CHAPTER X.

FOOTNOTES:[55]Rev. Robert Ellis, in ‘Manion Hynafiaethol.’ (Treherbert, 1873.)[56]‘Hamlet,’ Act I., Sc. 1.[57]Brand, ‘Popular Antiquities,’ ii., 31.

FOOTNOTES:

[55]Rev. Robert Ellis, in ‘Manion Hynafiaethol.’ (Treherbert, 1873.)

[56]‘Hamlet,’ Act I., Sc. 1.

[57]Brand, ‘Popular Antiquities,’ ii., 31.

A popular protection from the encroachments of fairies is the eithin, or prickly furze, common in Wales. It is believed that the fairies cannot penetrate a fence or hedge composed of this thorny shrub. An account illustrating this, and otherwise curious in its details, was given in 1871 by a prominent resident of Anglesea:[58]‘One day, some thirty years ago, Mrs. Stanley went to one of the old houses to see an old woman she often visited. It was a wretched hovel; so unusually dark when she opened the door, that she called to old Betty Griffith, but getting no answer she entered the room. A little tiny window of one pane of glass at the further side of the room gave a feeble light. A few cinders alight in the miserable grate also gave a glimmer of light, which enabled her to see where the bed used to be, in a recess. To her surprise she saw it entirely shut out by a barricade of thick gorse, so closely packed and piled up that no bed was to be seen. Again she called Betty Griffith; no response came. She looked round the wretched room; the only symptom of life was a plant of the Wandering Jew (Saxifraga tricolor), so called by the poor people, and dearly loved to grace their windows. It was planted in a broken jar or teapot on the window, trailing its long tendrils around, with here and there a new formed plant seeming to derive sustenance from the air alone.As she stood, struck with the miserable poverty of the human abode, a faint sigh came from behind the gorse. She went close and said, “Betty, where are you?” Betty instantly recognised her voice, and ventured to turn herself round from the wall. Mrs. Stanley then made a small opening in the gorse barricade, which sadly pricked her fingers; she saw Betty in her bed and asked her, “Are you not well? are you cold, that you are so closed up?” “Cold! no. It is not cold, Mrs. Stanley; it is the Tylwyth Teg; they never will leave me alone, there they sit making faces at me, and trying to come to me.” “Indeed! oh how I should like to see them, Betty.” “Like to see them, is it? Oh, don’t say so.” “Oh but Betty, they must be so pretty and good.” “Good? they are not good.” By this time the old woman got excited, and Mrs. Stanley knew she should hear more from her about the fairies, so she said, “Well, I will go out; they never will come if I am here.” Old Betty replied sharply, “No, do not go. You must not leave me. I will tell you all about them. Ah! they come and plague me sadly. If I am up they will sit upon the table; they turn my milk sour and spill my tea; then they will not leave me at peace in my bed, but come all round me and mock at me.” “But Betty, tell me what is all this gorse for? It must have been great trouble for you to make it all so close.” “Is it not to keep them off? They cannot get through this, it pricks them so bad, and then I get some rest.” So she replaced the gorse and left old Betty Griffith happy in her device for getting rid of the Tylwyth Teg.’

FOOTNOTE:[58]Hon. W. O. Stanley, in ‘Notes and Queries.’

FOOTNOTE:

[58]Hon. W. O. Stanley, in ‘Notes and Queries.’

A common means of getting rid of the fairies is to change one’s place of residence; the fair folkwill not abide in a house which passes into new hands. A story is told of a Merionethshire farmer who, being tormented beyond endurance by a Bwbach of a mischievous turn, reluctantly resolved to flit. But first consulting a wise woman at Dolgelley, he was advised to make a pretended flitting, which would have the same effect; he need only give out that he was going to move over the border into England, and then get together his cattle and his household goods, and set out for a day’s drive around the Arenig. The fairy would surely quit the house when the farmer should quit it, and especially would it quit the premises of a born Cymro who avowed his purpose of settling in the foreign land of the Sais. So then he could come back to his house by another route, and he would find the obnoxious Bwbach gone. The farmer did as he was told, and set out upon his journey, driving his cattle and sheep before him, and leading the cart upon which his furniture was piled, while his wife and children trudged behind. When he reached Rhyd-y-Fen, a ford so called from this legend, they met a neighbour, who exclaimed, ‘Holo, Dewi, are you leaving us for good?’ Before the farmer could answer there was a shrill cry from inside the churn on the cart, ‘Yes, yes, we are flitting from Hendrefawr to Eingl-dud, where we’ve got a new home.’ It was the Bwbach that spoke. He was flitting with the household goods, and the farmer’s little plan to be rid of him was a complete failure. The good man sighed as he turned his horses about and went back to Hendrefawr by the same road he had come.

The famous Pwca of the Trwyn Farm, in Mynyddyslwyn parish, came there from his firstabode, at Pantygasseg, in a jug of barm. One of the farm-servants brought the jug to Pantygasseg, and as she was being served with the barm in the jug, the Pwca was heard to say, ‘The Pwca is going away now in this jug of barm, and he’ll never come back;’ and he was never heard at Pantygasseg again. Another story tells that a servant let fall a ball of yarn, over the ledge of the hill whose base is washed by the two fishponds between Hafod-yr-Ynys and Pontypool, and the Pwca said, ‘I am going in this ball, and I’ll go to the Trwyn, and never come back,’—and directly the ball was seen to roll down the hillside, and across the valley, ascending the hill on the other side, and trundling along briskly across the mountain top to its new abode.

Fairy Money and Fairy Gifts in General—The Story of Gitto Bach, or Little Griffith—The Penalty of Blabbing—Legends of the Shepherds of Cwm Llan—The Money Value of Kindness—Ianto Llewellyn and the Tylwyth Teg—The Legend of Hafod Lwyddog—Lessons inculcated by these Superstitions.

‘This is fairy gold, boy, and ’twill prove so,’ says the old shepherd in ‘Winter’s Tale;’ sagely adding, ‘Up with it, keep it close; home, home, the next way. We are lucky, boy, and to be so still, requires nothing but secrecy.’[59]Here we have the traditional belief of the Welsh peasantry in a nut-shell. Fairy money is as good as any, so long as its source is kept a profound secret; if the finder relate the particulars of his good fortune, it will vanish. Sometimes—especially in cases where the money has been spent—the evil result of tattling consists in there being no further favours of the sort. The same law governs fairy gifts of all kinds. A Breconshire legend tells of the generosity of the Tylwyth Teg in presenting the peasantry with loaves of bread, which turned to toadstools next morning; it was necessary to eat the bread in darkness and silence to avoid this transformation. The story of Gitto Bach, a familiar one in Wales, is a picturesque example. Gitto Bach (little Griffith), a good little farmer’s boy of Glamorganshire, used often to ramble to the top of the mountain to look after his father’s sheep.On his return he would show his brothers and sisters pieces of remarkably white paper, like crown pieces, with letters stamped upon them, which he said were given to him by the little children with whom he played on the mountain. One day he did not return. For two years nothing was heard of him. Meantime other children occasionally got like crown-pieces of paper from the mountains. One morning when Gitto’s mother opened the door there he sat—the truant!—dressed exactly as he was when she saw him last, two years before. He had a little bundle under his arm. ‘Where in the world have you been all this time?’ asked the mother, ‘Why, it’s only yesterday I went away!’ quoth Gitto. ‘Look at the pretty clothes the children gave me on the mountain, for dancing with them to the music of their harps.’ With this he opened his bundle, and showed a handsome dress; and behold, it was only paper, like the fairy money.

FOOTNOTE:[59]‘Winter’s Tale,’ Act III., Sc. 3.

FOOTNOTE:

[59]‘Winter’s Tale,’ Act III., Sc. 3.

But usually, throughout Wales, it is simply a discontinuance of fairy favour which follows blabbing. A legend is connected with a bridge in Anglesea, of a lad who often saw the fairies there, and profited by their generosity. Every morning, while going to fetch his father’s cows from pasture, he saw them, and after they were gone he always found a groat on a certain stone of Cymmunod Bridge. The boy’s having money so often about him excited his father’s suspicion, and one Sabbath day he cross-questioned the lad as to the manner in which it was obtained. Oh, the meddlesomeness of fathers! Of course the poor boy confessed that it was through the medium of the fairies, and of course, though he often went after this to the field, he never found any money onthe bridge, nor saw the offended Tylwyth Teg again. Through his divulging the secret their favour was lost.

Jones tells a similar story of a young woman named Anne William Francis, in the parish of Bassalleg, who on going by night into a little grove of wood near the house, heard pleasant music, and saw a company of fairies dancing on the grass. She took a pail of water there, thinking it would gratify them. The next time she went there she had a shilling given her, ‘and so had for several nights after, until she had twenty-one shillings.’ But her mother happening to find the money, questioned her as to where she got it, fearing she had stolen it. At first the girl would not tell, but when her mother ‘went very severe on her,’ and threatened to beat her, she confessed she got the money from the fairies. After that they never gave her any more. The Prophet adds: ‘I have heard of other places where people have had money from the fairies, sometimes silver sixpences, but most commonly copper coin. As they cannot make money, it certainly must be money lost or concealed by persons.’ The Euhemerism of this is hardly like the wonder-loving Jones.

In the legends of the two shepherds of Cwm Llan and their experience with the fairies, the first deals with the secrecy feature, while the second reproduces the often-impressed lesson concerning the money value of kindness. The first is as follows: One evening a shepherd, who had been searching for his sheep on the side of Nant y Bettws, after crossing Bwlch Cwm Llan, espied a number of little people singing and dancing, and some of the prettiest damsels he ever set eyes on preparing a feast. He went tothem and partook of the meal, and thought he had never tasted anything to equal those dishes. When it became dusk they pitched their tents, and the shepherd had never seen before such beautiful things as they had about them there. They provided him with a soft feather-bed and sheets of the finest linen, and he retired, feeling like a prince. But on the morrow, lo and behold! his bed was but a bush of bulrushes, and his pillow a tuft of moss. He however found in his shoes some pieces of silver, and afterwards, for a long time, he continued to find once a week a piece of silver placed between two stones near the spot where he had lain. One day he divulged his secret to another, and the weekly coin was never placed there again.

There was another shepherd near Cwm Llan, who heard some strange noise in a crevice of a rock, and turning to see what it was, found there a singular creature who wept bitterly. He took it out and saw it to be a fairy child, but whilst he was looking at it compassionately, two middle-aged men came to him and thanked him courteously for his kindness, and on leaving him presented him with a staff as a token of remembrance of the occasion. The following year every sheep he possessed bore two ewe lambs. They continued to thus breed for years to come; but one very dark and stormy night, having stayed very late in the village, in crossing the river that comes down from Cwm Llan, there being a great flood sweeping everything before it, he dropped his staff into the river and saw it no more. On the morrow he found that nearly all his sheep and lambs, like his staff, had been swept away by the flood. His wealth had departed from him in the same way as it came—with the staff which he had received from the guardians of the fairy child.

A Pembrokeshire Welshman told me this story as a tradition well known in that part of Wales. Ianto Llewellyn was a man who lived in the parish of Llanfihangel, not more than fifty or eighty years ago, and who had precious good reason to believe in the fairies. He used to keep his fire of coal balls burning all night long, out of pure kindness of heart, in case the Tylwyth Teg should be cold. That they came into his kitchen every night he was well aware; he often heard them. One night when they were there as usual, Ianto was lying wide awake and heard them say, ‘I wish we had some good bread and cheese this cold night, but the poor man has only a morsel left; and though it’s true that would be a good meal for us, it is but a mouthful to him, and he might starve if we took it.’ At this Ianto cried out at the top of his voice, ‘Take anything I’ve got in my cupboard and welcome to you!’ Then he turned over and went to sleep. The next morning, when he descended into the kitchen, he looked in his cupboard, to see if by good luck there might be a bit of crust there. He had no sooner opened the cupboard door than he cried out, ‘O’r anwyl! what’s this?’ for there stood the finest cheese he had ever seen in his life, with two loaves of bread on top of it. ‘Lwc dda i ti!’ cried Ianto, waving his hand toward the wood where he knew the fairies lived; ‘good luck to you! May you never be hungry or penniless!’ And he had not got the words out of his mouth when he saw—what do you think?—a shilling on the hob! But that was the lucky shilling. Every morning after this, when Ianto got up, there was the shilling on the hob—another one, you mind, for he’d spent the first for beer and tobacco to gowith his bread and cheese. Well, after that, no man in the parish was better supplied with money than Ianto Llewellyn, though he never did a stroke of work. He had enough to keep his wife in ease and comfort, too, and he got the name of Lucky Ianto. And lucky he might have been to the day of his death but for the curiosity of woman. Betsi his wife was determined to know where all this money came from, and gave the poor man no peace. ‘Wel, naw wfft!’ she cried—which means in English, ‘Nine shames on you’—‘to have a bad secret from your own dear wife!’ ‘But you know, Betsi, if I tell you I’ll never get any more money.’ ‘Ah,’ said she, ‘then it’s the fairies!’ ‘Drato!’ said he—and that means ‘Bother it all’—‘yes—the fairies it is.’ With that he thrust his hands down in his breeches pockets in a sullen manner and left the house. He had had seven shillings in his pockets up to that minute, and he went feeling for them with his fingers, and found they were gone. In place of them were some pieces of paper fit only to light his pipe. And from that day the fairies brought him no more money.

The lesson of generosity is taught with force and simplicity in the legend of Hafod Lwyddog, and the necessity for secrecy is quite abandoned. Again it is a shepherd, who dwelt at Cwm Dyli, and who went every summer to live in a cabin by the Green Lake (Llyn Glas) along with his fold. One morning on awaking from sleep he saw a good-looking damsel dressing an infant close by his side. She had very little in which to wrap the babe, so he threw her an old shirt of his own, and bade her place it about the child. She thanked him and departed. Every night thereafter the shepherd found a piece of silver placedin an old clog in his cabin. Years and years this good luck continued, and Meirig the shepherd became immensely wealthy. He married a lovely girl, and went to the Hafod Lwyddog to live. Whatever he undertook prospered—hence the name Hafod Lwyddog, for Lwydd means prosperity. The fairies paid nightly visits to the Hafod. No witch or evil sprite could harm this people, as Bendith y Mamau was poured down upon the family, and all their descendants.[60]

FOOTNOTE:[60]‘Cymru Fu,’ 472.

FOOTNOTE:

[60]‘Cymru Fu,’ 472.

The thought will naturally occur that by fostering belief in such tales as some of the foregoing, roguery might make the superstition useful in silencing inquiry as to ill-gotten gains. But on the other hand the virtues of hospitality and generosity were no doubt fostered by the same influences. If any one was favoured by the fairies in this manner, the immediate explanation was, that he had done a good turn to them, generally without suspecting who they were. The virtues of neatness, in young girls and servants, were encouraged by the like notions; the belief that a fairy will leave money only on a clean-kept hob, could tend to nothing more directly. It was also made a condition of pleasing the Tylwyth Teg that the hearth should be carefully swept and the pails left full of water. Then the fairies would come at midnight, continue their revels till daybreak, sing the well-known strain of ‘Toriad y Dydd,’ or ‘The Dawn,’ leave a piece of money on the hob, and disappear. Here is seen a precaution against fire in the clean-swept hearth and the provision of filled water-pails. That the promised reward did not always arrive, was not evidence it would never arrive; and so the virtue of perseverance was also fostered.

Superstitions of this class are widely prevalent among Aryan peoples. The ‘Arabian Nights’ story of the old rogue whose money turned to leaves will be recalled. In Danish folk-lore, the fairy money bestowed on the boors turns sometimes to pebbles, and sometimes grows hot and burns their fingers, so that they drop it, when it sinks into the earth.

Music notation for Toriad y Dydd

[Listen.]

Origins of Welsh Fairies—The Realistic Theory—Legend of the Baron’s Gate—The Red Fairies—The Trwyn Fairy a Proscribed Nobleman—The Theory of hiding Druids—Colour in Welsh Fairy Attire—The Green Lady of Caerphilly—White the favourite Welsh Hue—Legend of the Prolific Woman—The Poetico-Religious Theory—The Creed of Science.

Concerning the origin of the Tylwyth Teg, there are two popular explanations, the one poetico-religious in its character, the other practical and realistic. Both are equally wide of the truth, the true origin of fairies being found in the primeval mythology; but as my purpose is to avoid enlarging in directions generally familiar to the student, I have only to present the local aspects of this, as of the other features of the subject.

The realistic theory of the origin of the Tylwyth Teg must be mentioned respectfully, because among its advocates have been men of culture and good sense. This theory presumes that the first fairies were men and women of mortal flesh and blood, and that the later superstitions are a mere echo of tales which first were told of real beings. In quasi-support of this theory, there is a well-authenticated tradition of a race of beings who, in the middle of the sixteenth century, inhabited the Wood of the Great Dark Wood (Coed y Dugoed Mawr) in Merionethshire, and who were called the Red Fairies. They lived in dens in the ground, had fiery red hair and long strong arms, and stole sheepand cattle by night. There are cottages in Cemmaes parish, near the Wood of the Great Dark Wood, with scythes in the chimneys, which were put there to keep these terrible beings out. One Christmas eve a valiant knight named Baron Owen headed a company of warriors who assailed the Red Fairies, and found them flesh and blood. The Baron hung a hundred of them; but spared the women, one of whom begged hard for the life of her son. The Baron refused her prayer, whereupon she opened her breast and shrieked, ‘This breast has nursed other sons than he, who will yet wash their hands in thy blood, Baron Owen!’ Not very long thereafter, the Baron was waylaid at a certain spot by the sons of the ‘fairy’ woman, who washed their hands in his warm and reeking blood, in fulfilment of their mother’s threat. And to this day that spot goes by the name of Llidiart y Barwn (the Baron’s Gate); any peasant of the neighbourhood will tell you the story, as one told it to me. There is of course no better foundation for the fairy features of it than the fancies of the ignorant mind, but the legend itself is—very nearly in this shape—historical. The beings in question were a band of outlaws, who might naturally find it to their interest to foster belief in their supernatural powers.

The so-called Pwca’r Trwyn, which haunted the farm-house in the parish of Mynyddyslwyn, is sometimes cited as another case in which a fairy was probably a being of flesh and blood; and if this be true, it of course proves nothing but the adoption of an ancient superstition by a proscribed Welsh nobleman. There is a tradition that this fairy had a name, and that this name was ‘yr ArglwyddHywel,’ which is in English ‘Lord Howell.’ And it is argued that this Lord, in a contest with the forces of the English king, was utterly worsted, and driven into hiding; that his tenants at Pantygasseg and the Trwyn Farm, loving their Lord, helped to hide him, and to disseminate the belief that he was a household fairy, or Bwbach. It is related that he generally spoke from his own room in this farm-house, in a gentle voice which ‘came down between the boards’ into the common room beneath. One day the servants were comparing their hands, as to size and whiteness, when the fairy was heard to say, ‘The Pwca’s hand is the fairest and smallest.’ The servants asked if the fairy would show its hand, and immediately a plank overhead was moved and a hand appeared, small, fair and beautifully formed, with a large gold ring on the little finger.

Curiously interesting is the hypothesis concerning the realistic origin of the Tylwyth Teg, which was put forth at the close of the last century by several writers, among them the Rev. Peter Roberts, author of the ‘Collectanea Cambrica.’ This hypothesis precisely accounts for the fairies anciently as being the Druids, in hiding from their enemies, or if not they, other persons who had such cause for living concealed in subterraneous places, and venturing forth only at night. ‘Some conquered aborigines,’ thought Dr. Guthrie; while Mr. Roberts fancied that as the Irish had frequently landed hostilely in Wales, ‘it was very possible that some small bodies of that nation left behind, or unable to return, and fearing discovery, had hid themselves in caverns during the day, and sent their children out at night, fantastically dressed, for food and exercise, and thussecured themselves.’ But there were objections to this presumption, and the Druidical theory was the favourite one. Says Mr. Roberts: ‘The fairy customs appeared evidently too systematic, and too general, to be those of an accidental party reduced to distress. They are those of a consistent and regular policy instituted to prevent discovery, and to inspire fear of their power, and a high opinion of their beneficence. Accordingly tradition notes, that to attempt to discover them was to incur certain destruction. “They are fairies,” says Falstaff: “he that looks on them shall die.” They were not to be impeded in ingress or egress; a bowl of milk was to be left for them at night on the hearth; and, in return, they left a small present in money when they departed, if the house was kept clean; if not, they inflicted some punishment on the negligent, which, as it was death to look on them, they were obliged to suffer, and no doubt but many unlucky tricks were played on such occasions. Their general dress was green, that they might be the better concealed; and, as their children might have betrayed their haunts, they seem to have been suffered to go out only in the night time, and to have been entertained by dances on moonlight nights. These dances, like those round the Maypole, have been said to be performed round a tree; and on an elevated spot, mostly a tumulus, beneath which was probably their habitation, or its entrance. The older persons, probably, mixed as much as they dared with the world; and, if they happened to be at any time recognised, the certainty of their vengeance was their safety. If by any chance their society was thinned, they appear to have stolen children, and changed feeble for strong infants. The stolen children, if beyond infancy, being broughtinto their subterraneous dwellings, seem to have had a soporific given them, and to have been carried to a distant part of the country; and, being there allowed to go out merely by night, mistook the night for the day, and probably were not undeceived until it could be done securely. The regularity and generality of this system shows that there was a body of people existing in the kingdom distinct from its known inhabitants, and either confederated, or obliged to live or meet mysteriously; and their rites, particularly that of dancing round a tree, probably an oak, as Herne’s, etc., as well as their character for truth and probity, refer them to a Druidic origin. If this was the case, it is easy to conceive, as indeed history shows, that, as the Druids were persecuted by the Romans and Christians, they used these means to preserve themselves and their families, and whilst the country was thinly peopled, and thickly wooded, did so successfully; and, perhaps, to a much later period than is imagined: till the increase of population made it impossible. As the Druidical was one of the most ancient religions, so it must have been one of the first persecuted, and forced to form a regular plan of security, which their dwelling in caves may have suggested, and necessity improved.’

It will be observed that one of the points in this curious speculation rests on the green dress of the fairies. I do not call attention to it with any Quixotic purpose of disputing the conclusion it assists; it is far more interesting as one feature of the general subject of fairies’ attire. The Welsh fairies are described with details as to colour in costume not commonly met with in fairy tales, a fact to which Ihave before alluded. In the legend of the Place of Strife, the Tylwyth Teg encountered by the women are called ‘the old elves of the blue petticoat.’ A connection with the blue of the sky has here been suggested. It has also been pointed out that the sacred Druidical dress was blue. The blue petticoat fancy seems to be local to North Wales. In Cardiganshire, the tradition respecting an encampment called Moyddin, which the fairies frequented, is that they were always in green dresses, and were never seen there but in the vernal month of May. There is a Glamorganshire goblin called the Green Lady of Caerphilly, the colour of whose dress is indicated by her title. She haunts the ruin of Caerphilly Castle at night, wearing a green robe, and has the power of turning herself into ivy and mingling with the ivy growing on the wall. A more ingenious mode of getting rid of a goblin was perhaps never invented. The fairies of Frennifawr, in Pembrokeshire, were on the contrary gorgeous in scarlet, with red caps, and feathers waving in the wind as they danced. But others were in white, and this appears to be the favourite hue of modern Welsh fairy costume, when the Tylwyth Teg are in holiday garb. These various details of colour are due to the fervour of the Welsh fancy, of course, and perhaps their variety may in part be ascribed to a keener sense of the fitness of things among moderns than was current in earlier times. White, to the Welsh, would naturally be the favourite colour for a beautiful creature, dancing in the moonlight on the velvet sward. The most popular pet name for a Welsh lass is to-day exactly what it has been for centuries, viz., Gwenny, the diminutive of Gwenllian (Anglicised into Gwendoline)—a name which means simply white linen; and the whitecostume of the favourite fairies undoubtedly signifies a dress of white linen. This fabric, common as it is in our day, was in ancient times of inestimable value. In the Mabinogion, linen is repeatedly particularised in the gorgeous descriptions of fabled splendour in princely castles—linen, silk, satin, velvet, gold-lace, and jewels, are the constantly-recurring features of sumptuous attire. In his account of the royal tribes of Wales, Yorke mentions that linen was so rare in the reign of Charles VII. of France (i.e., in the fifteenth century) ‘that her majesty the queen could boast of only two shifts of that commodity.’ The first cause of the fairies’ robes being white is evidently to be discerned here; and in Wales the ancient sentiment as to whiteness remains. The Welsh peasantry, coarsely and darkly clad themselves, would make white a purely holiday colour, and devise some other hue for such commoner fairies as the Bwbach and his sort:

The coarse and country fairy,That doth haunt the hearth and dairy.[61]

So the Bwbach is usually brown, often hairy; and the Coblynau are black or copper-coloured in face as well as dress.

FOOTNOTE:[61]Jonson, Masque of ‘Oberon.’

FOOTNOTE:

[61]Jonson, Masque of ‘Oberon.’

A local legend of the origin of fairies in Anglesea mingles the practical and the spiritual in this manner: ‘In our Saviour’s time there lived a woman whose fortune it was to be possessed of nearly a score of children, ... and as she saw our blessed Lord approach her dwelling, being ashamed of being so prolific, and that He might not see them all, she concealed about half of them closely, and after his departure, when she went in search of them, to hergreat surprise found they were all gone. They never afterwards could be discovered, for it was supposed that as a punishment from heaven for hiding what God had given her, she was deprived of them; and it is said these her offspring have generated the race called fairies.’[62]

FOOTNOTE:[62]‘Camb. Sup.,’ 118.

FOOTNOTE:

[62]‘Camb. Sup.,’ 118.

The common or popular theory, however, is in Wales the poetico-religious one. This is, in a word, the belief that the Tylwyth Teg are the souls of dead mortals not bad enough for hell nor good enough for heaven. They are doomed to live on earth, to dwell in secret places, until the resurrection day, when they will be admitted into paradise. Meantime they must be either incessantly toiling or incessantly playing, but their toil is fruitless and their pleasure unsatisfying. A variation of this general belief holds these souls to be the souls of the ancient Druids, a fancy which is specially impressive, as indicating the duration of their penance, and reminds us of the Wandering Jew myth. It is confined mainly to the Coblynau, or dwellers in mines and caves. Another variation considers the fairies bad spirits of still remoter origin—the same in fact who were thrown over the battlements of heaven along with Satan, but did not fall into hell—landed on the earth instead, where they are permitted to tarry till doomsday as above. A detail of this theory is in explanation of the rare appearance of fairies nowadays; they are refraining from mischief in view of the near approach of the judgment, with the hope of thus conciliating heaven.

The Prophet Jones, in explaining why the fairies have been so active in Wales, expounds the poetico-religious theory in masterly form. After stating thatsome in Monmouthshire were so ignorant as to think the fairies happy spirits, because they had music and dancing among them, he proceeds to assert, in the most emphatic terms, that the Tylwyth Teg are nothing else, ‘after all the talking about them,’ but the disembodied spirits of men who lived and died without the enjoyment of the means of grace and salvation, as Pagans and others, and whose punishment therefore is far less severe than that of those who have enjoyed the means of salvation. ‘But some persons may desire to know why these fairies have appeared in Wales more than in some other countries? to which I answer, that I can give no other reason but this, that having lost the light of the true religion in the eighth and ninth centuries of Christianity, and received Popery in its stead, it became dark night upon them; and then these spirits of darkness became more bold and intruding; and the people, as I said before, in their great ignorance seeing them like a company of children in dry clean places, dancing and having music among them, thought them to be some happy beings, ... and made them welcome in their houses.... The Welsh entered into familiarity with the fairies in the time of Henry IV., and the evil then increased; the severe laws of that prince enjoining, among other things, that they were not to bring up their children to learning, etc., by which a total darkness came upon them; which cruel laws were occasioned by the rebellion of Owen Glandwr, and the Welsh which joined with him; foolishly thinking to shake off the Saxon yoke before they had repented of their sins.’

Whatever their locally accepted causes of being may be, it is beyond any question that in the fairy folk-lore of Wales, as of other lands, are to be found thedébrisof ancient mythology—scintillantfragments of those magic constellations which glow in the darkness of primeval time, grand and majestic as the vast Unknown out of which they were evolved by barbaric fancy. Through the aid of modern scientific research, ‘those ages which the myths of centuries have peopled with heroic shadows’[63]are brought nearer to us, and the humble Welsh Tylwyth Teg may reach back and shake hands with the Olympian gods.

Fairies visit the Olympian Gods

“The humble ‘Tylwyth Teg’ shake hands with the Olympian Gods”

FOOTNOTE:[63]Marquis of Bute, address before the Royal Archæological Institute, Cardiff meeting.

FOOTNOTE:

[63]Marquis of Bute, address before the Royal Archæological Institute, Cardiff meeting.

Where the wan spectres walk eternal rounds.Pope.

Where the wan spectres walk eternal rounds.

Pope.

Miranda.What is’t? a spirit?Lord, how it looks about! Believe me, sir,It carries a brave form:—But ’tis a spirit.Shakspeare:Tempest.

Miranda.What is’t? a spirit?Lord, how it looks about! Believe me, sir,It carries a brave form:—But ’tis a spirit.

Shakspeare:Tempest.

Modern Superstition regarding Ghosts—American ‘Spiritualism’—Welsh Beliefs—Classification of Welsh Ghosts—Departed Mortals—Haunted Houses—Lady Stradling’s Ghost—The Haunted Bridge—The Legend of Catrin Gwyn—Didactic Purpose in Cambrian Apparitions—An Insulted Corpse—Duty-performing Ghosts—Laws of the Spirit-World—Cadogan’s Ghost.

In an age so given to mysticism as our own, it is unnecessary to urge that the Welsh as a people are not more superstitious regarding spirits than other peoples. Belief in the visits to earth of disembodied spirits is common to all lands. There are no doubt differences in the degree of this belief, as there are differences in matters of detail. Where or how these spirits exist are questions much more difficult to the average faith than why they exist. They exist for the moral good of man; of this there prevails no doubt. The rest belongs to the stillunsettled science of the Unknowable. That form of mysticism called ‘spiritualism’ by its disciples is dignified to the thoughtful observer by being viewed as a remnant of the primeval philosophy. When we encounter, in wandering among the picturesque ghosts of the Welsh spirit-world, last-century stories displaying details exactly similar to those of modern spiritualism, our interest is strongly aroused. The student of folk-lore finds his materials in stories and beliefs which appear to be of a widespread family, rather than in stories and beliefs which are unique; and the spirit of inquiry is constantly on the alert, in following the details of a good old ghost story, however fascinating it may be in a poetic sense. The phantoms of the Welsh spirit-world are always picturesque; they are often ghastly; sometimes they are amusing to the point of risibility; but besides, they are instructive to him whose purpose in studying is, to know.

That this age is superstitious with regard to ghosts, is not wonderful; all ages have been so; the wonder is that this age should be so and yet be the possessor of a scientific record so extraordinary as its own. An age which has brought forth the magnetic telegraph, steamships and railway engines, sewing-machines, mowing-machines, gas-light, and innumerable discoveries and inventions of marvellous utility—not to allude to those of our own decade—should have no other use for ghostology than a scientific one. But it would be a work as idle as that of the Coblynau themselves, to point out how universal among the most civilised nations is the superstition that spirits walk. The ‘controls’ of the modern spiritualistic seance have the world for their audience. The United States, a land generally deemed—at least by its inhabitants—to be the mostadvanced in these directions of any on God’s footstool, gave birth to modern spiritualism. Its disciples there compose a vast body of people, respectable and worthy people in the main (as the victims of superstition usually are), among whom are many men of high intellectual ability. With the masses, some degree of belief in the spirits is so nearly universal that I need hardly qualify the adjective. In a country where there is practically no such class as that represented in Europe by the peasantry, the rampancy of such a belief is a phenomenon deserving close and curious study. The present work affords no scope for this study, of course. But I may here mention in further illustration of my immediate theme, the constant appearance, in American communities, of ghosts of the old-fashioned sort. Especially in the New England states, which are notable for their enlightenment, are ghost-stories still frequent—such as that of the haunted school-house at Newburyport, Mass., where a disembodied spirit related its own murder; of the ghost of New Bedford, which struck a visitor in the face, so that he yet bears the marks of the blow; of the haunted house at Cambridge, in the classic shadow of Harvard College. It is actually on record in the last-named case, that the house fell to decay on account of its ghastly reputation, as no one would live in it; that a tenant who ventured to occupy it in 1877 was disturbed by the spirit of a murdered girl who said her mortal bones were buried in his cellar; and that a party of men actually dug all night in that cellar in search of those bones, while the ghost waltzed in a chamber overhead. The more common form of spirit peculiar to our time appears constantly in various parts of the country; it is continually turning up in the American newspapers, rapping on walls, throwing stones,tipping over tables, etc. ‘Mediums’ of every grade of shrewdness and stupidity, and widely differing degrees of education and ignorance, flourish abundantly. Occasionally, where revelations of murder have been made to a mortal by a spirit, the police have taken the matter in hand. It is to be observed as a commendable practice in such cases, that the mortal is promptly arrested by the police if there has really been a murder; and when the fact appears, as it sometimes does, that the mortal had need of no ghost to tell him what he knows, he is hanged.

The Welsh dearly love to discuss questions of a spiritual and religious nature, and there are no doubt many who look upon disbelief herein as something approaching paganism. That one should believe in God and a future life, and yet be utterly incredulous as to the existence of a mundane spirit-world, seems to such minds impossible. It is not many years since the clergy taught a creed of this sort. One must not only believe in a spiritual existence, but must believe in that existence here below—must believe that ghosts walked, and meddled, and made disagreeable noises. Our friend the Prophet Jones taught this creed with energy. In his relation of apparitions in Monmouthshire, he says: ‘Enough is said in these relations to satisfy any reasonable sober-minded person, and to confute this ancient heresy, now much revived and spreading, especially among the gentry, and persons much estranged from God and spiritual things; and such as will not be satisfied with things plainly proved and well designed; are, in this respect, no better than fools, and to be despised as such.... They are chiefly women and men of weak and womanishunderstandings, who speak against the accounts of spirits and apparitions. In some women this comes from a certain proud fineness, excessive delicacy, and a superfine disposition which cannot bear to be disturbed with what is strange and disagreeable to a vain spirit.’ Nor does the Prophet hesitate to apply the term ‘Sadducees’ to all doubters of his goblins. His warrant for this is found in Wesley and Luther. That Luther saw apparitions, or believed he did, is commonly known. Wesley’s beliefs in this direction, however, are of a nearer century, and strike us more strangely; though it must be said that the Prophet Jones, in our own century, believed more than either of his eminent prototypes. ‘It is true,’ wrote Wesley, ‘that the English in general, and indeed most of the men in Europe, have given up all accounts of witches and apparitions as mere old wives’ fables. I am sorry for it, and I willingly take this opportunity of entering my solemn protest against this violent compliment which so many that believe the Bible pay to those who donotbelieve it.... They well know, whether Christians know it or not, that the giving up witchcraft is, in effect, giving up the Bible. And they know, on the other hand, that if but one account of the intercourse of men with separate spirits be admitted, their whole castle in the air—deism, atheism, materialism—falls to the ground.’

The ghosts of Wales present many well-defined features. It is even possible to classify them, after a fashion. Of course, as with all descriptions of phantoms, the vagueness inevitable in creatures of the imagination is here; but the ghosts of Welsh tradition are often so old, and have been handeddown so cleanly through successive generations, that in our day they have almost acquired definite outlines, as in the case of images arising from the perceptions. Always bearing in mind the risk of being lost in the labyrinthine eccentricities of popular fancy, compared to which the Arsinoë of Herodotus was unperplexing, I venture to classify the inhabitants of the Welsh spirit-world thus: 1. Departed Mortals; 2. Goblin Animals; 3. Spectres of Natural Objects; 4. Grotesque Ghosts; 5. Familiar Spirits; 6. Death Omens.

The ghosts of departed mortals are usually the late personal acquaintances of the people who see them. But sometimes they are strangers whom nobody knows, and concerning whom everybody is curious. Two such ghosts haunted the streets of Ebbw Vale, in Glamorganshire, in January, 1877. One was in the shape of an old woman, the other in that of a girl child. Timid people kept indoors after nightfall, and there were many who believed thoroughly in the ghostly character of the mysterious visitors. Efforts were made to catch them, but they eluded capture. It was hinted by materialists that they were thieves; by unbelievers in spiritualism that they had perhaps escaped from a seance in some adjoining town. These ghosts, however, are not very interesting. A cultivated moderner can have no satisfaction in forming the acquaintance of a seance ghost; it is quite otherwise in the case of a respectable old family goblin which has haunted a friend’s house in the most orthodox manner for centuries. Such ghosts are numerous in Wales, and quite faithfully believed in by selected individuals. Indeed one of the highest claims to a dignifiedantiquity that can be put in by a Welsh family mansion, is the possession of a good old-fashioned blood-curdling spectre—like that, for example, which has haunted Duffryn House, a handsome stone manse near Cardiff, for the past two hundred years and more. This is the ghost of the doughty admiral Sir Thomas Button, famed in his day as an Arctic navigator. Since his death he has faithfully haunted (so the local farm folk say) the cellar and the garden of Duffryn House, where he lived, when he did live, which was in the 17th century. He has never been known to appear in hall or chamber of the mansion, within the memory of man, but has been seen hovering over the beer butt or tun in the cellar, commemorated in his name, and walking in the flower-garden of a fine windy night.

It is noteworthy that in Wales it is by no means necessary that a house should be tenantless, mortally speaking, merely because a ghost haunts it. The dreary picture of desolation drawn by Hood, the all-sufficient explanation of which was—

Back to Index Next