CHAPTER XXVIII.
Robert Lleiaf--Prophetic Englyn--The Second Sight--Duncan Campbell--Nial's Saga--Family of Nial--Gunnar--The Avenger.
"Av i dir Mon, cr dwr Menai, Tros y traeth, ond aros trai." "I will go to the land of Mona, notwithstanding the water of the Menai, across the sand, without waiting for the ebb." So sang a bard about two hundred and forty years ago, who styled himself Robert Lleiaf, or the least of the Roberts.

The meaning of the couplet has always been considered to be, and doubtless is, that a time would come when a bridge would be built across the Menai, over which one might pass with safety and comfort, without waiting till the ebb was sufficiently low to permit people to pass over the traeth, or sand, which, from ages the most remote, had been used as the means of communication between the mainland and the Isle of Mona or Anglesey.
Grounding their hopes upon that couplet, people were continually expecting to see a bridge across the Menai: more than two hundred years, however, elapsed before the expectation was fulfilled by the mighty Telford flinging over the strait an iron suspension bridge, which, for grace and beauty, has perhaps no rival in Europe.
The couplet is a remarkable one.

In the time of its author there was nobody in Britain capable of building a bridge, which could have stood against the tremendous surges which occasionally vex the Menai; yet the couplet gives intimation that a bridge over the Menai there would be, which clearly argues a remarkable foresight in the author, a feeling that a time would at length arrive when the power of science would be so far advanced, that men would be able to bridge over the terrible strait.

The length of time which intervened between the composition of the couplet and the fulfilment of the promise, shows that a bridge over the Menai was no pont y meibion, no children's bridge, nor a work for common men.

Oh, surely Lleiaf was a man of great foresight! A man of great foresight, but nothing more; he foretold a bridge over the Menai, when no one could have built one, a bridge over which people could pass, aye, and carts and horses; we will allow him the credit of foretelling such a bridge; and when Telford's bridge was flung over the Menai, Lleiaf's couplet was verified.