The Fairies

Origin of the Fairies. (Y Tylwyth Têg.)

The Fairy tales that abound in the Principality have much in common with like legends in other countries. This points to a common origin of all such tales. There is a real and unreal, a mythical and a material aspect to Fairy Folk-Lore. The prevalence, the obscurity, and the different versions of the same Fairy tale show that their origin dates from remote antiquity. The supernatural and the natural are strangely blended together in these legends, and this also points to their great age, and intimates that these wild and imaginative Fairy narratives had some historical foundation. If carefully sifted, these legends will yield a fruitful harvest of ancient thoughts and facts connected with the history of a people, which, as a race, is, perhaps, now extinct, but which has, to a certain extent, been merged into a stronger and more robust race, by whom they were conquered, and dispossessed of much of their land. The conquerors of the Fair Tribe have transmitted to us tales of their timid, unwarlike, but truthful predecessors of the soil, and these tales shew that for a time both races were co-inhabitants of the land, and to a certain extent, by stealth, intermarried.

Fairy tales, much alike in character, are to be heard in many countries, peopled by branches of the Aryan race, and consequently these stories in outline, were most probably in existence before the separation of the families belonging to that race. It is not improbable that the emigrants would carry with them, into all countries whithersoever they went, their ancestral legends, and they would find no difficulty in supplying these interesting stories with a home in their new country. If this supposition be correct, we must look for the origin of Fairy Mythology in the cradle of the Aryan people, and not in any part of the world inhabited by descendants of that great race.

But it is not improbable that incidents in the process of colonization would repeat themselves, or under special circumstances vary, and thus we should have similar and different versions of the same historical event in all countries once inhabited by a diminutive race, which was overcome by a more powerful people.

In Wales Fairy legends have such peculiarities that they seem to be historical fragments of by-gone days. And apparently they refer to a race which immediately preceded the Celt in the occupation of the country, and with which the Celt to a limited degree amalgamated.

Names Given to the Fairies.

The Fairies have, in Wales, at least three common and distinctive names, as well as others that are not nowadays used.

The first and most general name given to the Fairies is “Y Tylwyth Têg,” or, the Fair Tribe, an expressive and descriptive term. They are spoken of as a people, and not as myths or goblins, and they are said to be a fair or handsome race.

Another common name for the Fairies, is, “Bendith y Mamau,” or, “The Mothers’ Blessing.” In Doctor Owen Pughe’s Dictionary they are called “Bendith eu Mamau,” or, “Their Mothers’ Blessing.” The first is the most common expression, at least in North Wales. It is a singularly strange expression, and difficult to explain. Perhaps it hints at a Fairy origin on the mother’s side of certain fortunate people.

The third name given to Fairies is “Ellyll,” an elf, a demon, a goblin. This name conveys these beings to the land of spirits, and makes them resemble the oriental Genii, and Shakespeare’s sportive elves. It agrees, likewise, with the modern popular creed respecting goblins and their doings.

Davydd ab Gwilym, in a description of a mountain mist in which he was once enveloped, says:—

Yr ydoedd ym mhob gobant
Ellyllon mingeimion gant.

There were in every hollow
A hundred wrymouthed elves.

The Cambro-Briton, v. I., p. 348.

In Pembrokeshire the Fairies are called Dynon Buch Têg, or the Fair Small People.

Another name applied to the Fairies is Plant Annwfn, or Plant Annwn. This, however, is not an appellation in common use. The term is applied to the Fairies in the third paragraph of a Welsh prose poem called Bardd Cwsg, thus:—

Y bwriodd y Tylwyth Têg fi . . . oni bai fy nyfod i mewn
pryd i’th achub o gigweiniau Plant Annwfn.

Where the Tylwyth Têg threw me . . . if I had not come
in time to rescue thee from the clutches of Plant Annwfn.

Annwn, or Annwfn is defined in Canon Silvan Evans’s Dictionary as an abyss, Hades, etc. Plant Annwn, therefore, means children of the lower regions. It is a name derived from the supposed place of abode—the bowels of the earth—of the Fairies. Gwragedd Annwn, dames of Elfin land, is a term applied to Fairy ladies.

Ellis Wynne, the author of Bardd Cwsg, was born in 1671, and the probability is that the words Plant Annwfn formed in his days part of the vocabulary of the people. He was born in Merionethshire.

Gwyll, according to Richards, and Dr. Owen Pughe, is a Fairy, a goblin, etc. The plural of Gwyll would be Gwylliaid, or Gwyllion, but this latter word Dr. Pughe defines as ghosts, hobgoblins, etc. Formerly, there was in Merionethshire a red haired family of robbers called Y Gwylliaid Cochion, or Red Fairies, of whom I shall speak hereafter.

Coblynau, or Knockers, have been described as a species of Fairies, whose abode was within the rocks, and whose province it was to indicate to the miners by the process of knocking, etc., the presence of rich lodes of lead or other metals in this or that direction of the mine.

That the words Tylwyth Têg and Ellyll are convertible terms appears from the following stanza, which is taken from the Cambrian Magazine, vol. ii, p. 58.

Pan dramwych ffridd yr Ywen,
Lle mae Tylwyth Têg yn rhodien,
Dos ymlaen, a phaid a sefyll,
Gwilia’th droed—rhag dawnsva’r Ellyll.

When the forest of the Yew,
Where Fairies haunt, thou passest through,
Tarry not, thy footsteps guard
From the Goblins’ dancing sward.

Although the poet mentions the Tylwyth Têg and Ellyll as identical, he might have done so for rhythmical reasons. Undoubtedly, in the first instance a distinction would be drawn between these two words, which originally were intended perhaps to describe two different kinds of beings, but in the course of time the words became interchangeable, and thus their distinctive character was lost. In English the words Fairies and elves are used without any distinction. It would appear from Brand’s Popular Antiquities, vol. II., p. 478., that, according to Gervase of Tilbury, there were two kinds of Goblins in England, called Portuni and Grant. This division suggests a difference between the Tylwyth Têg and the Ellyll. The Portuni, we are told, were very small of stature and old in appearance, “statura pusilli, dimidium pollicis non habentes,” but then they were “senili vultu, facie corrugata.” The wrinkled face and aged countenance of the Portuni remind us of nursery Fairy tales in which the wee ancient female Fairy figures. The pranks of the Portuni were similar to those of Shakespeare’s Puck. The species Grant is not described, and consequently it cannot be ascertained how far they resembled any of the many kinds of Welsh Fairies. Gervase, speaking of one of these species, says:—“If anything should be to be carried on in the house, or any kind of laborious work to be done, they join themselves to the work, and expedite it with more than human facility.”

In Scotland there were at least two species of elves, the Brownies and the Fairies. The Brownies were so called from their tawny colour, and the Fairies from their fairness. The Portuni of Gervase appear to have corresponded in character to the Brownies, who were said to have employed themselves in the night in the discharge of laborious undertakings acceptable to the family to whose service they had devoted themselves. The Fairies proper of Scotland strongly resembled the Fairies of Wales.

The term Brownie, or swarthy elve, suggests a connection between them and the Gwylliaid Cochion, or Red Fairies of Wales.

Fairy Ladies Marrying Mortals.

In the mythology of the Greeks, and other nations, gods and goddesses are spoken of as falling in love with human beings, and many an ancient genealogy began with a celestial ancestor. Much the same thing is said of the Fairies. Tradition speaks of them as being enamoured of the inhabitants of this earth, and content, for awhile, to be wedded to mortals. And there are families in Wales who are said to have Fairy blood coursing through their veins, but they are, or were, not so highly esteemed as were the offspring of the gods among the Greeks. The famous physicians of Myddfai, who owed their talent and supposed supernatural knowledge to their Fairy origin, are, however, an exception; for their renown, notwithstanding their parentage, was always great, and increased in greatness, as the rolling years removed them from their traditionary parent, the Fairy lady of the Van Pool.

The Pellings are said to have sprung from a Fairy Mother, and the author of Observations on the Snowdon Mountains states that the best blood in his veins is fairy blood. There are in some parts of Wales reputed descendants on the female side of the Gwylliaid Cochion race; and there are other families among us whom the aged of fifty years ago, with an ominous shake of the head, would say were of Fairy extraction. We are not, therefore, in Wales void of families of doubtful parentage or origin.

All the current tales of men marrying Fairy ladies belong to a class of stories called, technically, Taboo stories. In these tales the lady marries her lover conditionally, and when this condition is broken she deserts husband and children, and hies back to Fairy land.

This kind of tale is current among many people. Max Müller in Chips from a German Workshop, vol. ii, pp. 104-6, records one of these ancient stories, which is found in the Brahmana of the Yagur-veda. Omitting a few particulars, the story is as follows:—

“Urvasi, a kind of Fairy, fell in love with Purûravas, the son of Ida, and when she met him she said, ‘Embrace me three times a day, but never against my will, and let me never see you without your royal garments, for this is the manner of women.’ In this manner she lived with him a long time, and she was with child. Then her former friends, the Gandharvas, said: ‘This Urvasi has now dwelt a long time among mortals; let us see that she come back.’ Now, there was a ewe, with two lambs, tied to the couch of Urvasi and Purûravas, and the Gandharvas stole one of them. Urvasi said: ‘They take away my darling, as if I had lived in a land where there is no hero and no man.’ They stole the second, and she upbraided her husband again. Then Purûravas looked and said: ‘How can that be a land without heroes and men where I am?’ And naked, he sprang up; he thought it too long to put on his dress. Then the Gandharvas sent a flash of lightning, and Urvasi saw her husband naked as by daylight. Then she vanished; ‘I come back,’ she said, and went.

Purûravas bewailed his love in bitter grief. But whilst walking along the border of a lake full of lotus flowers the Fairies were playing there in the water, in the shape of birds, and Urvasi discovered him and said:—

‘That is the man with whom I dwelt so long.’ Then her friends said: ‘Let us appear to him.’ She agreed, and they appeared before him. Then the king recognised her, and said:—

‘Lo! my wife, stay, thou cruel in mind! Let us now exchange some words! Our secrets, if they are not told now, will not bring us back on any later day.’

She replied: ‘What shall I do with thy speech? I am gone like the first of the dawns. Purûravas, go home again, I am hard to be caught, like the wind.’”

The Fairy wife by and by relents, and her mortal lover became, by a certain sacrifice, one of the Gandharvas.

This ancient Hindu Fairy tale resembles in many particulars similar tales found in Celtic Folk-Lore, and possibly, the original story, in its main features, existed before the Aryan family had separated. The very words, “I am hard to be caught,” appear in one of the Welsh legends, which shall be hereafter given:—

Nid hawdd fy nala,
I am hard to be caught.

And the scene is similar; in both cases the Fairy ladies are discovered in a lake. The immortal weds the mortal, conditionally, and for awhile the union seems to be a happy one. But, unwittingly, when engaged in an undertaking suggested by, or in agreement with the wife’s wishes, the prohibited thing is done, and the lady vanishes away.

Such are the chief features of these mythical marriages. I will now record like tales that have found a home in several parts of Wales.

Welsh Legends of Fairy Ladies Marrying Men.

1. The Pentrevoelas Legend.

I am indebted to the Rev. Owen Jones, Vicar of Pentrevoelas, a mountain parish in West Denbighshire, for the following tale, which was written in Welsh by a native of those parts, and appeared in competition for a prize on the Folk-Lore of that parish.

The son of Hafodgarreg was shepherding his father’s flock on the hills, and whilst thus engaged, he, one misty morning, came suddenly upon a lovely girl, seated on the sheltered side of a peat-stack. The maiden appeared to be in great distress, and she was crying bitterly. The young man went up to her, and spoke kindly to her, and his attention and sympathy were not without effect on the comely stranger. So beautiful was the young woman, that from expressions of sympathy the smitten youth proceeded to words of love, and his advances were not repelled. But whilst the lovers were holding sweet conversation, there appeared on the scene a venerable and aged man, who, addressing the female as her father, bade her follow him. She immediately obeyed, and both departed leaving the young man alone. He lingered about the place until the evening, wishing and hoping that she might return, but she came not. Early the next day, he was at the spot where he first felt what love was. All day long he loitered about the place, vainly hoping that the beautiful girl would pay another visit to the mountain, but he was doomed to disappointment, and night again drove him homewards. Thus daily went he to the place where he had met his beloved, but she was not there, and, love-sick and lonely, he returned to Hafodgarreg. Such devotion deserved its reward. It would seem that the young lady loved the young man quite as much as he loved her. And in the land of allurement and illusion (yn nhir hud a lledrith) she planned a visit to the earth, and met her lover, but she was soon missed by her father, and he, suspecting her love for this young man, again came upon them, and found them conversing lovingly together. Much talk took place between the sire and his daughter, and the shepherd, waxing bold, begged and begged her father to give him his daughter in marriage. The sire, perceiving that the man was in earnest, turned to his daughter, and asked her whether it were her wish to marry a man of the earth? She said it was. Then the father told the shepherd he should have his daughter to wife, and that she should stay with him, until he should strike her with iron, and that, as a marriage portion, he would give her a bag filled with bright money. The young couple were duly married, and the promised dowry was received. For many years they lived lovingly and happily together, and children were born to them. One day this man and his wife went together to the hill to catch a couple of ponies, to carry them to the Festival of the Saint of Capel Garmon. The ponies were very wild, and could not be caught. The man, irritated, pursued the nimble creatures. His wife was by his side, and now he thought he had them in his power, but just at the moment he was about to grasp their manes, off they wildly galloped, and the man, in anger, finding that they had again eluded him, threw the bridle after them, and, sad to say, the bit struck the wife, and as this was of iron they both knew that their marriage contract was broken. Hardly had they had time to realise the dire accident, ere the aged father of the bride appeared, accompanied by a host of Fairies, and there and then departed with his daughter to the land whence she came, and that, too, without even allowing her to bid farewell to her children. The money, though, and the children were left behind, and these were the only memorials of the lovely wife and the kindest of mothers, that remained to remind the shepherd of the treasure he had lost in the person of his Fairy spouse.

Such is the Pentrevoelas Legend. The writer had evidently not seen the version of this story in the Cambro-Briton, nor had he read Williams’s tale of a like occurrence, recorded in Observations on the Snowdon Mountains. The account, therefore, is all the more valuable, as being an independent production.

A fragmentary variant of the preceding legend was given me by Mr. Lloyd, late schoolmaster of Llanfihangel-Glyn-Myfyr, a native of South Wales, who heard the tale in the parish of Llanfihangel. Although but a fragment, it may not be altogether useless, and I will give it as I received it:—

Shon Rolant, Hafod y Dre, Pentrevoelas, when going home from Llanrwst market, fortunately caught a Fairy-maid, whom he took home with him. She was a most handsome woman, but rather short and slight in person. She was admired by everybody on account of her great beauty. Shon Rolant fell desperately in love with her, and would have married her, but this she would not allow. He, however, continued pressing her to become his wife, and, by and by, she consented to do so, provided he could find out her name. As Shon was again going home from the market about a month later, he heard some one saying, near the place where he had seized the Fairy-maid, “Where is little Penloi gone? Where is little Penloi gone?” Shon at once thought that some one was searching for the Fairy he had captured, and when he reached home, he addressed the Fairy by the name he had heard, and Penloi consented to become his wife. She, however, expressed displeasure at marrying a dead man, as the Fairies call us. She informed her lover that she was not to be touched with iron, or she would disappear at once. Shon took great care not to touch her with iron. However, one day, when he was on horseback talking to his beloved Penloi, who stood at the horse’s head, the horse suddenly threw up its head, and the curb, which was of iron, came in contact with Penloi, who immediately vanished out of sight.

The next legend is taken from Williams’s Observations on the Snowdon Mountains. His work was published in 1802. He, himself, was born in Anglesey, in 1738, and migrated to Carnarvonshire about the year 1760. It was in this latter county that he became a learned antiquary, and a careful recorder of events that came under his notice. His “Observations” throw considerable light upon the life, the customs, and the traditions of the inhabitants of the hill parts and secluded glens of Carnarvonshire. I have thought fit to make these few remarks about the author I quote from, so as to enable the reader to give to him that credence which he is entitled to. Williams entitles the following story, “A Fairy Tale,” but I will for the sake of reference call it “The Ystrad Legend.”

2. The Ystrad Legend.

“In a meadow belonging to Ystrad, bounded by the river which falls from Cwellyn Lake, they say the Fairies used to assemble, and dance on fair moon-light-nights. One evening a young man, who was the heir and occupier of this farm, hid himself in a thicket close to the spot where they used to gambol; presently they appeared, and when in their merry mood, out he bounced from his covert and seized one of their females; the rest of the company dispersed themselves, and disappeared in an instant. Disregarding her struggles and screams, he hauled her to his home, where he treated her so very kindly that she became content to live with him as his maid servant; but he could not prevail upon her to tell him her name. Some time after, happening again to see the Fairies upon the same spot, he heard one of them saying, ‘The last time we met here, our sister Penelope was snatched away from us by one of the mortals!’ Rejoiced at knowing the name of his Incognita, he returned home; and as she was very beautiful, and extremely active, he proposed to marry her, which she would not for a long time consent to; at last, however, she complied, but on this condition, ‘That if ever he should strike her with iron, she would leave him, and never return to him again.’ They lived happily for many years together, and he had by her a son, and a daughter; and by her industry and prudent management as a house-wife he became one of the richest men in the country. He farmed, besides his own freehold, all the lands on the north side of Nant-y-Bettws to the top of Snowdon, and all Cwmbrwynog in Llanberis; an extent of about five thousand acres or upwards.

Unfortunately, one day Penelope followed her husband into the field to catch a horse; and he, being in a rage at the animal as he ran away from him, threw at him the bridle that was in his hand, which unluckily fell on poor Penelope. She disappeared in an instant, and he never saw her afterwards, but heard her voice in the window of his room one night after, requesting him to take care of the children, in these words:—

Rhag bod anwyd ar fy mab,
Yn rhodd rhowch arno gôb ei dad,
Rhag bod anwyd ar liw’r cann,
Rhoddwch arni bais ei mam.

That is—

Oh! lest my son should suffer cold,
Him in his father’s coat infold,
Lest cold should seize my darling fair,
For her, her mother’s robe prepare.

These children and their descendants, they say, were called Pellings; a word corrupted from their mother’s name, Penelope.”

Williams proceeds thus with reference to the descendants of this union:—

“The late Thomas Rowlands, Esq., of Caerau, in Anglesey, the father of the late Lady Bulkeley, was a descendant of this lady, if it be true that the name Pellings came from her; and there are still living several opulent and respectable people who are known to have sprung from the Pellings. The best blood in my own veins is this Fairy’s.”

This tale was chronicled in the last century, but it is not known whether every particular incident connected therewith was recorded by Williams. Glasynys, the Rev. Owen Wynne Jones, a clergyman, relates a tale in the Brython, which he regards as the same tale as that given by Williams, and he says that he heard it scores of times when he was a lad. Glasynys was born in the parish of Rhostryfan, Carnarvonshire, in 1827, and as his birth place is not far distant from the scene of this legend, he might have heard a different version of Williams’s tale, and that too of equal value with Williams’s. Possibly, there were not more than from forty to fifty years between the time when the older writer heard the tale and the time when it was heard by the younger man. An octogenarian, or even a younger person, could have conversed with both Williams and Glasynys. Glasynys’s tale appears in Professor Rhys’s Welsh Fairy Tales, Cymmrodor, vol. iv., p. 188. It originally appeared in the Brython for 1863, p. 193. It is as follows:—

“One fine sunny morning, as the young heir of Ystrad was busied with his sheep on the side of Moel Eilio, he met a very pretty girl, and when he got home he told the folks there of it. A few days afterwards he met her again, and this happened several times, when he mentioned it to his father, who advised him to seize her when he next met her. The next time he met her he proceeded to do so, but before he could take her away, a little fat old man came to them and begged him to give her back to him, to which the youth would not listen. The little man uttered terrible threats, but he would not yield, so an agreement was made between them that he was to have her to wife until he touched her skin with iron, and great was the joy both of the son and his parents in consequence. They lived together for many years, but once on a time, on the evening of Bettws Fair, the wife’s horse got restive, and somehow, as the husband was attending to the horse, the stirrups touched the skin of her bare leg, and that very night she was taken away from him. She had three or four children, and more than one of their descendants, as Glasynys maintains, were known to him at the time he wrote in 1863.”

3. The Llanfrothen Legend.

I am indebted to the Rev. R. Jones, Rector of Llanycil, Bala, for the following legend. I may state that Mr. Jones is a native of Llanfrothen, Merionethshire, a parish in close proximity to the scene of the story. Mr. Jones’s informant was his mother, a lady whose mind was well stored with tales of by-gone times, and my friend and informant inherits his mother’s retentive memory, as well as her love of ancient lore.

A certain man fell in love with a beautiful Fairy lady, and he wished to marry her. She consented to do so, but warned him that if he ever touched her with iron she would leave him immediately. This stipulation weighed but lightly on the lover. They were married, and for many years they lived most happily together, and several children were born to them. A sad mishap, however, one day overtook them. They were together, crossing Traethmawr, Penrhyndeudraeth, on horseback, when the man’s horse became restive, and jerked his head towards the woman, and the bit of the bridle touched the left arm of the Fairy wife. She at once told her husband that they must part for ever. He was greatly distressed, and implored her not to leave him. She said she could not stay. Then the man, appealing to a mother’s love for her children, begged that she would for the sake of their offspring continue to dwell with him and them, and, said he, what will become of our children without their mother? Her answer was:—

Gadewch iddynt fod yn bennau cochion a thrwynau hirion.

Let them be redheaded and longnosed.

Having uttered these words, she disappeared and was never seen afterwards.

No Welsh Taboo story can be complete without the pretty tale of the Van Lake Legend, or, as it is called, “The Myddfai Legend.” Because of its intrinsic beauty and worth, and for the sake of comparison with the preceding stories, I will relate this legend. There are several versions extant. Mr. Wirt Sikes, in his British Goblins, has one, the Cambro-Briton has one, but the best is that recorded by Professor Rhys, in the Cymmrodor, vol. iv., p. 163, in his Welsh Fairy Tales. There are other readings of the legend to be met with. I will first of all give an epitome of the Professor’s version.

4. The Myddvai Legend.

A widow, who had an only son, was obliged, in consequence of the large flocks she possessed, to send, under the care of her son, a portion of her cattle to graze on the Black Mountain near a small lake called Llyn-y-Van-Bach.

One day the son perceived, to his great astonishment, a most beautiful creature with flowing hair sitting on the unruffled surface of the lake combing her tresses, the water serving as a mirror. Suddenly she beheld the young man standing on the brink of the lake with his eyes rivetted on her, and unconsciously offering to herself the provision of barley bread and cheese with which he had been provided when he left his home.

Bewildered by a feeling of love and admiration for the object before him, he continued to hold out his hand towards the lady, who imperceptibly glided near to him, but gently refused the offer of his provisions. He attempted to touch her, but she eluded his grasp, saying

Cras dy fara;
Nid hawdd fy nala.

Hard baked is thy bread;
It is not easy to catch me.

She immediately dived under the water and disappeared, leaving the love-stricken youth to return home a prey to disappointment and regret that he had been unable to make further acquaintance with the lovely maiden with whom he had desperately fallen in love.

On his return home he communicated to his mother the extraordinary vision. She advised him to take some unbaked dough the next time in his pocket, as there must have been some spell connected with the hard baked bread, or “Bara Cras,” which prevented his catching the lady.

Next morning, before the sun was up, the young man was at the lake, not for the purpose of looking after the cattle, but that he might again witness the enchanting vision of the previous day. In vain did he glance over the surface of the lake; nothing met his view, save the ripples occasioned by a stiff breeze, and a dark cloud hung heavily on the summit of the Van.

Hours passed on, the wind was hushed, the overhanging clouds had vanished, when the youth was startled by seeing some of his mother’s cattle on the precipitous side of the acclivity, nearly on the opposite side of the lake. As he was hastening away to rescue them from their perilous position, the object of his search again appeared to him, and seemed much more beautiful than when he first beheld her. His hand was again held out to her, full of unbaked bread, which he offered to her with an urgent proffer of his heart also, and vows of eternal attachment, all of which were refused by her, saying

Llaith dy fara!
Ti ni fynna.

Unbaked is thy bread!
I will not have thee.

But the smiles that played upon her features as the lady vanished beneath the waters forbade him to despair, and cheered him on his way home. His aged parent was acquainted with his ill success, and she suggested that his bread should the next time be but slightly baked, as most likely to please the mysterious being.

Impelled by love, the youth left his mother’s home early next morning. He was soon near the margin of the lake impatiently awaiting the reappearance of the lady. The sheep and goats browsed on the precipitous sides of the Van, the cattle strayed amongst the rocks, rain and sunshine came and passed away, unheeded by the youth who was wrapped up in looking for the appearance of her who had stolen his heart. The sun was verging towards the west, and the young man casting a sad look over the waters ere departing homewards was astonished to see several cows walking along its surface, and, what was more pleasing to his sight, the maiden reappeared, even lovelier than ever. She approached the land and he rushed to meet her in the water. A smile encouraged him to seize her hand, and she accepted the moderately baked bread he offered her, and after some persuasion she consented to become his wife, on condition that they should live together until she received from him three blows without a cause,

Tri ergyd diachos,

Three causeless blows,

when, should he ever happen to strike her three such blows, she would leave him for ever. These conditions were readily and joyfully accepted.

Thus the Lady of the Lake became engaged to the young man, and having loosed her hand for a moment she darted away and dived into the lake. The grief of the lover at this disappearance of his affianced was such that he determined to cast himself headlong into its unfathomed depths, and thus end his life. As he was on the point of committing this rash act, there emerged out of the lake two most beautiful ladies, accompanied by a hoary-headed man of noble mien and extraordinary stature, but having otherwise all the force and strength of youth. This man addressed the youth, saying that, as he proposed to marry one of his daughters, he consented to the union, provided the young man could distinguish which of the two ladies before him was the object of his affections. This was no easy task, as the maidens were perfect counterparts of each other.

Whilst the young man narrowly scanned the two ladies and failed to perceive the least difference betwixt the two, one of them thrust her foot a slight degree forward. The motion, simple as it was, did not escape the observation of the youth, and he discovered a trifling variation in the mode in which their sandals were tied. This at once put an end to the dilemma, for he had on previous occasions noticed the peculiarity of her shoe-tie, and he boldly took hold of her hand.

“Thou hast chosen rightly,” said the Father, “be to her a kind and faithful husband, and I will give her, as a dowry, as many sheep, cattle, goats, and horses, as she can count of each without heaving or drawing in her breath. But remember, that if you prove unkind to her at any time and strike her three times without a cause, she shall return to me, and shall bring all her stock with her.”

Such was the marriage settlement, to which the young man gladly assented, and the bride was desired to count the number of sheep she was to have. She immediately adopted the mode of counting by fives, thus:—One, two, three, four, five,—one, two, three, four, five; as many times as possible in rapid succession, till her breath was exhausted. The same process of reckoning had to determine the number of goats, cattle, and horses, respectively; and in an instant the full number of each came out of the lake, when called upon by the Father.

The young couple were then married, and went to reside at a farm called Esgair Llaethdy, near Myddvai, where they lived in prosperity and happiness for several years, and became the parents of three beautiful sons.

Once upon a time there was a christening in the neighbourhood to which the parents were invited. When the day arrived the wife appeared reluctant to attend the christening, alleging that the distance was too great for her to walk. Her husband told her to fetch one of the horses from the field. “I will,” said she, “if you will bring me my gloves which I left in our house.” He went for the gloves, and finding she had not gone for the horse, he playfully slapped her shoulder with one of them, saying “dôs, dôs, go, go,” when she reminded him of the terms on which she consented to marry him, and warned him to be more cautious in the future, as he had now given her one causeless blow.

On another occasion when they were together at a wedding and the assembled guests were greatly enjoying themselves the wife burst into tears and sobbed most piteously. Her husband touched her on the shoulder and inquired the cause of her weeping; she said, “Now people are entering into trouble, and your troubles are likely to commence, as you have the second time stricken me without a cause.”

Years passed on, and their children had grown up, and were particularly clever young men. Amidst so many worldly blessings the husband almost forgot that only one causeless blow would destroy his prosperity. Still he was watchful lest any trivial occurrence should take place which his wife must regard as a breach of their marriage contract. She told him that her affection for him was unabated, and warned him to be careful lest through inadvertence he might give the last and only blow which, by an unalterable destiny, over which she had no control, would separate them for ever.

One day it happened that they went to a funeral together, where, in the midst of mourning and grief at the house of the deceased, she appeared in the gayest of spirits, and indulged in inconsiderate fits of laughter, which so shocked her husband that he touched her, saying—“Hush! hush! don’t laugh.” She said that she laughed because people when they die go out of trouble, and rising up, she went out of the house, saying, “The last blow has been struck, our marriage contract is broken, and at an end. Farewell!” Then she started off towards Esgair Llaethdy, where she called her cattle and other stock together, each by name, not forgetting, the “little black calf” which had been slaughtered and was suspended on the hook, and away went the calf and all the stock, with the Lady across Myddvai Mountain, and disappeared beneath the waters of the lake whence the Lady had come. The four oxen that were ploughing departed, drawing after them the plough, which made a furrow in the ground, and which remains as a testimony of the truth of this story.

She is said to have appeared to her sons, and accosting Rhiwallon, her firstborn, to have informed him that he was to be a benefactor to mankind, through healing all manner of their diseases, and she furnished him with prescriptions and instructions for the preservation of health. Then, promising to meet him when her counsel was most needed, she vanished. On several other occasions she met her sons, and pointed out to them plants and herbs, and revealed to them their medicinal qualities or virtues.

So ends the Myddvai Legend.

A variant of this tale appears in the form of a letter in the Cambro-Briton, vol. ii, pp. 313-315. The editor prefaces the legend with the remark that the tale “acquires an additional interest from its resemblance in one particular to a similar tradition current in Scotland, wherein certain beasts, brought from a lake, as in this tale, play much the same part as is here described.” The volume of the Cambro-Briton now referred to was published in 1821 and apparently the writer, who calls himself Siencyn ab Tydvil, communicates an unwritten tradition afloat in Carmarthenshire, for he does not tell us whence he obtained the story. As the tale differs in some particulars from that already given, I will transcribe it.

5. The Cambro-Briton version of the Myddvai Legend.

“A man, who lived in the farm-house called Esgair-llaethdy, in the parish of Myddvai, in Carmarthenshire, having bought some lambs in a neighbouring fair, led them to graze near Llyn y Van Vach, on the Black Mountains. Whenever he visited the lambs, three most beautiful female figures presented themselves to him from the lake, and often made excursions on the boundaries of it. For some time he pursued and endeavoured to catch them, but always failed; for the enchanting nymphs ran before him, and, when they had reached the lake, they tauntingly exclaimed,

Cras dy fara,
Anhawdd ein dala,

which, with a little circumlocution, means, ‘For thee, who eatest baked bread, it is difficult to catch us.’

One day some moist bread from the lake came to shore. The farmer devoured it with great avidity, and on the following day he was successful in his pursuit and caught the fair damsels. After a little conversation with them, he commanded courage sufficient to make proposals of marriage to one of them. She consented to accept them on the condition that he would distinguish her from her two sisters on the following day. This was a new, and a very great difficulty to the young farmer, for the fair nymphs were so similar in form and features, that he could scarcely perceive any difference between them. He observed, however, a trifling singularity in the strapping of her sandal, by which he recognized her the following day. Some, indeed, who relate this legend, say that this Lady of the Lake hinted in a private conversation with her swain that upon the day of trial she would place herself between her two sisters, and that she would turn her right foot a little to the right, and that by this means he distinguished her from her sisters. Whatever were the means, the end was secured; he selected her, and she immediately left the lake and accompanied him to his farm. Before she quitted, she summoned to attend her from the lake seven cows, two oxen, and one bull.

This lady engaged to live with him until such time as he would strike her three times without cause. For some years they lived together in comfort, and she bore him three sons, who were the celebrated Meddygon Myddvai.

One day, when preparing for a fair in the neighbourhood, he desired her to go to the field for his horse. She said she would; but being rather dilatory, he said to her humorously, ‘dôs, dôs, dôs,’ i.e., ‘go, go, go,’ and he slightly touched her arm three times with his glove.

As she now deemed the terms of her marriage broken, she immediately departed, and summoned with her her seven cows, her two oxen, and the bull. The oxen were at that very time ploughing in the field, but they immediately obeyed her call, and took the plough with them. The furrow from the field in which they were ploughing, to the margin of the lake, is to be seen in several parts of that country to the present day.

After her departure, she once met her two sons in a Cwm, now called Cwm Meddygon (Physicians’ Combe), and delivered to each of them a bag containing some articles which are unknown, but which are supposed to have been some discoveries in medicine.

The Meddygon Myddvai were Rhiwallon and his sons, Cadwgan, Gruffydd, and Einion. They were the chief physicians of their age, and they wrote about A.D. 1230. A copy of their works is in the Welsh School Library, in Gray’s Inn Lane.”

Such are the Welsh Taboo tales. I will now make a few remarks upon them.

The age of these legends is worthy of consideration. The legend of Meddygon Myddvai dates from about the thirteenth century. Rhiwallon and his sons, we are told by the writer in the Cambro-Briton, wrote about 1230 A.D., but the editor of that publication speaks of a manuscript written by these physicians about the year 1300. Modern experts think that their treatise on medicine in the Red Book of Hergest belongs to the end of the fourteenth century, about 1380 to 1400.

Dafydd ab Gwilym, who is said to have flourished in the fourteenth century, says, in one of his poems, as given in the Cambro-Briton, vol. ii., p. 313, alluding to these physicians:—

“Meddyg, nis gwnai modd y gwnaeth
Myddfai, o chai ddyn meddfaeth.”

“A Physician he would not make
As Myddvai made, if he had a mead fostered man.”

It would appear, therefore, that these celebrated physicians lived somewhere about the thirteenth century. They are described as Physicians of Rhys Gryg, a prince of South Wales, who lived in the early part of the thirteenth century. Their supposed supernatural origin dates therefore from the thirteenth, or at the latest, the fourteenth century.

I have mentioned Y Gwylliaid Cochion, or, as they are generally styled, Gwylliaid Cochion Mawddwy, the Red Fairies of Mawddwy, as being of Fairy origin. The Llanfrothen Legend seems to account for a race of men in Wales differing from their neighbours in certain features. The offspring of the Fairy union were, according to the Fairy mother’s prediction in that legend, to have red hair and prominent noses. That a race of men having these characteristics did exist in Wales is undoubted. They were a strong tribe, the men were tall and athletic, and lived by plunder. They had their head quarters at Dinas Mawddwy, Merionethshire, and taxed their neighbours in open day, driving away sheep and cattle to their dens. So unbearable did their depredations become that John Wynn ap Meredydd of Gwydir and Lewis Owen, or as he is called Baron Owen, raised a body of stout men to overcome them, and on Christmas Eve, 1554, succeeded in capturing a large number of the offenders, and, there and then, some hundred or so of the robbers were hung. Tradition says that a mother begged hard for the life of a young son, who was to be destroyed, but Baron Owen would not relent. On perceiving that her request was unheeded, baring her breast she said:—

Y bronau melynion hyn a fagasant y rhai a ddialant waed fy mab, ac a olchant eu dwylaw yn ngwaed calon llofrudd eu brawd.

These yellow breasts have nursed those who will revenge my son’s blood, and will wash their hands in the heart’s blood of the murderer of their brother.

According to Pennant this threat was carried out by the murder of Baron Owen in 1555, when he was passing through the thick woods of Mawddwy on his way to Montgomeryshire Assizes, at a place called to this day Llidiart y Barwn, the Baron’s Gate, from the deed. Tradition further tells us that the murderers had gone a distance off before they remembered their mother’s threat, and returning thrust their swords into the Baron’s breast, and washed their hands in his heart’s blood. This act was followed by vigorous action, and the banditti were extirpated, the females only remaining, and the descendants of these women are occasionally still to be met with in Montgomeryshire and Merionethshire.

For the preceding information the writer is indebted to Yr Hynafion Cymreig, pp. 91-94, Archæologia Cambrensis, for 1854, pp. 119-20, Pennant, vol. ii, pp. 225-27, ed. Carnarvon, and the tradition was told him by the Revd. D. James, Vicar of Garthbeibio, who likewise pointed out to him the very spot where the Baron was murdered.

But now, who were these Gwylliaid? According to the hint conveyed by their name they were of Fairy parentage, an idea which a writer in the Archæologia Cambrensis, vol. v., 1854, p. 119, intended, perhaps, to throw out. But according to Brut y Tywysogion, Myf. Arch., p. 706, A.D. 1114, Denbigh edition, the Gwylliaid Cochion Mawddwy began in the time of Cadwgan ab Bleddyn ab Cynvyn.

From Williams’s Eminent Welshmen, we gather that Prince Cadwgan died in 1110, A.D., and, according to the above-mentioned Brut, it was in his days that the Gwylliaid commenced their career, if not their existence.

Unfortunately for this beginning of the red-headed banditti of Mawddwy, Tacitus states in his Life of Agricola, ch. xi., that there were in Britain men with red hair who he surmises were of German extraction. We must, therefore, look for the commencement of a people of this description long before the twelfth century, and the Llanfrothen legend either dates from remote antiquity, or it was a tale that found in its wanderings a resting place in that locality in ages long past.

From a legend recorded by Giraldus Cambrensis, which shall by and by be given, it would seem that a priest named Elidorus lived among the Fairies in their home in the bowels of the earth, and this would be in the early part of the twelfth century. The question arises, is the priest’s tale credible, or did he merely relate a story of himself which had been ascribed to some one else in the traditions of the people? If his tale is true, then, there lived even in that late period a remnant of the aborigines of the country, who had their homes in caves. The Myddvai Legend in part corroborates this supposition, for that story apparently belongs to the thirteenth century.

It is difficult to fix the date of the other legends here given, for they are dressed in modern garbs, with, however, trappings of remote times. Probably all these tales have reached, through oral tradition, historic times, but in reality they belong to that far-off distant period, when the prehistoric inhabitants of this island dwelt in Lake-habitations, or in caves. And the marriage of Fairy ladies, with men of a different race, intimates that the more ancient people were not extirpated, but were amalgamated with their conquerors.

Many Fairy tales in Wales are associated with lakes. Fairy ladies emerge from lakes and disappear into lakes. In the oriental legend Purûravas came upon his absconding wife in a lake. In many Fairy stories lakes seem to be the entrance to the abodes of the Fairies. Evidently, therefore, those people were lake-dwellers. In the lakes of Switzerland and other countries have been discovered vestiges of Lake-villages belonging to the Stone Age, and even to the Bronze Age. Perhaps those that belong to the Stone Age are the most ancient kind of human abodes still traceable in the world. In Ireland and Scotland these kinds of dwellings have been found. I am not in a position to say that they have been discovered in Wales; but some thirty years ago Mr. Colliver, a Cornish gentleman, told the writer that whilst engaged in mining operations near Llyn Llydaw he had occasion to lower the water level of that lake, when he discovered embedded in the mud a canoe formed out of the trunk of a single tree. He saw another in the lake, but this he did not disturb, and there it is at the present day. The late Professor Peter of Bala believed that he found traces of Lake-dwellings in Bala Lake, and the people in those parts have a tradition that a town lies buried beneath its waters—a tradition, indeed, common to many lakes. It is not therefore unlikely that if the lakes of Wales are explored they will yield evidences of lake-dwellers, and, however unromantic it may appear, the Lady of the Van Lake was only possibly a maiden snatched from her watery home by a member of a stronger race.

In these legends the lady does not seem to evince much love for her husband after she has left him. Possibly he did not deserve much, but towards her children she shows deep affection. After the husband is deserted, the children are objects of her solicitation, and they are visited. The Lady of the Van Lake promised to meet her son whenever her counsel or aid was required. A like trait belongs to the Homeric goddesses. Thetis heard from her father’s court far away beneath the ocean the terrible sounds of grief that burst from her son Achilles on hearing of the death of his dear friend Patroclus, and quickly ascended to earth all weeping to learn what ailed her son. These Fairy ladies also show a mother’s love, immortal though they be.

The children of these marriages depart not with their mother, they remain with the father, but she takes with her her dowry. Thus there are many descendants of the Lady of the Van Lake still living in South Wales, and as Professor Rhys remarks—“This brings the legend of the Lady of the Van Lake into connection with a widely spread family;” and, it may be added, shows that the Celts on their advent to Wales found it inhabited by a race with whom they contracted marriages.

The manner in which the lady is seized when dancing in the Ystrad Legend calls to mind the strategy of the tribe of Benjamin to secure wives for themselves of the daughters of Shiloh according to the advice of the elders who commanded them,—“Go and lie in wait in the vineyards; and see, and behold, if the daughters of Shiloh come out to dance in dances, then come ye out of the vineyards, and catch you everyone his wife of the daughters of Shiloh, and go to the land of Benjamin,” Judges, ch. xxi. The rape of the Sabine women, who were seized by the followers of Romulus on a day appointed for sacrifice and public games, also serves as a precedent for the action of those young Welshmen who captured Fairy wives whilst enjoying themselves in the dance.

It is a curious fact, that a singular testimony to wife snatching in ancient times is indicated by a custom once general, and still not obsolete in South Wales, of a feigned attempt on the part of the friends of the young woman about to get married to hinder her from carrying out her object. The Rev. Griffith Jones, Vicar of Mostyn, informed the writer that he had witnessed such a struggle. The wedding, he stated, took place at Tregaron, Cardiganshire. The friends of both the young people were on horseback, and according to custom they presented themselves at the house of the young woman, the one to escort her to the church, and the other to hinder her from going there. The friends of the young man were called “Gwyr shegouts.” When the young lady was mounted, she was surrounded by the gwyr shegouts, and the cavalcade started. All went on peaceably until a lane was reached, down which the lady bolted, and here the struggle commenced, for her friends dashed between her and her husband’s friends and endeavoured to force them back, and thus assist her to escape. The parties, Mr. Jones said, rode furiously and madly, and the struggle presented a cavalry charge, and it was not without much apparent danger that the opposition was overcome, and the lady ultimately forced to proceed to the church, where her future husband was anxiously awaiting her arrival. This strange custom of ancient times and obscure origin is suggestive of the way in which the stronger party procured wives in days of old.

Before the marriage of the Fairy lady to the mortal takes place, the father of the lady appears on the scene, sometimes as a supplicant, and at others as a consenting party to the inevitable marriage, but never is he depicted as resorting to force to rescue his daughter. This pusillanimity can only be reasonably accounted for by supposing that the “little man” was physically incapable of encountering and overcoming by brute force the aspirant to the hand of his daughter. From this conduct we must, I think, infer that the Fairy race were a weak people bodily, unaccustomed and disinclined to war. Their safety and existence consisted in living in the inaccessible parts of the mountains, or in lake dwellings far removed from the habitations of the stronger and better equipped race that had invaded their country. In this way they could, and very likely did, occupy parts of Wales contemporaneously with their conquerors, who, through marriage, became connected with the mild race, whom they found in possession of the land.

In the Welsh legends the maid consents to wed her capturer, and remain with him until he strikes her with iron. In every instance where this stipulation is made, it is ultimately broken, and the wife departs never to return. It has been thought that this implies that the people who immediately succeeded the Fair race belonged to the Iron Age, whilst the fair aborigines belonged to the Stone or Bronze age, and that they were overcome by the superior arms of their opponents, quite as much as by their greater bodily strength. Had the tabooed article been in every instance iron, the preceding supposition would have carried with it considerable weight, but as this is not the case, all that can be said positively is, that the conquerors of the Fair race were certainly acquainted with iron, and the blow with iron that brought about the catastrophe was undoubtedly inflicted by the mortal who had married the Fairy lady. Why iron should have been tabooed by the Fairy and her father, must remain an open question. But if we could, with reason, suppose, that that metal had brought about their subjugation, then in an age of primitive and imperfect knowledge, and consequent deep superstition, we might not be wrong in supposing that the subjugated race would look upon iron with superstitious dread, and ascribe to it supernatural power inimical to them as a race. They would under such feelings have nothing whatever to do with iron, just as the benighted African, witnessing for the first time the effects of a gun shot, would, with dread, avoid a gun. By this process of reasoning we arrive at the conclusion that the Fairy race belonged to a period anterior to the Iron Age.

With one remark, I will bring my reflections on the preceding legends to an end. Polygamy apparently was unknown in the distant times we are considering. But the marriage bond was not indissoluble, and the initiative in the separation was taken by the woman.

Men Captured by Fairies.

In the preceding legends, we have accounts of men capturing female Fairies, and marrying them. It would be strange if the kidnapping were confined to one of the two races, but Folk-Lore tells us that the Fair Family were not innocent of actions similar to those of mortals, for many a man was snatched away by them, and carried off to their subterranean abodes, who, in course of time, married the fair daughters of the Tylwyth Têg. Men captured Fairy ladies, but the Fairies captured handsome men.

The oldest written legend of this class is to be found in the pages of Giraldus Cambrensis, pp. 390-92, Bohn’s edition. The Archdeacon made the tour of Wales in 1188; the legend therefore which he records can boast of a good old age, but the tale itself is older than The Itinerary through Wales, for the writer informs us that the priest Elidorus, who affirmed that he had been in the country of the Fairies, talked in his old age to David II., bishop of St. David, of the event. Now David II. was promoted to the see of St. David in 1147, or, according to others, in 1149, and died A.D. 1176; therefore the legend had its origin before the last-mentioned date, and, if the priest were a very old man when he died, his tale would belong to the eleventh century.

With these prefatory remarks, I will give the legend as recorded by Giraldus.

1. Elidorus and the Fairies.

“A short time before our days, a circumstance worthy of note occurred in these parts, which Elidorus, a priest, most strenuously affirmed had befallen to himself.

When a youth of twelve years, and learning his letters, since, as Solomon says, ‘The root of learning is bitter, although the fruit is sweet,’ in order to avoid the discipline and frequent stripes inflicted on him by his preceptor, he ran away and concealed himself under the hollow bank of the river. After fasting in that situation for two days, two little men of pigmy stature appeared to him, saying, ‘If you will come with us, we will lead you into a country full of delights and sports.’ Assenting and rising up, he followed his guides through a path, at first subterraneous and dark, into a most beautiful country, adorned with rivers and meadows, woods and plains, but obscure, and not illuminated with the full light of the sun. All the days were cloudy, and the nights extremely dark, on account of the absence of the moon and stars. The boy was brought before the King, and introduced to him in the presence of the court; who, having examined him for a long time, delivered him to his son, who was then a boy. These men were of the smallest stature, but very well proportioned in their make; they were all of a fair complexion, with luxuriant hair falling over their shoulders like that of women. They had horses and greyhounds adapted to their size. They neither ate flesh nor fish, but lived on milk diet, made up into messes with saffron. They never took an oath, for they detested nothing so much as lies. As often as they returned from our upper hemisphere, they reprobated our ambition, infidelities, and inconstancies; they had no form of public worship, being strict lovers and reverers, as it seemed, of truth.

The boy frequently returned to our hemisphere, sometimes by the way he had first gone, sometimes by another; at first in company with other persons, and afterwards alone, and made himself known only to his mother, declaring to her the manners, nature, and state of that people. Being desired by her to bring a present of gold, with which that region abounded, he stole, while at play with the king’s son, the golden ball with which he used to divert himself, and brought it to his mother in great haste; and when he reached the door of his father’s house, but not unpursued, and was entering it in a great hurry, his foot stumbled on the threshold, and falling down into the room where his mother was sitting, the two pigmies seized the ball which had dropped from his hand and departed, showing the boy every mark of contempt and derision. On recovering from his fall, confounded with shame, and execrating the evil counsel of his mother, he returned by the usual track to the subterraneous road, but found no appearance of any passage, though he searched for it on the banks of the river for nearly the space of a year. But since those calamities are often alleviated by time, which reason cannot mitigate, and length of time alone blunts the edge of our afflictions and puts an end to many evils, the youth, having been brought back by his friends and mother, and restored to his right way of thinking, and to his learning, in process of time attained the rank of priesthood.

Whenever David II., Bishop of St. David’s, talked to him in his advanced state of life concerning this event, he could never relate the particulars without shedding tears. He had made himself acquainted with the language of that nation, the words of which, in his younger days, he used to recite, which, as the bishop often had informed me, were very conformable to the Greek idiom. When they asked for water, they said ‘Ydor ydorum,’ which meant ‘Bring water,’ for Ydor in their language, as well as in the Greek, signifies water, whence vessels for water are called Ãdriai; and Dwr, also in the British language signifies water. When they wanted salt they said ‘Halgein ydorum,’ ‘Bring salt.’ Salt is called al in Greek, and Halen in British, for that language, from the length of time which the Britons (then called Trojans and afterwards Britons, from Brito, their leader) remained in Greece after the destruction of Troy, became, in many instances, similar to the Greek.”

This legend agrees in a remarkable degree with the popular opinion respecting Fairies. It would almost appear to be the foundation of many subsequent tales that are current in Wales.

The priest’s testimony to Fairy temperance and love of truth, and their reprobation of ambition, infidelities, and inconstancies, notwithstanding that they had no form of public worship, and their abhorrence of theft intimate that they possessed virtues worthy of all praise.

Their abode is altogether mysterious, but this ancient description of Fairyland bears out the remarks—perhaps suggested the remarks, of the Rev. Peter Roberts in his book called The Cambrian Popular Antiquities. In this work, the author promulgates the theory that the Fairies were a people existing distinct from the known inhabitants of the country and confederated together, and met mysteriously to avoid coming in contact with the stronger race that had taken possession of their land, and he supposes that in these traditionary tales of the Fairies we recognize something of the real history of an ancient people whose customs were those of a regular and consistent policy. Roberts supposes that the smaller race for the purpose of replenishing their ranks stole the children of their conquerors, or slyly exchanged their weak children for their enemies’ strong children.

It will be observed that the people among whom Elidorus sojourned had a language cognate with the Irish, Welsh, Greek, and other tongues; in fact, it was similar to that language which at one time extended, with dialectical differences, from Ireland to India; and the Tylwyth Têg, in our legends, are described as speaking a language understood by those with whom they conversed. This language they either acquired from their conquerors, or both races must have had a common origin; the latter, probably, being the more reasonable supposition, and by inference, therefore, the Fairies and other nations by whom they were subdued were descended from a common stock, and ages afterwards, by marriage, the Fairies again commingled with other branches of the family from which they had originally sprung.

Omitting many embellishments which the imagination has no difficulty in bestowing, tradition has transmitted one fact, that the Tylwyth Têg succeeded in inducing men through the allurements of music and the attractions of their fair daughters to join their ranks. I will now give instances of this belief.

The following tale I received from the mouth of Mr. Richard Jones, Ty’n-y-wern, Bryneglwys, near Corwen. Mr. Jones has stored up in his memory many tales of olden times, and he even thinks that he has himself seen a Fairy. Standing by his farm, he pointed out to me on the opposite side of the valley a Fairy ring still green, where once, he said, the Fairies held their nightly revels. The scene of the tale which Mr. Jones related is wild, and a few years ago it was much more so than at present. At the time that the event is said to have taken place the mountain was unenclosed, and there was not much travelling in those days, and consequently the Fairies could, undisturbed, enjoy their dances. But to proceed with the tale.

2. A Bryneglwys Man inveigled by the Fairies.

Two waggoners were sent from Bryneglwys for coals to the works over the hill beyond Minera. On their way they came upon a company of Fairies dancing with all their might. The men stopped to witness their movements, and the Fairies invited them to join in the dance. One of the men stoutly refused to do so, but the other was induced to dance awhile with them. His companion looked on for a short time at the antics of his friend, and then shouted out that he would wait no longer, and desired the man to give up and come away. He, however, turned a deaf ear to the request, and no words could induce him to forego his dance. At last his companion said that he was going, and requested his friend to follow him. Taking the two waggons under his care he proceeded towards the coal pits, expecting every moment to be overtaken by his friend; but he was disappointed, for he never appeared. The waggons and their loads were taken to Bryneglwys, and the man thought that perhaps his companion, having stopped too long in the dance, had turned homewards instead of following him to the coal pit. But on enquiry no one had heard or seen the missing waggoner. One day his companion met a Fairy on the mountain and inquired after his missing friend. The Fairy told him to go to a certain place, which he named, at a certain time, and that he should there see his friend. The man went, and there saw his companion just as he had left him, and the first words that he uttered were “Have the waggons gone far.” The poor man never dreamt that months and months had passed away since they had started together for coal.

A variant of the preceding story appears in the Cambrian Magazine, vol. ii., pp. 58-59, where it is styled the Year’s Sleep, or “The Forest of the Yewtree,” but for the sake of association with like tales I will call it by the following title:—

3. Story of a man who spent twelve months in Fairyland.

“In Mathavarn, in the parish of Llanwrin, and the Cantrev of Cyveilioc, there is a wood which is called Ffridd yr Ywen (the Forest of the Yew); it is supposed to be so called because there is a yew tree growing in the very middle of it. In many parts of the wood are to be seen green circles, which are called ‘the dancing places of the goblins,’ about which, a considerable time ago, the following tale was very common in the neighbourhood:—

Two servants of John Pugh, Esq., went out one day to work in the ‘Forest of the Yew.’ Pretty early in the afternoon the whole country was so covered with dark vapour, that the youths thought night was coming on; but when they came to the middle of the ‘Forest’ it brightened up around them and the darkness seemed all left behind; so, thinking it too early to return home for the night, they lay down and slept. One of them, on waking, was much surprised to find no one there but himself; he wondered a good deal at the behaviour of his companion, but made up his mind at last that he had gone on some business of his own, as he had been talking of it some time before; so the sleeper went home, and when they inquired after his companion, he told them he was gone to the cobbler’s shop. The next day they inquired of him again about his fellow-servant, but he could not give them any account of him; but at last confessed how and where they had both gone to sleep. Alter searching and searching many days, he went to a ‘gwr cyvarwydd’ (a conjuror), which was a very common trade in those days, according to the legend; and the conjuror said to him, ‘Go to the same place where you and the lad slept; go there exactly a year after the boy was lost; let it be on the same day of the year, and at the same time of the day, but take care that you do not step inside the Fairy ring, stand on the border of the green circles you saw there, and the boy will come out with many of the goblins to dance, and when you see him so near to you that you may take hold of him, snatch him out of the ring as quickly as you can.’ He did according to this advice, and plucked the boy out, and then asked him, ‘if he did not feel hungry,’ to which he answered ‘No,’ for he had still the remains of his dinner that he had left in his wallet before going to sleep, and he asked ‘if it was not nearly night, and time to go home,’ not knowing that a year had passed by. His look was like a skeleton, and as soon as he had tasted food he was a dead man.”

A story in its main features similar to that recorded in the Cambrian Magazine was related to me by my friend, the Rev. R. Jones, Rector of Llanycil. I do not think Mr. Jones gave me the locality where the occurrence is said to have taken place; at least, if he did so, I took no note of it. The story is as follows:—

4. A man who spent twelve months and a day with the Fairies.

A young man, a farm labourer, and his sweetheart were sauntering along one evening in an unfrequented part of the mountain, when there appeared suddenly before them two Fairies, who proceeded to make a circle. This being done, a large company of Fairies accompanied by musicians appeared, and commenced dancing over the ring; their motions and music were entrancing, and the man, an expert dancer, by some irresistible power was obliged to throw himself into the midst of the dancers and join them in their gambols. The woman looked on enjoying the sight for several hours, expecting every minute that her lover would give up the dance and join her, but no, on and on went the dance, round and round went her lover, until at last daylight appeared, and then suddenly the music ceased and the Fairy band vanished; and with them her lover. In great dismay, the young woman shouted the name of her sweetheart, but all in vain, he came not to her. The sun had now risen, and, almost broken-hearted, she returned home and related the events of the previous night. She was advised to consult a man who was an adept in the black art. She did so, and the conjuror told her to go to the same place at the same time of the night one year and one day from the time that her lover had disappeared and that she should then and there see him. She was farther instructed how to act. The conjuror warned her from going into the ring, but told her to seize her lover by the arm as he danced round, and to jerk him out of the enchanted circle. Twelve months and a day passed away, and the faithful girl was on the spot where she lost her lover. At the very moment that they had in the first instance appeared the Fairies again came to view, and everything that she had witnessed previously was repeated. With the Fairy band was her lover dancing merrily in their midst. The young woman ran round and round the circle close to the young man, carefully avoiding the circle, and at last she succeeded in taking hold of him and desired him to come away with her. “Oh,” said he, “do let me alone a little longer, and then I will come with you.” “You have already been long enough,” said she. His answer was, “It is so delightful, let me dance on only a few minutes longer.” She saw that he was under a spell, and grasping the young man’s arm with all her might she followed him round and round the circle, and an opportunity offering she jerked him out of the circle. He was greatly annoyed at her conduct, and when told that he had been with the Fairies a year and a day he would not believe her, and affirmed that he had been dancing only a few minutes; however, he went away with the faithful girl, and when he had reached the farm, his friends had the greatest difficulty in persuading him that he had been so long from home.

The next Fairy tale that I shall give akin to the preceding stories is to be found in Y Brython, vol. iii., pp. 459-60. The writer of the tale was the Rev. Benjamin Williams, whose bardic name was Gwynionydd. I do not know the source whence Mr. Williams derived the story, but most likely he obtained it from some aged person who firmly believed that the tale was a true record of what actually occurred. In the Brython the tale is called: “Y Tylwyth Têg a Mab Llech y Derwydd,” and this title I will retain, merely translating it. The introduction, however, I will not give, as it does not directly bear on the subject now under consideration.

5. The Son of Llech y Derwydd and the Fairies.

The son of Llech y Derwydd was the only son of his parents and heir to the farm. He was very dear to his father and mother, yea, he was as the very light of their eyes. The son and the head servant man were bosom friends, they were like two brothers, or rather twins. As they were such close friends the farmer’s wife was in the habit of clothing them exactly alike. The two friends fell in love with two young handsome women who were highly respected in the neighbourhood. This event gave the old people great satisfaction, and ere long the two couples were joined in holy wedlock, and great was the merry-making on the occasion. The servant man obtained a convenient place to live in on the grounds of Llech y Derwydd. About six months after the marriage of the son, he and the servant man went out to hunt. The servant penetrated to a ravine filled with brushwood to look for game, and presently returned to his friend, but by the time he came back the son was nowhere to be seen. He continued awhile looking about for his absent friend, shouting and whistling to attract his attention, but there was no answer to his calls. By and by he went home to Llech y Derwydd, expecting to find him there, but no one knew anything about him. Great was the grief of the family throughout the night, but it was even greater the next day. They went to inspect the place where the son had last been seen. His mother and his wife wept bitterly, but the father had greater control over himself, still he appeared as half mad. They inspected the place where the servant man had last seen his friend, and, to their great surprise and sorrow, observed a Fairy ring close by the spot, and the servant recollected that he had heard seductive music somewhere about the time that he parted with his friend. They came to the conclusion at once that the man had been so unfortunate as to enter the Fairy ring, and they conjectured that he had been transported no one knew where. Weary weeks and months passed away, and a son was born to the absent man. The little one grew up the very image of his father, and very precious was he to his grandfather and grandmother. In fact, he was everything to them. He grew up to man’s estate and married a pretty girl in the neighbourhood, but her people had not the reputation of being kind-hearted. The old folks died, and also their daughter-in-law.

One windy afternoon in the month of October, the family of Llech y Derwydd saw a tall thin old man with beard and hair as white as snow, who they thought was a Jew, approaching slowly, very slowly, towards the house. The servant girls stared mockingly through the window at him, and their mistress laughed unfeelingly at the “old Jew,” and lifted the children up, one after the other, to get a sight of him as he neared the house. He came to the door, and entered the house boldly enough, and inquired after his parents. The mistress answered him in a surly and unusually contemptuous manner, and wished to know “What the drunken old Jew wanted there,” for they thought he must have been drinking or he would never have spoken in the way he did. The old man looked at everything in the house with surprise and bewilderment, but the little children about the floor took his attention more than anything else. His looks betrayed sorrow and deep disappointment. He related his whole history, that, yesterday he had gone out to hunt, and that he had now returned. The mistress told him that she had heard a story about her husband’s father, which occurred before she was born, that he had been lost whilst hunting, but that her father had told her that the story was not true, but that he had been killed. The woman became uneasy and angry that the old “Jew” did not depart. The old man was roused and said that the house was his, and that he would have his rights. He went to inspect his possessions, and shortly afterwards directed his steps to the servant’s house. To his surprise he saw that things there were greatly changed. After conversing awhile with an aged man who sat by the fire, they carefully looked each other in the face, and the old man by the fire related the sad history of his lost friend, the son of Llech y Derwydd. They conversed together deliberately on the events of their youth, but all seemed like a dream. However, the old man in the corner came to the conclusion that his visitor was his dear friend, the son of Llech y Derwydd, returned from the land of the Fairies after having spent there half a hundred years. The old man with the white beard believed the story related by his friend, and long was the talk and many were the questions which the one gave to the other. The visitor was informed that the master of Llech y Derwydd was from home that day, and he was persuaded to eat some food; but, to the horror of all, when he had done so, he instantly fell down dead.

Such is the story. The writer adds that the tale relates that the cause of this man’s sudden death was that he ate food after having been so long in the land of the Fairies, and he further states that the faithful old servant insisted on his dead friend’s being buried with his ancestors, and the rudeness of the mistress of Llech y Derwydd to her father-in-law brought a curse upon the place and family, and her offence was not expiated until the farm had been sold nine times.

The next tale that I shall relate is recorded by Glasynys in Cymru Fu, pp. 177-179. Professor Rhys in his Welsh Fairy Tales, Y Cymmrodor, vol. v., pp. 81-84, gives a translation of this story. The Professor prefaces the tale with a caution that Glasynys had elaborated the story, and that the proper names were undoubtedly his own. The reverend author informs his readers that he heard his mother relate the tale many times, but it certainly appears that he has ornamented the simple narrative after his own fashion, for he was professedly a believer in words; however, in its general outline, it bears the impress of antiquity, and strongly resembles other Welsh Fairy tales. It belongs to that species of Fairy stories which compose this chapter, and therefore it is here given as translated by Professor Rhys. I will for the sake of reference give the tale a name, and describe it under the following heading.

6. A young man marries a Fairy Lady in Fairy Land, and brings her to live with him among his own people.

“Once on a time a shepherd boy had gone up the mountain. That day, like many a day before and after, was exceedingly misty. Now, though he was well acquainted with the place, he lost his way, and walked backwards and forwards for many a long hour. At last he got into a low rushy spot, where he saw before him many circular rings. He at once recalled the place, and began to fear the worst. He had heard, many hundreds of times, of the bitter experiences in those rings of many a shepherd who had happened to chance on the dancing-place or the circles of the Fair Family. He hastened away as fast as ever he could, lest he should be ruined like the rest; but though he exerted himself to the point of perspiring, and losing his breath, there he was, and there he continued to be, a long time. At last he was met by a little fat old man with merry blue eyes, who asked him what he was doing. He answered that he was trying to find his way homeward. ‘Oh,’ said he, ‘come after me, and do not utter a word until I bid thee.’ This he did, following him on and on until they came to an oval stone, and the little old fat man lifted it, after tapping the middle of it three times with his walking stick. There was there a narrow path with stairs to be seen here and there, and a sort of whitish light, inclining to grey and blue, was to be seen radiating from the stones. ‘Follow me fearlessly,’ said the fat man, ‘no harm will be done thee.’ So on the poor youth went, as reluctantly as a dog to be hanged; but presently a fine-wooded, fertile country spread itself out before them, with well arranged mansions dotting it over, while every kind of apparent magnificence met the eye, and seemed to smile in its landscape; the bright waters of its rivers meandered in twisted streams, and its hills were covered with the luxuriant verdure of their grassy growth, and the mountains with a glossy fleece of smooth pasture. By the time they had reached the stout gentleman’s mansion, the young man’s senses had been bewildered by the sweet cadence of the music which the birds poured forth from the groves, then there was gold there to dazzle his eyes and silver flashing on his sight. He saw there all kinds of musical instruments and all sorts of things for playing, but he could discern no inhabitant in the whole place; and when he sat down to eat, the dishes on the table came to their places of themselves and disappeared when one had done with them. This puzzled him beyond measure; moreover, he heard people talking together around him, but for the life of him he could see no one but his old friend. At length the fat man said to him, ‘Thou canst now talk as much as it may please thee;’ but when he attempted to move his tongue it would no more stir than if it had been a lump of ice, which greatly frightened him. At this point, a fine old lady, with health and benevolence beaming in her face, came to them and slightly smiled at the shepherd. The mother was followed by her three daughters, who were remarkably beautiful. They gazed with somewhat playful looks at him, and at length began to talk to him, but his tongue would not wag. Then one of the girls came to him, and, playing with his yellow and curly locks, gave him a smart kiss on his ruddy lips. This loosened the string that bound his tongue, and he began to talk freely and eloquently. There he was, under the charm of that kiss, in the bliss of happiness, and there he remained a year and a day without knowing that he had passed more than a day among them, for he had got into a country where there was no reckoning of time. But by and by he began to feel somewhat of a longing to visit his old home, and asked the stout man if he might go. ‘Stay a little yet,’ said he, ‘and thou shalt go for a while.’ That passed, he stayed on; but Olwen, for that was the name of the damsel that had kissed him, was very unwilling that he should depart. She looked sad every time he talked of going away, nor was he himself without feeling a sort of a cold thrill passing through him at the thought of leaving her. On condition, however, of returning, he obtained leave to go, provided with plenty of gold and silver, of trinkets and gems. When he reached home, nobody knew who he was; it had been the belief that he had been killed by another shepherd, who found it necessary to betake himself hastily far away to America, lest he should be hanged without delay. But here is Einion Las at home, and everybody wonders especially to see that the shepherd had got to look like a wealthy man; his manners, his dress, his language, and the treasure he had with him, all conspired to give him the air of a gentleman. He went back one Thursday night, the first of the moon that month, as suddenly as he had left the first time, and nobody knew whither. There was great joy in the country below when Einion returned thither, and nobody was more rejoiced at it than Olwen, his beloved. The two were right impatient to get married, but it was necessary to do that quietly, for the family below hated nothing more than fuss and noise; so, in a sort of a half-secret fashion, they were wedded. Einion was very desirous to go once more among his own people, accompanied, to be sure, by his wife. After he had been long entreating the old man for leave, they set out on two white ponies, that were, in fact, more like snow than anything else in point of colour; so he arrived with his consort in his old home, and it was the opinion of all that Einion’s wife was the handsomest person they had anywhere seen. Whilst at home, a son was born to them, to whom they gave the name of Taliesin. Einion was now in the enjoyment of high repute, and his wife received proper respect. Their wealth was immense, and soon they acquired a large estate; but it was not long till people began to inquire after the pedigree of Einion’s wife—the country was of opinion that it was not the right thing to be without a pedigree. Einion was questioned about it, without his giving any satisfactory answer, and one came to the conclusion that she was one of the Fair Family (Tylwyth Têg). ‘Certainly,’ replied Einion, ‘there can be no doubt that she comes from a very fair family, for she has two sisters who are as fair as she, and if you saw them together, you would admit that name to be a capital one.’ This, then, is the reason why the remarkable family in the land of charm and phantasy (Hud a Lledrith) are called the Fair Family.”

7. A Boy taken to Fairy Land.

Mrs. Morris, of Cwm Vicarage, near Rhyl, told the writer the following story. She stated that she had heard it related in her family that one of their people had in childhood been induced by the Fairies to follow them to their country. This boy had been sent to discharge some domestic errand, but he did not return. He was sought for in all directions but could not be found. His parents came to the conclusion that he had either been murdered or kidnapped, and in time he was forgotten by most people, but one day he returned with what he had been sent for in his hand. But so many years had elapsed since he first left home, that he was now an old grey-headed man, though he knew it not; he had, he said, followed, for a short time, delightful music and people; but when convinced, by the changes around, that years had slipped by since he first left his home, he was so distressed at the changes he saw that he said he would return to the Fairies. But alas! he sought in vain for the place where he had met them, and therefore he was obliged to remain with his blood relations.

The next tale differs from the preceding, insomuch that the seductive advances of the Fairies failed in their object. I am not quite positive whence I obtained the story, but this much I know, that it belongs to Pentrevoelas, and that a respectable old man was in the habit of repeating it, as an event in his own life.

A Man Refusing the Solicitations of the Fairies.

A Pentrevoelas man was coming home one lovely summer’s night, and when within a stone’s throw of his house, he heard in the far distance singing of the most enchanting kind. He stopped to listen to the sweet sounds which filled him with a sensation of deep pleasure. He had not listened long ere he perceived that the singers were approaching. By and by they came to the spot where he was, and he saw that they were marching in single file and consisted of a number of small people, robed in close-fitting grey clothes, and they were accompanied by speckled dogs that marched along two deep like soldiers. When the procession came quite opposite the enraptured listener, it stopped, and the small people spoke to him and earnestly begged him to accompany them, but he would not. They tried many ways, and for a long time, to persuade him to join them, but when they saw they could not induce him to do so they departed, dividing themselves into two companies and marching away, the dogs marching two abreast in front of each company. They sang as they went away the most entrancing music that was ever heard. The man, spell-bound, stood where he was, listening to the ravishing music of the Fairies, and he did not enter his house until the last sound had died away in the far-off distance.

Professor Rhys records a tale much like the preceding. (See his Welsh Fairy Tales, pp. 34, 35.) It is as follows:—“One bright moonlight night, as one of the sons of the farmer who lived at Llwyn On in Nant y Bettws was going to pay his addresses to a girl at Clogwyn y Gwin, he beheld the Tylwyth enjoying themselves in full swing on a meadow close to Cwellyn Lake. He approached them and little by little he was led on by the enchanting sweetness of their music and the liveliness of their playing until he got within their circle. Soon some kind of spell passed over him, so that he lost his knowledge of every place, and found himself in a country the most beautiful he had ever seen, where everybody spent his time in mirth and rejoicing. He had been there seven years, and yet it seemed to him but a night’s dream; but a faint recollection came to his mind of the business on which he had left home, and he felt a longing to see his beloved one: so he went and asked permission to return home, which was granted him, together with a host of attendants to lead him to his country; and, suddenly, he found himself, as waking from a dream, on the bank where he had seen the Fairy Family amusing themselves. He turned towards home, but there he found everything changed: his parents were dead, his brothers could not recognize him, and his sweetheart was married to another man. In consequence of such changes, he broke his heart, and died in less than a week after coming back.”

Many variants of the legends already related are still extant in Wales. This much can be said of these tales, that it was formerly believed that marriages took place between men and Fairies, and from the tales themselves we can infer that the men fared better in Fairy land than the Fairy ladies did in the country of their earthly husbands. This, perhaps, is what might be expected, if, as we may suppose, the Fair Tribe were supplanted, and overcome, by a stronger, and bolder people, with whom, to a certain extent, the weaker and conquered or subdued race commingled by marriage. Certain striking characteristics of both races are strongly marked in these legends. The one is a smaller and more timid people than the other, and far more beautiful in mind and person than their conquerors. The ravishing beauty of the Fairy lady forms a prominent feature in all these legends. The Fairies, too, are spoken of as being without religion. This, perhaps, means nothing more than that they differed from their conquerors in forms, or objects of worship. However this might be, it would appear that their conquerors knew but little of that perfect moral teaching which made the Fairies, according to the testimony of Giraldus, truthful, void of ambition, and honest.

It must, however, be confessed, that there is much that is mythical in these legends, and every part cannot well be made to correspond with ordinary human transactions.

It is somewhat amusing to note how modern ideas, and customs, are mixed up with these ancient stories. They undoubtedly received a gloss from the ages which transmitted the tales.

In the next chapter I shall treat of another phase of Fairy Folk-lore, which will still further connect the Fair Race with their conquerors.

Fairy Changelings.

It was firmly believed, at one time, in Wales, that the Fairies exchanged their own weakly or deformed offspring for the strong children of mortals. The child supposed to have been left by the Fairies in the cradle, or elsewhere, was commonly called a changeling. This faith was not confined to Wales; it was as common in Ireland, Scotland, and England, as it was in Wales. Thus, in Spenser’s Faery Queen, reference is made in the following words to this popular error:—

And her base Elfin brood there for thee left;
Such, men do chaungelings call, so chaung’d by Faeries theft.

Faery Queen, Bk. I, c. 10.

The same superstition is thus alluded to by Shakespeare:—

A lovely boy, stol’n from an Indian king,
She never had so sweet a changeling.

A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Act II., Sc. 1.

And again, in another of his plays, the Fairy practice of exchanging children is mentioned:—

O, that it could be prov’d,
That some night-tripping Fairy had exchanged
In cradle-clothes our children, where they lay,
And call’d mine, Percy, his Plantagenet:
Then would I have his Harry, and he mine.

Henry IV., Pt. 1., Act I, Sc. 1.

In Scotland and other countries the Fairies were credited with stealing unbaptized infants, and leaving in their stead poor, sickly, noisy, thin, babies. But to return to Wales, a poet in Y Brython, vol. iii, p. 103, thus sings:—

Llawer plentyn teg aeth ganddynt,
Pan y cym’rynt helynt hir;
Oddi ar anwyl dda rieni,
I drigfanau difri dir.

Many a lovely child they’ve taken,
When long and bitter was the pain;
From their parents, loving, dear,
To the Fairies’ dread domain.

John Williams, an old man, who lived in the Penrhyn quarry district, informed the writer that he could reveal strange doings of the Fairies in his neighbourhood, for often had they changed children with even well-to-do families, he said, but more he would not say, lest he should injure those prosperous families.

It was believed that the Fairies were particularly busy in exchanging children on Nos Wyl Ifan, or St. John’s Eve.

There were, however, effectual means for protecting children from their machinations. The mother’s presence, the tongs placed cross-ways on the cradle, the early baptism of the child, were all preventives. In the Western Isles of Scotland fire carried round a woman before she was churched, and round the child until he was christened, daily, night and morning, preserved both from the evil designs of the Fairies. (Brand, vol. ii, p. 486.) And it will be shortly shewn that even after an exchange had been accomplished there were means of forcing the Fairies to restore the stolen child.

It can well be believed that mothers who had sickly or idiotic babies would, in uncivilized places, gladly embrace the idea that the child she nursed was a changeling, and then, naturally enough, she would endeavour to recover her own again. The plan adopted for this purpose was extremely dangerous. I will in the following tales show what steps were taken to reclaim the lost child.

Pennant records how a woman who had a peevish child acted to regain from the Fairies her own offspring. His words are:—“Above this is a spreading oak of great antiquity, size, and extent of branches; it has got the name of Fairy Oak. In this very century (the eighteenth) a poor cottager, who lived near the spot, had a child who grew uncommonly peevish; the parents attributed this to the Fairies, and imagined that it was a changeling. They took the child, put it into a cradle, and left it all night beneath the tree, in hopes that the Tylwyth Têg, or Fairy Family, or the Fairy folk, would restore their own before the morning. When morning came, they found the child perfectly quiet, so went away with it, quite confirmed in their belief.”—History of Whiteford, pp. 5, 6.

These people by exposing their infant for a night to the elements ran a risk of losing it altogether; but they acted in agreement with the popular opinion, which was that the Fairies had such affection for their own children that they would not allow them to be in any danger of losing their life, and that if the elfin child were thus exposed the Fairies would rescue it, and restore the exchanged child to its parents. The following tale exhibits another phase of this belief.

The story is to be found in the Cambrian Magazine, vol. ii., pp. 86, 87.

1. “The Egg Shell Pottage.”

“In the parish of Treveglwys, near Llanidloes, in the county of Montgomery, there is a little shepherd’s cot, that is commonly called Twt y Cwmrws (the place of strife) on account of the extraordinary strife that has been there. The inhabitants of the cottage were a man and his wife, and they had born to them twins, whom the woman nursed with great care and tenderness. Some months afterwards indispensable business called the wife to the house of one of her nearest neighbours; yet, notwithstanding she had not far to go, she did not like to leave her children by themselves in their cradle, even for a minute, as her house was solitary, and there were many tales of goblins or the ‘Tylwyth Têg’ (the Fair Family or the Fairies) haunting the neighbourhood. However, she went, and returned as soon as she could; but on coming back she felt herself not a little terrified on seeing, though it was mid-day, some of ‘the old elves of the blue petticoat,’ as they are usually called; however, when she got back to her house she was rejoiced to find everything in the state she had left it.

But after some time had passed by, the good people began to wonder that the twins did not grow at all, but still continued little dwarfs. The man would have it that they were not his children; the woman said that they must be their children, and about this arose the great strife between them that gave name to the place. One evening when the woman was very heavy of heart she determined to go and consult a Gwr Cyfarwydd (i.e., a wise man, or a conjuror), feeling assured that everything was known to him, and he gave her his counsel. Now there was to be a harvest soon of the rye and oats; so the wise man said to her:—‘When you are preparing dinner for the reapers empty the shell of a hen’s egg, and boil the shell full of pottage and take it out through the door as if you meant it for a dinner to the reapers, and then listen what the twins will say; if you hear the children speaking things above the understanding of children, return into the house, take them, and throw them into the waves of Llyn Ebyr, which is very near to you; but if you don’t hear anything remarkable, do them no injury.’ And when the day of the reaping came, the woman did as her adviser had recommended to her; and as she went outside the door to listen, she heard one of the children say to the other:—

Gwelais vesen cyn gweled derwen,
Gwelais wy cyn gweled iâr,
Erioed ni welais verwi bwyd i vedel
Mewn plisgyn wy iâr!

Acorns before oak I knew,
An egg before a hen,
Never one hen’s egg-shell stew
Enough for harvest men!

On this the mother returned to her house and took the two children, and threw them into the Llyn, and suddenly the goblins in their trousers came to save their dwarfs, and the woman had her own children back again, and thus the strife between her and her husband ended.”

The writer of the preceding story says that it was translated almost literally from Welsh, as told by the peasantry, and he remarks that the legend bears a striking resemblance to one of the Irish tales published by Mr. Croker.

Many variants of the legend are still extant in many parts of Wales. There is one of these recorded in Professor Rhys’s Welsh Fairy Tales, Y Cymmrodor, vol. iv., pp. 208-209. It is much like that given in the Cambrian Magazine.

2. Corwrion Changeling Legend.

Once on a time, in the fourteenth century, the wife of a man at Corwrion had twins, and she complained one day to the witch who lived close by, at Tyddyn y Barcut, that the children were not getting on, but that they were always crying, day and night. ‘Are you sure that they are your children?’ asked the witch, adding that it did not seem to her that they were like hers. ‘I have my doubts also,’ said the mother. ‘I wonder if somebody has changed children with you,’ said the witch. ‘I do not know,’ said the mother. ‘But why do you not seek to know?’ asked the other. ‘But how am I to go about it?’ said the mother. The witch replied, ‘Go and do something rather strange before their eyes and watch what they will say to one another.’ ‘Well I do not know what I should do,’ said the mother. ‘Oh,’ said the other, ‘take an egg-shell, and proceed to brew beer in it in a chamber aside, and come here to tell me what the children will say about it.’ She went home and did as the witch had directed her, when the two children lifted their heads out of the cradle to see what she was doing, to watch, and to listen. Then one observed to the other:—‘I remember seeing an oak having an acorn,’ to which the other replied, ‘And I remember seeing a hen having an egg,’ and one of the two added, ‘But I do not remember before seeing anybody brew beer in the shell of a hen’s egg.’

The mother then went to the witch and told her what the twins had said one to the other, and she directed her to go to a small wooden bridge not far off, with one of the strange children under each arm, and there to drop them from the bridge into the river beneath. The mother went back home again and did as she had been directed. When she reached home this time, to her astonishment, she found that her own children had been brought back.”

There is one important difference between these two tales. In the latter, the mother drops the children over the bridge into the waters beneath, and then goes home, without noticing whether the poor children had been rescued by the goblins or not, but on reaching her home she found in the cradle her own two children, presumably conveyed there by the Fairies. In the first tale, we are informed that she saw the goblins save their offspring from a watery grave. Subjecting peevish children to such a terrible ordeal as this must have ended often with a tragedy, but even in such cases superstitious mothers could easily persuade themselves that the destroyed infants were undoubtedly the offspring of elfins, and therefore unworthy of their fostering care. The only safeguard to wholesale infanticide was the test applied as to the super-human precociousness, or ordinary intelligence, of the children.

Another version of this tale was related to me by my young friend, the Rev. D. H. Griffiths, of Clocaenog Rectory, near Ruthin. The tale was told him by Evan Roberts, Ffriddagored, Llanfwrog. Mr. Roberts is an aged farmer.

3. Llanfwrog Changeling Legend.

A mother took her child to the gleaning field, and left it sleeping under the sheaves of wheat whilst she was busily engaged gleaning. The Fairies came to the field and carried off her pretty baby, leaving in its place one of their own infants. At the time, the mother did not notice any difference between her own child and the one that took its place, but after awhile she observed with grief that the baby she was nursing did not thrive, nor did it grow, nor would it try to walk. She mentioned these facts to her neighbours, and she was told to do something strange and then listen to its conversation. She took an egg-shell and pretended to brew beer in it, and she was then surprised to hear the child, who had observed her actions intently, say:—

Mi welais fesen gan dderwen,
Mi welais wy gan iâr,
Ond ni welais i erioed ddarllaw
Mewn cibyn wy iâr.

I have seen an oak having an acorn,
I have seen a hen having an egg,
But I never saw before brewing
In the shell of a hen’s egg.

This conversation proved the origin of the precocious child who lay in the cradle. The stanza was taken down from Roberts’s lips. But he could not say what was done to the fairy changeling.

In Ireland a plan for reclaiming the child carried away by the Fairies was to take the Fairy’s changeling and place it on the top of a dunghill, and then to chant certain invocatory lines beseeching the Fairies to restore the stolen child.

There was, it would seem, in Wales, a certain form of incantation resorted to to reclaim children from the Fairies, which was as follows:—The mother who had lost her child was to carry the changeling to a river, but she was to be accompanied by a conjuror, who was to take a prominent part in the ceremony. When at the river’s brink the conjuror was to cry out:—

Crap ar y wrach—

A grip on the hag;

and the mother was to respond—

Rhy hwyr gyfraglach—

Too late decrepit one;

and having uttered these words, she was to throw the child into the stream, and to depart, and it was believed that on reaching her home she would there find her own child safe and sound.

I have already alluded to the horrible nature of such a proceeding. I will now relate a tale somewhat resembling those already given, but in this latter case, the supposed changeling became the mainstay of his family. I am indebted for the Gors Goch legend to an essay, written by Mr. D. Williams, Llanfachreth, Merionethshire, which took the prize at the Liverpool Eisteddfod, 1870, and which appears in a publication called Y Gordofigion, pp. 96, 97, published by Mr. I. Foulkes, Liverpool.

4. The Gore Goch Changeling Legend.

The tale rendered into English is as follows:—“There was once a happy family living in a place called Gors Goch. One night, as usual, they went to bed, but they could not sleep a single wink, because of the noise outside the house. At last the master of the house got up, and trembling, enquired ‘What was there, and what was wanted.’ A clear sweet voice answered him thus, ‘We want a warm place where we can tidy the children.’ The door was opened when there entered half full the house of the Tylwyth Têg, and they began forthwith washing their children. And when they had finished, they commenced singing, and the singing was entrancing. The dancing and the singing were both excellent. On going away they left behind them money not a little for the use of the house. And afterwards they came pretty often to the house, and received a hearty welcome in consequence of the large presents which they left behind them on the hob. But at last a sad affair took place which was no less than an exchange of children. The Gors Goch baby was a dumpy child, a sweet, pretty, affectionate little dear, but the child which was left in its stead was a sickly, thin, shapeless, ugly being, which did nothing but cry and eat, and although it ate ravenously like a mastiff, it did not grow. At last the wife of Gors Goch died of a broken heart, and so also did all her children, but the father lived a long life and became a rich man, because his new heir’s family brought him abundance of gold and silver.”

As I have already given more than one variant of the same legend, I will supply another version of the Gors Goch legend which appears in Cymru Fu, pp. 177-8, from the pen of the Revd. Owen Wyn Jones, Glasynys, and which in consequence of the additional facts contained in it may be of some value. I will make use of Professor Rhys’s translation. (See Y Cymmrodor, vol. v., pp. 79-80.)

5. Another Version of the Gors Goch Legend.

“When the people of the Gors Goch one evening had gone to bed, lo! they heard a great row and disturbance around the house. One could not at all comprehend what it might be that made a noise that time of night. Both the husband and the wife had waked up, quite unable to make out what there might be there. The children also woke but no one could utter a word; their tongues had all stuck to the roofs of their mouths. The husband, however, at last managed to move, and to ask, ‘Who is there? What do you want?’ Then he was answered from without by a small silvery voice, ‘It is room we want to dress our children.’ The door was opened, and a dozen small beings came in, and began to search for an earthen pitcher with water; there they remained for some hours, washing and titivating themselves. As the day was breaking they went away, leaving behind them a fine present for the kindness they had received. Often afterwards did the Gors Goch folks have the company of this family. But once there happened to be a fine roll of a pretty baby in his cradle. The Fair Family came, and, as the baby had not been baptized, they took the liberty of changing him for one of their own. They left behind in his stead an abominable creature that would do nothing but cry and scream every day of the week. The mother was nearly breaking her heart, on account of the misfortune, and greatly afraid of telling anybody about it. But everybody got to see that there was something wrong at Gors Goch, which was proved before long by the mother dying of longing for her child. The other children died broken-hearted after their mother, and the husband was left alone with the little elf without anyone to comfort them. But shortly after, the Fairies began to resort again to the hearth of the Gors Goch to dress children, and the gift which had formerly been silver money became henceforth pure gold. In the course of a few years the elf became the heir of a large farm in North Wales, and that is why the old people used to say, ‘Shoe the elf with gold and he will grow.’” (Fe ddaw gwiddon yn fawr ond ei bedoli âg aur.)

It will be observed that this latter version differs in one remarkable incident from the preceding tale. In the former there is no allusion to the fact that the changed child had not been baptized; in the latter, this omission is specially mentioned as giving power to the Fairies to exchange their own child for the human baby. This preventive carries these tales into Christian days. Another tale, which I will now relate, also proves that faith in the Fairies and in the efficacy of the Cross existed at one and the same time. The tale is taken from Y Gordofigion, p. 96. I will first give it as it originally appeared, and then I will translate the story.

6. Garth Uchaf, Llanuwchllyn, Changeling Legend.

“Yr oedd gwraig Garth Uchaf, yn Llanuwchllyn, un tro wedi myned allan i gweirio gwair, a gadael ei baban yn y cryd; ond fel bu’r anffawd, ni roddodd yr efail yn groes ar wyneb y cryd, ac o ganlyniad, ffeiriwyd ei baban gan y Tylwyth Têg, ac erbyn iddi ddyfod i’r ty, nid oedd yn y cryd ond rhyw hen gyfraglach o blentyn fel pe buasai wedi ei haner lewygu o eisiau ymborth, ond magwyd ef er hyny.”

The wife of Garth Uchaf, Llanuwchllyn, went out one day to make hay, and left her baby in the cradle. Unfortunately, she did not place the tongs crossways on the cradle, and consequently the Fairies changed her baby, and by the time she came home there was nothing in the cradle but some old decrepit changeling, which looked is if it were half famished, but nevertheless, it was nursed.

The reason why the Fairies exchanged babies with human beings, judging from the stories already given, was their desire to obtain healthy well-formed children in the place of their own puny ill-shaped offspring, but this is hardly a satisfactory explanation of such conduct. A mother’s love is ever depicted as being so intense that deformity on the part of her child rather increases than diminishes her affection for her unfortunate babe. In Scotland the difficulty is solved in a different way. There it was once thought that the Fairies were obliged every seventh year to pay to the great enemy of mankind an offering of one of their own children, or a human child instead, and as a mother is ever a mother, be she elves flesh or Eve’s flesh, she always endeavoured to substitute some one else’s child for her own, and hence the reason for exchanging children.

In Allan Cunningham’s Traditional Tales, Morley’s edition, p. 188, mention is made of this belief. He writes:—

“‘I have heard it said by douce Folk,’ ‘and sponsible,’ interrupted another, ‘that every seven years the elves and Fairies pay kane, or make an offering of one of their children, to the grand enemy of salvation, and that they are permitted to purloin one of the children of men to present to the fiend,’ ‘a more acceptable offering, I’ll warrant, than one of their own infernal blood that are Satan’s sib allies, and drink a drop of the deil’s blood every May morning.’”

The Rev. Peter Roberts’s theory was that the smaller race kidnapped the children of the stronger race, who occupied the country concurrently with themselves, for the purpose of adding to their own strength as a people.

Gay, in lines quoted in Brand’s Popular Antiquities, vol. ii., p. 485, laughs at the idea of changelings. A Fairy’s tongue ridicules the superstition:—

Whence sprung the vain conceited lye,
That we the world with fools supply?
What! Give our sprightly race away
For the dull helpless sons of clay!
Besides, by partial fondness shown,
Like you, we dote upon our own.
Where ever yet was found a mother
Who’d give her booby for another?
And should we change with human breed,
Well might we pass for fools, indeed.

With the above fine satire I bring my remarks on Fairy Changelings to a close.

Fairy Mothers and Human Midwives.

Fairies are represented in Wales as possessing all the passions, appetites, and wants of human beings. There are many tales current of their soliciting help and favours in their need from men and women. Just as uncivilized nations acknowledge the superiority of Europeans in medicine, so did the Fairies resort in perplexing cases to man for aid. There is a class of tales which has reached our days in which the Fairy lady, who is about to become a mother, obtains from amongst men a midwife, whom she rewards with rich presents for her services. Variants of this story are found in many parts of Wales, and in many continental countries. I will relate a few of these legends.

1. Denbighshire Version of a Fairy Mother and Human Midwife.

The following story I received from the lips of David Roberts, whom I have previously mentioned, a native of Denbighshire, and he related the tale as one commonly known. As might be expected, he locates the event in Denbighshire, but I have no recollection that he gave names. His narrative was as follows:—

A well-known midwife, whose services were much sought after in consequence of her great skill, had one night retired to rest, when she was disturbed by a loud knocking at her door. She immediately got up and went to the door, and there saw a beautiful carriage, which she was urgently requested to enter at once to be conveyed to a house where her help was required. She did so, and after a long drive the carriage drew up before the entrance to a large mansion, which she had never seen before. She successfully performed her work, and stayed on in the place until her services were no longer required. Then she was conveyed home in the same manner as she had come, but with her went many valuable presents in grateful recognition of the services she had rendered.

The midwife somehow or other found out that she had been attending a Fairy mother. Some time after her return from Fairy land she went to a fair, and there she saw the lady whom she had put to bed nimbly going from stall to stall, and making many purchases. For awhile she watched the movements of the lady, and then presuming on her limited acquaintance, addressed her, and asked how she was. The lady seemed surprised and annoyed at the woman’s speech, and instead of answering her, said, “And do you see me?” “Yes, I do,” said the midwife. “With which eye?” enquired the Fairy. “With this,” said the woman, placing her hand on the eye. No sooner had she spoken than the Fairy lady touched that eye, and the midwife could no longer see the Fairy.

Mrs. Lowri Wynn, Clocaenog, near Ruthin, who has reached her eightieth year, and is herself a midwife, gave me a version of the preceding which differed therefrom in one or two particulars. The Fairy gentleman who had driven the woman to and from the Hall was the one that was seen in the fair, said Mrs. Wynn, and he it was that put out the eye or blinded it, she was not sure which, of the inquisitive midwife, and Lowri thought it was the left eye.

2. Merionethshire Version of the Fairy Mother and Human Midwife.

A more complete version of this legend is given in the Gordofigion, pp. 97, 98. The writer says:—

“Yr oedd bydwraig yn Llanuwchllyn wedi cael ei galw i Goed y Garth, sef Siambra Duon—cartref y Tylwyth Têg—at un o honynt ar enedigaeth baban. Dywedasant wrthi am gymeryd gofal rhag, cyffwrdd y dwfr oedd ganddi yn trin y babi yn agos i’w llygaid; ond cyffyrddodd y wraig â’r llygad aswy yn ddigon difeddwl. Yn y Bala, ymhen ychydig, gwelai y fydwraig y gwr, sef tad y babàn, a dechreuodd ei holi pa sut yr oeddynt yn Siambra Duon? pa fodd yr oedd y wraig? a sut ’roedd y teulu bach i gyd? Edrychai yntau arni yn graff, a gofynodd, ‘A pha lygad yr ydych yn fy ngweled i?’ ‘A hwn,’ ebe hithau, gan gyfeirio at ei llygad aswy. Tynodd yntau y llygad hwnw o’i phen, ac yna nis gallai’r wraig ei ganfod.”

This in English is:—

There was a midwife who lived at Llanuwchllyn, who was called to Coed y Garth, that is, to Siambra Duon, the home of the Tylwyth Têg, to attend to one of them in child birth. They told her to be careful not to touch her eyes with the water used in washing the baby, but quite unintentionally the woman touched her left eye. Shortly afterwards the midwife saw the Fairy’s husband at Bala, and she began enquiring how they all were at Siambra Duon, how the wife was, and how the little family was? He looked at her intently, and then asked, “With which eye do you see me?” “With this,” she said, pointing to her left eye. He plucked that eye out of her head, and so the woman could not see him.

With regard to this tale, the woman’s eye is said to have been plucked out; in the first tale she was only deprived of her supernatural power of sight; in other versions the woman becomes blind with one eye.

Professor Rhys in Y Cymmrodor, vol. iv., pp. 209, 210, gives a variant of the midwife story which differs in some particulars from that already related. I will call this the Corwrion version.

3. The Corwrion Version.

One of the Fairies came to a midwife who lived at Corwrion and asked her to come with him and attend on his wife. Off she went with him, and she was astonished to be taken into a splendid palace. There she continued to go night and morning to dress the baby for some time, until one day the husband asked her to rub her eyes with a certain ointment he offered her. She did so and found herself sitting on a tuft of rushes, and not in a palace. There was no baby, and all had disappeared. Some time afterwards she happened to go to the town, and whom should she see busily buying various wares but the Fairy on whose wife she had been attending. She addressed him with the question, “How are you, to-day?” Instead of answering her he asked, “How do you see me?” “With my eyes,” was the prompt reply. “Which eye?” he asked. “This one,” said she, pointing to it; and instantly he disappeared, never more to be seen by her.

There is yet one other variant of this story which I will give, and for the sake of reference I will call it the Nanhwynan version. It appears in the Brython, vol. ix., p. 251, and Professor Rhys has rendered it into English in Y Cymmrodor, vol. ix., p. 70. I will give the tale as related by the Professor.

4. The Nanhwynan Version.

“Once on a time, when a midwife from Nanhwynan had newly got to the Hafodydd Brithion to pursue her calling, a gentleman came to the door on a fine grey steed and bade her come with him at once. Such was the authority with which he spoke, that the poor midwife durst not refuse to go, however much it was her duty to stay where she was. So she mounted behind him, and off they went like the flight of a swallow, through Cwmllan, over the Bwlch, down Nant yr Aran, and over the Gadair to Cwm Hafod Ruffydd, before the poor woman had time to say ‘Oh.’ When they had got there she saw before her a magnificent mansion, splendidly lit up with such lamps as she had never before seen. They entered the court, and a crowd of servants in expensive liveries came to meet them, and she was at once led through the great hall into a bed-chamber, the like of which she had never seen. There the mistress of the house, to whom she had been fetched, was awaiting her. She got through her duties successfully, and stayed there until the lady had completely recovered; nor had she spent any part of her life so merrily. There was there nought but festivity day and night: dancing, singing, and endless rejoicing reigned there. But merry as it was, she found she must go, and the nobleman gave her a large purse, with the order not to open it until she had got into her own house; then he bade one of his servants escort her the same way she had come. When she reached home she opened the purse, and, to her great joy, it was full of money, and she lived happily on those earnings to the end of her life.”

Such are these tales. Perhaps they are one and all fragments of the same story. Each contains a few shreds that are wanting in the others. All, however, agree in one leading idea, that Fairy mothers have, ere now, obtained the aid of human midwives, and this one fact is a connecting link between the people called Fairies and our own remote forefathers.

Fairy Visits to Human Abodes.

Old people often told their children and servant girls, that one condition of the Fairy visits to their houses was cleanliness. They were always instructed to keep the fire place tidy and the floor well swept, the pails filled with water, and to make everything bright and nice before going to bed, and that then, perhaps, the Fairies would come into the house to dance and sing until the morning, and leave on the hearth stone a piece of money as a reward behind them. But should the house be dirty, never would the Fairies enter it to hold their nightly revels, unless, forsooth, they came to punish the slatternly servant. Such was the popular opinion, and it must have acted as an incentive to order and cleanliness. These ideas have found expression in song.

A writer in Yr Hynafion Cymreig, p. 153, sings thus of the place loved by the Fairies:—

Ysgafn ddrws pren, llawr glân dan nen,
A’r aelwyd wen yn wir,
Tân golau draw, y dwr gerllaw,
Yn siriaw’r cylchgrwn clir.

A light door, and clean white floor,
And hearth-stone bright indeed,
A burning fire, and water near,
Supplies our every need.

In a ballad, entitled “The Fairy Queen,” in Percy’s Reliques of Ancient English Poetry, Nichols’s edition, vol. iii., p. 172, are stanzas similar to the Welsh verse given above, which also partially embody the Welsh opinions of Fairy visits to their houses. Thus chants the “Fairy Queen”:—

When mortals are at rest,
And snoring in their nest,
Unheard, and un-espy’d,
Through key-holes we do glide;
Over tables, stools, and shelves,
We trip it with our Fairy elves.
And, if the house be foul
With platter, dish, or bowl,
Upstairs we nimbly creep,
And find the sluts asleep:
There we pinch their arms and thighs;
None escapes, nor none espies.
But if the house be swept
And from uncleanness kept,
We praise the household maid,
And duely she is paid:
For we use before we goe
To drop a tester in her shoe.

It was not for the sake of mirth only that the Fairies entered human abodes, but for the performance of more mundane duties, such as making oatmeal cakes. The Rev. R. Jones, Rector of Llanycil, told me a story, current in his native parish, Llanfrothen, Merionethshire, to the effect that a Fairy woman who had spent the night in baking cakes in a farm house forgot on leaving to take with her the wooden utensil used in turning the cakes on the bake stone; so she returned, and failing to discover the lost article bewailed her loss in these words, “Mi gollais fy mhig,” “I have lost my shovel.” The people got up and searched for the lost implement, and found it, and gave it to the Fairy, who departed with it in her possession.

Another reason why the Fairies frequented human abodes was to wash and tidy their children. In the Gors Goch legend, already given, is recorded this cause of their visits. Many like stories are extant. It is said that the nightly visitors expected water to be provided for them, and if this were not the case they resented the slight thus shown them and punished those who neglected paying attention to their wants. But tradition says the house-wives were ever careful of the Fairy wants; and, as it was believed that Fairy mothers preferred using the same water in which human children had been washed, the human mother left this water in the bowl for their special use.

In Scotland, also, Fairies were propitiated by attention being paid to their wants. Thus in Allan Cunningham’s Traditional Tales, p. 11, it is said of Ezra Peden:—“He rebuked a venerable dame, during three successive Sundays for placing a cream bowl and new-baked cake in the paths of the nocturnal elves, who, she imagined, had plotted to steal her grandson from the mother’s bosom.”

But in the traditions of the Isle of Man we obtain the exact counterpart of Welsh legends respecting the Fairies visiting houses to wash themselves. I will give the following quotation from Brand, vol. ii., p. 494, on this point:—

“The Manks confidently assert that the first inhabitants of their island were Fairies, and that these little people have still their residence among them. They call them the good people, and say they live in wilds and forests, and on mountains, and shun great cities because of the wickedness acted therein. All the houses are blessed where they visit for they fly vice. A person would be thought impudently profane who should suffer his family to go to bed without having first set a tub, or pail full of clean water for the guests to bathe themselves in, which the natives aver they constantly do, as soon as the eyes of the family are closed, wherever they vouchsafe to come.”

Several instances have already been given of the intercourse of Fairies with mortals. In some parts of Wales it is or was thought that they were even so familiar as to borrow from men. I will give one such tale, taken from the North Wales Chronicle of March 19th, 1887.

A Fairy Borrowing a Gridiron.

“The following Fairy legend was told to Mr. W. W. Cobb, of Hilton House, Atherstone, by Mrs. Williams, wife of Thomas Williams, pilot, in whose house he lodged when staying in Anglesey:—Mary Roberts, of Newborough, used to receive visits once a week from a little woman who used to bring her a loaf of bread in return for the loan of her gridiron (gradell) for baking bread. The Fairy always told her not to look after her when she left the house, but one day she transgressed, and took a peep as the Fairy went away. The latter went straight to the lake—Lake Rhosddu—near the house at Newborough, and plunged into its waters, and disappeared. This took place about a century ago. The house where Mary Roberts lived is still standing about 100 yards north of the lake.”

Compare the preceding with the following lines:—

If ye will with Mab finde grace,
Set each platter in its place;
Rake the fire up and set
Water in ere sun be set,
Wash your pales and cleanse your dairies,
Sluts are loathsome to the Fairies;
Sweep your house; who doth not so,
Mab will pinch her by the toe.

Herrick’s Hesperides, 1648. (See Brand, vol. ii., p. 484.)

Fairy Riches and Gifts.

The riches of the Fairies are often mentioned by the old people, and the source of their wealth is variously given. An old man, who has already been mentioned, John Williams, born about 1770, was of opinion that the Fairies stole the money from bad rich people to give it to good poor folk. This they were enabled to do, he stated, as they could make themselves invisible. In a conversation which we once had on this subject, my old friend posed me with this question, “Who do you think robbed . . . of his money without his knowledge?” “Who do you think took . . . money only twenty years ago?” “Why, the Fairies,” added he, “for no one ever found out the thief.”

Shakespeare, in Midsummer Night’s Dream, A. iii., S. 1, gives a very different source to the Fairy riches:—

I will give thee Fairies to attend on thee,
And they shall fetch thee jewels from the deep.

Without inquiring too curiously into the source of these riches, it shall now be shown how, and for what services, they were bestowed on mortals. Gratitude is a noble trait in the Fairy character, and favours received they ever repaid. But the following stories illustrate alike their commiseration, their caprice, and their grateful bounty.

The Fairies Placing Money on the Ground for a Poor Man.

The following tale was told me by Thomas Jones, a small mountain farmer, who occupies land near Pont Petrual, a place between Ruthin and Llanfihangel Glyn Myfyr. Jones informed me that he was acquainted with all the parties mentioned in the tale. His story was as follows:—

A shoemaker, whose health would not permit him to pursue his own trade, obtained work in a tanyard at Penybont, near Corwen. The shoemaker lived in a house called Ty’n-y-graig, belonging to Clegir isa farm. He walked daily to his employment, a distance of several miles, because he could not afford to pay for lodgings. One day, he noticed a round bit of green ground, close to one of the gates on Tan-y-Coed farm, and going up to it discovered a piece of silver lying on the sward. Day after day, from the same spot, he picked up a silver coin. By this means, as well as by the wage he received, he became a well-to-do man. His wife noticed the many new coins he brought home, and questioned him about them, but he kept the secret of their origin to himself. At last, however, in consequence of repeated inquiries, he told her all about the silver pieces, which daily he had picked up from the green plot. The next day he passed the place, but there was no silver, as in days gone by, and he never discovered another shilling, although he looked for it every day. The poor man did not live long after he had informed his wife whence he had obtained the bright silver coins.

The Fairies and their Chest of Gold.

The following tale I obtained from the Rev. Owen Jones, Vicar of Pentrevoelas. The scene lies amongst the wildest mountains of Merionethshire.

David, the weaver, lived in a house called Llurig, near Cerniogau Mawr, between Pentrevoelas and Cerrig-y-Drudion. One day David was going over the hill to Bala. On the top of the Garn two Fairies met him, and desired him to follow them, promising, if he would do so, that they would show him a chest filled with gold, and furthermore, they told him that the gold should be his. David was in want of money, and he was therefore quite willing to follow these good natured Fairies. He walked many miles with them across the bleak, bare mountain, and at last, descending from the summit, they reached a deep secluded glen, lying at the foot of the mountain, and there the Fairies exposed to his view a chest, which had never before been seen by mortal eye, and they informed him that it was his. David was delighted when he heard the good news, and mentally bade farewell to weaving. He knew, though, from tradition, that he must in some way or other, there and then, take possession of his treasure, or it would disappear. He could not carry the chest away, as it was too heavy, but to show his ownership thereto he thrust his walking stick into the middle of the gold, and there it stood erect. Then he started homewards, and often and again, as he left the glen, he turned round to see whether the Fairies had taken his stick away, and with it the chest; but no, there it remained. At last the ridge hid all from view, and, instead of going on to Bala, he hastened home to tell his good wife of his riches. Quickly did he travel to his cottage, and when there it was not long before his wife knew all about the chest of gold, and where it was, and how that David had taken possession of his riches by thrusting his walking stick into the middle of the gold. It was too late for them to set out to carry the chest home, but they arranged to start before the sun was up the next day. David, well acquainted with Fairy doings, cautioned his wife not to tell anyone of their good fortune, “For, if you do,” said he, “we shall vex the Fairies, and the chest, after all, will not be ours.” She promised to obey, but alas, what woman possesses a silent tongue! No sooner had the husband revealed the secret to his wife than she was impatient to step to her next door neighbour’s house, just to let them know what a great woman she had all at once become. Now, this neighbour was a shrewd miller, called Samuel. David went out, to attend to some little business, leaving his wife alone, and she, spying her opportunity, rushed to the miller’s house, and told him and his wife every whit, and how that she and David had arranged to go for the chest next morning before the sun was up. Then she hurried home, but never told David where she had been, nor what she had done. The good couple sat up late that night, talking over their good fortune and planning their future. It was consequently far after sunrise when they got up next day, and when they reached the secluded valley, where the chest had been, it had disappeared, and with it David’s stick. They returned home sad and weary, but this time there was no visit made to the miller’s house. Ere long it was quite clearly seen that Samuel the miller had come into a fortune, and David’s wife knew that she had done all the mischief by foolishly boasting of the Fairy gift, designed for her husband, to her early rising and crafty neighbour, who had forestalled David and his wife, and had himself taken possession of the precious chest.

The Fairy Shilling.

The Rev. Owen Jones, Pentrevoelas, whom I have already mentioned as having supplied me with the Folk-lore of his parish, kindly gave me the following tale:—

There was a clean, tidy, hardworking woman, who was most particular about keeping her house in order. She had a place for everything, and kept everything in its place.

Every night, before retiring to rest, she was in the habit of brushing up the ashes around the fire place, and putting a few fresh peat on the fire to keep it in all night, and she was careful to sweep the floor before going to bed. It was a sight worth seeing to see her clean cottage. One night the Fairies, in their rambles, came that way and entered her house. It was just such a place as they liked. They were delighted with the warm fire, the clean floor and hearth, and they stayed there all night and enjoyed themselves greatly. In the morning, on leaving, they left a bright new shilling on the hearthstone for the woman. Night after night, they spent in this woman’s cottage, and every morning she picked up a new shilling. This went on for so long a time that the woman’s worldly condition was much improved. This her neighbours with envy and surprise perceived, and great was their talk about her. At last it was noticed that she always paid for the things she bought with new shilling pieces, and the neighbours could not make out where she got all these bright shillings from. They were determined, if possible, to ascertain, and one of their number was deputed to take upon her the work of obtaining from the woman the history of these new shillings. She found no difficulty whatever in doing so, for the woman, in her simplicity, informed her gossip that every morning the coin was found on the hearthstone. Next morning the woman, as usual, expected to find a shilling, but never afterwards did she discover one, and the Fairies came no more to her house, for they were offended with her for divulging the secret.

This tale is exactly like many others that may be heard related by old people, in many a secluded abode, to their grandchildren.

A lesson constantly inculcated by Fairy tales is this—Embrace opportunities as they occur, or they will be lost for ever. The following stories have reference to this belief.

The Hidden Golden Chair.

It is a good many years since Mrs. Mary Jones, Corlanau, Llandinorwig, Carnarvonshire, told me the following tale. The scene of the story is the unenclosed mountain between Corlanau, a small farm, and the hamlet, Rhiwlas. There is still current in those parts a tale of a hidden golden chair, and Mrs. Jones said that it had once been seen by a young girl, who might have taken possession of it, but unfortunately she did not do so, and from that day to this it has not been discovered. The tale is this:—

There was once a beautiful girl, the daughter of poor hardworking parents, who held a farm on the side of the hill, and their handsome industrious daughter took care of the sheep. At certain times of the year she visited the sheep-walk daily, but she never went to the mountain without her knitting needles, and when looking after the sheep she was always knitting stockings, and she was so clever with her needles that she could knit as she walked along. The Fairies who lived in those mountains noticed this young woman’s good qualities. One day, when she was far from home, watching her father’s sheep, she saw before her a most beautiful golden chair. She went up to it and found that it was so massive that she could not move it. She knew the Fairy-lore of her neighbourhood, and she understood that the Fairies had, by revealing the chair, intended it for her, but there she was on the wild mountain, far away from home, without anyone near to assist her in carrying it away. And often had she heard that such treasures were to be taken possession of at once, or they would disappear for ever. She did not know what to do, but all at once she thought, if she could by attaching the yarn in her hand to the chair connect it thus with her home, the chair would be hers for ever. Acting upon this suggestion she forthwith tied the yarn to the foot of the chair, and commenced unrolling the ball, walking the while homewards. But long before she could reach her home the yarn in the ball was exhausted; she, however, tied it to the yarn in the stocking which she had been knitting, and again started towards her home, hoping to reach it before the yarn in the stocking would be finished, but she was doomed to disappointment, for that gave out before she could arrive at her father’s house. She had nothing else with her to attach to the yarn. She, however, could now see her home, and she began to shout, hoping to gain the ear of her parents, but no one appeared. In her distress she fastened the end of the yarn to a large stone, and ran home as fast as she could. She told her parents what she had done, and all three proceeded immediately towards the stone to which the yarn had been tied, but they failed to discover it. The yarn, too, had disappeared. They continued a futile search for the golden chair until driven away by the approaching night. The next day they renewed their search, but all in vain, for the girl was unable to find the spot where she had first seen the golden chair. It was believed by everybody that the Fairies had not only removed the golden chair, but also the yarn and stone to which the yarn had been attached, but people thought that if the yarn had been long enough to reach from the chair to the girl’s home then the golden chair would have been hers for ever.

Such is the tale. People believe the golden chair is still hidden away in the mountain, and that some day or other it will be given to those for whom it is intended. But it is, they say, no use anyone looking for it, as it is not to be got by searching, but it will be revealed, as if by accident, to those fated to possess it.

Fairy treasures seen by a Man near Ogwen Lake.

Another tale, similar to the preceding one, is told by my friend, Mr. Hugh Derfel Hughes, in his Hynafiaethau Llandegai a Llanllechid, pp. 35, 36. The following is a translation of Mr. Hughes’s story:—

It is said that a servant man penetrated into the recesses of the mountains in the neighbourhood of Ogwen Lake, and that he there discovered a cave within which there was a large quantity of brazen vessels of every shape and description. In the joy of his heart at his good fortune, he seized one of the vessels, with the intention of carrying it away with him, as an earnest that the rest likewise were his. But, alas, it was too heavy for any man to move. Therefore, with the intention of returning the following morning to the cave with a friend to assist him in carrying the vessels away, he closed its month with stones, and thus he securely hid from view the entrance to the cave. When he had done this it flashed upon his mind that he had heard of people who had accidentally come across caves, just as he had, but that they, poor things, had afterwards lost all traces of them. And lest a similar misfortune should befall him, he determined to place a mark on the mouth of the cave, which would enable him to come upon it again, and also he bethought himself that it would be necessary, for further security, to indicate by some marks the way from his house to the cave. He had however nothing at hand to enable him to carry out this latter design, but his walking stick. This he began to chip with his knife, and he placed the chips at certain distances all along the way homewards. In this way he cut up his staff, and he was satisfied with what he had done, for he hoped to find the cave by means of the chips. Early the next morning he and a friend started for the mountain in the fond hope of securing the treasures, but when they arrived at the spot where the chip-marked pathway ought to begin, they failed to discover a single chip, because, as it was reported—“They had been gathered up by the Fairies.” And thus this vision was in vain.

The author adds to the tale these words:—“But, reader, things are not always to be so. There is a tradition in the Nant, that a Gwyddel is to have these treasures and this is how it will come to pass. A Gwyddel Shepherd will come to live in the neighbourhood, and on one of his journeys to the mountain to shepherd his sheep, when fate shall see fit to bring it about, there will run before him into the cave a black sheep with a speckled head, and the Gwyddel shepherd will follow it into the cave to catch it, and on entering, to his great astonishment, he will discover the treasures and take possession of them. And in this way it will come to pass, in some future age, that the property of the Gwyddelod will return to them.”

The Fairies giving Money to a Man for joining them in their Dance.

The following story came to me through the Rev. Owen Jones, Vicar of Pentrevoelas. The occurrence is said to have taken place near Pentrevoelas. The following are the particulars:—

Tomas Moris, Ty’n-y-Pant, returning home one delightful summer night from Llanrwst fair, came suddenly upon a company of Fairies dancing in a ring. In the centre of the circle were a number of speckled dogs, small in size, and they too were dancing with all their might. After the dance came to an end, the Fairies persuaded Tomas to accompany them to Hafod Bryn Mullt, and there the dance was resumed, and did not terminate until the break of day. Ere the Fairies departed they requested their visitor to join them the following night at the same place, and they promised, if he would do so, to enrich him with gifts of money, but they made him promise that he would not reveal to any one the place where they held their revels. This Tomas did, and night after night was spent pleasantly by him in the company of his merry newly-made friends. True to their word, he nightly parted company with them, laden with money, and thus he had no need to spend his days as heretofore, in manual labour. This went on as long as Tomas Moris kept his word, but alas, one day, he divulged to a neighbour the secret of his riches. That night, as usual, he went to Hafod Bryn Mullt, but his generous friends were not there, and he noticed that in the place where they were wont to dance there was nothing but cockle shells.

In certain parts of Wales it was believed that Fairy money, on close inspection, would be found to be cockle shells. Mrs. Hugh Jones, Corlanau, who has already been mentioned, told the writer that a man found a crock filled, as he thought when he first saw it, with gold, but on taking it home he discovered that he had carried home from the mountain nothing but cockle shells. This Mrs. Jones told me was Fairy money.

The Fairies rewarding a Woman for taking care of their Dog.

Mention has already been made of Fairy Dogs. It would appear that now and again these dogs, just like any other dogs, strayed from home; but the Fairies were fond of their pets, and when lost, sought for them, and rewarded those mortals who had shown kindness to the animals. For the following tale I am indebted to the Rev. Owen Jones.

One day when going home from Pentrevoelas Church, the wife of Hafod y Gareg found on the ground in an exhausted state a Fairy dog. She took it up tenderly, and carried it home in her apron. She showed this kindness to the poor little thing from fear, for she remembered what had happened to the wife of Bryn Heilyn, who had found one of the Fairy dogs, but had behaved cruelly towards it, and consequently had fallen down dead. The wife of Hafod y Gareg therefore made a nice soft bed for the Fairy dog in the pantry, and placed over it a brass pot. In the night succeeding the day that she had found the dog, a company of Fairies came to Hafod y Gareg to make inquiries after it. The woman told them that it was safe and sound, and that they were welcome to take it away with them. She willingly gave it up to its masters. Her conduct pleased the Fairies greatly, and so, before departing with the dog, they asked her which she would prefer, a clean or a dirty cow? Her answer was, “A dirty one.” And so it came to pass that from that time forward to the end of her life, her cows gave more milk than the very best cows in the very best farms in her neighbourhood. In this way was she rewarded for her kindness to the dog, by the Fairies.

Fairy Money Turned to Dross.

Fairies’ treasure was of uncertain value, and depended for its very existence on Fairy intentions. Often and again, when they had lavishly bestowed money on this or that person, it was discovered to be only leaves or some equally worthless substance; but people said that the recipients of the money richly deserved the deception that had been played upon them by the Fairies.

In this chapter a few tales shall be given of this trait of Fairy mythology.

1. A Cruel Man and a Fairy Dog.

The person from whom the following tale was derived was David Roberts, Tycerrig, Clocaenog, near Ruthin.

A Fairy dog lost its master and wandered about here and there seeking him. A farmer saw the dog, and took it home with him, but he behaved very unkindly towards the wee thing, and gave it little to eat, and shouted at it, and altogether he showed a hard heart. One evening a little old man called at this farmer’s house, and inquired if any stray dog was there. He gave a few particulars respecting the dog, and mentioned the day that it had been lost. The farmer answered in the affirmative, and the stranger said that the dog was his, and asked the farmer to give it up to him. This the farmer willingly did, for he placed no value on the dog. The little man was very glad to get possession of his lost dog, and on departing he placed a well filled purse in the farmer’s hand. Some time afterwards the farmer looked into the purse, intending to take a coin out of it, when to his surprise and annoyance he found therein nothing but leaves.

Roberts told the writer that the farmer got what he deserved, for he had been very cruel to the wee dog.

Another tale much like the preceding one, I have heard, but I have forgotten the source of the information. A person discovered a lost Fairy dog wandering about, and took it home, but he did not nurse the half-starved animal, nor did he nourish it. After a while some of the Fairy folk called on this person to inquire after their lost dog, and he gave it to them. They rewarded this man for his kindness with a pot filled with money and then departed. On further inspection, the money was found to be cockle shells.

Such lessons as these taught by the Fairies were not without their effect on people who lived in days gone by.

2. Dick the Fiddler and the Fairy Crown-Piece.

For the following story I am indebted to my friend, Mr Hamer, who records it in his “Parochial account of Llanidloes,” published in the Montgomeryshire Collections, vol. x., pp. 252-3-4. Mr Hamer states that the tale was related to him by Mr. Nicholas Bennett, Glanrafon, Trefeglwys.

“Dick the Fiddler was in the habit of going about the country to play at merry-makings, fairs, etc. This worthy, after a week’s fuddle at Darowen, wending his way homeward, had to walk down ‘Fairy Green Lane,’ just above the farmstead of Cefn Cloddiau, and to banish fear, which he felt was gradually obtaining the mastery over him, instead of whistling, drew out from the skirt pocket of his long-tailed great coat his favourite instrument. After tuning it, be commenced elbowing his way through his favourite air, Aden Ddu’r Fran (the Crow’s Black Wing). When he passed over the green sward where the Tylwyth Têg, or Fairies, held their merry meetings, he heard something rattle in his fiddle, and this something continued rattling and tinkling until he reached Llwybr Scriw Riw, his home, almost out of his senses at the fright caused by that everlasting ‘tink, rink, jink,’ which was ever sounding in his ears. Having entered the cottage he soon heard music of a different kind, in the harsh angry voice of his better half, who justly incensed at his absence, began lecturing him in a style, which, unfortunately, Dick, from habit, could not wholly appreciate. He was called a worthless fool, a regular drunkard and idler. ‘How is it possible for me to beg enough for myself and half a house-full of children nearly naked, while you go about the country and bring me nothing home.’ ‘Hush, hush, my good woman,’ said Dick, ‘see what’s in the blessed old fiddle.’ She obeyed, shook it, and out tumbled, to their great surprise, a five-shilling piece. The wife looked up into the husband’s face, saw that it was ‘as pale as a sheet’ with fright: and also noting that he had such an unusually large sum in his possession, she came to the conclusion that he could not live long, and accordingly changed her style saying, ‘Good man go to Llanidloes to-morrow, it is market-day and buy some shirting for yourself, for it may never be your good fortune to have such a sum of money again.’ The following day, according to his wife’s wishes, Dick wended his way to Llanidloes, musing, as he went along, upon his extraordinary luck, and unable to account for it. Arrived in the town, he entered Richard Evans’s shop, and called for shirting linen to the value of five shillings, for which he gave the shopkeeper the crown piece taken out of the fiddle. Mr. Evans placed it in the till, and our worthy Dick betook himself to Betty Brunt’s public-house (now known as the Unicorn) in high glee with the capital piece of linen in the skirt pocket of his long-tailed top coat. He had not, however, been long seated before Mr. Evans came in, and made sharp enquiries as to how and where he obtained possession of the crown piece with which he had paid for the linen. Dick assumed a solemn look, and then briefly related where and how he had received the coin. ‘Say you so,’ said Evans, ‘I thought as much, for when I looked into the till, shortly after you left the shop, to my great surprise it was changed into a heap of musty horse dung.’”

Fairies Working for Men.

It was once thought that kind Fairies took compassion on good folk, who were unable to accomplish in due time their undertakings, and finished in the night these works for them; and it was always observed that the Fairy workman excelled as a tradesman the mortal whom he assisted. Many an industrious shoemaker, it is said, has ere this found in the morning that the Fairies had finished in the night the pair of shoes which he had only commenced the evening before. Farmers too, who had in part ploughed a field, have in the morning been surprised to find it finished. These kind offices, it was firmly believed, were accomplished by Fairy friends.

Milton in L’Allegro alludes to this belief in the following lines:—

Tells how the drudging Goblin swet,
To earn his cream-bowl duly set,
When in one night, ere glimpse of morn,
His shadowy flail hath thresh’d the corn,
That ten day-labourers could not end.

MILTON, L’Allegro, lines 105-9.

In Scotland the sprite, or Fairy, called Browny, haunted family abodes, and did all manner of work in the night for those who treated him kindly. In England, Robin Goodfellow was supposed to perform like functions. Thus sings Robin:—

Yet now and then, the maids to please,
At midnight I card up their wooll;
And while they sleepe, and take their ease,
With wheel to threads their flax I pull.
I grind at mill
Their malt up still;
I dress their hemp, I spin their tow.
If any ’wake.
And would me take,
I wend me, laughing, ho, ho, ho!

Percy’s Reliques, vol. iii., p. 169.

Welsh Fairies are not described as ordinarily inclined to lessen men’s labours by themselves undertaking them; but there are a few tales current of their having assisted worthy persons in their manual works. Professor Rhys records one of these stories in Y Cymmrodor, vol. iv. 210. He writes thus:—

“One day Guto, the Farmer of Corwrion, complained to his wife that he was in need of men to mow his hay, and she answered, ‘Why fret about it? look yonder! there you have a field full of them at it, and stripped to their shirt sleeves.’ When he went to the spot the sham workmen of the Fairy family had disappeared. This same Guto, or somebody else, happened another time to be ploughing, when he heard some person he could not see calling out to him, ‘I have got the bins (that is the vice) of my plough broken.’ ‘Bring it to me,’ said the driver of Guto’s team, ‘that I may mend it.’ When they brought the furrow to an end, there they found the broken vice, and a barrel of beer placed near it. One of the men sat down and mended it. Then they made another furrow, and when they returned to the spot they found there a two-eared dish, filled to the brim with bara a chwrw, or bread and beer.”

Fairy Dances.

The one occupation of the Fairy folk celebrated in song and prose was dancing. Their green rings, circular or ovoidal in form, abounded in all parts of the country, and it was in these circles they were said to dance through the livelong night. In “Cân y Tylwyth Têg,” or the Fairies’ Song, thus they chant:—

O’r glaswellt glen a’r rhedyn mân,
Gyfeillion dyddan, dewch,
E ddarfu’r nawn—mae’r lloer yu llawn,
Y nos yn gyflawn gewch;
O’r chwarau sydd ar dwyn y dydd,
I’r Dolydd awn ar daith.
Nyni sydd lon, ni chaiff gerbron,
Farwolion ran o’n gwaith.

Yr Hynafion Cymraeg, p. 153.

From grasses bright, and bracken light,
Come, sweet companions, come,
The full moon shines, the sun declines,
We’ll spend the night in fun;
With playful mirth, we’ll trip the earth,
To meadows green let’s go,
We’re full of joy, without alloy,
Which mortals may not know.

The spots where the Fairies held their nightly revels were preserved from intrusion by traditional superstitions. The farmer dared not plough the land where Fairy circles were, lest misfortune should overtake him. Thus were these mythical beings left in undisturbed possession of many fertile plots of ground, and here they were believed to dance merrily through many a summer night.

Canu, canu, drwy y nos,
Dawnsio, dawnsio, ar waen y rhos,
Yn ngoleuni’r lleuad dlos;
Hapus ydym ni!

Pawb o honom sydd yn llon,
Heb un gofid dan ei fron:
Canu, dawnsio, ar y ton—
Dedwydd ydym ni!

Singing, singing, through the night,
Dancing, dancing, with our might,
Where the moon the moor doth light:
Happy ever we!

One and all of merry mien,
Without sorrow are we seen,
Singing, dancing on the green:
Gladsome ever we!

Professor Rhys’s Fairy Tales.

These words correctly describe the popular opinion of Fairy dance and song, an opinion which reached the early part of the present century.

Since so much has reached our days of Fairy song and dance, it is not surprising that we are told that the beautiful Welsh melody, Toriad y Dydd, or the Dawn of Day, is the work of a Fairy minstrel, and that this song was chanted by the Fairy company just as the pale light in the east announced the approach of returning day.

Chaucer (1340 c. to 1400 c.), alluding to the Fairies and their dances, in his ‘Wife of Bath’s Tale,’ writes:—

In olde dayes of King Artour,
Of which the Bretons speken gret honour,
All was this lond ful-filled of Faerie;
The elf-quene with hire joly compagnie
Danced ful oft in many a grene mede.
This was the old opinion as I rede;
I speke of many hundred yeres ago;
But now can no man see non elves mo.

Tyrwhitt’s Chaucer i., p. 256.

In the days of the Father of English poets, the elves had disappeared, and he speaks of “many hundred yeres ago,” when he says that the Fairy Queen and her jolly company danced full often in many a green meadow.

Number 419 of the Spectator, published July 1st, 1712, states that formerly “every large common had a circle of Fairies belonging to it.” Here again the past is spoken of, but in Wales it would seem that up to quite modern days some one, or other, was said to have seen the Fairies at their dance, or had heard of some one who had witnessed their gambols. Robert Roberts, Tycerrig, Clocaenog, enumerated several places, such as Nantddu, Clocaenog, Craig-fron-Bannog, on Mynydd Hiraethog, and Fron-y-Go, Llanfwrog, where the Fairies used to hold their revels, and other places, such as Moel Fammau, have been mentioned as being Fairy dancing ground. Many an aged person in Wales will give the name of spots dedicated to Fairy sports. Information of this kind is interesting, for it shows how long lived traditions are, and in a manner, places associated with the Fair Tribe bring these mysterious beings right to our doors.

I will now relate a few tales of mortals witnessing or joining in Fairy dances.

The first was related to me by David Roberts. The scene of the dance was the hill side by Pont Petrual between Ruthin and Cerrig-y-Drudion.

1. A Man who found himself on a Heap of Ferns after joining in a Fairy Dance.

A man who went to witness a Fairy dance was invited to join them. He did so, and all night long he greatly enjoyed himself. At the break of day the company broke up, and the Fairies took their companion with them. The man found himself in a beautiful hall with everything he could desire at his command, and here he pleasantly passed the time ere he retired to rest. In the morning when he awoke, instead of finding himself on a couch in Fairy Hall, be found himself lying on a heap of fern on the wild mountain side.

Although somewhat unfortunate, this man fared better than most men who joined the Fairy dances.

2. The Fairies threw dust into a Man’s Eyes who Saw them Dance.

This tale is taken from Cymru Fu, p. 176, and is from the pen of Glasynys. I give it in English.

William Ellis, of Cilwern, was once fishing in Llyn Cwm Silin on a dark cloudy day, when he observed close by, in the rushes, a great number of men, or beings in the form of men, about a foot high, jumping and singing.

He watched them for hours, and he never heard in all his life such singing. But William went too near them, and they threw some kind of dust into his eyes, and whilst he was rubbing his eyes, the little family disappeared and fled somewhere out of sight and never afterwards was Ellis able to get a sight of them.

The next tale Glasynys shall relate in his own words. It appears in Cymru Fu immediately after the one just related.

3. A Man Dancing with the Fairies for Three Days.

“Y mae chwedl go debyg am le o’r enw Llyn-y-Ffynonau. Yr oedd yno rasio a dawnsio, a thelynio a ffidlo enbydus, a gwas o Gelli Ffrydau a’i ddau gi yn eu canol yn neidio ac yn prancio mor sionc â neb. Buont wrthi hi felly am dridiau a theirnos, yn ddi-dor-derfyn; ac oni bai bod ryw wr cyfarwydd yn byw heb fod yn neppell, ac i hwnw gael gwybod pa sut yr oedd pethau yn myned yn mlaen, y mae’n ddiddadl y buasai i’r creadur gwirion ddawnsio ’i hun i farwolaeth. Ond gwaredwyd of y tro hwn.” This in English is as follows:—

“There is a tale somewhat like the preceding one told in connection with a place called Llyn-y-Ffynonau. There was there racing and dancing, and harping and furious fiddling, and the servant man of Gelli Ffrydau with his two dogs in their midst jumping and dancing like mad. There they were for three days and three nights without a break dancing as if for very life, and were it not that there lived near by a conjuror, who knew how things were going on, without a doubt the poor creature would have danced himself to death. But he was spared this time.”

The next tale I received from Mr. David Lloyd, schoolmaster, Llanfihangel-Glyn-Myfyr, and he heard it in that parish.

4. A Harper and the Fairies.

There once lived in a remote part of Denbighshire, called Hafod Elwy, an old harper, named Shon Robert, who used to be invited to parties to play for the dancers, or to accompany the singers. One evening he went to Llechwedd Llyfn, in the neighbourhood of Cefn Brith, to hold a merry meeting, and it was late before the lads and lasses separated. At last the harper wended his way homeward. His path was over the bare mountain. As he came near a lake called Llyndau-ychain, he saw on its verge a grand palace, vividly illuminated. He was greatly surprised at the sight, for he had never seen such a building there before. He, however, proceeded on his way, and when he came in front of this beautiful palace he was hailed by a footman, and invited to enter. He accepted the invitation, and was ushered into a magnificent room, where a grand ball was being held. The guests surrounded the harper and became very friendly, and, to his wonder, addressed him by name. This hall was magnificently furnished. The furniture was of the most costly materials, many things were made of solid gold. A waiter handed him a golden cup filled with sparkling wine, which the harper gladly quaffed. He was then asked to play for the company, and this he did to the manifest satisfaction of the guests. By and by one of the company took Shon Robert’s hat round and collected money for the harper’s benefit, and brought it back to him filled with silver and gold. The feast was carried on with great pomp and merriment until near the dawn of day, when, one by one, the guests disappeared, and at last Shon was left alone. Perceiving a magnificent couch near, he laid himself thereon, and was soon fast asleep. He did not awake until mid-day, and then, to his surprise, he found himself lying on a heap of heather, the grand palace had vanished away, and the gold and silver, which he had transferred from his hat the night before into his bag, was changed to withered leaves.

The following tale told me by the Rev. R. Jones shows that those who witness a Fairy dance know not how time passes.

5. A Three Hours Fairy Dance seeming as a Few Minutes.

The Rev. R. Jones’s mother, when a young unmarried woman, started one evening from a house called Tyddyn Heilyn, Penrhyndeudraeth, to her home, Penrhyn isaf, accompanied by their servant man, David Williams, called on account of his great strength and stature, Dafydd Fawr, Big David. David was carrying home on his back a flitch of bacon. The night was dark, but calm. Williams walked somewhat in the rear of his young mistress, and she, thinking he was following, went straight home. But three hours passed before David appeared with the pork on his back.

He was interrogated as to the cause of his delay, and in answer said he had only been about three minutes after his young mistress. He was told that she had arrived three hours before him, but this David would not believe. At length, however, he was convinced that he was wrong in his time, and then he proceeded to account for his lagging behind as follows:—

He observed, he said, a brilliant meteor passing through the air, which was followed by a ring or hoop of fire, and within this hoop stood a man and woman of small size, handsomely dressed. With one arm they embraced each other, and with the other they took hold of the hoop, and their feet rested on the concave surface of the ring. When the hoop reached the earth these two beings jumped out of it, and immediately proceeded to make a circle on the ground. As soon as this was done, a large number of men and women instantly appeared, and to the sweetest music that ear ever heard commenced dancing round and round the circle. The sight was so entrancing that the man stayed, as he thought, a few minutes to witness the scene. The ground all around was lit up by a kind of subdued light, and he observed every movement of these beings. By and by the meteor which had at first attracted his attention appeared again, and then the fiery hoop came to view, and when it reached the spot where the dancing was, the lady and gentleman who had arrived in it jumped into the hoop, and disappeared in the same manner in which they had reached the place. Immediately after their departure the Fairies vanished from sight, and the man found himself alone and in darkness, and then he proceeded homewards. In this way he accounted for his delay on the way.

In Mr. Sikes’s British Goblins, pp. 79-81, is a graphic account of a mad dance which Tudur ap Einion Gloff had with the Fairies, or Goblins, at a place called Nant-yr-Ellyllon, a hollow half way up the hill to Castell Dinas Bran, in the neighbourhood of Llangollen. All night, and into the next day, Tudur danced frantically in the Nant, but he was rescued by his master, who understood how to break the spell, and release his servant from the hold the Goblins had over him! This he did by pronouncing certain pious words, and Tudur returned home with his master.

Mr. Evan Davies, carpenter, Brynllan, Efenechtyd, who is between seventy and eighty years old, informed the writer that his friend John Morris told him that he had seen a company of Fairies dancing, and that they were the handsomest men and women that he had ever seen. It was night and dark, but the place on which the dance took place was strangely illuminated, so that every movement of the singular beings could be observed, but when the Fairies disappeared it became suddenly quite dark.

Although from the tales already given it would appear that the Fairies held revelry irrespective of set times of meeting, still it was thought that they had special days for their great banquets, and the eve of the first of May, old style, was one of these days, and another was Nos Wyl Ifan, St. John’s Eve, or the evening of June 23rd.

Thus sings Glasynys, in Y Brython, vol. iii. p. 270:—

Nos Wyl Ifan.

Tylwyth Têg yn lluoedd llawen,
O dan nodded tawel Dwynwen,
Welir yn y cêl encilion,
Yn perori mwyn alawon,
Ac yn taenu hyd y twyni,
Ac ar leiniau’r deiliog lwyni,
Hud a Lledrith ar y glesni,
Ac yn sibrwd dwyfol desni!

I am indebted to my friend Mr Richard Williams, F.R.H.S., Newtown, Montgomeryshire, for the following translation of the preceding Welsh lines:—

The Fairy Tribe in merry crowds,
Under Dwynwen’s calm protection,
Are seen in shady retreats
Chanting sweet melodies,
And spreading over the bushes
And the leafy groves
Illusion and phantasy on all that is green,
And whispering their mystic lore.

May-day dances and revelling have reached our days, and probably they have, like the Midsummer Eve’s festivities, their origin in the far off times when the Fairy Tribe inhabited Britain and other countries, and to us have they bequeathed these Festivals, as well as that which ushers in winter, and is called in Wales, Nos glan gaua, or All Hallow Eve. If so, they have left us a legacy for which we thank them, and they have also given us a proof of their intelligence and love of nature.

But I will now briefly refer to Fairy doings on Nos Wyl Ifan as recorded by England’s greatest poet, and, further on, I shall have more to say of this night.

Shakespeare introduces into his Midsummer Night’s Dream the prevailing opinions respecting Fairies in England, but they are almost identical with those entertained by the people of Wales; so much so are they British in character, that it is no great stretch of the imagination to suppose that he must have derived much of his information from an inhabitant of Wales. However, in one particular, the poet’s description of the Fairies differs from the more early opinion of them in Wales. Shakespeare’s Fairies are, to a degree, diminutive; they are not so small in Wales. But as to their habits in both countries they had much in common. I will briefly allude to similarities between English and Welsh Fairies, confining my remarks to Fairy music and dancing.

To begin, both danced in rings. A Fairy says to Puck:—

And I serve the Fairy Queen
To dew her orbs upon the green.

Midsummer Night’s Dream, Act II., S I.

And allusion is made in the same play to these circles in these words:—

If you will patiently dance in our round
And see our moonlight revels, go with us.

Act II., S. I.

Then again Welsh and English Fairies frequented like spots to hold their revels on. I quote from the same play:—

And now they never meet in grove or green,
By fountain clear, or spangled starlight sheen.

Act II., S. I.

And again:—

And never since the middle summer’s spring
Met we on hill, in dale, forest, or mead
By paved fountain or by rushy brook
Or by the beached margent of the sea,
To dance our ringlets to the whistling wind.

Act II., S. I

And further the Fairies in both countries meet at night, and hold their Balls throughout the hours of darkness, and separate in early morn. Thus Puck addressing Oberon:—

Fairy King, attend and hark;
I do hear the morning lark.

Act IV., S. I.

Now until the break of day
Through this house each Fairy stray
. . . . . .
. . . . . .
Trip away, make no stay,
Meet we all at break of day.

Act V., S. I.

In the Welsh tales given of Fairy dances the music is always spoken of as most entrancing, and Shakespeare in felicitous terms gives utterance to the same thought—

Music, lo! music, such as charmeth sleep.

I am indebted to the courtesy of the Rev. R. O. Williams, M.A., Vicar of Holywell, for the following singular testimony to Fairy dancing. The writer was the Rev. Dr. Edward Williams, at one time of Oswestry, and afterwards Principal of the Independent Academy at Rotherham in Yorkshire, who was born at Glan Clwyd, Bodfari, Nov. 14th, 1750, and died March 9, 1813. The extract is to be seen in the autobiography of Dr. Williams, which has been published, but the quotation now given is copied from the doctor’s own handwriting, which now lies before me.

It may be stated that Mr. Wirt Sikes, in his British Goblins, refers to the Dwarfs of Cae Caled, Bodfari, as Knockers, but he was not justified, as will be seen from the extract, in thus describing them. For the sake of reference the incident shall be called—The Elf Dancers of Cae Caled.

The Elf Dancers of Cae Caled.

Dr. Edward Williams, under the year 1757, writes as follows:—

“I am now going to relate a circumstance in this young period of my life which probably will excite an alternate smile and thoughtful reflection, as it has often done in myself, however singular the fact and strong the evidence of its authenticity, and, though I have often in mature age called to my mind the principles of religion and philosophy to account for it, I am forced to class it among my unknowables. And yet I may say that not only the fact itself, but also the consideration of its being to my own mind inexplicable, has afforded some useful reflections, with which this relation need not be accompanied.

“On a fine summer day (about midsummer) between the hours of 12 at noon and one, my eldest sister and myself, our next neighbour’s children Barbara and Ann Evans, both older than myself, were in a field called Cae Caled near their house, all innocently engaged at play by a hedge under a tree, and not far from the stile next to that house, when one of us observed on the middle of the field a company of—what shall I call them?—Beings, neither men, women, nor children, dancing with great briskness. They were full in view less than a hundred yards from us, consisting of about seven or eight couples: we could not well reckon them, owing to the briskness of their motions and the consternation with which we were struck at a sight so unusual. They were all clothed in red, a dress not unlike a military uniform, without hats, but their heads tied with handkerchiefs of a reddish colour, sprigged or spotted with yellow, all uniform in this as in habit, all tied behind with the corners hanging down their backs, and white handkerchiefs in their hands held loose by the corners. They appeared of a size somewhat less than our own, but more like dwarfs than children. On the first discovery we began, with no small dread, to question one another as to what they could be, as there were no soldiers in the country, nor was it the time for May dancers, and as they differed much from all the human beings we had ever seen. Thus alarmed we dropped our play, left our station, and made for the stile. Still keeping our eyes upon them we observed one of their company starting from the rest and making towards us with a running pace. I being the youngest was the last at the stile, and, though struck with an inexpressible panic, saw the grim elf just at my heels, having a full and clear, though terrific view of him, with his ancient, swarthy, and grim complexion. I screamed out exceedingly; my sister also and our companions set up a roar, and the former dragged me with violence over the stile on which, at the instant I was disengaged from it, this warlike Lilliputian leaned and stretched himself after me, but came not over. With palpitating hearts and loud cries we ran towards the house, alarmed the family, and told them our trouble. The men instantly left their dinner, with whom still trembling we went to the place, and made the most solicitous and diligent enquiry in all the neighbourhood, both at that time and after, but never found the least vestige of any circumstance that could contribute to a solution of this remarkable phenomenon. Were any disposed to question the sufficiency of this quadruple evidence, the fact having been uniformly and often attested by each of the parties and various and separate examinations, and call it a childish deception, it would do them no harm to admit that, comparing themselves with the scale of universal existence, beings with which they certainly and others with whom it is possible they may be surrounded every moment, they are but children of a larger size. I know but few less credulous than the relator, but he is no Sadducee. ‘He who hath delivered will yet deliver.’”

My friend, Mr. R. Prys Jones, B.A., kindly informs me that he has several intelligent boys in his school, the Boys’ Board School, Denbigh, from Bodfari, and to them he read the preceding story, but not one of them had ever heard of it. It is singular that the story should have died so soon in the neighbourhood that gave it birth.

Fairy Tricks with Mortals.

It was formerly believed in Wales that the Fairies, for a little fun, sportively carried men in mid air from place to place, and, having conveyed them to a strange neighbourhood, left them to return to their homes as best they could. Benighted travellers were ever fearful of encountering a throng of Fairies lest they should by them be seized, and carried to a strange part of the country.

Allusion is made to this freak of the Fairies in the Cambro-Briton, vol. i., p. 348:—

“And it seems that there was some reason to be apprehensive of encountering these ‘Fair people’ in a mist; for, although allowed not to be maliciously disposed, they had a very inconvenient practice of seizing an unwary pilgrim, and hurrying him through the air, first giving him the choice, however, of travelling above wind, mid-wind, or below wind. If he chose the former, he was borne to an altitude somewhat equal to that of a balloon; if the latter, he had the full benefit of all the brakes and briars in his way, his contact with which seldom failed to terminate in his discomfiture. Experienced travellers, therefore, always kept in mind the advice of Apollo to Phaeton (In medio tutissimus ibis) and selected the middle course, which ensured them a pleasant voyage at a moderate elevation, equally removed from the branches and the clouds.”

This description of an aerial voyage of a hapless traveller through Fairy agency corresponds with the popular faith in every particular, and it would not have been difficult some sixty, or so, years back, to have collected many tales in various parts of Wales of persons who had been subjected to this kind of conveyance.

The first mention that I have been able to find of this Fairy prank is in a small book of prose poetry called Gweledigaeth Cwrs y Byd, or Y Bardd Cwsg, which was written by the Revd. Ellis Wynne (born 1670-1, died 1734), rector of Llanfair, near Harlech. The “Visions of the Sleeping Bard” were published in 1703, and in the work appear many superstitions of the people, some of which shall by and by be mentioned.

In the very commencement of this work, the poet gives a description of a journey which he had made through the air with the Fairies. Addressing these beings, he says:—“Atolwg, lan gynnulleidfa, yr wyf yn deall mai rhai o bell ydych, a gymmerwch chwi Fardd i’ch plith sy’n chwennych trafaelio?” which in English is—“May it please you, comely assembly, as I understand that you come from afar, to take into your company a Bard who wishes to travel?”

The poet’s request is granted, and then he describes his aerial passage in these words:—

“Codasant fi ar eu hysgwyddau, fel codi Marchog Sir; ac yna ymaith â ni fel y gwynt, tros dai a thiroedd, dinasoedd a theyrnasoedd, a moroedd a mynyddoedd, heb allu dal sylw ar ddim, gan gyflymed yr oeddynt yn hedeg.” This translated is:—

“They raised me on their shoulders, as they do a Knight of the Shire, and away we went like the wind, over houses and fields, over cities and kingdoms, over seas and mountains, but I was unable to notice particularly anything, because of the rapidity with which they flew.”

What the poet writes of his own flight with the Fairies depicts the then prevailing notions respecting aerial journeys by Fairy agencies, and they bear a striking resemblance to like stories in oriental fiction. That the belief in this form of transit survived the days of Bardd Cwsg will be seen from the following tale related by my friend Mr. E. Hamer in his Parochial Account of Llanidloes:—

A Man Carried Through the Air by the Fairies.

“One Edward Jones, or ‘Ned the Jockey,’ as he was familiarly called, resided, within the memory of the writer, in one of the roadside cottages a short distance from Llanidloes, on the Newtown road. While returning home late one evening, it was his fate to fall in with a troop of Fairies, who were not pleased to have their gambols disturbed by a mortal. Requesting him to depart, they politely offered him the choice of three means of locomotion, viz., being carried off by a ‘high wind, middle wind, or low wind.’ The jockey soon made up his mind, and elected to make his trip through the air by the assistance of a high wind. No sooner had he given his decision, than he found himself whisked high up into the air and his senses completely bewildered by the rapidity of his flight; he did not recover himself till he came in contact with the earth, being suddenly dropped in the middle of a garden near Ty Gough, on the Bryndu road, many miles distant from the spot whence he started on his aerial journey. Ned, when relating this story, would vouch for its genuineness in the most solemn manner, and the person who narrated it to the writer brought forward as a proof of its truth, ‘that there was not the slightest trace of any person going into the garden while Ned was found in the middle of it.’”

Montgomeryshire Collections, vol. x., p. 247.

Mr. Hamer records another tale much like the foregoing, but the one I have given is a type of all such stories.

Fairy illusion and phantasy were formerly firmly believed in by the inhabitants of Wales. Fairies were credited with being able to deceive the eyesight, if not also the other senses of man. One illustrative tale of this kind I will now record. Like stories are heard in many parts. The following story is taken from Y Gordofigion, p. 99, a book which has more than once been laid under contribution.

Fairy Illusions.

“Ryw dro yr oedd brodor o Nefyn yn dyfod adref o ffair Pwllheli, ac wrth yr Efail Newydd gwelai Inn fawreddog, a chan ei fod yn gwybod nad oedd yr un gwesty i fod yno, gofynodd i un o’r gweision os oedd ganddynt ystabl iddo roddi ei farch. Atebwyd yn gadarnhaol. Rhoddwyd y march yn yr ystabl, ac aeth yntau i mewn i’r ty, gofynodd am beint o gwrw, ac ni chafodd erioed well cwrw na’r cwrw hwnw. Yn mhen ychydig, gofynodd am fyned i orphwys, a chafodd hyny hefyd. Aeth i’w orweddle, yr hwn ydoedd o ran gwychder yn deilwng i’r brenhin; ond wchw fawr! erbyn iddo ddeffro, cafodd ei hun yn gorwedd ar ei hyd mewn tomen ludw, a’r ceffyl wedi ei rwymo wrth bolyn clawdd gwrysg.”

This in English is as follows:—“Once upon a time a native of Nefyn was returning from Pwllheli fair, and when near Efail Newydd he saw a magnificent Inn, and, as he knew that no such public-house was really there, he went up to it and asked one of the servants whether they had a stable where he could put up his horse. He was answered in the affirmative. The horse was placed in the stable, and the man entered the house and asked for a pint of beer, which he thought was the best he had ever drunk. After awhile he inquired whether he could go to rest. This also was granted him, and he retired to his room, which in splendour was worthy of the king. But alas! when he awoke he found himself sleeping on his back on a heap of ashes, and the horse tied to a pole in the hedge.”

Fairy Men Captured.

There are many tales current of wee Fairy men having been captured. These tales are, however, evidently variants of the same story. The dwarfs are generally spoken of as having been caught by a trapper in his net, or bag, and the hunter, quite unconscious of the fact that a Fairy is in his bag, proceeds homewards, supposing that he has captured a badger, or some other kind of vermin, but, all at once, he hears the being in the bag speak, and throwing the bag down he runs away in a terrible fright. Such in short is the tale. I will proceed to give several versions of this story.

1. Gwyddelwern Version.

The following tale was told by Mr. Evan Roberts, Ffridd Agored, a farmer in the parish of Llanfwrog. Roberts heard the story when he was a youth in the parish of Gwyddelwern. It is as follows:—

A man went from his house for peat to the stack on the hill. As he intended to carry away only a small quantity for immediate use, he took with him a bag to carry it home. When he got to the hill he saw something running before him, and he gave chase and caught it and bundled it into the bag. He had not proceeded far on his way before he heard a small voice shout somewhere near him, “Neddy, Neddy.” And then he heard another small voice in the bag saying, “There is daddy calling me.” No sooner did the man hear these words than in a terrible fright he threw the bag down, and ran home as fast as he could.

2. The Llandrillo Version.

I am indebted for the following tale to Mr. E. S. Roberts, schoolmaster, Llantysilio, near Llangollen:—

Two men whilst otter-hunting in Gwyn Pennant, Llandrillo, saw something reddish scampering away across the ground just before them. They thought it was an otter, and watching it saw that it entered a hole by the side of the river. When they reached the place they found, underneath the roots of a tree, two burrows. They immediately set to work to catch their prey. Whilst one of the men pushed a long pole into one of the burrows, the other held the mouth of a sack to the other, and very shortly into the sack rushed their prey and it was secured. The men now went homewards, but they had not gone far, ere they heard a voice in the bag say, “My mother is calling me.” The frightened men instantly threw the sack to the ground, and they saw a small man, clothed in red, emerge therefrom, and the wee creature ran away with all his might to the brushwood that grew along the banks of the river.

3. The Snowdon Version.

The following tale is taken from Y Gordofigion, p. 98:—

“Aeth trigolion ardaloedd cylchynol y Wyddfa un tro i hela pryf llwyd. Methasant a chael golwg ar yr un y diwrnod cyntaf; ond cynllwynasant am un erbyn trannoeth, trwy osod sach a’i cheg yn agored ar dwll yr arferai y pryf fyned iddo, ond ni byddai byth yn dyfod allan drwyddo am ei fod yn rhy serth a llithrig. A’r modd a gosodasant y sach oedd rhoddi cortyn trwy dyllau yn ei cheg, yn y fath fodd ag y crychai, ac y ceuai ei cheg pan elai rhywbeth iddi. Felly fu; aeth pawb i’w fan, ac i’w wely y noson hono. Gyda’r wawr bore dranoeth, awd i edrych y sach, ac erbyn dyfod ati yr oedd ei cheg wedi crychu, yn arwydd fod rhywbeth oddifewn. Codwyd hi, a thaflodd un hi ar ei ysgwydd i’w dwyn adref. Ond pan yn agos i Bryn y Fedw wele dorpyn o ddynan bychan yn sefyll ar delpyn o graig gerllaw ac yn gwaeddi, ‘Meirig, wyt ti yna, dwad?’ ‘Ydwyf,’ attebai llais dieithr (ond dychrynedig) o’r sach. Ar hyn, wele’r helwyr yn dechreu rhedeg ymaith, a da oedd ganddynt wneyd hyny, er gadael y sach i’r pryf, gan dybied eu bod wedi dal yn y sach un o ysbrydion y pwll diwaelod, ond deallasant ar ol hyny mai un o’r Tylwyth Teg oedd yn y sach.”

The tale in English reads thus:—“Once the people who lived in the neighbourhood of Snowdon went badger-hunting. They failed the first day to get sight of one. But they laid a trap for one by the next day. This they did by placing a sack’s open mouth with a noose through it at the entrance to the badger’s den. The vermin was in the habit of entering his abode by one passage and leaving it by another. The one by which he entered was too precipitous and slippery to be used as an exit, and the trappers placed the sack in this hole, well knowing that the running noose in the mouth of the sack would close if anything entered. The next morning the hunters returned to the snare, and at once observed that the mouth of the sack was tightly drawn up, a sign that there was something in it. The bag was taken up and thrown on the shoulders of one of the men to be carried home. But when they were near Bryn y Fedw they saw a lump of a little fellow, standing on the top of a rock close by and shouting, ‘Meirig, are you there, say?’ ‘I am,’ was the answer in a strange but nervous voice. Upon this, the hunters, throwing down the bag, began to run away, and they were glad to do so, although they had to leave their sack behind them, believing, as they did, that they had captured one of the spirits of the bottomless pit. But afterwards they understood that it was one of the Fairy Tribe that was in the sack.”

There was at one time a tale much like this current in the parish of Gyffylliog, near Ruthin, but in this latter case the voice in the bag said, “My father is calling me,” though no one was heard to do so. The bag, however, was cast away, and the trapper reported that he had captured a Fairy!

4. The Llanfair Dyffryn Clwyd Version.

Mr. Evan Davies, carpenter, Bryn Llan, Efenechtyd, told the writer that Robert Jones, innkeeper, in the same parish, told him the following tale, mentioning at the same time the man who figures in the narrative, whose name, however, I have forgotten. The story runs thus:—

A man, wishing to catch a fox, laid a bag with its mouth open, but well secured, at the entrance to a fox’s den in Coed Cochion, Llanfair Dyffryn Clwyd parish, and hid himself to await the result. He had seen the fox enter its lair, and he calculated that it would ere long emerge therefrom. By and by, he observed that something had entered the bag, and going up to it, he immediately secured its mouth, and, throwing the bag over his shoulder, proceeded homewards, but he had not gone far on his way before he heard someone say, “Where is my son John?” The man, however, though it was dark, was not frightened, for he thought that possibly some one was in search of a lad who had wandered from home. He was rather troubled to find that the question was repeated time after time by some one who apparently was following him. But what was his terror when, ere long, he heard a small voice issue from the bag he was carrying, saying “There is dear father calling me.” The man in a terrible fright threw the bag down, and ran away as fast as his feet could carry him, and never stopped until he reached his home, and when he came to himself he related the story of his adventure in the wood to his wife.

Fairies in Markets and Fairs.

It was once firmly believed by the Welsh that the Fairy Tribe visited markets and fairs, and that their presence made business brisk. If there was a buzz in the market place, it was thought that the sound was made by the Fairies, and on such occasions the farmers’ wives disposed quickly of their commodities; if, however, on the other hand, there was no buzz, the Fairies were absent, and there was then no business transacted.

Mr. Richard Jones, Ty’n-y-Wern, Bryneglwys, who, when a youth, lived in Llanbedr parish, near Ruthin, informed the writer that his mother, after attending a market at Ruthin, would return home occasionally with the sad news that “They were not there,” meaning that the Fairies were not present in the market, and this implied a bad market and no sweets for Richard. On the other hand, should the market have been a good one, she would tell them that “They filled the whole place,” and the children always had the benefit of their presence.

This belief that the Fairies sharpened the market was, I think, general. I find in Y Gordofigion, p. 97, the following words:—

“Byddai y Tylwyth Têg yn arfer myned i farchnadoedd y Bala, ac yn gwneud twrw mawr heb i neb eu gweled, ac yr oedd hyny yn arwydd fod y farchnad ar godi,” which is:—

The Fairies were in the habit of frequenting Bala markets, and they made a great noise, without any one seeing them, and this was a sign that the market was sharpening.

Names of Things Attributed to the Fairies.

Many small stone utensils found in the ground, the use, or the origin, of which was unknown to the finders, were formerly attributed to the Fairies. Thus, flint arrow-heads were called elf shots, from the belief that they once belonged to Elves or Fairies. And celts, and other stone implements, were, by the peasants of Wales and other places, ascribed to the same small folk. Very small clay pipes were also attributed to the same people. All this is curious evidence of a pre-existing race, which the Celts supplanted, and from whom, in many respects, they differed. Although we cannot derive much positive knowledge from an enumeration of the articles popularly associated with the Fairies, still, such a list, though an imperfect one, will not be void of interest. I will, therefore, describe certain pre-historic remains, which have been attributed to the aboriginal people of Britain.

Fairy Pipes.

Cetyn y Tylwyth Têg, or Fairy Pipes, are small clay pipes, with bowls that will barely admit the tip of the little finger. They are found in many places, generally with the stem broken off, though usually the bowl is perfect.

A short time ago I stayed awhile to talk with some workmen who were engaged in carting away the remains of a small farm house, once called Y Bwlch, in the parish of Efenechtyd, Denbighshire, and they told me that they had just found a Fairy Pipe, or, as they called it, Cetyn y Tylwyth Têg, which they gave me. A similar pipe was also picked up by Lewis Jones, Brynffynon, on Coed Marchan, in the same parish, when he was enclosing a part of the mountain allotted to his farm. In March, 1887, the workmen employed in taking down what were at one time buildings belonging to a bettermost kind of residence, opposite Llanfwrog Church, near Ruthin, also discovered one of these wee pipes. Pipes, identical in shape and size, have been found in all parts of Wales, and they are always known by the name of Cetyn y Tylwyth Têg, or Fairy Pipes.

In Shropshire they have also been discovered in the Fens, and the late Rev. Canon Lee, Hanmer, had one in his possession, which had been found in those parts, and, it was called a Fairy Pipe.

Fairy Whetstone.

The small spindle whorls which belong to the stone age, and which have been discovered in the circular huts, called Cyttiau’r Gwyddelod, which are the earliest remains of human abodes in Wales, are by the people called Fairy Whetstones, but, undoubtedly, this name was given them from their resemblance to the large circular whetstone at present in common use, the finders being ignorant of the original use of these whorls.

Fairy Hammer and Fairy or Elf Stones.

Stone hammers of small size have been ascribed to the Fairies, and an intelligent Welsh miner once told the writer that he had himself seen, in a very ancient diminutive mine level, stone hammers which, he said, had once belonged to the Fairies.

Other pre-historic implements, as celts, have been denominated Fairy remains. Under this head will come flint, or stone arrow-heads. These in Scotland are known by the name Elf Shots or Fairy Stones.

Pennant’s Tour in Scotland, 1769, p. 115, has the following reference to these arrow-heads:—

“Elf Shots, i.e., the stone arrow-heads of the old inhabitants of this island, are supposed to be weapons shot by Fairies at cattle, to which are attributed any disorders they have.”

Jamieson states in his Dictionary, under the heading Elf Shot:—“The Elf Shot or Elfin Arrow is still used in the Highlands as an amulet.”

Tradition, in thus connecting stone implements with the Fairies, throws a dim light on the elfin community. But evidence is not wanting that the Celts themselves used stone utensils.

The things which shall now be mentioned, as being connected with the Fairies, owe their names to no foundation in fact, but are the offspring of a fanciful imagination, and are attributed to the Fairies in agreement with the more modern and grotesque notions concerning those beings and their doings. This will be seen when it is stated that the Fox Glove becomes a Fairy Glove, and the Mushroom, Fairy Food.

Ymenyn y Tylwyth Têg, or Fairy Butter.

I cannot do better than quote Pennant on this matter. His words are:—

“Petroleum, rock oil, or what the Welsh call it, Ymenin tylwyth têg, or Fairies’ butter, has been found in the lime stone strata in our mineral country. It is a greasy substance, of an agreeable smell, and, I suppose, ascribed to the benign part of those imaginary beings. It is esteemed serviceable in rheumatic cases, rubbed on the parts affected. It retains a place in our dispensary.”

Pennant’s Whiteford, p. 131.

Bwyd Ellyllon, or Goblins’ Food.

This was a kind of fungus or mushroom. The word is given in Dr. Owen Pughe’s dictionary under the head Ellyll.

Menyg y Tylwyth Têg, Or Fairy Gloves.

The Fox Glove is so called, but in Dr. Owen Pughe’s dictionary, under the head Ellyll, the Fox Glove is called Menyg Ellyllon.

Yr Ellyll Dân, or Goblin Fire.

The Rev. T. H. Evans, in his History of the Parish of Llanwddyn, states that in that parish “Will of the Wisp” is called “Yr Ellyll Dân.” This is indeed the common name for the Ignis fatuus in most, if not in all parts of Wales, but in some places where English is spoken it is better known by the English term, “Jack o’ Lantern,” or “Jack y Lantern.”

Rhaffau’r Tylwyth Têg, or the Ropes of the Fairies.

Professor Rhys, in his Welsh Fairy Tales—Y Cymmrodor vol. v., p. 75—says, that gossamer, which is generally called in North Wales edafedd gwawn, or gwawn yarn, used to be called, according to an informant, Rhaffau’r Tylwyth Têg, that is to say, the Ropes of the Fair Family, thus associating the Fairies with marshy, or rushy, places, or with ferns and heather as their dwelling places. It was supposed that if a man lay down to sleep in such places the Fairies would come and bind him with their ropes, and cover him with a gossamer sheet, which would make him invisible, and incapable of moving.

Fairy Knockers, or Coblynau.

The Coblynau or Knockers were supposed to be a species of Fairies who had their abode in the rocks, and whose province it was to indicate by knocks, and other sounds, the presence of ore in mines.

It would seem that many people had dim traditions of a small race who had their dwellings in the rocks. This wide-spread belief in the existence of cave men has, in our days, been shown to have had a foundation in fact, and many vestiges of this people have been revealed by intelligent cave hunters. But the age in which the cave men lived cannot even approximately be ascertained. In various parts of Wales, in the lime rock, their abodes have been brought to light. It is not improbable that the people who occupied the caves of ancient days were, in reality, the original Fairy Knockers. These people were invested, in after ages, by the wonder-loving mind of man, with supernatural powers.

Æschylus, the Greek tragic poet, who died in the 69th year of his age, B.C. 456, in Prometheus Vinctus, refers to cave dwellers in a way that indicates that even then they belonged to a dateless antiquity.

In Prometheus’s speech to the chorus—κουτε πλιυθυφεις . . έν μυχοις ανηλίοις—lines 458-461, is a reference to this ancient tradition. His words, put into English, are these:—“And neither knew the warm brick-built houses exposed to the sun, nor working in wood, but they dwelt underground, like as little ants, in the sunless recesses of caves.”

The above quotation proves that the Greeks had a tradition that men in a low, or the lowest state of civilization, had their abodes in caves, and possibly the reference to ants would convey the idea that the cave dwellers were small people. Be this as it may, it is very remarkable that the word applied to a dwarf in the dialects of the northern countries of Europe signifies also a Fairy, and the dwarfs, or Fairies, are there said to inhabit the rocks. The following quotation from Jamieson’s Scottish Dictionary under the word Droich, a dwarf, a pigmy, shows this to have been the case:—

“In the northern dialects, dwerg does not merely signify a dwarf, but also a Fairy! The ancient Northern nations, it is said, prostrated themselves before rocks, believing that they were inhabited by these pigmies, and that they thence gave forth oracles. Hence they called the echo dwergamal, as believing it to be their voice or speech. . . They were accounted excellent artificers, especially as smiths, from which circumstance some suppose that they have received their name . . . Other Isl. writers assert that their ancestors did not worship the pigmies as they did the genii or spirits, also supposed to reside in the rocks.”

Bishop Percy, in a letter to the Rev. Evan Evans (Ieuan Prydydd Hir), writes:—

“Nay, I make no doubt but Fairies are derived from the Duergar, or Dwarfs, whose existence was so generally believed among all the northern nations.”

The Cambro-Briton, vol. i., p. 331.

And again in Percy’s Reliques of Ancient Poetry, vol. iii., p. 171, are these remarks:—

“It is well known that our Saxon ancestors, long before they left their German forests, believed in the existence of a kind of diminutive demons, or middle species between men and spirits, whom they called Duergar, or Dwarfs, and to whom they attributed wonderful performances, far exceeding human art.”

Pennant, in his Tour in Scotland, 1772, pp. 55-56, when describing the collieries of Newcastle, describes the Knockers thus:—

“The immense caverns that lay between the pillars exhibited a most gloomy appearance. I could not help enquiring here after the imaginary inhabitant, the creation of the labourer’s fancy,

The swart Fairy of the mine;

and was seriously answered by a black fellow at my elbow that he really had never met with any, but that his grandfather had found the little implements and tools belonging to this diminutive race of subterraneous spirits. The Germans believed in two species; one fierce and malevolent, the other a gentle race, appearing like little old men, dressed like the miners, and not much above two feet high; these wander about the drifts and chambers of the works, seem perpetually employed, yet do nothing. Some seem to cut the ore, or fling what is cut into vessels, or turn the windlass, but never do any harm to the miners, except provoked; as the sensible Agricola, in this point credulous, relates in his book, de Animantibus Subterraneis.”

Jamieson, under the word Farefolkis, writes:—“Besides the Fairies, which are more commonly the subject of popular tradition, it appears that our forefathers believed in the existence of a class of spirits under this name that wrought in the mines;” and again, quoting from a work dated 1658, the author of which says:—

“In northerne kingdomes there are great armies of devils that have their services which they perform with the inhabitants of these countries, but they are most frequent in rocks and mines, where they break, cleave, and make them hollow; which also thrust in pitchers and buckets, and carefully fit wheels and screws, whereby they are drawn upwards; and they show themselves to the labourers, when they list, like phantoms and ghosts.”

The preceding quotations from Pennant and Jamieson correspond with the Welsh miners’ ideas of the Coblynau, or Knockers. There is a difficulty in tracing to their origin these opinions, but, on the whole, I am strongly inclined to say that they have come down to modern times from that remote period when cave-men existed as a distinct people.

But now let us hear what our Welsh miners have to say about the Coblynau. I have spoken to several miners on this subject, and, although they confessed that they had not themselves heard these good little people at work, still they believed in their existence, and could name mines in which they had been heard. I was told that they are generally heard at work in new mines, and that they lead the men to the ore by knocking in its direction, and when the lode is reached the knocking ceases.

But the following extracts from two letters written by Lewis Morris, a well-known and learned Welshman, fully express the current opinion of miners in Wales respecting Knockers. The first letter was written Oct. 14, 1754, and the latter is dated Dec. 4, 1754. They appear in Bingley’s North Wales, vol. ii., pp. 269-272. Lewis Morris writes:—

“People who know very little of arts or sciences, or the powers of nature (which, in other words, are the powers of the author of nature), will laugh at us Cardiganshire miners, who maintain the existence of Knockers in mines, a kind of good natured impalpable people not to be seen, but heard, and who seem to us to work in the mines; that is to say, they are the types or forerunners of working in mines, as dreams are of some accidents, which happen to us. The barometer falls before rain, or storms. If we do not know the construction of it, we should call it a kind of dream that foretells rain; but we know it is natural, and produced by natural means, comprehended by us. Now, how are we sure, or anybody sure, but that our dreams are produced by the same natural means? There is some faint resemblance of this in the sense of hearing; the bird is killed before we hear the report of the gun. However this is, I must speak well of the Knockers, for they have actually stood my good friends, whether they are aerial beings called spirits, or whether they are a people made of matter, not to be felt by our gross bodies, as air and fire and the like.

“Before the discovery of the Esgair y Mwyn mine, these little people, as we call them here, worked hard there day and night; and there are abundance of honest, sober people, who have heard them, and some persons who have no notion of them or of mines either; but after the discovery of the great ore they were heard no more.

“When I began to work at Llwyn Llwyd, they worked so fresh there for a considerable time that they frightened some young workmen out of the work. This was when we were driving levels, and before we had got any ore; but when we came to the ore, they then gave over, and I heard no more talk of them.

“Our old miners are no more concerned at hearing them blasting, boring holes, landing deads, etc., than if they were some of their own people; and a single miner will stay in the work, in the dead of the night, without any man near him, and never think of any fear or of any harm they will do him. The miners have a notion that the Knockers are of their own tribe and profession, and are a harmless people who mean well. Three or four miners together shall hear them sometimes, but if the miners stop to take notice of them, the Knockers will also stop; but, let the miners go on at their work, suppose it is boring, the Knockers will at the same time go on as brisk as can be in landing, blasting, or beating down the loose, and they are always heard a little distance from them before they come to the ore.

“These are odd assertions, but they are certainly facts, though we cannot, and do not pretend to account for them. We have now very good ore at Llwyn Llwyd, where the Knockers were heard to work, but have now yielded up the place, and are no more heard. Let who will laugh, we have the greatest reason to rejoice, and thank the Knockers, or rather God, who sends us these notices.”

The second letter is as follows:—

“I have no time to answer your objection against Knockers; I have a large treatise collected on that head, and what Mr. Derham says is nothing to the purpose. If sounds of voices, whispers, blasts, working, or pumping, can be carried on a mile underground, they should always be heard in the same place, and under the same advantages, and not once in a month, a year, or two years. Just before the discovery of ore last week, three men together in our work at Llwyn Llwyd were ear-witnesses of Knockers pumping, driving a wheelbarrow, etc.; but there is no pump in the work, nor any mine within less than a mile of it, in which there are pumps constantly going. If they were these pumps that they had heard, why were they never heard but that once in the space of a year? And why are they not now heard? But the pumps make so little noise that they cannot be heard in the other end of Esgair y Mwyn mine when they are at work.

“We have a dumb and deaf tailor in this neighbourhood who has a particular language of his own by signs, and by practice I can understand him, and make him understand me pretty well, and I am sure I could make him learn to write, and be understood by letters very soon, for he can distinguish men already by the letters of their names. Now letters are marks to convey ideas, just after the same manner as the motion of fingers, hands, eyes, etc. If this man had really seen ore in the bottom of a sink of water in a mine, and wanted to tell me how to come at it, he would take two sticks like a pump, and would make the motions of a pumper at the very sink where he knew the ore was, and would make the motions of driving a wheelbarrow. And what I should infer from thence would be that I ought to take out the water and sink or drive in the place, and wheel the stuff out. By parity of reasoning, the language of Knockers, by imitating the sound of pumping, wheeling, etc., signifies that we should take out the water and drive there. This is the opinion of all old miners, who pretend to understand the language of the Knockers. Our agent and manager, upon the strength of this notice, goes on and expects great things. You, and everybody that is not convinced of the being of Knockers, will laugh at these things, for they sound like dreams; so does every dark science. Can you make any illiterate man believe that it is possible to know the distance of two places by looking at them? Human knowledge is but of small extent, its bounds are within our view, we see nothing beyond these; the great universal creation contains powers, etc., that we cannot so much as guess at. May there not exist beings, and vast powers infinitely smaller than the particles of air, to whom air is as hard a body as the diamond is to us? Why not? There is neither great nor small, but by comparison. Our Knockers are some of these powers, the guardians of mines.

“You remember the story in Selden’s Table-Talk of Sir Robert Cotton and others disputing about Moses’s shoe. Lady Cotton came in and asked, ‘Gentlemen, are you sure it is a shoe?’ So the first thing is to convince mankind that there is a set of creatures, a degree or so finer than we are, to whom we have given the name of Knockers from the sounds we hear in our mines. This is to be done by a collection of their actions well attested, and that is what I have begun to do, and then let everyone judge for himself.”

The preceding remarks, made by an intelligent and reliable person, conversant with mines, and apparently uninfluenced by superstition, are at least worthy of consideration. The writer of these interesting letters states positively that sounds were heard; whether his attempt to solve the cause of these noises is satisfactory, and conclusive, is open to doubt. We must believe the facts asserted, although disagreeing with the solution of the difficulty connected with the sounds. Miners in all parts of England, Scotland, Wales, Germany, and other parts, believe in the existence of Knockers, whatever these may be, and here, as far as I am concerned, I leave the subject, with one remark only, which is, that I have never heard it said that anyone in Wales ever saw one of these Knockers. In this they differ from Fairies, who, according to popular notions, have, time and again, been seen by mortal eyes; but this must have been when time was young.

The writer is aware that Mr. Sikes, in his British Goblins, p. 28, gives an account of Coblynau or Knockers which he affirms had been seen by some children who were playing in a field in the parish of Bodfari, near Denbigh, and that they were dancing like mad, and terribly frightened the children. But in the autobiography of Dr. Edward Williams, already referred to, p. 98, whence Mr. Sikes derived his information of the Dwarfs of Cae Caled, they are called “Beings,” and not Coblynau.

Before concluding my remarks on Fairy Knockers I will give one more quotation from Bingley, who sums up the matter in the following words:—

“I am acquainted with the subject only from report, but I can assure my readers that I found few people in Wales that did not give full credence to it. The elucidation of these extraordinary facts must be left to those persons who have better opportunities of inquiring into them than I have. I may be permitted to express a hope that the subject will not be neglected, and that those who reside in any neighbourhood where the noises are heard will carefully investigate their cause, and, if possible, give to the world a more accurate account of them than the present. In the year 1799 they were heard in some mines in the parish of Llanvihangel Ysgeiviog, in Anglesea, where they continued, at intervals, for some weeks.”

Bingley’s North Wales, vol. ii., p. 275.

In conclusion, I may remark that in living miners’ days, as already stated, Knockers have not been heard. Possibly Davy’s Safety Lamp and good ventilation have been their destruction. Their existence was believed in when mining operations, such as now prevail, were unknown, and their origin is to be sought for among the dim traditions that many countries have of the existence of small cave men.

The Pwka, or Pwca.

Another imaginary being, closely allied to the Fairy family, was the Pwka. He seems to have possessed many of the mischievous qualities of Shakespeare’s Puck, whom, also, he resembled in name, and it is said that the Pwka, in common with the Brownie, was a willing worker.

The Rev. Edmund Jones in his Book of Apparitions gives an account of one of these goblins, which visited the house of Job John Harry, who lived at a place called the Trwyn, and hence the visitor is called Pwka’r Trwyn, and many strange tales are related of this spirit. The writer of the Apparitions states that the spirit stayed in Job’s house from some time before Christmas until Easter Wednesday. He writes:—“At first it came knocking at the door, chiefly by night, which it continued to do for a length of time, by which they were often deceived, by opening it. At last it spoke to one who opened the door, upon which they were much terrified, which being known, brought many of the neighbours to watch with the family. T. E. foolishly brought a gun with him to shoot the spirit, as he said, and sat in the corner. As Job was coming home that night the spirit met him, and told him that there was a man come to the house to shoot him, ‘but,’ said he, ’thou shalt see how I will beat him.’ As soon as Job was come to the house stones were thrown at the man that brought the gun, from which he received severe blows. The company tried to defend him from the blows of the stones, which did strike him and no other person; but it was in vain, so that he was obliged to go home that night, though it was very late; he had a great way to go. When the spirit spoke, which was not very often, it was mostly out of the oven by the hearth’s side. He would sometimes in the night make music with Harry Job’s fiddle. One time he struck the cupboard with stones, the marks of which were to be seen, if they are not there still. Another time he gave Job a gentle stroke upon his toe, when he was going to bed, upon which Job said, ‘Thou art curious in smiting,’ to which the spirit answered, ‘I can smite thee where I please.’ They were at length grown fearless and bold to speak to it, and its speeches and actions were a recreation to them, seeing it was a familiar kind of spirit which did not hurt them, and informed them of some things which they did not know. One old man, more bold than wise, on hearing the spirit just by him, threatened to stick him with his knife, to which he answered, ‘Thou fool, how can thou stick what thou cannot see with thine eyes.’ The spirit told them that he came from Pwll-y-Gaseg, i.e., Mare’s Pit, a place so called in the adjacent mountain, and that he knew them all before he came there. . . . On Easter Wednesday he left the house and took his farewell in these words:—‘Dos yn iack, Job,’ i.e., ‘Farewell, Job,’ to which Job said, ‘Where goest thou?’ He was answered, ‘Where God pleases.’”

The Pwka was credited with maliciously leading benighted men astray. He would appear with a lantern or candle in hand, some little distance in front of the traveller, and without any exertion keep ahead of him, and leading him through rocky and dangerous places, would suddenly, with an ironical laugh blow out the candle, and disappear, and leave the man to his fate.

The following tale, taken from Croker’s Fairy Legends of Ireland, vol. ii., pp. 231-3, well illustrates this mischievous trait in the character of the Pwka. The writer has seen the tale elsewhere, but as it differs only slightly from that recorded by Croker, he gives it in the words of this author. His words are as follows:—

“Cwm Pwcca, or the Pwcca’s Valley, forms part of the deep and romantic glen of the Clydach, which, before the establishment of the iron works of Messrs. Frere and Powell, was one of the most secluded spots in Wales, and therefore well calculated for the haunt of goblins and fairies; but the bustle of a manufactory has now in a great measure scared these beings away, and of late it is very rarely that any of its former inhabitants, the Pwccas, are seen. Such, however, is their attachment to their ancient haunt, that they have not entirely deserted it, as there was lately living near this valley a man who used to assert that he had seen one, and had a narrow escape of losing his life, through the maliciousness of the goblin. As he was one night returning home over the mountain from his work, he perceived at some distance before him a light, which seemed to proceed from a candle in a lantern, and upon looking more attentively, he saw what he took to be a human figure carrying it, which he concluded to be one of his neighbours likewise returning from his work. As he perceived that the figure was going the same way with himself, he quickened his pace in order that he might overtake him, and have the benefit of his light to descend the steep and rocky path which led into the valley; but he rather wondered that such a short person as appeared to carry the lantern should be able to walk so fast. However, he re-doubled his exertions, determined to come up with him, and although he had some misgivings that he was not going along the usual track, yet he thought that the man with the lantern must know better than himself, and he followed the direction taken by him without further hesitation. Having, by dint of hard walking, overtaken him, he suddenly found himself on the brink of one of the tremendous precipices of Cwm Pwcca, down which another step would have carried him headlong into the roaring torrent beneath. And, to complete his consternation, at the very instant he stopped, the little fellow with the lantern made a spring right across the glen to the opposite side, and there, holding up the light above his head, turned round and uttered with all his might a loud and most malicious laugh, upon which he blew out his candle, and disappeared up the opposite hill.”

This spirit is also said to have assisted men in their labours, and servant girls and servant men often had their arduous burdens lightened by his willing hands. But he punished those who offended him in a vindictive manner. The Pwka could hide himself in a jug of barm or in a ball of yarn, and when he left a place, it was for ever.

In the next chapter I will treat of another phase of legendary lore, which, although highly imaginative, seems to intimate that the people who transmitted these tales had some knowledge, though an exaggerated one, of a people and system which they supplanted.

Fairy, or Mythic Animals.

From the Myddvai Legend it would appear that the Fairies possessed sheep, cattle, goats, and horses, and from other tales we see that they had dogs, etc. Their stock, therefore, was much like that of ordinary farmers in our days. But Fairy animals, like their owners, have, in the course of ages, been endowed with supernatural powers. In this chapter shall be given a short history of these mythical animals.

Cwn Annwn, or Dogs of the Abyss.

The words Cwn Annwn are variously translated as Dogs of Hell, Dogs of Elfinland. In some parts of Wales they are called Cwn Wybir, Dogs of the Sky, and in other places Cwn Bendith Y Mamau. We have seen that “Bendith y Mamau” is a name given to the Fairies, and in this way these dogs become Fairy Dogs.

A description of these Fairy dogs is given in Y Brython, vol. iii p. 22. Briefly stated it is as follows:—Cwn Bendith y Mamau were a pack of small hounds, headed by a large dog. Their howl was something terrible to listen to, and it foretold death. At their approach all other dogs ceased barking, and fled before them in terror, taking refuge in their kennels. The birds of the air stopped singing in the groves when they heard their cry, and even the owl was silent when they were near. The laugh of the young, and the talk at the fireside were hushed when the dreadful howl of these Hell hounds was heard, and pale and trembling with fear the inmates crowded together for mutual protection. And what was worse than all, these dogs often foretold a death in some particular family in the neighbourhood where they appeared, and should a member of this family be in a public-house, or other place of amusement, his fright would be so great that he could not move, believing that already had death seized upon some one in his house.

The Fairy dogs howled more at Cross-roads, and such like public places, than elsewhere. And woe betide any one who stood in their way, for they bit them, and were likely even to drag a man away with them, and their bite was often fatal. They collected together in huge numbers in the churchyard where the person whose death they announced was to be buried, and, howling around the place that was to be his grave, disappeared on that very spot, sinking there into the earth, and afterwards they were not to be seen.

A somewhat different description of Cwn Annwn is given in the Cambro-Briton, vol. i., p. 350. Here we are told that “these terrific animals are supposed to be devils under the semblance of hunting dogs . . . and they are usually accompanied by fire in some form or other. Their appearance is supposed to indicate the death of some friend or relative of the person to whom they shew themselves. They have never been known to commit any mischief on the persons of either man or woman, goat, sheep, or cow, etc.”

In Motley’s Tales of the Cymry, p. 58, that author says:—“I have met with but a few old people who still cherished a belief in these infernal hounds which were supposed after death to hunt the souls of the wretched to their allotted place of torment.”

It was, however, once firmly and generally believed, that these awful creatures could be heard of a wild stormy night in full cry pursuing the souls of the unbaptized and unshriven. Mr. Chapman, Dolfor, near Newtown, Montgomeryshire, writes to me thus:—“These mysterious animals are never seen, only heard. A whole pack were recently heard on the borders of Radnorshire and Montgomeryshire. They went from the Kerry hills towards the Llanbadarn road, and a funeral quickly followed the same route. The sound was similar to that made by a pack of hounds in full cry, but softer in tone.”

The Rev. Edmund Jones, in his work entitled “An Account of Apparitions of Spirits in the county of Monmouth,” says that, “The nearer these dogs are to a man, the less their voice is, and the farther the louder, and sometimes, like the voice of a great hound, or like that of a blood hound, a deep hollow voice.” It is needless to say that this gentleman believed implicitly in the existence of Cwn Annwn, and adduces instances of their appearance.

The following is one of his tales:—

“As Thomas Andrews was coming towards home one night with some persons with him, he heard, as he thought, the sound of hunting. He was afraid it was some person hunting the sheep, so he hastened on to meet, and hinder them; he heard them coming towards him, though he saw them not. When they came near him, their voices were but small, but increasing as they went from him; they went down the steep towards the river Ebwy, dividing between this parish and Mynyddislwyn, whereby he knew they were what are called Cwn wybir (Sky dogs), but in the inward part of Wales Cwn Annwn (Dogs of Hell). I have heard say that these spiritual hunting-dogs have been heard to pass by the eaves of several houses before the death of someone in the family. Thomas Andrews was an honest, religious man, and would not have told an untruth either for fear or for favour.”

The colour of these dogs is variously given, as white, with red ears, and an old man informed Mr. Motley that their colour was blood-red, and that they always were dripping with gore, and that their eyes and teeth were of fire. This person confessed that he had never seen these dogs, but that he described them from what he had heard.—Tales of the Cymry, p. 60. There is in The Cambro-Briton, vol. ii., p. 271, another and more natural description of Cwn Annwn. It is there stated that Pwyll, prince of Dyved, went out to hunt, and:—

“He sounded his horn and began to enter upon the chase, following his dogs and separating from his companions. And, as he was listening to the cry of his pack, he could distinctly hear the cry of another pack, different from that of his own, and which was coming in an opposite direction. He could also discern an opening in the wood towards a level plain; and as his pack was entering the skirt of the opening, he perceived a stag before the other pack, and about the middle of the glade the pack in the rear coming up and throwing the stag on the ground; upon this be fixed his attention on the colour of the pack without recollecting to look at the stag; and, of all the hounds in the world he had ever seen, he never saw any like them in colour. Their colour was a shining clear white, with red ears; and the whiteness of the dogs, and the redness of their ears, were equally conspicuous.”

We are informed that these dogs belonged to Arawn, or the silver-tongued King of Annwn, of the lower or southern regions. In this way these dogs are identified with the creatures treated of in this chapter. But their work was less weird than soul-hunting.

A superstition akin to that attached to Cwn Annwn prevails in many countries, as in Normandy and Bretagne. In Devonshire, the Wish, or Wisked Hounds, were once believed in, and certain places on Dartmoor were thought to be their peculiar resort, and it was supposed that they hunted on certain nights, one of which was always St. John’s Eve. These terrible creations of a cruel mind indicate a phase of faith antagonistic to, and therefore more ancient than, Christianity.

With another quotation from Tales of the Cymry (p. 61-62), I will conclude my remarks:—

“In the north of Devon the spectral pack are called Yesh hounds and Yell hounds. There is another legend, evidently of Christian origin, which represents them in incessant pursuit of a lost spirit. In the northern quarter of the moor the Wish hounds, in pursuit of the spirit of a man who had been well known in the country, entered a cottage, the door of which had been incautiously left open, and ran round the kitchen, but quietly, without their usual cry. The Sunday after the same man appeared in church, and the person whose house the dogs had entered, made bold by the consecrated place in which they were, ventured to ask why he had been with the Wish hounds. ‘Why should not my spirit wander,’ he replied, ‘as well as another man’s?’ Another version represents the hounds as following the spirit of a beautiful woman, changed into the form of a hare; and the reader will find a similar legend, with some remarkable additions, in the Disquisitiones Magicæ of the Jesuit Delrio, lib. vi., c.2.”

The preceding paragraph is from the pen of “R.J.K.,” and appears in the Athenæum, March 27, 1847, Art. Folk-lore.

The Fairy Cow.

There are many traditions afloat about a wonderful cow, that supplied whole neighbourhoods with milk, which ceased when wantonly wasted. In some parts of England this is called the Dun Cow; in Shropshire she becomes also the White Cow; in Wales she is, Y Fuwch Frech, or Y Fuwch Gyfeiliorn. This mystic cow has found a home in many places. One of these is the wild mountain land between Llanfihangel Glyn Myfyr and a hamlet called Clawdd Newydd about four miles from Ruthin. About midway between these two places is a bridge called Pontpetrual, and about half a mile from the bridge to the north is a small mountain farm called Cefn Bannog, and near this farm, but on the unenclosed mountain, are traces of primitive abodes, and it was here that, tradition says, the Fuwch Frech had her home. But I will now give the history of this strange cow as I heard it from the mouth of Thomas Jones, Cefn Bannog.

Y Fuwch Frech. The Freckled Cow.

In ages long gone by, my informant knew not how long ago, a wonderful cow had her pasture land on the hill close to the farm, called Cefn Bannog, after the mountain ridge so named. It would seem that the cow was carefully looked after, as indicated by the names of places bearing her name. The site of the cow house is still pointed out, and retains its name, Preseb y Fuwch Frech—the Crib of the Freckled Cow. Close to this place are traces of a small enclosure called Gwal Erw y Fuwch Frech, or the Freckled Cow’s Meadow. There is what was once a track way leading from the ruins of the cow house to a spring called Ffynon y Fuwch Frech, or the Freckled Cow’s Well, and it was, tradition says, at this well that the cow quenched her thirst. The well is about 150 yards from the cow house. Then there is the feeding ground of the cow called, Waen Banawg, which is about half a mile from the cow house. There are traces of walls several feet thick in these places. The spot is a lonely one, but ferns and heather flourish luxuriantly all about this ancient homestead. It is also said that this cow was the mother of the Ychain Banawg, or large-horned oxen. But now to proceed to the tradition that makes the memory of this cow dear to the inhabitants of the Denbighshire moorland.

Old people have transmitted from generation to generation the following strange tale of the Freckled Cow. Whenever any one was in want of milk they went to this cow, taking with them a vessel into which they milked the cow, and, however big this vessel was, they always departed with the pail filled with rich milk, and it made no difference, however often she was milked, she could never be milked dry. This continued for a long time, and glad indeed the people were to avail themselves of the inexhaustible supply of new milk, freely given to them all. At last a wicked hag, filled with envy at the people’s prosperity, determined to milk the cow dry, and for this purpose she took a riddle with her, and milked and milked the cow, until at last she could get no more milk from her. But, sad to say, the cow immediately, upon this treatment, left the country, and was never more seen. Such is the local history of the Freckled Cow.

Tradition further states that she went straight to a lake four miles off, bellowing as she went, and that she was followed by her two children the Dau Eidion Banawg, the two long-horned oxen, to Llyn dau ychain, the Lake of the Two Oxen, in the parish of Cerrig-y-drudion, and that she entered the lake and the two long-horned oxen, bellowing horribly, went, one on either side the lake, and with their mother disappeared within its waters, and none were ever afterwards seen.

Notwithstanding that tradition buries these celebrated cattle in this lake, I find in a book published by Dr. John Williams, the father of the Rev. John Williams, M.A., Vicar of Llanwddyn, in the year 1830, on the “Natural History of Llanrwst,” the following statement. The author in page 17, when speaking of Gwydir, says:—

“In the middle court (which was once surrounded by the house), there is a large bone, which appears to be the rib of some species of whale, but according to the vulgar opinion, it is the rib of the Dun Cow (y Fuwch Frech), killed by the Earl of Warwick.”

It may be stated that Llanrwst is not many miles distant from Cerrig-y-drudion and yet we have in these places conflicting traditions, which I will not endeavour to reconcile.

The Shropshire tale of the Fairy Cow is much the same as the preceding. There she is known as The White Cow of Mitchell’s Fold. This place is situated on the Corndon Hill, a bare moorland in the extreme west of Shropshire. To this day there is to be seen there a stone circle known as Mitchell’s Fold.

The story of the Shropshire Cow is this. There was a dire famine in those parts, and the people depended for support on a beautiful white cow, a Fairy cow, that gave milk to everybody, and it mattered not how many came, there was always enough for all, and it was to be so, so long as every one who came only took one pailful. The cow came night and morning to be milked, and it made no difference what size the vessel was that was brought by each person, for she always gave enough milk to fill it, and all the other pails. At last, there came an old witch to Mitchell’s Fold, and in spite and malice she brought a riddle and milked the cow into it; she milked and milked, and at last she milked her dry, and after that the cow was never seen. Folk say she was turned into a stone.

I am indebted to Miss Burne’s Shropshire Folk-Lore for the particulars above given.

A like tale is to be heard in Warwickshire, and also in Lancashire, near Preston, where the Dun cow gave freely her milk to all in time of drought, and disappeared on being subjected to the treatment of the Welsh and Shropshire cow.

Mr. Lloyd, Llanfihangel Glyn Myfyr, gave me a different tale of the Dau ychain Banawg to that already related. His story is as follows:—

The Legend of Llyn y ddau ychain.

The speckled cow had two calves, which, when they grew up, became strong oxen. In those days there was a wicked spirit that troubled Cerrig-y-drudion Church, and the people greatly feared this spirit, and everybody was afraid, even in the day-time, to pass the church, for there, day after day, they saw the evil one looking out of the church windows and grinning at them. They did not know what to do to get rid of this spirit, but at last they consulted a famous conjuror, who told them that no one could dislodge their enemy but the Dau ychain Banawg. They knew of the two long-horned cattle which fed on Waen Banawg. There, therefore, they went, and brought the powerful yoke to the church. After considerable difficulty they succeeded in dislodging the spirit, and in securing it to a sledge to which these oxen were yoked, and now struggling to get free, he was dragged along by the powerful oxen towards a lake on Hiraethog Mountain, but so ponderous was their load and so fearful was the spirit’s contentions that the sledge ploughed the land between the church and the lake as they went along, leaving in the course that they took deep furrows, and when they came to the hill so terrible were the struggles of the oxen to get along that the marks of their hoofs were left in the rocks where they may still be seen. When at last they reached the lake the spirit would not yield, and therefore oxen, sledge, and spirit were driven into the lake, and thus was the country rid of the evil one, and hence the name of the lake—the Lake of the Two Oxen—for the oxen likewise perished in the lake.

The foregoing legend is evidently founded on the older and more obscure story of Hu Gardarn, or Hu the Mighty, who with his Dau ychain Banawg drew to land the avanc out of Llyn Llion, so that the lake burst out no more to deluge the earth. For, be it known, it was this avanc that had occasioned the flood. However, there is a rival claimant for the honour of having destroyed the avanc, whatever that might have been, for, in Hindu Mythology, Vishnu is credited with having slain the monster that had occasioned the Deluge.

This last bit of Folk-lore about Hu Gadarn, which is found in the Triads, shows how widespread, and how very ancient, Welsh tales are. Hu Gadarn is by some writers identified with Noah. He was endowed, it would seem, with all the qualities of the gods of the Greeks, Egyptians, and Orientals, and his name is applied by the Welsh poets of the middle ages to the Supreme Being.

Y Fuwch Gyfeiliorn. The Stray Cow.

The history of the Fairy Stray Cow appears in Y Brython, vol. iii., pp. 183-4. The writer of the story states that he obtained his materials from a Paper by the late Dr. Pugh, Penhelyg, Aberdovey. The article alluded to by Gwilym Droed-ddu, the writer of the account in the Brython, appeared in the Archæologia Cambrensis for 1853, pp. 201-5. The tale, as given by Dr. Pugh, is reproduced by Professor Rhys in his Welsh Fairy Tales, and it is much less embellished in English than in Welsh. I will quote as much of the Doctor’s account as refers to the Stray Cow.

“A shrewd old hill farmer (Thomas Abergroes by name), well skilled in the folk-lore of the district, informed me that, in years gone by, though when, exactly, he was too young to remember, those dames (Gwragedd Annwn) were wont to make their appearance, arrayed in green, in the neighbourhood of Llyn Barfog, chiefly at eventide, accompanied by their kine and hounds, and that, on quiet summer nights in particular, these ban-hounds were often to be heard in full cry, pursuing their prey—the souls of doomed men dying without baptism and penance—along the upland township of Cefnrhosucha. Many a farmer had a sight of their comely, milk-white kine; many a swain had his soul turned to romance and poesy by a sudden vision of themselves in the guise of damsels arrayed in green, and radiant in beauty and grace; and many a sportsman had his path crossed by their white hounds of supernatural fleetness and comeliness, the Cwn Annwn; but never had any one been favoured with more than a passing view of either, till an old farmer residing at Dyssyrnant, in the adjoining valley of Dyffryn Gwyn, became at last the lucky captor of one of their milk-white kine. The acquaintance which the Gwartheg y Llyn, the kine of the lake, had formed with the farmer’s cattle, like the loves of the angels for the daughters of men, became the means of capture; and the farmer was thereby enabled to add the mystic cow to his own herd, an event in all cases believed to be most conducive to the worldly prosperity of him who should make so fortunate an acquisition. Never was there such a cow, never were there such calves, never such milk and butter, or cheese; and the fame of the Fuwch Gyfeiliorn, the stray cow, was soon spread abroad through that central part of Wales known as the district of Rhwng y ddwy Afon, from the banks of the Mawddach to those of the Dofwy (Dovey)—from Aberdiswnwy to Abercorris. The farmer, from a small beginning, rapidly became, like Job, a man of substance, possessed of thriving herds of cattle—a very patriarch among the mountains. But, alas! wanting Job’s restraining grace, his wealth made him proud, his pride made him forget his obligation to the elfin cow, and fearing she might soon become too old to be profitable, he fattened her for the butcher, and then even she did not fail to distinguish herself, for a more monstrously fat beast was never seen. At last the day of slaughter came—an eventful day in the annals of a mountain farm—the killing of a fat cow, and such a monster of obesity. No wonder all the neighbours were gathered together to see the sight. The old farmer looked upon the preparations in self-pleased importance; the butcher felt he was about no common feat of his craft, and, baring his arm, he struck the blow—not now fatal, for before even a hair had been injured, his arm was paralysed, the knife dropped from his hand, and the whole company was electrified by a piercing cry that awakened an echo in a dozen hills, and made the welkin ring again; and lo and behold! the whole assemblage saw a female figure, clad in green, with uplifted arms, standing on one of the rocks overhanging Llyn Barfog, and heard her calling with a voice loud as thunder:—

‘Dere di velen Einion,
Cyrn cyveiliorn—braith y Llyn,
A’r voel Dodin,
Codwch, dewch adre.’

‘Come thou Einion’s yellow one,
Stray horns—speckled one of the Lake,
And the hornless Dodin,
Arise, come home.’

And no sooner were these words of power uttered, than the original lake cow, and all her progeny to the third and fourth generations, were in full flight towards the heights of Llyn Barfog, as if pursued by the evil one. Self-interest quickly roused the farmer, who followed in pursuit, till, breathless and panting, he gained an eminence overlooking the lake, but with no better success than to behold the green-attired dame leisurely descending mid-lake, accompanied by the fugitive cows, and her calves formed in a circle around her; they tossed their tails, she waved her hands in scorn, as much as to say, ‘You may catch us, my friend, if you can,’ as they disappeared beneath the dark waters of the lake, leaving only the yellow water-lily to mark the spot where they vanished, and to perpetuate the memory of this strange event. Meanwhile, the farmer looked with rueful countenance upon the spot where the elfin herd disappeared, and had ample leisure to deplore the effects of his greediness, as with them also departed the prosperity which had hitherto attended him, and he became impoverished to a degree below his original circumstances, and in his altered circumstances few felt pity for one who, in the noontide flow of prosperity, had shown himself so far forgetful of favours received, as to purpose slaying his benefactor.” Thus ends Dr. Pugh’s account of the Stray Cow.

A tale very much like the preceding is recorded of a Scotch farmer. It is to be found in vol. ii., pp. 45-6, of Croker’s Fairy Legends of Ireland, and is as follows:—

“A farmer who lived near a river had a cow which regularly every year, on a certain day in May, left the meadow and went slowly along the banks of the river till she came opposite to a small island overgrown with bushes; she went into the water and waded or swam towards the island, where she passed some time, and then returned to her pasture. This continued for several years; and every year, at the usual season, she produced a calf which perfectly resembled the elf bull. One afternoon, about Martinmas, the farmer, when all the corn was got in and measured, was sitting at his fireside, and the subject of the conversation was, which of the cattle should be killed for Christmas. He said: ‘We’ll have the cow; she is well fed, and has rendered good services in ploughing, and filled the stalls with fine oxen, now we will pick her old bones.’ Scarcely had he uttered these words when the cow with her young ones rushed through the walls as if they had been made of paper, went round the dunghill, bellowed at each of her calves, and then drove them all before her, according to their age, towards the river, where they got into the water, reached the island, and vanished among the bushes. They were never more heard of.”

Ceffyl y Dwfr. The Water Horse.

The superstition respecting the water-horse, in one form or other, is common to the Celtic race. He was supposed to intimate by preternatural lights and noises the death of those about to perish by water, and it was vulgarly believed that he even assisted in drowning his victims. The water-horse was thought to be an evil spirit, who, assuming the shape of a horse, tried to allure the unwary to mount him, and then soaring into the clouds, or rushing over mountain, and water, would suddenly vanish into air or mist, and precipitate his rider to destruction.

The Welsh water-horse resembles the Kelpie of the Scotch. Jamieson, under the word Kelpie, in his Scottish Dictionary, quoting from various authors, as is his custom, says:—

“This is described as an aquatic demon, who drowns not only men but ships. The ancient Northern nations believed that he had the form of a horse; and the same opinion is still held by the vulgar in Iceland.

“Loccenius informs us that in Sweden the vulgar are still afraid of his power, and that swimmers are on their guard against his attacks; being persuaded that he suffocates and carries off those whom he catches under water.” “Therefore,” adds this writer, “it would seem that ferry-men warn those who are crossing dangerous places in some rivers not so much as to mention his name; lest, as they say, they should meet with a storm and be in danger of losing their lives. Hence, doubtless, has this superstition originated; that, in these places formerly, during the time of paganism, those who worshipped their sea-deity Nekr, did so, as it were with a sacred silence, for the reason already given.”

The Scotch Kelpie closely resembled the Irish Phoocah, or Poocah, a mischievous being, who was particularly dreaded on the night of All Hallow E’en, when it was thought he had especial power; he delighted to assume the form of a black horse, and should any luckless wight bestride the fiendish steed, he was carried through brake and mire, over water and land at a bewildering pace. Woe-betide the timid rider, for the Poocah made short work of such an one, and soon made him kiss the ground. But to the bold fearless rider the Poocah submitted willingly, and became his obedient beast of burden.

The following quotation from the Tales of the Cymry, p. 151, which is itself an extract from Mrs. S. C. Hall’s Ireland, graphically describes the Irish water fiend:—

“The great object of the Poocah seems to be to obtain a rider, and then he is in all his most malignant glory. Headlong he dashes through briar and brake, through flood and fall, over mountain, valley, moor, and river indiscriminately; up and down precipice is alike to him, provided he gratifies the malevolence that seems to inspire him. He bounds and flies over and beyond them, gratified by the distress, and utterly reckless and ruthless of the cries, and danger, and suffering of the luckless wight who bestrides him.”

Sometimes the Poocah assumed the form of a goat, an eagle, or of some other animal, and leaped upon the shoulders of the unwary traveller, and clung to him, however frantic were the exertions to get rid of the monster.

Allied to the water-horse were the horses upon which magicians in various lands were supposed to perform their aerial journeys.

It was believed in Wales that the clergy could, without danger, ride the water-horse, and the writer has heard a tale of a clergyman, who, when bestride one of these horses, had compassion on his parish clerk, who was trudging by his side, and permitted him to mount behind him, on condition that he should keep silence when upon the horse’s back. For awhile the loquacious parish clerk said no word, but ere long the wondrous pace of the horse caused him to utter a pious ejaculation, and no sooner were the words uttered than he was thrown to the ground; his master kept his seat, and, on parting with the fallen parish official, shouted out, “Serve you right, why did you not keep your noisy tongue quiet?”

The weird legends and gloomy creations of the Celt assume a mild and frolicsome feature when interpreted by the Saxon mind. The malevolent Poocah becomes in England the fun-loving Puck, who delights in playing his pranks on village maidens, and who says:—

I am that merry wanderer of the night;
Jest to Oberon, and make him smile,
When I a fat and bean-fed horse beguile,
Neighing in likeness of a filly foal;
And sometimes lurk I in a gossip’s bowl,
In very likeness of a roasted crab;
And when she drinks against her lips I bob,
And on her withered dew-lap pour the ale.

Midsummer Night’s Dream, Act I, Sc. I.

The Ceffyl-y-Dwfr was very different to Chaucer’s wonderful brass horse, which could be ridden, without harm, by a sleeping rider:—

This steed of brasse, and easilie and well
Can in the space of a day naturél,
This is to say, in foure and twenty houres,
Where so ye lists, in drought or ellés showers,
Baren yours bodie into everie place,
In which your hearté willeth for to pace,
Withouten wemme of you through foul or fair,
Or if you liste to flee as high in th’ aire
As doth an eagle when him liste to soare,
This same steed shall bear you evermore,
Withouten harm, till ye be there you leste,
Though that ye sleepen on his back or reste;
And turn againe with writhing of a pinne,
He that it wroughte he couldé many a gin,
He waited many a constellation,
Ere he had done this operation.

Chaucer’s Squire’s Tale, 137-152.

The rider of the magic horse was made acquainted with the charm that secured its obedience, for otherwise he took an aerial ride at his peril. This kind of invention is oriental, but it is sufficiently like the Celtic in outline to indicate that all figments of the kind had undoubtedly a common origin.

I have seen it somewhere stated, but where I cannot recall to mind, that, the Water Horses did, in olden times, sport, on the Welsh mountains, with the puny native ponies, before they became a mixed breed.

It was believed that the initiated could conjure up the River Horse by shaking a magic bridle over the pool wherein it dwelt.

There is much curious information respecting this mythic animal in the Tales of the Cymry and from this work I have culled many thoughts.

The Torrent Spectre.

This spectre was supposed to be an old man, or malignant spirit, who directed, and ruled over, the mountain torrents. He delighted in devastating the lands. His appearance was horrible to behold, and it was believed that in the midst of the rushing stream his terrible form could be discerned apparently moving with the torrent, but in reality remaining stationary. Now he would raise himself half out of the water, and ascend like a mist half as high as the near mountain, and then he would dwindle down to the size of a man. His laugh accorded with his savage visage, and his long hair stood on end, and a mist always surrounded him.

Davies, in his Mythology of the Druids, says that believers in this strange superstition are yet to be met with in Glamorganshire. Davies was born in the parish of Llanvareth, Radnorshire, in 1756, and died January 1st, 1831.

Gwrach y Rhibyn, or Hag of the Mist.

Another supernatural being associated with water was the Gwrach y Rhibyn. She was supposed to reside in the dripping fog, but was seldom, if ever seen. It was believed that her shriek foretold misfortune, if not death, to the hearer, and some even thought that, in a shrill tenor, and lengthened voice, she called the person shortly to die by name.

Yr Hen Chrwchwd, or The Old Humpbacked, a fiend in the shape of an old woman, is thought to be identical with this Gwrach y Rhibyn.

In Carmarthenshire the spirit of the mist is represented, not as a shrivelled up old woman, but as a hoary headed old man, who seats himself on the hill sides, just where the clouds appear to touch them, and he is called Y Brenhin Llwyd, or The Grey King. I know not what functions this venerable personage, or king of the mist, performed, unless it were, that he directed the mist’s journey through the air.

Mermaids and Mermen.

It is said that these fabulous beings frequented the sea-coasts of Wales to the great danger of the inhabitants. The description of the Welsh mermaid was just as it is all over the world; she is depicted as being above the waist a most lovely young woman, whilst below she is like a fish with fins and spreading tail. Both mermen and mermaids were fond, it is said, of combing their long hair, and the siren-like song of the latter was thought to be so seductive as to entice men to destruction. It was believed that beautiful mermaids fell in love with comely young men and even induced them to enter their abodes in the depth of the sea.

I heard the following tale, I believe in Carnarvonshire, but I have no notes of it, and write from memory.

A man captured a mermaid, and took her home to his house, but she did nothing but beg and beg to be allowed to return to the sea, but notwithstanding her entreaties her captor kept her safe enough in a room, and fastened the door so that she could not escape. She lingered several days, pitifully beseeching the man to release her, and then she died. But ever after that event a curse seemed to rest upon the man, for he went from bad to worse, and died miserably poor.

It was always considered most unlucky to do anything unkind to these beings. Fear acted as a powerful incentive, in days of old, to generous conduct. For it was formerly believed that vengeance ever overtook the cruel.

An Isle of Man legend, related by Waldron, in his account of the Isle of Man, and reproduced by Croker, vol. i., p. 56, states, that some persons captured a mermaid, and carried her to a house and treated her tenderly, but she refused meat and drink, neither would she speak, when addressed, though they knew these creatures could speak. Seeing that she began to look ill, and fearing some great calamity would befall the island if she died, they opened the door, after three days, and she glided swiftly to the sea side. Her keeper followed at a distance and saw her plunge into the sea, where she was met by a great number of her own species, one of whom asked her what she had seen among those on land, to which she answered, “Nothing, but that they are so ignorant as to throw away the very water they boil their eggs in.”