciously conceived the gassing process as one in which prisoners’ bodies were managed as so much raw material in a modern factory. […] Second, if more trivial, the Degesch chambers provided a precedent for how to engineer the ventilation system for Zyklon-B killing chambers.” (p. 195)
At this point the initial conjecture changes into an established fact!
Allen still attempts to prop it up with a fanciful appeal to presumed homicidal gassings in disinfestation chambers by means of the Degesch-Kreislauf system (p. 196), bringing in as “proof” nothing less than two testimonies, one dated October 23, 1959, the other “undated,” of two illustrious nobodies: Irmgard Berger and Kaufmann-Grasowska! (Note 29 on p. 212.) This is really an irrefutable argument!
After having brought in this insubstantial “support,” Allen then comes up with his main argument which he introduces in a section entitled “Other Precedents for the Gas Chambers.” Here is the most important passage:
“The Degesch chambers are relatively well known, at least among specialists in Holocaust history. Less known is that the SS had other prototypes available. The Degesch’s ten-cubic-meter boxes were not only gas chambers presented at this time to the ZBL-Auschwitz or to SS Main Office for Budgets and Buildings [= Hauptamt Haushalt und Bauten]. For example, Kori GmbH, a firm that played the same role as subcontractor at Majdanek that Topf & Söhne played at Auschwitz, presented the ZBL-Lublin with diagrams of a building it had constructed in Alt-Drewitz. This was less a machine like the Degesch chambers than it was a semi-mechanized building. A central mechanical core contained blowers and a system of ducts for introducing Zyklon-B. Rooms on either side could be filled with clothing and disinfected. Here again, as the diagram shows, air was pumped into the chambers from the top. Blowers evacuated air through vents in the floor. In this case, rather than conventional metal ductwork, Kori installed the ducts in underground canals beneath the building.” (p. 196)
On p. 197, Allen shows a “Schnitt A-B” (section A-B) of the installation, which he comments upon in this fashion (see document 1):
“Diagram of Kori Zyklon-B gas chamber, ‘Anordnung einer Luftheizungs-Anlage für die Entlausungsanstalt in Alt-Drewitz’ [arrangement of an air-heating unit for the delousing installation at Alt-Drewitz], dated July 5, 1940”
From this sketch, Allen draws two conclusions:
“Although no document directly links such designs to Auschwitz (unsurprising since conceptual work is rarely put to paper), the fumigation building in Alt-Drewitz can still be seen as a model for Morgue 1, which also had underground, dug-out tunnels for ventilation.” (p. 195)
A few pages on, he adds:
“Underground ducts were part of existing Zyklon-B fumigation chambers, as can be seen in the ZBL-Lublin diagrams of the installation at Alt-Drewitz.” (p. 201)
Thus, Allen has uncovered the missing link in the evolutionary chain stretching from the disinfestation chambers to the homicidal gas chamber of Leichenkeller 1 – a truly paradigmatic discovery!
Unfortunately, such a conclusion is invalidated outright by the fact that, while the archives of the Zentralbauleitung (Central Construction Office) do contain documents relating to disinfestation equipment of various kinds, none of them is of the type dealt with by Allen; the latter, by contrast is in the archives of the former Majdanek camp. Therefore, no document links the design to Auschwitz, whether it be “directly” or “indirectly,” i.e. between the design and the SS-Neubauleitung (later SS-Bauleitung and finally Zentralbauleitung) at Auschwitz there is absolutely no link: but then how can one seriously argue that the engineers of the Auschwitz office were inspired by the drawing of the installation for Alt-Drewitz in their design of Leichenkeller 1? Here it would be necessary to bring in telepathy between Lublin and Auschwitz rather than the argument that “conceptual work is rarely put to paper”!
Document 1: Air-heating unit at Alt-Drewitz as a proposal for a delousing installation at the Majdanek camp. according to M.T. Allen.
Actually, the two installations have only one insignificant architectural detail in common – an underground duct – and it is only to drive home his point regarding this detail that Allen attributes an importance out of all proportion to the fact that Leichenkeller 1 was designed with a double underground ventilation duct.
However, Allen’s conclusion is radically demolished by the very design on which it is based.
Incredibly, Michael Thad Allen, in spite of being “assistant professor of modern German history and the history of technology at the Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta,” failed to understand that the document in question – the Kori drawing J.-Nr. 9081, entitled “Anordnung einer Luftheizungs-Anlage Kori für die Entlausungsanstalt in Alt-Drewitz” dated “Bln. [Berlin], den 5. Juli 1940”[9] – does not refer to a Zyklon-B disinfestation unit but to Heißluft (hot air) produced by coal combustion!
If – instead of letting loose the usual stupidities against the “deniers” – our “technologist” had looked at the book Concentration Camp Majdanek,[10] which I have written together with Jürgen Graf, he would have saved himself from this egregious blunder. On p. 130f. I published the letter from Kori that referred to the unit in question and in which it is said:
“This is also where the entranceways to the 4 coke bunkers are planned, which, however, are joined into one common bunker along the length of the Delousing Room so as to be able to accommodate a larger supply of coke – as the ground plan on Diagram J.-Nr. 9081 indicates.”
There, I explained the design and operation of the unit as follows:
“As per this project, the eight delousing chambers were each 2 m wide, 2.10 m high and 3.5 m long and were heated with a coke-fueled calorifer or air heater located between each pair of chambers behind the outside walls. On the inside an opening in the top, connected to the air heater, allowed warm air to exit; on the opposite side, on the floor of each pair of chambers, was a ventilation opening also connected to the air heater via an underground air channel. In structural terms the facility was very similar to the model designed by Kori on July 5, 1940, for the delousing facility of Alt-Drewitz. Delousing proceeded not with Zyklon B, but with hot air.”
Moreover, on p. 286 of the book mentioned, there are reproductions of the three main sections of Drawing 9081.
Aside from this book, even a cursory analysis of the drawing would reveal that we are dealing with a delousing facility by means of hot air. In Section a-b, on the left, one can clearly read “Kohleneinwurf” (coal feed chute, see document 2), but perhaps Michael Thad Allen believes that Zyklon B disinfestation chambers required combustion of coal?
Allen’s thesis thus collapses completely.
And if he had gone to the trouble of reading Pressac’s first book on Auschwitz with a little bit of attention, he could have saved himself the trouble of coming up with his absurd conjectures regarding the ventilation installed in “Leichenkeller 1.” In his analysis of Drawing 932, dated January 23, 1942, of the planned Crematorium II, Pressac writes:[11]
“Leichenkeller 2 was to be temporary storage for newly arrived and recorded corpses awaiting cremation (delay 3 or 4 days).
Leichenkeller 1 was to take corpses several days old, beginning to decompose and thus requiring the room to be well-ventilated, to be incinerated as soon as possible.
There is nothing on this drawing that indicates the future ‘special’ use of this crematorium. Quite the contrary, it looks a perfectly ‘normal,’ though very high-capacity, incineration facility.”
Document 2: Cross section of the planned hot air disinfestation unit at the Majdanek camp – see “Kohleneinwurf” (coal feed) at the left.
Concentrating on the detail of the ventilation equipment of Leichenkeller 1, Allen at the same time discards the whole array of “traces” which, according to Pressac, constitute the proof that this space was subsequently transformed to make it suitable for criminal purposes; their absence makes the drawing of 23 January absolutely “normal.” For example, the technicians of the Zentralbauleitung are said to have taken 13 months to realize that the door of Leichenkeller 1 – this alleged gas chamber – would need to open towards the outside rather than the inside,[12] and 17 months to understand that the concrete roof of Leichenkeller 1 required holes for the introduction of Zyklon B pellets. They first built it without those alleged openings and had to install them later in great haste with hammer and chisel![13]
But, against the thesis of Michael Thad Allen, there is another, more obvious fact in connection with the position of the Leichenkeller.
In a strenuous effort to attribute at any cost an exceptional character to the underground ventilation ducts of this building, he writes:
“Excavation of earthen ducts required considerable work, for the water table at Birkenau can rise to one meter above the floor level of the cellars of Crematoria I and II. That the SS wanted to sink basements at all demands explanation. (Crematoria IV and V were totally above ground). The SS had to line the walls with bituminous paper, which proved extraordinarily hard to get during wartime. All of these factors amounted to a great deal of extra trouble for an ‘ordinary’ morgue.” (p. 201)
But if the Bauleitung had already decided in October of 1941 to make Leichenkeller 1 into a homicidal gas chamber, why go to the trouble of putting it underground?
The first drawings for the new crematorium of November 1941, presented by J.-C. Pressac,[14] show in fact clearly two morgues, completely underground, because the crematorium was to be built at Auschwitz. When, however, the project was moved to Birkenau where the water table was higher, the morgues became semi-interred, i.e. the upper part stood above grade, but this required measures that were much more complex than those described regarding the two lower ventilation ducts. If, then, Leichenkeller 1 was a gas chamber for Zyklon B, why did the Bauleitung and later the Zentralbauleitung not build it above grade? The only reasonable explanation is that the two Leichenkeller were simply designed as morgues, interred or semi-interred to be cooler, as Pressac has correctly noted.
Let us now go into Allen’s convoluted suspicions with respect to the ventliation ducts.
According to the Huta Co. drawing 109/13A, dated September 21, 1943, the two Entlüftung (exhaust) channels ran at the floor level of the room but outside the longitudinal walls.[15]
Allen was struck, astonishingly, by this arrangement and considers it a kind of new “criminal trace,” in keeping with the tenet of the Holocaust historians that anything which, in their documentary or technical historical ignorance, they cannot understand “can be explained in no other way than by reference to mass murder using Zyklon-B.” In this case, the most obvious explanation is that placing a double exhaust duct of 50 cm diameter[16] on the floor, along the side walls would have reduced the usable width of the room by one meter, resulting in the loss of 30 sqm of usable space, and would have made cleaning and washing operations difficult while making the ducts more easily subject to damage.
The topic of ventilation of the two morgues of Crematorium II (and III) brings in another technical question of fundamental importance, which not only demolishes, but makes utterly ridiculous the presumption of the official historiography: the question of rate of air changes. In the section “Ventilation System” of my study Auschwitz. The End of a Legend[17] I have shown not only that the rate of air changes foreseen for the two morgues was practically identical to that used in the case of civilian morgues, but also that the rate of air changes for Morgue 1 – 9.49 volumes per hour – was less than that of Morgue 2 – 11.08 volumes per hour – and that the alleged gas chamber was thus less well ventilated than the alleged undressing rooom. In this way, the brilliant criminal technicians of the Zentralbauleitung, after more than a year devoted to the projects of gas chambers for disinfestation by Zyklon B, would have come to this stupendous result.
Allen has also completely neglected the official historical context, i.e. the alleged development of the extermination equipment at Auschwitz, which deals another mortal blow to his theses.
He declares that the technicians of the Auschwitz Bauleitung, from October 1941 onwards, had planned a homicidal gas chamber in Morgue 1 of the new crematorium, taking their inspiration from the Zyklon B disinfestation chambers, whereas, five months later, in March of 1942, when they “planned” the use of the alleged “Bunker 1” at Birkenau, they did not even equip it with a ventilation device. This also goes for the alleged “Bunker 2” which was “conceived” during May or June. Then why did the Zyklon B disinfestation chambers not “stimulate(d) technological innovation and provide(d) a conceptual blueprint for the gas chambers” in the case of these “Bunkers?”
According to van Pelt, “more than 200,000 jews”[18] were murdered in these “Bunkers,” so we are apparently dealing with major extermination installations; this renders Allen’s thesis even more nonsensical.
Michael Thad Allen’s article abounds with other fantastic and aberrant theses which are not even worth being refuted. I will limit myself to one example only. On pp. 201 – 203, he quotes, in an English translation, the last paragraph of a section from the “Bericht des Amtes II-Bauten des Hauptamtes Haushalt und Bauten über die Arbeiten im Jahre 1941” (Report of Department II, Buildings, of the Main Office of Budget and Buildings Concerning Works during 1941) which reads as follows:[19]
“The Reichsführer-SS had ordered the following additional building projects:
Building of PoW camps within the territory of the Reich and the Government General.
The following were built:
Within the Reich, small camps at KLs Dachau, Buchenwald, Flossenbürg, Mauthausen, large camps at Auschwitz for 150,000 PoWs.
In the Government General at Lublin for 150,000 PoWs and at Debica for 5000 PoWs.
Typical plans for camp lay-out, as well as for quarantine, troop, housing and work sections, including the various administrative buildings, were elaborated with the aim of providing for aesthetically, technically and hygienically satisfactory structures. The realization of the projects was based on these guidelines.
Conceptual plans for delousing units, both of permanent and of provisional type, were devloped for use by Waffen-SS, police and KL, as well as provisional and permanent crematoria, incineration units and execution installations of various types”
Allen comments:
“This report, which again lumps the Zyklon-B delousing machinery with ‘execution installations,’ was distributed throughout the branches of the SS’s Bauinspektionen, Zentralbauleitungen, and smaller Bauleitungen. The fact that systematic killing was planned at Auschwitz-Birkenau was thus common knowledge among SS engineers.”
Considering that the “Entlausungsanstalten” (delousing facilities) not only included Zyklon B chambers but also Heißluftanlagen and Dampf-Apparate (hot air and steam installations), how can one seriously deduce from the term “Exekutionsanlagen” (which refers to gallows or shooting areas for the execution of prisoners condemned to death by the special SS tribunals; those were found in all the camps mentioned, as were, in the same way, Entlausungsanstalten, Krematorien and Verbrennungsstätten) that at Auschwitz-Birkenau “systematic killing was planned?”
But then, what can one expect from an Assistant Professor of History, Technology, and Society who is not even capable of distinguishing an Entlausungskammer for Zyklon B from one using Heißluft?
What is really paradoxical in this matter is that a link – two links, to be exact – between disinfestation units using Zyklon B and the alleged homicidal gas chambers at Auschwitz actually do exist, but not along the lines imagined by Allen’s flights of fancy. As I have demonstrated in an article mentioned above, the Zentralbauleitung had, in January of 1943, entertained the idea of using Morgue 1 of Crematorium II (the “Vergasungskeller”) temporarily as a provisional disinfestation chamber.[20] Allen himself confirms this thesis when he quotes the following statement by Walter Dejaco (former SS-Untersturmführer and head of the planning department at Zentralbauleitung) dating from 4 March 1962:
“The rooms, which were later employed as gas chambers, were designated by us as corpse storage rooms and delousing rooms, and were so planned by us.” (p. 196; my emphasis)
The second link is one that actually came from the propagandists of the secret resistance movement of Auschwitz who created the story of the “Bunkers” and so blatantly took it from the disinfestation units employing hydrocyanic acid that they called the alleged homicidal gas chambers “Degasungskammer” – a corruption of the term Begasungskammer, the normal designation of disinfestation chambers using the Zyklon B Kreislauf!
But this is another story, which I have told in my book on the so-called “Bunkers” at Birkenau.[21]
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Author: Aryan - "National Socialist" - Musician Aryan - "National Socialist" - Musician


Welsh Lake Fairies

By Wirt Sikes From British Goblins : Welsh Folk-lore , Fairy Mythology , Legends and Traditions [ 1880 ] THE Gwragedd Annwn ( literally , wives of the lower world , or hell ) are the elfin dames who dwell under the water .
I find no resemblance in the Welsh fairy to our familiar mermaid , beyond the watery abode , and the sometimes winning ways .
The Gwragedd Annwn are not fishy of aspect , nor do they dwell in the sea .
Their haunt is the lakes and rivers , but especially the wild and lonely lakes @ @ @ @ @ @ @ sheets are surrounded with numberless superstitions , which will be further treated of .
In the realm of faerie they serve as avenues of communication between this world and the lower one of annwn , the shadowy domain presided over by Gwyn ap Nudd , king of the fairies .
This sub-aqueous realm is peopled by those children of mystery termed Plant Annwn , and the belief is current among the inhabitants of the Welsh mountains that the Gwragedd Annwn still occasionally visit this upper world of ours .
[ ‘ Archaeologia Cambrensis @ @ @ @ @ @ @ 253 ] The only reference to Welsh mermaids I have either read or heard is contained in Drayton ’ s account of the Battle of Agincourt .
There it is mentioned , among the armorial ensigns of the counties of Wales : [ There is in ‘ Cymru Fu ’ a mermaid story , but its mermaid feature is apparently a modern embellishment of a real incident , and without value here . ]
Crumlyn Lake , near the quaint village of Briton Ferry , is one of the many in Wales which @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
It is also believed that a large town lies swallowed up there , and that the Gwragedd Annwn have turned the submerged walls to use as the superstructure of their fairy palaces .
Some claim to have seen the towers of beautiful castles lifting their battlements beneath the surface of the dark waters , and fairy bells are at times heard ringing from these towers .
The way the elfin dames first came to dwell there was this : A long , ay , a very long time ago , St. Patrick @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to St. David of Wales , just to say ‘ Sut yr y ’ ch chwi ?
’ ( How d ’ ye do ? )
; and as they were strolling by this lake conversing on religious topics in a friendly manner , some Welsh people who had ascertained that it was St. Patrick , and being angry at him for leaving Cambria for Erin , began to abuse him in the Welsh language , his native tongue .
Of course such an insult could not go unpunished , and St. Patrick @ @ @ @ @ @ @ fishes ; but some of them being females , were converted into fairies instead .
It is also related that the sun , on account of this insolence to so holy a man , never shed its life-giving rays upon the dark waters of this picturesque lake , except during one week of the year .
This legend and these magical details are equally well accredited to various other lakes , among them Llyn Barfog , near Aberdovey , the town whose ‘ bells ’ are celebrated in immortal song .
Llyn Barfog @ @ @ @ @ @ @ cow ’ s descent upon earth , from among the droves of the Gwragedd Annwn .
This is the legend of the origin of the Welsh black cattle , as related to me in Carmarthenshire : In times of old there was a band of elfin ladies who used to haunt the neighbourhood of Llyn Barfog , a lake among the hills just back of Aberdovey .
It was their habit to make their appearance at dusk clad all in green , accompanied by their milk-white hounds .
Besides their hounds , the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in the possession of droves of beautiful milk-white kine , called Gwartheg y Llyn , or kine of the lake .
One day an old farmer , who lived near Dyssyrnant , had the good luck to catch one of these mystic cows , which had fallen in love with the cattle of his herd .
From that day the farmer ’ s fortune was made .
Such calves , such milk , such butter and cheese , as came from the milk-white cow never had been seen in Wales before , nor @ @ @ @ @ @ @ fame of the Fuwch Gyfeiliorn ( which was what they called the cow ) spread through the country round .
The farmer , who had been poor , became rich ; the owner of vast herds , like the patriarchs of old .
But one day he took it into his silly noddle that the elfin cow was getting old , and that he had better fatten her for the market .
His nefarious purpose thrived amazingly .
Never , since beef steaks were invented , was seen such a fat cow as @ @ @ @ @ @ @ day came , and the neighbours arrived from all about to witness the taking-off of this monstrously fat beast .
The farmer had already counted up the gains from the sale of her , and the butcher had bared his red right arm .
The cow was tethered , regardless of her mournful lowing and her pleading eyes ; the butcher raised his bludgeon and struck fair and hard between the eyes ; when lo !
a shriek resounded through the air , awakening the echoes of the hills , as the butcher @ @ @ @ @ @ @ head of the elfin cow , and knocked over nine adjoining men , while the butcher himself went frantically whirling around trying to catch hold of something permanent .
Then the astonished assemblage beheld a green lady standing on a crag high up over the lake , and crying with a loud voice : Come yellow Anvil , stray horns , Speckled one of the lake , And of the hornless Dodlin , Arise , come home .
Whereupon not only did the elfin cow arise and go home , but all her @ @ @ @ @ @ @ went home with her , disappearing in the air over the hill tops and returning nevermore .
Only one cow remained of all the farmer ’ s herds , and she had turned from milky white to raven black .
Whereupon the farmer in despair drowned himself in the lake of the green ladies , and the black cow became the progenitor of the existing race of Welsh black cattle .
This legend appears , in a slightly different form , in the ‘ Iola MSS.
, ’ as translated by Taliesin Williams @ @ @ @ @ @ @ published for the Welsh MSS .
Society , 1848 . ]
‘ The milk-white milch cow gave enough of milk to every one who desired it ; and however frequently milked , or by whatever number of persons , she was never found deficient .
All persons who drank of her milk were healed of every illness ; from fools they became wise ; and from being wicked , became happy .
This cow went round the world ; and wherever she appeared , she filled with milk all the vessels that could @ @ @ @ @ @ @ for all the wise and happy .
It was from her that all the milch cows in the world were obtained .
After traversing through the island of Britain , for the benefit and blessing of country and kindred , she reached the Vale of Towy ; where , tempted by her fine appearance and superior condition , the natives sought to kill and eat her ; but just as they were proceeding to effect their purpose , she vanished from between their hands , and was never seen again .
A house @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Y Fuwch Laethwen Lefrith ( The Milk-white Milch Cow . )
’ The legend of the Meddygon Myddfai again introduces the elfin cattle to our notice , but combines with them another and a very interesting form of this superstition , namely , that of the wife of supernatural race .
A further feature gives it its name , Meddygon meaning physicians , and the legend professing to give the origin of certain doctors who were renowned in the thirteenth century .
The legend relates that a farmer in the parish of Myddfai @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in a neighbouring fair , led them to graze near Llyn y Fan Fach , on the Black Mountains .
Whenever he visited these lambs three beautiful damsels appeared to him from the lake , on whose shores they often made excursions .
Sometimes he pursued and tried to catch them , but always failed ; the enchanting nymphs ran before him and on reaching the lake taunted him in these words : which , if one must render it literally , means : Bake your bread , ‘ Twill be hard to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ poetically treated , might signify Mortall , who eatest baken bread , Not for thee is the fairy ’ s bed !
One day some moist bread from the lake came floating ashore .
The farmer seized it , and devoured it with avidity .
The following day , to his great delight , be was successful in his chase , and caught the nymphs on the shore .
After talking a long time with them , he mustered up the courage to propose marriage to one of them .
She consented to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ distinguish her from her sisters the next day .
This was a new and great difficulty to the young farmer , for the damsels were so similar in form and features , that he could scarcely see any difference between them .
He noted , however , a trifling singularity in the strapping of the chosen one ’ s sandal , by which he recognized her on the following day .
As good as her word , the gwraig immediately left the lake and went with him to his farm .
Before she @ @ @ @ @ @ @ attend her , seven cows , two oxen , and one bull .
She stipulated that she should remain with the farmer only until such time as he should strike her thrice without cause .
For some years they dwelt peaceably together , and she bore him three sons , who were the celebrated Meddygon Myddfai .
One day , when preparing for a fair in the neighbourhood ) the farmer desired her to go to the held for his horse .
She said she would , but being rather dilatory , he @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , dos , ’ i.e.
, ‘ Go , go , go , ’ and at the same time slightly tapped her arm three times with his glove .
… The blows were slight–but they were blows .
The terms of the marriage contract were broken , and the dame departed , summoning with her her seven cows , her two oxen , and the bull .
The oxen were at that moment ploughing in the field , but they immediately obeyed her call and dragged the plough after them to the lake @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in which they were ploughing to the margin of the lake , is still to be seen–in several parts of that country–at the present day .
After her departure , the gwraig annwn once met her three sons in the valley now called Cwm Meddygon , and gave them a magic box containing remedies of wonderful power , through whose use they became celebrated .
Their names were Cadogan , Gruffydd and Emion , and the farmer ’ s name was Rhiwallon .
Rhiwallon and his sons , named as above , were @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Dynevor , and son of the last native prince of Wales .
They lived about 1230 , and dying , left behind them a compendium of their medical practice .
‘ A copy of their works is in the Welsh School Library in Gray ’ s Inn Lane.
’ [ ‘ Cambro Briton , ’ ii.
, 315 ] In a more polished and elaborate form this legend omits the medical features altogether , but substitutes a number of details so peculiarly Welsh that I can not refrain from presenting them .
This @ @ @ @ @ @ @ heard of the lake maiden , who rowed up and down the lake in a golden boat , with a golden oar .
Her hair was long and yellow , and her face was pale and melancholy .
In his desire to see this wondrous beauty , the farmer went on New Year ’ s Eve to the edge of the lake , and in silence awaited the coming of the first hour of the new year .
It came , and there in truth was the maiden in her golden boat , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , he stood for hours beholding her , until the stars faded out of the sky , the moon sank behind the rocks , and the cold gray dawn drew nigh ; and then the lovely gwraig began to vanish from his sight .
Wild with passion , and with the thought of losing her for ever , he cried aloud to the retreating vision , ‘ Stay !
stay Be my wife.
’ But the gwraig only uttered a faint cry , and was gone .
Night after night the young farmer @ @ @ @ @ @ @ but the gwraig returned no more .
He became negligent of his person ; his once robust form grew thin and wan ; his face was a map of melancholy and despair .
He went one day to consult a soothsayer who dwelt on the mountain , and this grave personage advised him to besiege the damsel ’ s heart with gifts of bread and cheese .
This counsel commending itself strongly to his Welsh way of thinking , the farmer set out upon an assiduous course of casting his bread upon the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ began on Midsummer eve by going to the lake and dropping therein a large cheese and a loaf of bread .
Night after night he continued to throw in loaves and cheeses , but nothing appeared in answer to his sacrifices .
His hopes were set , however , on the approaching New Year ’ s eve .
The momentous night arrived at last .
Clad in his best array , and armed with seven white loaves and his biggest and handsomest cheese , he set out once more for the lake .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ then slowly and solemnly dropped the seven loaves into the water , and with a sigh sent the cheese to keep them company .
His persistence was at length rewarded .
The magic skiff appeared ; the fair gwraig guided it to where he stood ; stepped ashore , and accepted him as her husband .
The before-mentioned stipulation was made as to the blows ; and she brought her dower of cattle .
One day , after they had been four years married , they were invited to a christening .
In @ @ @ @ @ @ @ burst into tears .
Her husband gave her an angry look , and asked her why she thus made a fool of herself .
She replied , ‘ The poor babe is entering a world of sin and sorrow ; misery lies before it .
Why should I rejoice ?
’ He pushed her pettishly away .
‘ I warn you , husband , ’ said the gwraig ; ‘ you have struck me once.
’ After a time they were bidden to the funeral of the child they had seen christened .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ and danced about .
The husband ’ s wrath again arose , and again he asked her why she thus made a fool of herself .
She answered , ‘ The dear babe has escaped the misery that was before it ’ and gone to be good and happy for ever .
Why should I grieve ?
’ Again he pushed her from him , and again she warned him ; he had struck her twice .
Soon they were invited to a wedding ; the bride was young and fair , the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ old miser .
In the midst of the wedding feast the gwraig annwn burst into tears , and to her husband ’ s question why she thus made a fool of herself she replied , ‘ Truth is wedded to age for greed , and not for love-summer and winter can not agree–it is the diawl ’ s compact.
’ The angry husband thrust her from him for the third and last time .
She looked at him with tender love and reproach , and said , ‘ The three blows are struck-husband @ @ @ @ @ @ @ her more , nor any of the flocks and herds she had brought him for her dowry .
In its employment of the myth to preach a sermon , and in its introduction of cheese , this version of the legend is very Welsh indeed .
The extent to which cheese figures in Cambrian folk-lore is surprising ; cheese is encountered in every sort of fairy company ; you actually meet cheese in the Mabinogion , along with the most romantic forms of beauty known in story .
And herein again is illustrated @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Cambrian goblins .
Heaven defend me from that Welsh fairy !
’ says Falstaff , ‘ lest he transform me to a piece of cheese ‘ [ ‘ Merry Wives of Windsor ’ , Act .
V. , Sc .
5 ] Bread is found figuring actively in the folk-lore of every country , especially as a sacrifice to water-gods ; but cheese is , so far as I know , thus honoured only in Cambria .
Once more this legend appears , this time with a feature I have nowhere else encountered @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the father of a fairy damsel .
The son of a farmer on Drws Coed farm was one foggy day looking after his father ’ s sheep , when crossing a marshy meadow he beheld a little lady behind some rising ground .
She had yellow hair , blue eyes and rosy cheeks .
He approached her , and asked permission to converse ; whereupon she smiled sweetly and said to him , ‘ Idol of my hopes , you have come at last !
’ They there and then began to ‘ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ other daily here and there along the farm meadows .
His intentions were honourable ; he desired her to marry him .
He was sometimes absent for days together , no one knew where , and his friends whispered about that he had been witched .
Around the Turf Lake ( Llyn y Dywarchen ) was a grove of trees , and under one of these one day the fairy promised to be his .
The consent of her father was now necessary .
One moonlight night an appointment was made to meet @ @ @ @ @ @ @ daughter did not appear till the moon had disappeared behind the hill .
Then they both came .
The fairy father immediately gave his consent to the marriage , on one condition , namely , that her future husband should never hit her with iron .
‘ If ever thou dost touch her flesh with iron she shall be no more thine , but she shall return to her own.
’ They were married–a good-looking pair .
Large sums of money were brought by her , the night before the wedding , to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ wealthy , had several handsome children , and they were very happy .
After some years , they were one day out riding , when her horse sank in a deep mire , and by the assistance of her husband , in her hurry to remount , she was struck on her knee by the stirrup of the saddle .
Immediately voices were heard singing on the brow of the hill , and she disappeared , leaving all her children behind .
She and her mother devised a plan by which she could @ @ @ @ @ @ @ was not allowed to walk the earth with man , they floated a large turf on the lake , and on this turf she stood for hours at a time holding converse with her husband .
This continued until his death [ ‘ Cymru Fu , ’ 476 ] .
The didactic purpose again appears in the following legend , which , varying but little in phraseology , is current in the neighbourhood of a dozen different mountain lakes : In other days , before the Cymry had become reconciled to their Saxon @ @ @ @ @ @ @ s morning a door was found open in a rock hard by the lake .
Those mortals who had the curiosity and the resolution to enter this door were conducted by a secret passage to a small island in the middle of the lake .
Here they found a most enchanting garden , stored with the choicest fruits and flowers , and inhabited by the Gwragedd Annwn , whose beauty could be equalled only by the courtesy and affability which they exhibited to those who pleased them .
They gathered fruit and flowers @ @ @ @ @ @ @ them with the most exquisite music , disclosed to them many secrets of futurity , and invited them to stay as long as they liked .
‘ But , ’ said they , ‘ the island is secret , and nothing of its produce must be carried away.
’ The warning being heeded , all went well .
But one day there appeared among the visitors a wicked Welsh-man , who , thinking to derive some magical aid therefrom , pocketed a flower with which he had been presented , and was about @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
But the theft boded him no good .
As soon as he had touched unhallowed ground the flower vanished , and he lost his senses .
However , of this abuse of their hospitality the Gwragedd Annwn took no notice at the time .
They dismissed their guests with their accustomed courtesy , and the door was closed as usual .
But their resentment was bitter ; for though the fairies of the lake and their enchanted garden undoubtedly occupy the spot to this day , the door which led to the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ all these legends the student of comparative folk-lore traces the ancient mythology , however overlain with later details .
The water-maidens of every land doubtless originally were the floating clouds of the sky , or the mists of the mountain .
From this have come certain fair and fanciful creations with which Indo-European folk-lore teems , the most familiar of which are Undine , Melusina , Nausicaa , and the classic Muse .
In Wales , as in other lands , the myth has many forms .
The dispersion of dark clouds from @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the rising sun , or the morning breezes , is localized in tile legend of the Men of Ardudwy .
These men make a raid on the maidens of the Vale of Clwyd , and are pursued and slaughtered by the latter ’ s fathers and brothers .
The maidens thereupon cast themselves headlong into the lake , which is thenceforth called the Maidens Lake , or Llyn y Morwynion .
In another legend , the river mist over the Cynwal is the spirit of a traitress who perished long ago in the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ sea-born pirates of the North ( the ocean storms ) to rob her Cambrian lord of his domains .
She was defeated by the aid of a powerful enchanter ( the sun ) , and fled up the river to the lake , accompanied by her maidens , who were drowned with her there .
[ ‘ Arch .
Camb.
, ’ 4th Se.
, vii.
, 251 ] As the mermaid superstition is seemingly absent in Wales , so there are no fairy tales of maidens who lure mortals to their doom @ @ @ @ @ @ @ did women and children , and as the Nymph of the Lurley did marriageable young men .
But it is believed that there are several old Welsh families who are the descendants of the Gwragedd Annwn , as in the case of the Meddygon Myddfai .
The familiar Welsh name of Morgan is sometimes thought to signify , ‘ Born of the Sea.
’ Certainly môr in Welsh means sea , and gân a birth .
It is curious , too , that a mermaid is called in Basse Bretagne ‘ Mary Morgan.
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ which a mortal marries a water-maiden is large , and while the local details smack of the soil , the general idea is so like in lands far remote from each other as to indicate a common origin in pre-historic times .
In Wales , where the mountain lakes are numerous , gloomy , lonely , and yet lovely ; where many of them , too , show traces of having been inhabited in ancient times by a race of lake-dwellers , whose pile-supported villages vanished ages ago ; and where bread and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ candles , these particulars are localized in the legend .
In the Faro Islands , where the seal is a familiar yet ever-mysterious object , with its human-like eyes , and glossy skin , the wife of supernatural race is a transformed seal .
She comes ashore every ninth night , sheds her skin , leaves it on the shore , and dances with her fairy companions .
A mortal steals her sealskin dress , and when day breaks , and her companions return to their abode in the sea , compels her @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Some day he offends her ; she recovers her skin and plunges into the sea .
In China , the superstition appears in a Lew-chewan legend mentioned by Dr. Dennys , [ ‘ Folk-Lore of China , ’ 99 ] which relates how a fairy in the guise of a beautiful woman is found bathing in a man ’ s well .
He persuades her to marry him , and she remains with him for nine years , at the end of which time , despite the affection she has for their two @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a cloud ’ and disappears .

By Wirt Sikes
From British Goblins: Welsh Folk-lore, Fairy Mythology, Legends and Traditions [1880]
THE Gwragedd Annwn (literally, wives of the lower world, or hell) are the elfin dames who dwell under the water. I find no resemblance in the Welsh fairy to our familiar mermaid, beyond the watery abode, and the sometimes winning ways. The Gwragedd Annwn are not fishy of aspect, nor do they dwell in the sea. Their haunt is the lakes and rivers, but especially the wild and lonely lakes upon the mountain heights. These romantic sheets are surrounded with numberless superstitions, which will be further treated of. In the realm of faerie they serve as avenues of communication between this world and the lower one of annwn, the shadowy domain presided over by Gwyn ap Nudd, king of the fairies. This sub-aqueous realm is peopled by those children of mystery termed Plant Annwn, and the belief is current among the inhabitants of the Welsh mountains that the Gwragedd Annwn still occasionally visit this upper world of ours. [‘Archaeologia Cambrensis,’ 2nd Se., iv., 253] The only reference to Welsh mermaids I have either read or heard is contained in Drayton’s account of the Battle of Agincourt. There it is mentioned, among the armorial ensigns of the counties of Wales:
As Cardigan, the next to them that went,
Came with a mermaid sitting on a rock
[There is in ‘Cymru Fu’ a mermaid story, but its mermaid feature is apparently a modern embellishment of a real incident, and without value here.]
II.
Crumlyn Lake, near the quaint village of Briton Ferry, is one of the many in Wales which are a resort of the elfin dames. It is also believed that a large town lies swallowed up there, and that the Gwragedd Annwn have turned the submerged walls to use as the superstructure of their fairy palaces. Some claim to have seen the towers of beautiful castles lifting their battlements beneath the surface of the dark waters, and fairy bells are at times heard ringing from these towers. The way the elfin dames first came to dwell there was this: A long, ay, a very long time ago, St. Patrick came over from Ireland on a visit to St. David of Wales, just to say ‘Sut yr y’ch chwi?’ (How d’ye do?); and as they were strolling by this lake conversing on religious topics in a friendly manner, some Welsh people who had ascertained that it was St. Patrick, and being angry at him for leaving Cambria for Erin, began to abuse him in the Welsh language, his native tongue. Of course such an insult could not go unpunished, and St. Patrick caused his villifiers to be transformed into fishes; but some of them being females, were converted into fairies instead. It is also related that the sun, on account of this insolence to so holy a man, never shed its life-giving rays upon the dark waters of this picturesque lake, except during one week of the year. This legend and these magical details are equally well accredited to various other lakes, among them Llyn Barfog, near Aberdovey, the town whose ‘bells’ are celebrated in immortal song.
III.
Llyn Barfog is the scene of the famous elfin cow’s descent upon earth, from among the droves of the Gwragedd Annwn. This is the legend of the origin of the Welsh black cattle, as related to me in Carmarthenshire: In times of old there was a band of elfin ladies who used to haunt the neighbourhood of Llyn Barfog, a lake among the hills just back of Aberdovey. It was their habit to make their appearance at dusk clad all in green, accompanied by their milk-white hounds. Besides their hounds, the green ladies of Llyn Barfog were peculiar in the possession of droves of beautiful milk-white kine, called Gwartheg y Llyn, or kine of the lake. One day an old farmer, who lived near Dyssyrnant, had the good luck to catch one of these mystic cows, which had fallen in love with the cattle of his herd. From that day the farmer’s fortune was made. Such calves, such milk, such butter and cheese, as came from the milk-white cow never had been seen in Wales before, nor ever will be seen again. The fame of the Fuwch Gyfeiliorn (which was what they called the cow) spread through the country round. The farmer, who had been poor, became rich; the owner of vast herds, like the patriarchs of old. But one day he took it into his silly noddle that the elfin cow was getting old, and that he had better fatten her for the market. His nefarious purpose thrived amazingly. Never, since beef steaks were invented, was seen such a fat cow as this cow grew to be. Killing day came, and the neighbours arrived from all about to witness the taking-off of this monstrously fat beast. The farmer had already counted up the gains from the sale of her, and the butcher had bared his red right arm. The cow was tethered, regardless of her mournful lowing and her pleading eyes; the butcher raised his bludgeon and struck fair and hard between the eyes; when lo! a shriek resounded through the air, awakening the echoes of the hills, as the butcher’s bludgeon went through the goblin head of the elfin cow, and knocked over nine adjoining men, while the butcher himself went frantically whirling around trying to catch hold of something permanent. Then the astonished assemblage beheld a green lady standing on a crag high up over the lake, and crying with a loud voice:
Dere di felen Emion,
Cyrn Cyfeiliorn-braith y Llyn,
A’r foci Dodin,
Codwch, dewch adre.
Come yellow Anvil, stray horns,Speckled one of the lake,And of the hornless Dodlin,Arise, come home.
Whereupon not only did the elfin cow arise and go home, but all her progeny to the third and fourth generations went home with her, disappearing in the air over the hill tops and returning nevermore. Only one cow remained of all the farmer’s herds, and she had turned from milky white to raven black. Whereupon the farmer in despair drowned himself in the lake of the green ladies, and the black cow became the progenitor of the existing race of Welsh black cattle.
This legend appears, in a slightly different form, in the ‘Iola MSS.,’ as translated by Taliesin Williams, of Merthyr: [Llandovery, published for the Welsh MSS. Society, 1848.] ‘The milk-white milch cow gave enough of milk to every one who desired it; and however frequently milked, or by whatever number of persons, she was never found deficient. All persons who drank of her milk were healed of every illness; from fools they became wise; and from being wicked, became happy. This cow went round the world; and wherever she appeared, she filled with milk all the vessels that could be found, leaving calves behind her for all the wise and happy. It was from her that all the milch cows in the world were obtained. After traversing through the island of Britain, for the benefit and blessing of country and kindred, she reached the Vale of Towy; where, tempted by her fine appearance and superior condition, the natives sought to kill and eat her; but just as they were proceeding to effect their purpose, she vanished from between their hands, and was never seen again. A house still remains in the locality, called Y Fuwch Laethwen Lefrith (The Milk-white Milch Cow.)’
lV.
The legend of the Meddygon Myddfai again introduces the elfin cattle to our notice, but combines with them another and a very interesting form of this superstition, namely, that of the wife of supernatural race. A further feature gives it its name, Meddygon meaning physicians, and the legend professing to give the origin of certain doctors who were renowned in the thirteenth century. The legend relates that a farmer in the parish of Myddfai, Carmarthenshire, having bought some lambs in a neighbouring fair, led them to graze near Llyn y Fan Fach, on the Black Mountains. Whenever he visited these lambs three beautiful damsels appeared to him from the lake, on whose shores they often made excursions. Sometimes he pursued and tried to catch them, but always failed; the enchanting nymphs ran before him and on reaching the lake taunted him in these words:
Cras dy fara,
Anhawdd ein dala;
which, if one must render it literally, means:
Bake your bread,
‘Twill be hard to catch us;
but which, more poetically treated, might signify
Mortall, who eatest baken bread,
Not for thee is the fairy’s bed!
One day some moist bread from the lake came floating ashore. The farmer seized it, and devoured it with avidity. The following day, to his great delight, be was successful in his chase, and caught the nymphs on the shore. After talking a long time with them, he mustered up the courage to propose marriage to one of them. She consented to accept him on condition that he would distinguish her from her sisters the next day. This was a new and great difficulty to the young farmer, for the damsels were so similar in form and features, that he could scarcely see any difference between them. He noted, however, a trifling singularity in the strapping of the chosen one’s sandal, by which he recognized her on the following day. As good as her word, the gwraig immediately left the lake and went with him to his farm. Before she quitted the lake she summoned therefrom to attend her, seven cows, two oxen, and one bull. She stipulated that she should remain with the farmer only until such time as he should strike her thrice without cause. For some years they dwelt peaceably together, and she bore him three sons, who were the celebrated Meddygon Myddfai. One day, when preparing for a fair in the neighbourhood) the farmer desired her to go to the held for his horse. She said she would, but being rather dilatory, he said to her humorously Dos, dos, dos,’ i.e., ‘Go, go, go,’ and at the same time slightly tapped her arm three times with his glove.
… The blows were slight–but they were blows. The terms of the marriage contract were broken, and the dame departed, summoning with her her seven cows, her two oxen, and the bull. The oxen were at that moment ploughing in the field, but they immediately obeyed her call and dragged the plough after them to the lake. The furrow, from the field in which they were ploughing to the margin of the lake, is still to be seen–in several parts of that country–at the present day. After her departure, the gwraig annwn once met her three sons in the valley now called Cwm Meddygon, and gave them a magic box containing remedies of wonderful power, through whose use they became celebrated. Their names were Cadogan, Gruffydd and Emion, and the farmer’s name was Rhiwallon. Rhiwallon and his sons, named as above, were physicians to Rhys Gryg, Lord of Dynevor, and son of the last native prince of Wales. They lived about 1230, and dying, left behind them a compendium of their medical practice. ‘A copy of their works is in the Welsh School Library in Gray’s Inn Lane.’ [‘Cambro Briton,’ ii., 315]
V.
In a more polished and elaborate form this legend omits the medical features altogether, but substitutes a number of details so peculiarly Welsh that I cannot refrain from presenting them. This version relates that the enamoured farmer had heard of the lake maiden, who rowed up and down the lake in a golden boat, with a golden oar. Her hair was long and yellow, and her face was pale and melancholy. In his desire to see this wondrous beauty, the farmer went on New Year’s Eve to the edge of the lake, and in silence awaited the coming of the first hour of the new year. It came, and there in truth was the maiden in her golden boat, rowing softly to and fro. Fascinated, he stood for hours beholding her, until the stars faded out of the sky, the moon sank behind the rocks, and the cold gray dawn drew nigh; and then the lovely gwraig began to vanish from his sight. Wild with passion, and with the thought of losing her for ever, he cried aloud to the retreating vision, ‘Stay! stay Be my wife.’ But the gwraig only uttered a faint cry, and was gone. Night after night the young farmer haunted the shores of the lake, but the gwraig returned no more. He became negligent of his person; his once robust form grew thin and wan; his face was a map of melancholy and despair. He went one day to consult a soothsayer who dwelt on the mountain, and this grave personage advised him to besiege the damsel’s heart with gifts of bread and cheese. This counsel commending itself strongly to his Welsh way of thinking, the farmer set out upon an assiduous course of casting his bread upon the waters, accompanied by cheese. He began on Midsummer eve by going to the lake and dropping therein a large cheese and a loaf of bread. Night after night he continued to throw in loaves and cheeses, but nothing appeared in answer to his sacrifices. His hopes were set, however, on the approaching New Year’s eve. The momentous night arrived at last. Clad in his best array, and armed with seven white loaves and his biggest and handsomest cheese, he set out once more for the lake.
There he waited till midnight, and then slowly and solemnly dropped the seven loaves into the water, and with a sigh sent the cheese to keep them company. His persistence was at length rewarded. The magic skiff appeared; the fair gwraig guided it to where he stood; stepped ashore, and accepted him as her husband. The before-mentioned stipulation was made as to the blows; and she brought her dower of cattle. One day, after they had been four years married, they were invited to a christening. In the midst of the ceremony the gwraig burst into tears. Her husband gave her an angry look, and asked her why she thus made a fool of herself. She replied, ‘The poor babe is entering a world of sin and sorrow; misery lies before it. Why should I rejoice?’ He pushed her pettishly away. ‘ I warn you, husband,’ said the gwraig; ‘ you have struck me once.’ After a time they were bidden to the funeral of the child they had seen christened. Now the gwraig laughed, sang, and danced about. The husband’s wrath again arose, and again he asked her why she thus made a fool of herself. She answered, ‘The dear babe has escaped the misery that was before it’ and gone to be good and happy for ever. Why should I grieve?’ Again he pushed her from him, and again she warned him; he had struck her twice. Soon they were invited to a wedding; the bride was young and fair, the groom a tottering, toothless, decrepit old miser. In the midst of the wedding feast the gwraig annwn burst into tears, and to her husband’s question why she thus made a fool of herself she replied, ‘Truth is wedded to age for greed, and not for love-summer and winter cannot agree–it is the diawl’s compact.’ The angry husband thrust her from him for the third and last time. She looked at him with tender love and reproach, and said, ‘The three blows are struck-husband, farewell!’ He never saw her more, nor any of the flocks and herds she had brought him for her dowry.
In its employment of the myth to preach a sermon, and in its introduction of cheese, this version of the legend is very Welsh indeed. The extent to which cheese figures in Cambrian folk-lore is surprising; cheese is encountered in every sort of fairy company; you actually meet cheese in the Mabinogion, along with the most romantic forms of beauty known in story. And herein again is illustrated Shakespeare’s accurate knowledge of the Cambrian goblins. Heaven defend me from that Welsh fairy!’ says Falstaff, ‘lest he transform me to a piece of cheese ‘[‘Merry Wives of Windsor’, Act. V., Sc. 5] Bread is found figuring actively in the folk-lore of every country, especially as a sacrifice to water-gods; but cheese is, so far as I know, thus honoured only in Cambria.
VI.
Once more this legend appears, this time with a feature I have nowhere else encountered in fairy land, to wit, the father of a fairy damsel. The son of a farmer on Drws Coed farm was one foggy day looking after his father’s sheep, when crossing a marshy meadow he beheld a little lady behind some rising ground. She had yellow hair, blue eyes and rosy cheeks. He approached her, and asked permission to converse; whereupon she smiled sweetly and said to him, ‘Idol of my hopes, you have come at last!’ They there and then began to ‘keep company,’ and met each other daily here and there along the farm meadows. His intentions were honourable; he desired her to marry him. He was sometimes absent for days together, no one knew where, and his friends whispered about that he had been witched. Around the Turf Lake (Llyn y Dywarchen) was a grove of trees, and under one of these one day the fairy promised to be his. The consent of her father was now necessary. One moonlight night an appointment was made to meet in this wood. The father and daughter did not appear till the moon had disappeared behind the hill. Then they both came. The fairy father immediately gave his consent to the marriage, on one condition, namely, that her future husband should never hit her with iron. ‘ If ever thou dost touch her flesh with iron she shall be no more thine, but she shall return to her own.’ They were married–a good-looking pair. Large sums of money were brought by her, the night before the wedding, to Dnvs Coed. The shepherd lad became wealthy, had several handsome children, and they were very happy. After some years, they were one day out riding, when her horse sank in a deep mire, and by the assistance of her husband, in her hurry to remount, she was struck on her knee by the stirrup of the saddle. Immediately voices were heard singing on the brow of the hill, and she disappeared, leaving all her children behind. She and her mother devised a plan by which she could see her beloved, but as she was not allowed to walk the earth with man, they floated a large turf on the lake, and on this turf she stood for hours at a time holding converse with her husband. This continued until his death [‘Cymru Fu,’ 476].
VII
The didactic purpose again appears in the following legend, which, varying but little in phraseology, is current in the neighbourhood of a dozen different mountain lakes: In other days, before the Cymry had become reconciled to their Saxon foe, on every New Year’s morning a door was found open in a rock hard by the lake. Those mortals who had the curiosity and the resolution to enter this door were conducted by a secret passage to a small island in the middle of the lake. Here they found a most enchanting garden, stored with the choicest fruits and flowers, and inhabited by the Gwragedd Annwn, whose beauty could be equalled only by the courtesy and affability which they exhibited to those who pleased them. They gathered fruit and flowers for each of their guests, entertained them with the most exquisite music, disclosed to them many secrets of futurity, and invited them to stay as long as they liked. ‘But,’ said they, ‘ the island is secret, and nothing of its produce must be carried away.’ The warning being heeded, all went well. But one day there appeared among the visitors a wicked Welsh-man, who, thinking to derive some magical aid therefrom, pocketed a flower with which he had been presented, and was about to leave the garden with his prize. But the theft boded him no good. As soon as he had touched unhallowed ground the flower vanished, and he lost his senses. However, of this abuse of their hospitality the Gwragedd Annwn took no notice at the time. They dismissed their guests with their accustomed courtesy, and the door was closed as usual. But their resentment was bitter; for though the fairies of the lake and their enchanted garden undoubtedly occupy the spot to this day, the door which led to the island has never been reopened.
VIII
In all these legends the student of comparative folk-lore traces the ancient mythology, however overlain with later details. The water-maidens of every land doubtless originally were the floating clouds of the sky, or the mists of the mountain. From this have come certain fair and fanciful creations with which Indo-European folk-lore teems, the most familiar of which are Undine, Melusina, Nausicaa, and the classic Muse. In Wales, as in other lands, the myth has many forms. The dispersion of dark clouds from the mountains, by the beams of the rising sun, or the morning breezes, is localized in tile legend of the Men of Ardudwy. These men make a raid on the maidens of the Vale of Clwyd, and are pursued and slaughtered by the latter’s fathers and brothers. The maidens thereupon cast themselves headlong into the lake, which is thenceforth called the Maidens Lake, or Llyn y Morwynion. In another legend, the river mist over the Cynwal is the spirit of a traitress who perished long ago in the lake. She had conspired with the sea-born pirates of the North (the ocean storms) to rob her Cambrian lord of his domains. She was defeated by the aid of a powerful enchanter (the sun), and fled up the river to the lake, accompanied by her maidens, who were drowned with her there. [‘Arch. Camb.,’ 4th Se., vii., 251]
IX.
As the mermaid superstition is seemingly absent in Wales, so there are no fairy tales of maidens who lure mortals to their doom beneath the water, as the Dracae did women and children, and as the Nymph of the Lurley did marriageable young men. But it is believed that there are several old Welsh families who are the descendants of the Gwragedd Annwn, as in the case of the Meddygon Myddfai. The familiar Welsh name of Morgan is sometimes thought to signify, ‘Born of the Sea.’ Certainly môr in Welsh means sea, and gân a birth. It is curious, too, that a mermaid is called in Basse Bretagne ‘Mary Morgan.’ But the class of stories in which a mortal marries a water-maiden is large, and while the local details smack of the soil, the general idea is so like in lands far remote from each other as to indicate a common origin in pre-historic times. In Wales, where the mountain lakes are numerous, gloomy, lonely, and yet lovely; where many of them, too, show traces of having been inhabited in ancient times by a race of lake-dwellers, whose pile-supported villages vanished ages ago; and where bread and cheese are as classic as beer and candles, these particulars are localized in the legend. In the Faro Islands, where the seal is a familiar yet ever-mysterious object, with its human-like eyes, and glossy skin, the wife of supernatural race is a transformed seal. She comes ashore every ninth night, sheds her skin, leaves it on the shore, and dances with her fairy companions. A mortal steals her sealskin dress, and when day breaks, and her companions return to their abode in the sea, compels her to remain and be his wife. Some day he offends her; she recovers her skin and plunges into the sea. In China, the superstition appears in a Lew-chewan legend mentioned by Dr. Dennys, [‘Folk-Lore of China,’ 99] which relates how a fairy in the guise of a beautiful woman is found bathing in a man’s well. He persuades her to marry him, and she remains with him for nine years, at the end of which time, despite the affection she has for their two children, she ‘glides upwards into a cloud’ and disappears.
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renegadetribune--2020-08-04--The Truth About Crime, Race, and Policing in America

Heather MacDonald presents her findings on policing in America , which shows that police are actually more likely to kill @ @ @ @ @ Blacks are much more likely to commit violent crimes .

Heather MacDonald presents her findings on policing in America, which shows that police are actually more likely to kill a White criminal, while Blacks are much more likely to commit violent crimes.