Quoth the ousel: 'You see that the rock below me is not larger than a man can carry in one of his hands: I have seen it so large that it would have taken a hundred oxen to drag it, and it has never been worn save by my drying my beak upon it once every night, and by my striking the tip of my wing against it in rising in the morning, yet never have I known the owl older or younger than she is to-day.

However, there is one older than I, and that is the toad of Cors Fochnod; and unless he knows her age no one knows it.' To him went the eagle and asked the age of the owl, and the toad replied: 'I have never eaten anything save what I have sucked from the earth, and have never eaten half my fill in all the days of my life; but do you see those two great hills beside the cross?
I have seen the place where they stand level ground, and nothing produced those heaps save what I discharged from my body, who have ever eaten so very little--yet never have I known the owl anything else but an old hag who cried Too-hoo-hoo, and scared children with her voice even as she does at present.' So the eagle of Gwernabwy; the stag of Ferny-side Brae; the salmon trout of Glyn Llifon; the ousel of Cilgwry; the toad of Cors Fochnod, and the owl of Coomb Cowlyd are the oldest creatures in the world; the oldest of them all being the owl.".