The Project Gutenberg eBook ofBritish Goblins: Welsh Folk-lore, Fairy Mythology, Legends and Traditions

The Project Gutenberg eBook ofBritish Goblins: Welsh Folk-lore, Fairy Mythology, Legends and TraditionsThis ebook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this ebook or online atwww.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this eBook.Title: British Goblins: Welsh Folk-lore, Fairy Mythology, Legends and TraditionsAuthor: Wirt SikesIllustrator: T. H. ThomasRelease date: December 20, 2010 [eBook #34704]Most recently updated: January 7, 2021Language: EnglishCredits: Produced by David Edwards, Lesley Halamek (who transcribedthe music), Sam W. and the Online Distributed ProofreadingTeam at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced fromimages generously made available by The Internet Archive)*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BRITISH GOBLINS: WELSH FOLK-LORE, FAIRY MYTHOLOGY, LEGENDS AND TRADITIONS ***

This ebook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this ebook or online atwww.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this eBook.

Title: British Goblins: Welsh Folk-lore, Fairy Mythology, Legends and TraditionsAuthor: Wirt SikesIllustrator: T. H. ThomasRelease date: December 20, 2010 [eBook #34704]Most recently updated: January 7, 2021Language: EnglishCredits: Produced by David Edwards, Lesley Halamek (who transcribedthe music), Sam W. and the Online Distributed ProofreadingTeam at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced fromimages generously made available by The Internet Archive)

Title: British Goblins: Welsh Folk-lore, Fairy Mythology, Legends and Traditions

Author: Wirt SikesIllustrator: T. H. Thomas

Author: Wirt Sikes

Illustrator: T. H. Thomas

Release date: December 20, 2010 [eBook #34704]Most recently updated: January 7, 2021

Language: English

Credits: Produced by David Edwards, Lesley Halamek (who transcribedthe music), Sam W. and the Online Distributed ProofreadingTeam at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced fromimages generously made available by The Internet Archive)

*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BRITISH GOBLINS: WELSH FOLK-LORE, FAIRY MYTHOLOGY, LEGENDS AND TRADITIONS ***

WIRT SIKES,UNITED STATES CONSUL FOR WALES.

WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY T. H. THOMAS.

In olde dayes of the Kyng Arthour ...Al was this lond fulfilled of fayrie.Chaucer.

LONDON:SAMPSON LOW, MARSTON, SEARLE, & RIVINGTON,CROWN BUILDINGS, 188 FLEET STREET.1880.

LONDON:PRINTED BY WILLIAM CLOWES AND SONS,STAMFORD STREET AND CHARING CROSS.

A couple look up at a woman on the hillside

THE OLD WOMAN OF THE MOUNTAIN.

TOHIS ROYAL HIGHNESS,ALBERT EDWARD, PRINCE OF WALES,THIS ACCOUNT OFTHE FAIRY MYTHOLOGY AND FOLK-LOREOF HIS PRINCIPALITYIS BY PERMISSION DEDICATED.

In the ground it covers, while this volume deals especially with Wales, and still more especially with South Wales—where there appear to have been human dwellers long before North Wales was peopled—it also includes the border counties, notably Monmouthshire, which, though severed from Wales by Act of Parliament, is really very Welsh in all that relates to the past. In Monmouthshire is the decayed cathedral city of Caerleon, where, according to tradition, Arthur was crowned king in 508, and where he set up his most dazzling court, as told in the ‘Morte d’Arthur.’

In a certain sense Wales may be spoken of as the cradle of fairy legend. It is not now disputed that from the Welsh were borrowed many of the first subjects of composition in the literature of all the cultivated peoples of Europe.

The Arthur of British history and tradition stands to Welshmen in much the same light that Alfred the Great stands to Englishmen. Around this historic or semi-historic Arthur have gathered athrong of shining legends of fabulous sort, with which English readers are more or less familiar. An even grander figure is the Arthur who existed in Welsh mythology before the birth of the warrior-king. The mythic Arthur, it is presumed, began his shadowy life in pre-historic ages, and grew progressively in mythologic story, absorbing at a certain period the personality of the real Arthur, and becoming the type of romantic chivalry. A similar state of things is indicated with regard to the enchanter Merlin; there was a mythic Merlin before the real Merlin was born at Carmarthen.

With the rich mass of legendary lore to which these figures belong, the present volume is not intended to deal; nor do its pages treat, save in the most casual and passing manner, of the lineage and original significance of the lowly goblins which are its theme. The questions here involved, and the task of adequately treating them, belong to the comparative mythologist and the critical historian, rather than to the mere literary workman.

United States Consulate, Cardiff,August, 1879.

BOOK I.THE REALM OF FAERIE.

CHAPTER I.PAGEFairy Tales and the Ancient Mythology—The Compensations of Science—Existing Belief in Fairies in Wales—The Faith of Culture—The Credulity of Ignorance—The Old-Time Welsh Fairyland—The Fairy King—The Legend of St. Collen and Gwyn ap Nudd—The Green Meadows of the Sea—Fairies at Market—The Land of Mystery1CHAPTER II.Classification of Welsh Fairies—General Designation—Habits of the Tylwyth Teg—Ellyllon, or Elves—Shakspeare’s Use of Welsh Folk-Lore—Rowli Pugh and the Ellyll—Household Story Roots—The Ellylldan—The Pooka—Puck Valley, Breconshire—Where Shakspeare got his Puck—Pwca’r Trwyn—Usual Form of the Pooka Story—Coblynau, or Mine Fairies—The Knockers—Miners’ Superstitions—Basilisks and Fire Fiends—A Fairy Coal-mine—The Dwarfs of Cae Caled—Counterparts of the Coblynau—The Bwbach, or Household Fairy—Legend of the Bwbach and the Preacher—Bogies and Hobgoblins—Carrying Mortals through the Air—Counterparts and Originals11CHAPTER III.Lake Fairies—The Gwragedd Annwn, or Dames of Elfin-Land—St. Patrick and the Welshmen; a Legend of Crumlyn Lake—The Elfin Cow of Llyn Barfog—Y Fuwch Laethwen Lefrith—The Legend of the Meddygon Myddfai—The Wife of Supernatural Race—The Three Blows; a Carmarthenshire Legend—Cheese and the Didactic Purpose in Welsh Folk-Lore—The Fairy Maiden’s Papa—The Enchanted Isle in the Mountain Lake—Legend of the Men of Ardudwy—Origin of Water Fairies—Their prevalence in many Lands34CHAPTER IV.Mountain Fairies—The Gwyllion—The Old Woman of the Mountain—The Black Mountain Gwyll—Exorcism by Knife—Occult Intellectual Powers of Welsh Goats—The Legend of Cadwaladr’s Goat49CHAPTER V.Changelings—The Plentyn-newid—The Cruel Creed of Ignorance regarding Changelings—Modes of Ridding the House of the Fairy Child—The Legend of the Frugal Meal—Legend of the Place of Strife—Dewi Dal and the Fairies—Prevention of Fairy Kidnapping—Fairies caught in the Act by Mothers—Piety as an Exorcism56CHAPTER VI.Living with the Tylwyth Teg—The Tale of Elidurus—Shuï Rhys and the Fairies—St. Dogmell’s Parish, Pembrokeshire—Dancing with the Ellyllon—The Legend of Rhys and Llewellyn—Death from joining in the Fairy Reel—Legend of the Bush of Heaven—The Forest of the Magic Yew—The Tale of Twm and Iago—Taffy ap Sion, a Legend of Pencader—The Traditions of Pant Shon Shenkin—Tudur of Llangollen; the Legend of Nant yr Ellyllon—Polly Williams and the Trefethin Elves—The Fairies of Frennifawr—Curiosity Tales—The Fiend Master—Iago ap Dewi—The Original of Rip Van Winkle65CHAPTER VII.Fairy Music—Birds of Enchantment—The Legend of Shon ap Shenkin—Harp-Music in Welsh Fairy Tales—Legend of the Magic Harp—Songs and Tunes of the Tylwyth Teg—The Legend of Iolo ap Hugh—Mystic Origin of an old Welsh Air91CHAPTER VIII.Fairy Rings—The Prophet Jones and his Works—The Mysterious Language of the Tylwyth Teg—The Horse in Welsh Folk-Lore—Equestrian Fairies—Fairy Cattle, Sheep, Swine, etc.—The Flying Fairies of Bedwellty—The Fairy Sheepfold at Cae’r Cefn103CHAPTER IX.Piety as a Protection from the Seductions of the Tylwyth Teg—Various Exorcisms—Cock-crowing—The Name of God—Fencing off the Fairies—Old Betty Griffith and her Eithin Barricade—Means of Getting Rid of the Tylwyth Teg—The Bwbach of the Hendrefawr Farm—The Pwca’r Trwyn’s Flitting in a Jug of Barm112CHAPTER X.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 Superstitions119CHAPTER XI.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 Science127

BOOK II.THE SPIRIT-WORLD.

CHAPTER I.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 Ghost137CHAPTER II.Household Ghosts and Hidden Treasures—The Miser of St. Donat’s—Anne Dewy’s Ghost—The Ghost on Horseback—Hidden Objects of Small Value—Transportation through the Air—From Breconshire to Philadelphia, Pa., in Thirty-Six Hours—Sir David Llwyd, the Magician—The Levitation of Walter Jones—Superstitions regarding Hares—The Legend of Monacella’s Lambs—Aerial Transportation in Modern Spiritualism—Exorcising Household Ghosts—The Story of Haunted Margaret151CHAPTER III.Spectral Animals—The Chained Spirit—The Gwyllgi, or Dog of Darkness—The Legend of Lisworney-Crossways—The Gwyllgi of the Devil’s Nags—The Dog of Pant y Madog—Terrors of the Brute Creation at Phantoms—Apparitions of Natural Objects—Phantom Ships and Phantom Islands167CHAPTER IV.Grotesque Ghosts—The Phantom Horseman—Gigantic Spirits—The Black Ghost of Ffynon yr Yspryd—Black Men in the Mabinogion—Whirling Ghosts—Antic Spirits—The Tridoll Valley Ghost—Resemblance to Modern Spiritualistic Performances—Household Fairies174CHAPTER V.Familiar Spirits—The Famous Sprite of Trwyn Farm—Was it a Fairy?—The Familiar Spirits of Magicians—Sir David Llwyd’s Demon—Familiar Spirits in Female Form—The Legend of the Lady of the Wood—The Devil as a Familiar Spirit—His Disguises in this Character—Summoning and Exorcising Familiars—Jenkin the Pembrokeshire Schoolmaster—The Terrible Tailor of Glanbran187CHAPTER VI.The Evil Spirit in his customary Form—The stupid Medieval Devil in Wales—Sion Cent—The Devil outwitted—Pacts with the Fiend and their Avoidance—Sion Dafydd’s Foul Pipe—The Devil’s Bridge and its Legends—Similar Legends in other Lands—The Devil’s Pulpit near Tintern—Angelic Spirits—Welsh Superstitions as to pronouncing the Name of the Evil Spirit—The Bardic Tradition of the Creation—The Struggle between Light and Darkness and its Symbolization202CHAPTER VII.Cambrian Death-Portents—The Corpse-Bird—The Tan-Wedd—Listening at the Church-Door—The Lledrith—The Gwrach y Rhibyn—The Llandaff Gwrach—Ugliness of this Female Apparition—The Black Maiden—The Cyhyraeth, or Crying Spirit—Its Moans on Land and Sea—The St. Mellons Cyhyraeth—The Groaning Spirit of Bedwellty212CHAPTER VIII.The Tolaeth Death Portent—Its various Forms—The Tolaeth before Death—Ewythr Jenkin’s Tolaeth—A modern Instance—The Railway Victim’s Warning—The Goblin Voice—The Voice from the Cloud—Legend of the Lord and the Beggar—The Goblin Funeral—The Horse’s Skull—The Goblin Veil—The Wraith of Llanllwch—Dogs of Hell—The Tale of Pwyll—Spiritual Hunting Dogs—Origin of the Cwn Annwn225CHAPTER IX.The Corpse Candle—Its Peculiarities—The Woman of Caerau—Grasping a Corpse Candle—The Crwys Candle—Lights issuing from the Mouth—Jesting with the Canwyll Corph—The Candle at Pontfaen—The Three Candles at Golden Grove—Origin of Death-Portents in Wales—Degree of Belief prevalent at the Present Day—Origin of Spirits in General—The Supernatural—The Question of a Future Life238

BOOK III.QUAINT OLD CUSTOMS.

CHAPTER I.Serious Significance of seemingly Trivial Customs—Their Origins—Common Superstitions—The Age we Live in—Days and Seasons—New Year’s Day—The Apple Gift—Lucky Acts on New Year’s Morning—The First Foot—Showmen’s Superstitions—Levy Dew Song—Happy New Year Carol—Twelfth Night—The Mari Lwyd—The Penglog—The Cutty Wren—Tooling and Sowling—St. Valentine’s Day—St. Dewi’s Day—The Wearing of the Leek—The Traditional St. David—St. Patrick’s Day—St. Patrick a Welshman—Shrove Tuesday250CHAPTER II.Sundry Lenten Customs—Mothering Sunday—Palm Sunday—Flowering Sunday—Walking Barefoot to Church—Spiritual Potency of Buns—Good Friday Superstitions—Making Christ’s Bed—Bad Odour of Friday—Unlucky Days—Holy Thursday—The Eagle of Snowdon—New Clothing at Easter—Lifting—The Crown of Porcelain—Stocsio—Ball-Playing in Churchyards—The Tump of Lies—Dancing in Churchyards—Seeing the Sun Dance—Calan Ebrill, or All Fools’ Day—May Day—The Welsh Maypole—The Daughter of Lludd Llaw Ereint—Carrying the Kings of Summer and Winter266CHAPTER III.Midsummer Eve—The Druidic Ceremonies at Pontypridd—The Snake Stone—Beltane Fires—Fourth of July Fires in America—St. Ulric’s Day—Carrying Cynog—Marketing on Tombstones—The First Night of Winter—The Three Nights for Spirits—The Tale of Thomas Williams the Preacher—All Hallows Eve Festivities—Running through Fire—Quaint Border Rhymes—The Puzzling Jug—Bobbing for Apples—The Fiery Features of Guy Fawkes’ Day—St. Clement’s Day—Stripping the Carpenter277CHAPTER IV.Nadolig, the Welsh Christmas—Bell-Ringing—Carols—Dancing to the Music of the Waits—An Evening in Carmarthenshire—Shenkin Harry, the Preacher, and the Jig Tune—Welsh Morality—Eisteddfodau—Decorating Houses and Churches—The Christmas Thrift-box—The Colliers’ Star—The Plygain—Pagan Origin of Christmas Customs286CHAPTER V.Courtship and Marriage—Planting Weeds and Rue on the Graves of Old Bachelors—Special Significance of Flowers in connection with Virginity—The Welsh Venus—Bundling, or Courting Abed—Kissing Schools—Rhamanta—Lovers’ Superstitions—The Maid’s Trick—Dreaming on a Mutton Bone—Wheat and Shovel—Garters in a Lovers’ Knot—Egg-Shell Cake—Sowing Leeks—Twca and Sheath298CHAPTER VI.Wedding Customs—The Bidding—Forms of Cymmhorth—The Gwahoddwr—Horse-Weddings—Stealing a Bride—Obstructions to the Bridal Party—The Gwyntyn—Chaining—Evergreen Arches—Strewing Flowers—Throwing Rice and Shoes—Rosemary in the Garden—Names after Marriage—The Coolstrin—The Ceffyl Pren306CHAPTER VII.Death and Burial—The Gwylnos—Beer-drinking at Welsh Funerals—Food and Drink over the Coffin—Sponge Cakes at Modern Funerals—The Sin-eater—Welsh Denial that this Custom ever existed—The Testimony concerning it—Superstitions regarding Salt—Plate of Salt on Corpse’s Breast—The Scapegoat—The St. Tegla Cock and Hen—Welsh Funeral Processions—Praying at Cross-roads—Superstition regarding Criminals’ Graves—Hanging and Welsh Prejudice—The Grassless Grave—Parson’s Penny, or Offrwm—Old Shoes to the Clerk—Arian y Rhaw, or Spade Money—Burials without Coffin—The Sul Coffa—Planting and Strewing Graves with Flowers321

BOOK IV.BELLS, WELLS, STONES, AND DRAGONS.

CHAPTER I.Base of the Primeval Mythology—Bells and their Ghosts—The Bell that committed Murder and was damned for it—The Occult Powers of Bells—Their Work as Detectives, Doctors, etc.—Legend of the Bell of Rhayader—St. Illtyd’s Wonderful Bell—The Golden Bell of Llandaff338CHAPTER II.Mystic Wells—Their Good and Bad Dispositions—St. Winifred’s Well—The Legend of St. Winifred—Miracles—St. Tecla’s Well—St. Dwynwen’s—Curing Love-sickness—St. Cynfran’s—St. Cynhafal’s—Throwing Pins in Wells—Warts—Barry Island and its Legends—Ffynon Gwynwy—Propitiatory Gifts to Wells—The Dreadful Cursing Well of St. Elian’s—Wells Flowing with Milk—St. Illtyd’s—Taff’s Well—Sanford’s Well—Origins of Superstitions of this Class345CHAPTER III.Personal Attributes of Legendary Welsh Stones—Stone Worship—Canna’s Stone Chair—Miraculous Removals of Stones—The Walking Stone of Eitheinn—The Thigh Stone—The Talking Stone in Pembrokeshire—The Expanding Stone—Magic Stones in the ‘Mabinogion’—The Stone of Invisibility—The Stone of Remembrance—Stone Thief-catchers—Stones of Healing—Stones at Cross-roads—Memorials of King Arthur—Round Tables, Carns, Pots, etc.—Arthur’s Quoits—The Gigantic Rock-tossers of Old—Mol Walbec and the Pebble in her Shoe—The Giant of Trichrug—Giants and the Mythology of the Heavens—The Legend of Rhitta Gawr361CHAPTER IV.Early Inscribed Stones—The Stone Pillar of Banwan Bryddin, near Neath—Catastrophe accompanying its Removal—The Sagranus Stone and the White Lady—The Dancing Stones of Stackpool—Human Beings changed to Stones—St. Ceyna and the Serpents—The Devil’s Stone at Llanarth—Rocking Stones and their accompanying Superstitions—The Suspended Altar of Loin-Garth—Cromlechs and their Fairy Legends—The Fairies’ Castle at St. Nicholas, Glamorganshire—The Stone of the Wolf Bitch—The Welsh Melusina—Parc-y-Bigwrn Cromlech—Connection of these Stones with Ancient Druidism373CHAPTER V.Baleful Spirits of Storm—The Shower at the Magic Fountain—Obstacles in the way of Treasure-Seekers—The Red Lady of Paviland—The Fall of Coychurch Tower—Thunder and Lightning evoked by Digging—The Treasure-Chest under Moel Arthur in the Vale of Clwyd—Modern Credulity—The Cavern of the Ravens—The Eagle-guarded Coffer of Castell Coch—Sleeping Warriors as Treasure-Guarders—The Dragon which St. Samson drove out of Wales—Dragons in the Mabinogion—Whence came the Red Dragon of Wales?—The Original Dragon of Mythology—Prototypes of the Welsh Caverns and Treasure-Hills—The Goblins of Electricity385

Fairies

BRITISH GOBLINS.

At eve, the primrose path along,The milkmaid shortens with a songHer solitary way;She sees the fairies with their queenTrip hand-in-hand the circled green,And hears them raise, at times unseen,The ear-enchanting lay.Rev. John Logan:Ode to Spring, 1780.

Rev. John Logan:Ode to Spring, 1780.

Fairy Tales and the Ancient Mythology—The Compensations of Science—Existing Belief in Fairies in Wales—The Faith of Culture—The Credulity of Ignorance—The Old-Time Welsh Fairyland—The Fairy King—The Legend of St. Collen and Gwyn ap Nudd—The Green Meadows of the Sea—Fairies at Market—The Land of Mystery.

With regard to other divisions of the field of folk-lore, the views of scholars differ, but in the realm of faerie these differences are reconciled; it is agreed that fairy tales are relics of the ancient mythology; and the philosophers stroll hand in hand harmoniously. This is as it should be, in a realm about which cluster such delightful memories of the most poetic period of life—childhood, before scepticism has crept in as ignorance slinks out. The knowledge which introduced scepticism is infinitely morevaluable than the faith it displaced; but, in spite of that, there be few among us who have not felt evanescent regrets for the displacement by thefoi scientifiqueof the old faith in fairies. There was something so peculiarly fascinating in that old belief, that ‘once upon a time’ the world was less practical in its facts than now, less commonplace and humdrum, less subject to the inexorable laws of gravitation, optics, and the like. What dramas it has yielded! What poems, what dreams, what delights!

But since the knowledge of our maturer years destroys all that, it is with a degree of satisfaction we can turn to the consolations of the fairy mythology. The beloved tales of old are ‘not true’—but at least they are not mere idle nonsense, and they have a good and sufficient reason for being in the world; we may continue to respect them. The wit who observed that the final cause of fairy legends is ‘to afford sport for people who ruthlessly track them to their origin,’[1]expressed a grave truth in jocular form. Since one can no longer rest in peace with one’s ignorance, it is a comfort to the lover of fairy legends to find that he need not sweep them into the grate as so much rubbish; on the contrary they become even more enchanting in the crucible of science than they were in their old character.

FOOTNOTE:[1]‘Saturday Review,’ October 20, 1877.

FOOTNOTE:

[1]‘Saturday Review,’ October 20, 1877.

Among the vulgar in Wales, the belief in fairies is less nearly extinct than casual observers would be likely to suppose. Even educated people who dwell in Wales, and have dwelt there all their lives, cannot always be classed as other than casual observers in this field. There are some such residents who have paid special attention to the subject, and haveformed an opinion as to the extent of prevalence of popular credulity herein; but most Welsh people of the educated class, I find, have no opinion, beyond a vague surprise that the question should be raised at all. So lately as the year 1858, a learned writer in the ‘Archæologia Cambrensis’ declared that ‘the traveller may now pass from one end of the Principality to the other, without his being shocked or amused, as the case may be, by any of the fairy legends or popular tales which used to pass current from father to son.’ But in the same periodical, eighteen years later, I find Mr. John Walter Lukis (President of the Cardiff Naturalists’ Society), asserting with regard to the cromlechs, tumuli, and ancient camps in Glamorganshire: ‘There are always fairy tales and ghost stories connected with them; some, thoughfully believed inby the inhabitants of those localities, are often of the most absurd character; in fact, the more ridiculous they are, the more they are believed in.’[2]My own observation leads me to support the testimony of the last-named witness. Educated Europeans generally conceive that this sort of belief is extinct in their own land, or, at least their own immediate section of that land. They accredit such degree of belief as may remain, in this enlightened age, to some remote part—to the south, if they dwell in the north; to the north, if they dwell in the south. But especially they accredit it to a previous age: in Wales, to last century, or the middle ages, or the days of King Arthur. The rector of Merthyr, being an elderly man, accredits it to his youth. ‘I am old enough to remember,’ he wrote me under date of January 30th, 1877, ‘that these tales were thoroughly believed in among country folk forty or fifty yearsago.’ People of superior culture have held this kind of faith concerning fairy-lore, it seems to me, in every age, except the more remote. Chaucer held it, almost five centuries ago, and wrote:[3]

In olde dayes of the Kyng Arthour, ...Al was this lond fulfilled of fayrie; ...I speke of many hundrid yer ago;But now can no man see non elves mo.

Dryden held it, two hundred years later, and said of the fairies:

I speak of ancient times, for now the swainReturning late may pass the woods in vain,And never hope to see the nightly train.

In all later days, other authors have written the same sort of thing; it is not thus now, say they, but it was recently thus. The truth, probably, is that if you will but sink down to the level of common life, of ignorant life, especially in rural neighbourhoods, there you will find the same old beliefs prevailing, in about the same degree to which they have ever prevailed, within the past five hundred years. To sink to this level successfully, one must become a living unit in that life, as I have done in Wales and elsewhere, from time to time. Then one will hear the truth from, or at least the true sentiments of, the class he seeks to know. The practice of every generation in thus relegating fairy belief to a date just previous to its own does not apply, however, to superstitious beliefs in general; for, concerning many such beliefs, their greater or less prevalence at certain dates (as in the history of witchcraft) is matter of well-ascertained fact. I confine the argument, for the present, strictly to the domain of faerie. In this domain, the prevalent belief in Wales may be said to rest with the ignorant, tobe strongest in rural and mining districts, to be childlike and poetic, and to relate to anywhere except the spot where the speaker dwells—as to the next parish, to the next county, to the distant mountains, or to the shadow-land of Gwerddonau Llion, the green meadows of the sea.

FOOTNOTES:[2]‘Archæologia Cambrensis,’ 4th Se., vi., 174.[3]‘Wyf of Bathes Tale,’ ‘Canterbury Tales.’

FOOTNOTES:

[2]‘Archæologia Cambrensis,’ 4th Se., vi., 174.

[3]‘Wyf of Bathes Tale,’ ‘Canterbury Tales.’

In Arthur’s day and before that, the people of South Wales regarded North Wales as pre-eminently the land of faerie. In the popular imagination, that distant country was the chosen abode of giants, monsters, magicians, and all the creatures of enchantment. Out of it came the fairies, on their visits to the sunny land of the south. The chief philosopher of that enchanted region was a giant who sat on a mountain peak and watched the stars. It had a wizard monarch called Gwydion, who possessed the power of changing himself into the strangest possible forms. The peasant who dwelt on the shores of Dyfed (Demetia) saw in the distance, beyond the blue waves of the ocean, shadowy mountain summits piercing the clouds, and guarding this mystic region in solemn majesty. Thence rolled down upon him the storm-clouds from the home of the tempest; thence streamed up the winter sky the flaming banners of the Northern lights; thence rose through the illimitable darkness on high, the star-strewn pathway of the fairy king. These details are current in the Mabinogion, those brilliant stories of Welsh enchantment, so gracefully done into English by Lady Charlotte Guest,[4]and it is believed that all the Mabinogion in which these details were found were written in Dyfed. Thiswas the region on the west, now covered by Pembroke, Carmarthen, and Cardigan shires.

More recently than the time above indicated, special traditions have located fairyland in the Vale of Neath, in Glamorganshire. Especially does a certain steep and rugged crag there, called Craig y Ddinas, bear a distinctly awful reputation as a stronghold of the fairy tribe.[5]Its caves and crevices have been their favourite haunt for many centuries, and upon this rock was held the court of the last fairies who have ever appeared in Wales. Needless to say there are men still living who remember the visits of the fairies to Craig y Ddinas, although they aver the little folk are no longer seen there. It is a common remark that the Methodists drove them away; indeed, there are numberless stories which show the fairies to have been animated, when they were still numerous in Wales, by a cordial antipathy for all dissenting preachers. In this antipathy, it may be here observed, teetotallers were included.

FOOTNOTES:[4]‘The Mabinogion, from the Welsh of the Llyfr Coch o Hergest.’ Translated, with notes, by Lady Charlotte Guest. (New Edition, London, 1877.)[5]There are two hills in Glamorganshire called by this name, and others elsewhere in Wales.

FOOTNOTES:

[4]‘The Mabinogion, from the Welsh of the Llyfr Coch o Hergest.’ Translated, with notes, by Lady Charlotte Guest. (New Edition, London, 1877.)

[5]There are two hills in Glamorganshire called by this name, and others elsewhere in Wales.

The sovereign of the fairies, and their especial guardian and protector, was one Gwyn ap Nudd. He was also ruler over the goblin tribe in general. His name often occurs in ancient Welsh poetry. An old bard of the fourteenth century, who, led away by the fairies, rode into a turf bog on a mountain one dark night, called it the ‘fish-pond of Gwyn ap Nudd, a palace for goblins and their tribe.’ The association of this legendary character with the goblin fame of the Vale of Neath will appear, when it is mentioned that Nudd in Welsh is pronounced simply Neath, and not otherwise. As for the fairy queen,she does not seem to have any existence among Cambrian goblins. It is nevertheless thought by Cambrian etymologists, that Morgana is derived from Mor Gwyn, the white maid; and the Welsh proper name Morgan can hardly fail to be mentioned in this connection, though it is not necessarily significant.

The legend of St. Collen, in which Gwyn ap Nudd figures, represents him as king of Annwn (hell, or the shadow land) as well as of the fairies.[6]Collen was passing a period of mortification as a hermit, in a cell under a rock on a mountain. There he one day overheard two men talking about Gwyn ap Nudd, and giving him this twofold kingly character. Collen cried out to the men to go away and hold their tongues, instead of talking about devils. For this Collen was rebuked, as the king of fairyland had an objection to such language. The saint was summoned to meet the king on the hill-top at noon, and after repeated refusals, he finally went there; but he carried a flask of holy water with him. ‘And when he came there he saw the fairest castle he had ever beheld, and around it the best appointed troops, and numbers of minstrels and every kind of music of voice and string, and steeds with youths upon them, the comeliest in the world, and maidens of elegant aspect, sprightly, light of foot, of graceful apparel, and in the bloom of youth; and every magnificence becoming the court of a puissant sovereign. And he beheld a courteous man on the top of the castle who bade him enter, saying that the king was waiting for him to come to meat. And Collen went into the castle, and when he came there the king was sitting in a golden chair. And he welcomed Collen honourably, and desired him to eat, assuring him that besides what he saw, he should have themost luxurious of every dainty and delicacy that the mind could desire, and should be supplied with every drink and liquor that the heart could wish; and that there should be in readiness for him every luxury of courtesy and service, of banquet and of honourable entertainment, of rank and of presents, and every respect and welcome due to a man of his wisdom. “I will not eat the leaves of the trees,” said Collen. “Didst thou ever see men of better equipment than these of red and blue?” asked the king. “Their equipment is good enough,” said Collen, “for such equipment as it is.” “What kind of equipment is that?” said the king. Then said Collen, “The red on the one part signifies burning, and the blue on the other signifies coldness.” And with that Collen drew out his flask and threw the holy water on their heads, whereupon they vanished from his sight, so that there was neither castle nor troops, nor men, nor maidens, nor music, nor song, nor steeds, nor youths, nor banquet, nor the appearance of anything whatever but the green hillocks.’

FOOTNOTE:[6]‘Greal’ (8vo. London, 1805), p. 337.

FOOTNOTE:

[6]‘Greal’ (8vo. London, 1805), p. 337.

A third form of Welsh popular belief as to the whereabouts of fairyland corresponds with the Avalon of the Arthurian legends. The green meadows of the sea, called in the triads Gwerddonau Llion, are the

Green fairy islands, reposing,In sunlight and beauty on ocean’s calm breast.[7]

Many extraordinary superstitions survive with regard to these islands. They were supposed to be the abode of the souls of certain Druids, who, not holy enough to enter the heaven of the Christians, were still not wicked enough to be condemned tothe tortures of annwn, and so were accorded a place in this romantic sort of purgatorial paradise. In the fifth century a voyage was made, by the British king Gavran, in search of these enchanted islands; with his family he sailed away into the unknown waters, and was never heard of more. This voyage is commemorated in the triads as one of the Three Losses by Disappearance, the two others being Merlin’s and Madog’s. Merlin sailed away in a ship of glass; Madog sailed in search of America; and neither returned, but both disappeared for ever. In Pembrokeshire and southern Carmarthenshire are to be found traces of this belief. There are sailors on that romantic coast who still talk of the green meadows of enchantment lying in the Irish channel to the west of Pembrokeshire. Sometimes they are visible to the eyes of mortals for a brief space, when suddenly they vanish. There are traditions of sailors who, in the early part of the present century, actually went ashore on the fairy islands—not knowing that they were such, until they returned to their boats, when they were filled with awe at seeing the islands disappear from their sight, neither sinking in the sea, nor floating away upon the waters, but simply vanishing suddenly. The fairies inhabiting these islands are said to have regularly attended the markets at Milford Haven and Laugharne. They made their purchases without speaking, laid down their money and departed, always leaving the exact sum required, which they seemed to know, without asking the price of anything. Sometimes they were invisible, but they were often seen, by sharp-eyed persons. There was always one special butcher at Milford Haven upon whom the fairies bestowed their patronage, instead of distributing their favours indiscriminately. TheMilford Haven folk could see the green fairy islands distinctly, lying out a short distance from land; and the general belief was that they were densely peopled with fairies. It was also said that the latter went to and fro between the islands and the shore through a subterranean gallery under the bottom of the sea.

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