I.

I.In the course of the summer of 18821I was a good deal in Wales, especially Carnarvonshire, and I made notes of a great many scraps of legends about the fairies, and other bits of folklore. I will now stringsome of them together as I found them. I began at Trefriw2, in Nant Conwy, where I came across an old man, born and bred there, called Morris Hughes. He appears to be about seventy years of age: he formerly worked as a slater, but now he lives at Ỻanrwst, and tries to earn a livelihood by angling. He told me that fairies came a long while ago to Cowlyd Farm, near Cowlyd Lake, with a baby to dress, and asked to be admitted into the house, saying that they would pay well for it. Their request was granted, and they used to leave money behind them. One day the servant girl accidentally found they had also left some stuff they were in the habit of using in washing their children. She examined it, and, one of her eyes happening to itch, she rubbed it with the finger that had touched the stuff; so when she went to Ỻanrwst Fair she saw the same fairy folks there stealing cakes from a standing, and asked them why they did that. They inquired with what eye she saw them: she put her hand to the eye, and one of the fairies quickly rubbed it, so that she never saw any more of them. They were also very fond of bringing their children to be dressed in the houses between Trefriw and Ỻanrwst; and on the flat land bordering on the Conwy they used to dance, frolic, and sing every moonlight night. Evan Thomas of Sgubor Gerrig used to have money from them. He has been dead, Morris Hughes said, over sixty years: he had on his land a sort of cowhouse where the fairies had shelter, and hence the pay.Morris, when a boy, used to be warned by his parentsto take care lest he should be stolen by the fairies. He knew Thomas Williams of Bryn Syỻty, or, as he was commonly called, Twm Bryn Syỻty, who was a changeling. He was a sharp, small man, afraid of nothing. He met his death some years ago by drowning near Eglwys Fach, when he was about sixty-three years of age. There are relatives of his about Ỻanrwst still: that is, relatives of his mother, if indeed she was his mother (os oeđ hi’n fam iđo fo, ynté). Lastly, Morris had a tale about a mermaid cast ashore by a storm near Conway. She entreated the fishermen who found her to help her back into her native element; and on their refusing to comply she prayed them to place her tail at least in the water. A very crude rhyme describes her dying of exposure to the cold, thus:—Y forforwyn ar y traeth,Crio gwaeđu’n arw wnaeth,Ofn y deuai drycin drannoeth:Yr hin yn oer a rhewi wnaeth.The stranded mermaid on the beachDid sorely cry and sorely screech,Afraid to bide the morrow’s breeze:The cold it came, and she did freeze.But before expiring, the mermaid cursed the people of Conway to be always poor, and Conway has ever since, so goes the tale, laboured under the curse; so that when a stranger happens to bring a sovereign there, the Conway folk, if silver is required, have to send across the water to Ỻansanffraid for change.My next informant was John Duncan Maclaren, who was born in 1812, and lives at Trefriw. His father was a Scotsman, but Maclaren is in all other respects a Welshman. He also knew the Sgubor Gerrig people, and that Evan Thomas and Lowri his wife had exceeding great trouble to prevent their son Roger from being carried away by the fairies. For the fairy maids were always trying to allure him away, and he was constantly finding fairy money. The fairy dance, and the playing and singing that accompanied it, used to take place ina field in front of his father’s house; but Lowri would never let her son go out after the sun had gone to his battlements (ar ol i’r haul fyn’d i lawr i gaera). The most dangerous nights were those when the moon shone brightly, and pretty wreaths of mist adorned the meadows by the river. Maclaren had heard of a man, whom he called Siôn Catrin of Tyn Twỻ, finding a penny every day at thepistyỻor water-spout near the house, when he went there to fetch water. The flat land between Trefriw and Ỻanrwst had on it a great many fairy rings, and some of them are, according to Maclaren, still to be seen. There the fairies used to dance, and when a young man got into one of the rings the fairy damsels took him away; but he could be got out unharmed at the end of a year and a day, when he would be found dancing with them in the same ring: he must then be dexterously touched by some one of his friends with a piece of iron and dragged out at once. This is the way in which a young man whom my notes connect with a place called Bryn Glas was recovered. He had gone out with a friend, who lost him, and he wandered into a fairy ring. He had new shoes on at the time, and his friends brought him out at the end of the interval of a year and a day; but he could not be made to understand that he had been away more than five minutes, until he was asked to look at his new shoes, which were by that time in pieces. Maclaren had also something to say concerning the history and habitat of the fairies. Those of Nant Conwy dress in green; and his mother, who died about sixty-two years ago, aged forty-seven, had told him that they lived seven years on the earth, seven years in the air, and seven years underground. He also had a mermaid tale, like that of Pergrin from Dyfed, p. 163. A fisherman from Ỻandriỻo yn Rhos, between Colwyn and Ỻandudno, had caughta mermaid in his net. She asked to be set free, promising that she would, in case he complied, do him a kindness. He consented, and one fine day, a long while afterwards, she suddenly peeped out of the water near him, and shouted:Siôn Ifan, cwyd dy rwyda’ a thyn tua’r lan, ‘John Evans, take up thy nets and make for the shore.’ He obeyed, and almost immediately there was a terrible storm, in which many fishermen lost their lives. The river Conwy is the chief haunt of the mysterious afanc, already mentioned, p. 130, and Maclaren stated that its name used to be employed within his memory to frighten girls and children: so much was it still dreaded. Perhaps I ought to have stated that Maclaren is very fond of music, and that he told me of a gentleman at Conway who had taken down in writing a supposed fairy tune. I have made inquiries of the latter’s son, Mr. Hennessy Hughes of Conway; but his father’s papers seem to have been lost, so that he cannot find the tune in question, though he has heard of it.Whilst on this question of music let me quote from the Ỻwyd letter in theCambrian Journalfor 1859, pp. 145–6, on which I have already drawn, pp. 130–3, above. The passage in point is to the following effect:—‘I will leave these tales aside whilst I go as far as the Ogo Đu, “the Black Cave,” which is in the immediate vicinity of Crigcieth3, and into which the musiciansentered so far that they lost their way back. One of them was heard to play on his pipe, and another on his horn, about two miles from where they went in; and the place where the piper was heard is called Braich y Bib, and where the man with the horn was heard is called Braich y Cornor. I do not believe that even a single man doubts but that this is all true, and I know not how the airs called Ffarwel Dic y Pibyđ, “Dick the Piper’s Farewell,” and Ffarwel Dwm Bach, “Little Tom’s Farewell,” had those names, unless it was from the musicians above mentioned. Nor do I know that Ned Puw may not have been the third, and that the air called Ffarwel Ned Puw, “Ned Pugh’s Farewell,” may not have been the last he played before going into the cave. I cannot warrant this to be true, as I have only heard it said by one man, and he merely held it as a supposition, which had been suggested by this air of Ffarwel Dic y Pibyđ.’A story, however, mentioned by Cynđelw in theBrythonfor 1860, p. 57, makes Ned Pugh enter the cave of Tal y Clegyr, which the writer in his article identifies with Ness Cliff, near Shrewsbury. In that cave, which was regarded as a wonderful one, he says the musician disappeared, while the air he was playing, Ffarwel Ned Puw,“Ned Pugh’s Farewell,” was retained in memory of him. Some account of the departure of Ned Pugh and of the interminable cave into which he entered, will be found given in a rambling fashion in theCambrian Quarterly Magazine(London, 1829), vol. i, pp. 40–5, where the minstrel’s Welsh name is given as Iolo ap Huw. There we are told that he was last seen in the twilight of a misty Halloween, and the notes of the tune he was last heard to play are duly given. One of the surmises as to Iolo’s ultimate fate is also recorded, namely, that in the other world he has exchanged hisfiddle for a bugle, and become huntsman-in-chief to Gwyn ab Nûđ, so that every Halloween he may be found cheeringCwn Annwn, ‘the Hounds of the Other World,’ over Cader Idris4.The same summer I fell in with Mr. Morris Evans, of Cerrig Mân, near Amlwch. He is a mining agent on the Gwydir Estate in the Vale of Conwy, but he is a native of the neighbourhood of Parys Mountain, in Anglesey, where he acquired his knowledge of mining. He had heard fairy tales from his grandmother, Grace Jones, of Ỻwyn Ysgaw near Mynyđ Mecheỻ, between Amlwch and Holyhead. She died, nearly ninety years of age, over twenty years ago. She used to relate how she and others of her own age were wont in their youth to go out on bright moonlight nights to a spot near Ỻyn y Bwch. They seldom had to wait there long before they would hear exquisite music and behold a grand palace standing on the ground. The diminutive folks of fairyland would then come forth to dance and frolic. The next morning the palace would be found gone, but the grandmother used to pick up fairy money on the spot, and this went on regularly so long as she did not tell others of her luck. My informant, who is himself a man somewhat over fifty-two, tells me that at a place not far from Ỻyn y Bwch there wereplenty of fairy rings to be seen in the grass; and it is in them the fairies were supposed to dance5.From Ỻanrwst I went up to see the bard and antiquary, Mr. Gethin Jones. His house was prettily situated on the hillside on the left of the road as you approach the village of Penmachno. I was sorry to find that his memory had been considerably impaired by a paralytic stroke from which he had suffered not long before. However, from his room he pointed out to me a spot on the other side of the Machno, calledY Werđon, which means ‘The Green Land,’ or more literally, ‘The Greenery,’ so to say. It was well known for its green, grassy fairy rings, formerly frequented by theTylwyth Teg; and he said he could distinguish some of the rings even then from where he stood. The Werđon is on the Bennar, and the Bennar is the high ground between Penmachno and Dolwyđelan. The spot in question is on the part nearest to the Conwy Falls. This name,Y Werđon, is liable to be confounded withIwerđon, ‘Ireland,’ which is commonly treated as if it began with the definite article, so that it is made intoY WerđonandWerđon. The fairyWerđon, in the radical formGwerđon, not only recalls to my mind the Green Isles calledGwerđonau Ỻïon, but also the saying, common in North Wales, that a person in great anxiety ‘seesY Werđon.’ Thus, for instance, a man who fails to return to his family at the hour expected, and believes his people to be in great anxiety about him, expresses himself by saying that they will have ‘seen the Werđon on my account’ (mi fyđan’ wedi gwel’d y Werđon am dana’i). Is that Ireland, or is it the land of the fairies, the other world, in fact?If the latter, it might simply mean they will have died of anxiety; but I confess I have not so far been able to decide. I am not aware that the term occurs in any other form of expression than the one I have given; if it had, and if the Werđon were spoken of in some other way, that might possibly clear up the difficulty. If it refers to Ireland, it must imply that sighting Ireland is equivalent to going astray at sea, meaning in this sort of instance, getting out of one’s senses; but the Welsh are not very much given to nautical expressions. It reminds me somewhat of Gerald Griffin’s allusion to the Phantom City, and the penalty paid by those who catch a glimpse of its turrets as the dividing waves expose them for a moment to view on the western coast of Ireland:—Soon close the white waters to screen it,And the bodement, they say, of the wonderful sight,Is death to the eyes that have seen it.The Fairy Glen above Bettws y Coed is called in Welsh Ffos ‘Nođyn, ‘the Sink of the Abyss’; but Mr. Gethin Jones told me that it was also called Glyn y Tylwyth Teg, which is very probable, as some such a designation is required to account for the English name, ‘the Fairy Glen.’ People on the Capel Garmon side used to see theTylwythplaying there, and descending into the Ffos or Glen gently and lightly without occasioning themselves the least harm. The Fairy Glen was, doubtless, supposed to contain an entrance to the world below. This reminds one of the name of the pretty hollow running inland from the railway station at Bangor. Why should it be called Nant Uffern, or ‘The Hollow of Hell’? Can it be that there was a supposed entrance to the fairy world somewhere there? In any case, I am quite certain that Welsh place-names involve allusions to the fairiesmuch oftener than has been hitherto supposed; and I should be inclined to cite, as a further example, Moel Eilio6or Moel Eilian, from the personal name Eilian, to be mentioned presently. Moel Eilian is a mountain under which the fairies were supposed to have great stores of treasure. But to return to Mr. Gethin Jones, I had almost forgotten that I have another instance of his in point. He showed me a passage in a paper which he wrote in Welsh some time ago on the antiquities of Yspyty Ifan. He says that where the Serw joins the Conwy there is a cave, to which tradition asserts that a harpist was once allured by theTylwyth Teg. He was, of course, not seen afterwards, but the echo of the music made by him and them on their harps is still to be heard a little lower down, under the field called to this day Gweirglođ y Telynorion, ‘The Harpers’ Meadow’: compare the extract from Edward Ỻwyd’s correspondence at p. 202 above.Mr. Gethin Jones also spoke to me of the lake called Ỻyn Pencraig, which was drained in hopes of finding lead underneath it, an expectation not altogether doomed to disappointment, and he informed me that its old name was Ỻyn Ỻifon; so the moor around it was called Gwaen Ỻifon. It appears to have been a large lake, but only in wet weather, and to have no deep bed. The names connected with the spot are now Nant Gwaen Ỻifon and the Gwaith (or Mine) of Gwaen Ỻifon: they are, I understand, within the township of Trefriw. The name Ỻyn Ỻifon is of great interest when taken in connexion with the Triadic account of the cataclysm called the Bursting of Ỻyn Ỻiƒon. Mr. Gethin Jones, however, believed himself that ỺynỺïon was no other than Bala Lake, through which the Dee makes her way.

In the course of the summer of 18821I was a good deal in Wales, especially Carnarvonshire, and I made notes of a great many scraps of legends about the fairies, and other bits of folklore. I will now stringsome of them together as I found them. I began at Trefriw2, in Nant Conwy, where I came across an old man, born and bred there, called Morris Hughes. He appears to be about seventy years of age: he formerly worked as a slater, but now he lives at Ỻanrwst, and tries to earn a livelihood by angling. He told me that fairies came a long while ago to Cowlyd Farm, near Cowlyd Lake, with a baby to dress, and asked to be admitted into the house, saying that they would pay well for it. Their request was granted, and they used to leave money behind them. One day the servant girl accidentally found they had also left some stuff they were in the habit of using in washing their children. She examined it, and, one of her eyes happening to itch, she rubbed it with the finger that had touched the stuff; so when she went to Ỻanrwst Fair she saw the same fairy folks there stealing cakes from a standing, and asked them why they did that. They inquired with what eye she saw them: she put her hand to the eye, and one of the fairies quickly rubbed it, so that she never saw any more of them. They were also very fond of bringing their children to be dressed in the houses between Trefriw and Ỻanrwst; and on the flat land bordering on the Conwy they used to dance, frolic, and sing every moonlight night. Evan Thomas of Sgubor Gerrig used to have money from them. He has been dead, Morris Hughes said, over sixty years: he had on his land a sort of cowhouse where the fairies had shelter, and hence the pay.Morris, when a boy, used to be warned by his parentsto take care lest he should be stolen by the fairies. He knew Thomas Williams of Bryn Syỻty, or, as he was commonly called, Twm Bryn Syỻty, who was a changeling. He was a sharp, small man, afraid of nothing. He met his death some years ago by drowning near Eglwys Fach, when he was about sixty-three years of age. There are relatives of his about Ỻanrwst still: that is, relatives of his mother, if indeed she was his mother (os oeđ hi’n fam iđo fo, ynté). Lastly, Morris had a tale about a mermaid cast ashore by a storm near Conway. She entreated the fishermen who found her to help her back into her native element; and on their refusing to comply she prayed them to place her tail at least in the water. A very crude rhyme describes her dying of exposure to the cold, thus:—Y forforwyn ar y traeth,Crio gwaeđu’n arw wnaeth,Ofn y deuai drycin drannoeth:Yr hin yn oer a rhewi wnaeth.The stranded mermaid on the beachDid sorely cry and sorely screech,Afraid to bide the morrow’s breeze:The cold it came, and she did freeze.But before expiring, the mermaid cursed the people of Conway to be always poor, and Conway has ever since, so goes the tale, laboured under the curse; so that when a stranger happens to bring a sovereign there, the Conway folk, if silver is required, have to send across the water to Ỻansanffraid for change.My next informant was John Duncan Maclaren, who was born in 1812, and lives at Trefriw. His father was a Scotsman, but Maclaren is in all other respects a Welshman. He also knew the Sgubor Gerrig people, and that Evan Thomas and Lowri his wife had exceeding great trouble to prevent their son Roger from being carried away by the fairies. For the fairy maids were always trying to allure him away, and he was constantly finding fairy money. The fairy dance, and the playing and singing that accompanied it, used to take place ina field in front of his father’s house; but Lowri would never let her son go out after the sun had gone to his battlements (ar ol i’r haul fyn’d i lawr i gaera). The most dangerous nights were those when the moon shone brightly, and pretty wreaths of mist adorned the meadows by the river. Maclaren had heard of a man, whom he called Siôn Catrin of Tyn Twỻ, finding a penny every day at thepistyỻor water-spout near the house, when he went there to fetch water. The flat land between Trefriw and Ỻanrwst had on it a great many fairy rings, and some of them are, according to Maclaren, still to be seen. There the fairies used to dance, and when a young man got into one of the rings the fairy damsels took him away; but he could be got out unharmed at the end of a year and a day, when he would be found dancing with them in the same ring: he must then be dexterously touched by some one of his friends with a piece of iron and dragged out at once. This is the way in which a young man whom my notes connect with a place called Bryn Glas was recovered. He had gone out with a friend, who lost him, and he wandered into a fairy ring. He had new shoes on at the time, and his friends brought him out at the end of the interval of a year and a day; but he could not be made to understand that he had been away more than five minutes, until he was asked to look at his new shoes, which were by that time in pieces. Maclaren had also something to say concerning the history and habitat of the fairies. Those of Nant Conwy dress in green; and his mother, who died about sixty-two years ago, aged forty-seven, had told him that they lived seven years on the earth, seven years in the air, and seven years underground. He also had a mermaid tale, like that of Pergrin from Dyfed, p. 163. A fisherman from Ỻandriỻo yn Rhos, between Colwyn and Ỻandudno, had caughta mermaid in his net. She asked to be set free, promising that she would, in case he complied, do him a kindness. He consented, and one fine day, a long while afterwards, she suddenly peeped out of the water near him, and shouted:Siôn Ifan, cwyd dy rwyda’ a thyn tua’r lan, ‘John Evans, take up thy nets and make for the shore.’ He obeyed, and almost immediately there was a terrible storm, in which many fishermen lost their lives. The river Conwy is the chief haunt of the mysterious afanc, already mentioned, p. 130, and Maclaren stated that its name used to be employed within his memory to frighten girls and children: so much was it still dreaded. Perhaps I ought to have stated that Maclaren is very fond of music, and that he told me of a gentleman at Conway who had taken down in writing a supposed fairy tune. I have made inquiries of the latter’s son, Mr. Hennessy Hughes of Conway; but his father’s papers seem to have been lost, so that he cannot find the tune in question, though he has heard of it.Whilst on this question of music let me quote from the Ỻwyd letter in theCambrian Journalfor 1859, pp. 145–6, on which I have already drawn, pp. 130–3, above. The passage in point is to the following effect:—‘I will leave these tales aside whilst I go as far as the Ogo Đu, “the Black Cave,” which is in the immediate vicinity of Crigcieth3, and into which the musiciansentered so far that they lost their way back. One of them was heard to play on his pipe, and another on his horn, about two miles from where they went in; and the place where the piper was heard is called Braich y Bib, and where the man with the horn was heard is called Braich y Cornor. I do not believe that even a single man doubts but that this is all true, and I know not how the airs called Ffarwel Dic y Pibyđ, “Dick the Piper’s Farewell,” and Ffarwel Dwm Bach, “Little Tom’s Farewell,” had those names, unless it was from the musicians above mentioned. Nor do I know that Ned Puw may not have been the third, and that the air called Ffarwel Ned Puw, “Ned Pugh’s Farewell,” may not have been the last he played before going into the cave. I cannot warrant this to be true, as I have only heard it said by one man, and he merely held it as a supposition, which had been suggested by this air of Ffarwel Dic y Pibyđ.’A story, however, mentioned by Cynđelw in theBrythonfor 1860, p. 57, makes Ned Pugh enter the cave of Tal y Clegyr, which the writer in his article identifies with Ness Cliff, near Shrewsbury. In that cave, which was regarded as a wonderful one, he says the musician disappeared, while the air he was playing, Ffarwel Ned Puw,“Ned Pugh’s Farewell,” was retained in memory of him. Some account of the departure of Ned Pugh and of the interminable cave into which he entered, will be found given in a rambling fashion in theCambrian Quarterly Magazine(London, 1829), vol. i, pp. 40–5, where the minstrel’s Welsh name is given as Iolo ap Huw. There we are told that he was last seen in the twilight of a misty Halloween, and the notes of the tune he was last heard to play are duly given. One of the surmises as to Iolo’s ultimate fate is also recorded, namely, that in the other world he has exchanged hisfiddle for a bugle, and become huntsman-in-chief to Gwyn ab Nûđ, so that every Halloween he may be found cheeringCwn Annwn, ‘the Hounds of the Other World,’ over Cader Idris4.The same summer I fell in with Mr. Morris Evans, of Cerrig Mân, near Amlwch. He is a mining agent on the Gwydir Estate in the Vale of Conwy, but he is a native of the neighbourhood of Parys Mountain, in Anglesey, where he acquired his knowledge of mining. He had heard fairy tales from his grandmother, Grace Jones, of Ỻwyn Ysgaw near Mynyđ Mecheỻ, between Amlwch and Holyhead. She died, nearly ninety years of age, over twenty years ago. She used to relate how she and others of her own age were wont in their youth to go out on bright moonlight nights to a spot near Ỻyn y Bwch. They seldom had to wait there long before they would hear exquisite music and behold a grand palace standing on the ground. The diminutive folks of fairyland would then come forth to dance and frolic. The next morning the palace would be found gone, but the grandmother used to pick up fairy money on the spot, and this went on regularly so long as she did not tell others of her luck. My informant, who is himself a man somewhat over fifty-two, tells me that at a place not far from Ỻyn y Bwch there wereplenty of fairy rings to be seen in the grass; and it is in them the fairies were supposed to dance5.From Ỻanrwst I went up to see the bard and antiquary, Mr. Gethin Jones. His house was prettily situated on the hillside on the left of the road as you approach the village of Penmachno. I was sorry to find that his memory had been considerably impaired by a paralytic stroke from which he had suffered not long before. However, from his room he pointed out to me a spot on the other side of the Machno, calledY Werđon, which means ‘The Green Land,’ or more literally, ‘The Greenery,’ so to say. It was well known for its green, grassy fairy rings, formerly frequented by theTylwyth Teg; and he said he could distinguish some of the rings even then from where he stood. The Werđon is on the Bennar, and the Bennar is the high ground between Penmachno and Dolwyđelan. The spot in question is on the part nearest to the Conwy Falls. This name,Y Werđon, is liable to be confounded withIwerđon, ‘Ireland,’ which is commonly treated as if it began with the definite article, so that it is made intoY WerđonandWerđon. The fairyWerđon, in the radical formGwerđon, not only recalls to my mind the Green Isles calledGwerđonau Ỻïon, but also the saying, common in North Wales, that a person in great anxiety ‘seesY Werđon.’ Thus, for instance, a man who fails to return to his family at the hour expected, and believes his people to be in great anxiety about him, expresses himself by saying that they will have ‘seen the Werđon on my account’ (mi fyđan’ wedi gwel’d y Werđon am dana’i). Is that Ireland, or is it the land of the fairies, the other world, in fact?If the latter, it might simply mean they will have died of anxiety; but I confess I have not so far been able to decide. I am not aware that the term occurs in any other form of expression than the one I have given; if it had, and if the Werđon were spoken of in some other way, that might possibly clear up the difficulty. If it refers to Ireland, it must imply that sighting Ireland is equivalent to going astray at sea, meaning in this sort of instance, getting out of one’s senses; but the Welsh are not very much given to nautical expressions. It reminds me somewhat of Gerald Griffin’s allusion to the Phantom City, and the penalty paid by those who catch a glimpse of its turrets as the dividing waves expose them for a moment to view on the western coast of Ireland:—Soon close the white waters to screen it,And the bodement, they say, of the wonderful sight,Is death to the eyes that have seen it.The Fairy Glen above Bettws y Coed is called in Welsh Ffos ‘Nođyn, ‘the Sink of the Abyss’; but Mr. Gethin Jones told me that it was also called Glyn y Tylwyth Teg, which is very probable, as some such a designation is required to account for the English name, ‘the Fairy Glen.’ People on the Capel Garmon side used to see theTylwythplaying there, and descending into the Ffos or Glen gently and lightly without occasioning themselves the least harm. The Fairy Glen was, doubtless, supposed to contain an entrance to the world below. This reminds one of the name of the pretty hollow running inland from the railway station at Bangor. Why should it be called Nant Uffern, or ‘The Hollow of Hell’? Can it be that there was a supposed entrance to the fairy world somewhere there? In any case, I am quite certain that Welsh place-names involve allusions to the fairiesmuch oftener than has been hitherto supposed; and I should be inclined to cite, as a further example, Moel Eilio6or Moel Eilian, from the personal name Eilian, to be mentioned presently. Moel Eilian is a mountain under which the fairies were supposed to have great stores of treasure. But to return to Mr. Gethin Jones, I had almost forgotten that I have another instance of his in point. He showed me a passage in a paper which he wrote in Welsh some time ago on the antiquities of Yspyty Ifan. He says that where the Serw joins the Conwy there is a cave, to which tradition asserts that a harpist was once allured by theTylwyth Teg. He was, of course, not seen afterwards, but the echo of the music made by him and them on their harps is still to be heard a little lower down, under the field called to this day Gweirglođ y Telynorion, ‘The Harpers’ Meadow’: compare the extract from Edward Ỻwyd’s correspondence at p. 202 above.Mr. Gethin Jones also spoke to me of the lake called Ỻyn Pencraig, which was drained in hopes of finding lead underneath it, an expectation not altogether doomed to disappointment, and he informed me that its old name was Ỻyn Ỻifon; so the moor around it was called Gwaen Ỻifon. It appears to have been a large lake, but only in wet weather, and to have no deep bed. The names connected with the spot are now Nant Gwaen Ỻifon and the Gwaith (or Mine) of Gwaen Ỻifon: they are, I understand, within the township of Trefriw. The name Ỻyn Ỻifon is of great interest when taken in connexion with the Triadic account of the cataclysm called the Bursting of Ỻyn Ỻiƒon. Mr. Gethin Jones, however, believed himself that ỺynỺïon was no other than Bala Lake, through which the Dee makes her way.

Morris, when a boy, used to be warned by his parentsto take care lest he should be stolen by the fairies. He knew Thomas Williams of Bryn Syỻty, or, as he was commonly called, Twm Bryn Syỻty, who was a changeling. He was a sharp, small man, afraid of nothing. He met his death some years ago by drowning near Eglwys Fach, when he was about sixty-three years of age. There are relatives of his about Ỻanrwst still: that is, relatives of his mother, if indeed she was his mother (os oeđ hi’n fam iđo fo, ynté). Lastly, Morris had a tale about a mermaid cast ashore by a storm near Conway. She entreated the fishermen who found her to help her back into her native element; and on their refusing to comply she prayed them to place her tail at least in the water. A very crude rhyme describes her dying of exposure to the cold, thus:—

Y forforwyn ar y traeth,Crio gwaeđu’n arw wnaeth,Ofn y deuai drycin drannoeth:Yr hin yn oer a rhewi wnaeth.The stranded mermaid on the beachDid sorely cry and sorely screech,Afraid to bide the morrow’s breeze:The cold it came, and she did freeze.

Y forforwyn ar y traeth,Crio gwaeđu’n arw wnaeth,Ofn y deuai drycin drannoeth:Yr hin yn oer a rhewi wnaeth.

Y forforwyn ar y traeth,

Crio gwaeđu’n arw wnaeth,

Ofn y deuai drycin drannoeth:

Yr hin yn oer a rhewi wnaeth.

The stranded mermaid on the beachDid sorely cry and sorely screech,Afraid to bide the morrow’s breeze:The cold it came, and she did freeze.

The stranded mermaid on the beach

Did sorely cry and sorely screech,

Afraid to bide the morrow’s breeze:

The cold it came, and she did freeze.

But before expiring, the mermaid cursed the people of Conway to be always poor, and Conway has ever since, so goes the tale, laboured under the curse; so that when a stranger happens to bring a sovereign there, the Conway folk, if silver is required, have to send across the water to Ỻansanffraid for change.

My next informant was John Duncan Maclaren, who was born in 1812, and lives at Trefriw. His father was a Scotsman, but Maclaren is in all other respects a Welshman. He also knew the Sgubor Gerrig people, and that Evan Thomas and Lowri his wife had exceeding great trouble to prevent their son Roger from being carried away by the fairies. For the fairy maids were always trying to allure him away, and he was constantly finding fairy money. The fairy dance, and the playing and singing that accompanied it, used to take place ina field in front of his father’s house; but Lowri would never let her son go out after the sun had gone to his battlements (ar ol i’r haul fyn’d i lawr i gaera). The most dangerous nights were those when the moon shone brightly, and pretty wreaths of mist adorned the meadows by the river. Maclaren had heard of a man, whom he called Siôn Catrin of Tyn Twỻ, finding a penny every day at thepistyỻor water-spout near the house, when he went there to fetch water. The flat land between Trefriw and Ỻanrwst had on it a great many fairy rings, and some of them are, according to Maclaren, still to be seen. There the fairies used to dance, and when a young man got into one of the rings the fairy damsels took him away; but he could be got out unharmed at the end of a year and a day, when he would be found dancing with them in the same ring: he must then be dexterously touched by some one of his friends with a piece of iron and dragged out at once. This is the way in which a young man whom my notes connect with a place called Bryn Glas was recovered. He had gone out with a friend, who lost him, and he wandered into a fairy ring. He had new shoes on at the time, and his friends brought him out at the end of the interval of a year and a day; but he could not be made to understand that he had been away more than five minutes, until he was asked to look at his new shoes, which were by that time in pieces. Maclaren had also something to say concerning the history and habitat of the fairies. Those of Nant Conwy dress in green; and his mother, who died about sixty-two years ago, aged forty-seven, had told him that they lived seven years on the earth, seven years in the air, and seven years underground. He also had a mermaid tale, like that of Pergrin from Dyfed, p. 163. A fisherman from Ỻandriỻo yn Rhos, between Colwyn and Ỻandudno, had caughta mermaid in his net. She asked to be set free, promising that she would, in case he complied, do him a kindness. He consented, and one fine day, a long while afterwards, she suddenly peeped out of the water near him, and shouted:Siôn Ifan, cwyd dy rwyda’ a thyn tua’r lan, ‘John Evans, take up thy nets and make for the shore.’ He obeyed, and almost immediately there was a terrible storm, in which many fishermen lost their lives. The river Conwy is the chief haunt of the mysterious afanc, already mentioned, p. 130, and Maclaren stated that its name used to be employed within his memory to frighten girls and children: so much was it still dreaded. Perhaps I ought to have stated that Maclaren is very fond of music, and that he told me of a gentleman at Conway who had taken down in writing a supposed fairy tune. I have made inquiries of the latter’s son, Mr. Hennessy Hughes of Conway; but his father’s papers seem to have been lost, so that he cannot find the tune in question, though he has heard of it.

Whilst on this question of music let me quote from the Ỻwyd letter in theCambrian Journalfor 1859, pp. 145–6, on which I have already drawn, pp. 130–3, above. The passage in point is to the following effect:—

‘I will leave these tales aside whilst I go as far as the Ogo Đu, “the Black Cave,” which is in the immediate vicinity of Crigcieth3, and into which the musiciansentered so far that they lost their way back. One of them was heard to play on his pipe, and another on his horn, about two miles from where they went in; and the place where the piper was heard is called Braich y Bib, and where the man with the horn was heard is called Braich y Cornor. I do not believe that even a single man doubts but that this is all true, and I know not how the airs called Ffarwel Dic y Pibyđ, “Dick the Piper’s Farewell,” and Ffarwel Dwm Bach, “Little Tom’s Farewell,” had those names, unless it was from the musicians above mentioned. Nor do I know that Ned Puw may not have been the third, and that the air called Ffarwel Ned Puw, “Ned Pugh’s Farewell,” may not have been the last he played before going into the cave. I cannot warrant this to be true, as I have only heard it said by one man, and he merely held it as a supposition, which had been suggested by this air of Ffarwel Dic y Pibyđ.’

A story, however, mentioned by Cynđelw in theBrythonfor 1860, p. 57, makes Ned Pugh enter the cave of Tal y Clegyr, which the writer in his article identifies with Ness Cliff, near Shrewsbury. In that cave, which was regarded as a wonderful one, he says the musician disappeared, while the air he was playing, Ffarwel Ned Puw,“Ned Pugh’s Farewell,” was retained in memory of him. Some account of the departure of Ned Pugh and of the interminable cave into which he entered, will be found given in a rambling fashion in theCambrian Quarterly Magazine(London, 1829), vol. i, pp. 40–5, where the minstrel’s Welsh name is given as Iolo ap Huw. There we are told that he was last seen in the twilight of a misty Halloween, and the notes of the tune he was last heard to play are duly given. One of the surmises as to Iolo’s ultimate fate is also recorded, namely, that in the other world he has exchanged hisfiddle for a bugle, and become huntsman-in-chief to Gwyn ab Nûđ, so that every Halloween he may be found cheeringCwn Annwn, ‘the Hounds of the Other World,’ over Cader Idris4.

The same summer I fell in with Mr. Morris Evans, of Cerrig Mân, near Amlwch. He is a mining agent on the Gwydir Estate in the Vale of Conwy, but he is a native of the neighbourhood of Parys Mountain, in Anglesey, where he acquired his knowledge of mining. He had heard fairy tales from his grandmother, Grace Jones, of Ỻwyn Ysgaw near Mynyđ Mecheỻ, between Amlwch and Holyhead. She died, nearly ninety years of age, over twenty years ago. She used to relate how she and others of her own age were wont in their youth to go out on bright moonlight nights to a spot near Ỻyn y Bwch. They seldom had to wait there long before they would hear exquisite music and behold a grand palace standing on the ground. The diminutive folks of fairyland would then come forth to dance and frolic. The next morning the palace would be found gone, but the grandmother used to pick up fairy money on the spot, and this went on regularly so long as she did not tell others of her luck. My informant, who is himself a man somewhat over fifty-two, tells me that at a place not far from Ỻyn y Bwch there wereplenty of fairy rings to be seen in the grass; and it is in them the fairies were supposed to dance5.

From Ỻanrwst I went up to see the bard and antiquary, Mr. Gethin Jones. His house was prettily situated on the hillside on the left of the road as you approach the village of Penmachno. I was sorry to find that his memory had been considerably impaired by a paralytic stroke from which he had suffered not long before. However, from his room he pointed out to me a spot on the other side of the Machno, calledY Werđon, which means ‘The Green Land,’ or more literally, ‘The Greenery,’ so to say. It was well known for its green, grassy fairy rings, formerly frequented by theTylwyth Teg; and he said he could distinguish some of the rings even then from where he stood. The Werđon is on the Bennar, and the Bennar is the high ground between Penmachno and Dolwyđelan. The spot in question is on the part nearest to the Conwy Falls. This name,Y Werđon, is liable to be confounded withIwerđon, ‘Ireland,’ which is commonly treated as if it began with the definite article, so that it is made intoY WerđonandWerđon. The fairyWerđon, in the radical formGwerđon, not only recalls to my mind the Green Isles calledGwerđonau Ỻïon, but also the saying, common in North Wales, that a person in great anxiety ‘seesY Werđon.’ Thus, for instance, a man who fails to return to his family at the hour expected, and believes his people to be in great anxiety about him, expresses himself by saying that they will have ‘seen the Werđon on my account’ (mi fyđan’ wedi gwel’d y Werđon am dana’i). Is that Ireland, or is it the land of the fairies, the other world, in fact?If the latter, it might simply mean they will have died of anxiety; but I confess I have not so far been able to decide. I am not aware that the term occurs in any other form of expression than the one I have given; if it had, and if the Werđon were spoken of in some other way, that might possibly clear up the difficulty. If it refers to Ireland, it must imply that sighting Ireland is equivalent to going astray at sea, meaning in this sort of instance, getting out of one’s senses; but the Welsh are not very much given to nautical expressions. It reminds me somewhat of Gerald Griffin’s allusion to the Phantom City, and the penalty paid by those who catch a glimpse of its turrets as the dividing waves expose them for a moment to view on the western coast of Ireland:—

Soon close the white waters to screen it,And the bodement, they say, of the wonderful sight,Is death to the eyes that have seen it.

Soon close the white waters to screen it,

And the bodement, they say, of the wonderful sight,

Is death to the eyes that have seen it.

The Fairy Glen above Bettws y Coed is called in Welsh Ffos ‘Nođyn, ‘the Sink of the Abyss’; but Mr. Gethin Jones told me that it was also called Glyn y Tylwyth Teg, which is very probable, as some such a designation is required to account for the English name, ‘the Fairy Glen.’ People on the Capel Garmon side used to see theTylwythplaying there, and descending into the Ffos or Glen gently and lightly without occasioning themselves the least harm. The Fairy Glen was, doubtless, supposed to contain an entrance to the world below. This reminds one of the name of the pretty hollow running inland from the railway station at Bangor. Why should it be called Nant Uffern, or ‘The Hollow of Hell’? Can it be that there was a supposed entrance to the fairy world somewhere there? In any case, I am quite certain that Welsh place-names involve allusions to the fairiesmuch oftener than has been hitherto supposed; and I should be inclined to cite, as a further example, Moel Eilio6or Moel Eilian, from the personal name Eilian, to be mentioned presently. Moel Eilian is a mountain under which the fairies were supposed to have great stores of treasure. But to return to Mr. Gethin Jones, I had almost forgotten that I have another instance of his in point. He showed me a passage in a paper which he wrote in Welsh some time ago on the antiquities of Yspyty Ifan. He says that where the Serw joins the Conwy there is a cave, to which tradition asserts that a harpist was once allured by theTylwyth Teg. He was, of course, not seen afterwards, but the echo of the music made by him and them on their harps is still to be heard a little lower down, under the field called to this day Gweirglođ y Telynorion, ‘The Harpers’ Meadow’: compare the extract from Edward Ỻwyd’s correspondence at p. 202 above.

Mr. Gethin Jones also spoke to me of the lake called Ỻyn Pencraig, which was drained in hopes of finding lead underneath it, an expectation not altogether doomed to disappointment, and he informed me that its old name was Ỻyn Ỻifon; so the moor around it was called Gwaen Ỻifon. It appears to have been a large lake, but only in wet weather, and to have no deep bed. The names connected with the spot are now Nant Gwaen Ỻifon and the Gwaith (or Mine) of Gwaen Ỻifon: they are, I understand, within the township of Trefriw. The name Ỻyn Ỻifon is of great interest when taken in connexion with the Triadic account of the cataclysm called the Bursting of Ỻyn Ỻiƒon. Mr. Gethin Jones, however, believed himself that ỺynỺïon was no other than Bala Lake, through which the Dee makes her way.

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