British Goblins: Welsh Folk-lore, Fairy Mythology, Legends and Traditions — Book 1 Chapter 6 Parts 1-7

I.

Closely akin to the subject of changelings is that of adults or well-grown children being led away to live with the Tylwyth Teg.

In this field the Welsh traditions are innumerable, and deal not only with the last century or two, but distinctly with the middle ages.

Famed among British goblins are those fairies which are immortalised in the Tale of Elidurus.

This tale was written in Latin by Giraldus Cambrensis (as he called himself, after the pedantic fashion of his day), a Welshman, born at Pembroke Castle, and a hearty admirer of everything Welsh, himself included.

He was beyond doubt a man of genius, and of profound learning.

In 1188 he made a tour through Wales, in the interest of the crusade then in contemplation, and afterwards wrote his book--a fascinating picture of manners and customs in Wales in the twelfth century.

The scene of the tale is that Vale of Neath, already named as a famous centre of fairyland.

Elidurus, when a youth of twelve years, 'in order to avoid the severity of his preceptor,' ran away from school, 'and concealed himself under the hollow bank of a river.'

After he had fasted in that situation for two days, 'two little men of pigmy stature appeared to him,' and said, 'If you will go with us, we will lead you into a country full of delights and sports.'

Assenting, Elidurus rose up and 'followed his guides through a path at first subterraneous and dark, into a most beautiful country, but obscure and not illuminated with the full light of the sun.'

All the days in that country 'were cloudy, and the nights extremely dark.'

The boy was brought before the king of the strange little people, and introduced to him in the presence of his Court.

Having examined Elidurus for a long time, the king delivered him to his son, that prince being then a boy.

The men of this country, though of the smallest stature, were very well proportioned, fair-complexioned, and wore long hair.

'They had horses and greyhounds adapted to their size.

They neither ate flesh nor fish, but lived on milk-diet, made up into messes with saffron.

As often as they returned from our hemisphere, they reprobated our ambition, infidelities, and inconstancies; and though they had no form of public worship, were, it seems, strict lovers and reverers of truth.

The boy frequently returned to our hemisphere, sometimes by the way he had gone, sometimes by others; at first in company, and afterwards alone; and made himself known only to his mother, to whom he described what he had seen.

Being desired by her to bring her a present of gold, with which that country abounded, he stole, whilst at play with the king's son, a golden ball with which he used to divert himself, and brought it in haste to his mother, but not unpursued; for, as he entered the house of his father, he stumbled at the threshold;' the ball fell, 'and two pigmies seizing it, departed, showing the boy every mark of contempt and derision.

Notwithstanding every attempt for the space of a year, he never again could find the track to the subterraneous passage.'

He had made himself acquainted with the language of his late hosts, 'which was very conformable to the Greek idiom.

When they asked for water, they said _Udor udorum_;

when they want salt, they say _Halgein udorum_.'

[39] FOOTNOTE:

[39] See Sir R. C.

Hoare's Translation of Giraldus.

II.

Exactly similar to this medieval legend in spirit, although differing widely in detail, is the modern story of Shui Rhys, told to me by a peasant in Cardiganshire.

Shui was a beautiful girl of seventeen, tall and fair, with a skin like ivory, hair black and curling, and eyes of dark velvet.

She was but a poor farmer's daughter, notwithstanding her beauty, and among her duties was that of driving up the cows for the milking.

Over this work she used to loiter sadly, to pick flowers by the way, or chase the butterflies, or amuse herself in any agreeable manner that fortune offered.

For her loitering she was often chided;

indeed, people said Shui's mother was far too sharp with the girl, and that it was for no good the mother had so bitter a tongue.

After all the girl meant no harm, they said.

But when one night Shui never came home till bed-time, leaving the cows to care for themselves, dame Rhys took the girl to task as she never had done before.

'Ysgwaetheroedd, mami,' said Shui, 'I couldn't help it; it was the Tylwyth Teg.'

The dame was aghast at this, but she could not answer it--for well she knew the Tylwyth Teg were often seen in the woods of Cardigan.

Shui was at first shy about talking of the fairies, but finally confessed they were little men in green coats, who danced around her and made music on their tiny harps; and they talked to her in language too beautiful to be repeated; indeed she couldn't understand the words, though she knew well enough what the fairies meant.

Many a time after that Shui was late; but now nobody chided her, for fear of offending the fairies.

At last one night Shui did not come home at all.

In alarm the woods were searched; there was no sign of her; and never was she seen in Cardigan again.

Her mother watched in the fields on the Teir-nos Ysprydion, or three nights of the year when goblins are sure to be abroad; but Shui never returned.

Once indeed there came back to the neighbourhood a wild rumour that Shui Rhys had been seen in a great city in a foreign land--Paris, perhaps, or London, who knows?

but this tale was in no way injurious to the sad belief that the fairies had carried her off; they might take her to those well-known centres of idle and sinful pleasure, as well as to any other place.

[Illustration: SHUI RHYS AND THE TYLWYTH TEG.

] III.

An old man who died in St. Dogmell's parish, Pembrokeshire, a short time since (viz.

, in 1860), nearly a hundred years old, used to say that that whole neighbourhood was considered 'fou.'

It was a common experience for men to be led astray there all night, and after marvellous adventures and untellable trampings, which seemed as if they would be endless, to find when day broke that they were close to their own homes.

In one case, a man who was led astray chanced to have with him a number of hoop-rods, and as he wandered about under the influence of the deluding phantom, he was clever enough to drop the rods one by one, so that next day he might trace his journeyings.

When daylight came, and the search for the hoop-rods was entered on, it was found they were scattered over miles upon miles of country.

Another time, a St. Dogmell's fisherman was returning home from a wedding at Moelgrove, and it being very dark, the fairies led him astray, but after a few hours he had the good luck (which Sir John Franklin might have envied him) to 'discover the North Pole,' and by this beacon he was able to steer his staggering barque to the safe port of his own threshold.

It is even gravely stated that a severe and dignified clerical person, no longer in the frisky time of life, but advanced in years, was one night forced to join in the magic dance of St. Dogmell's, and keep it up till nearly daybreak.

Specific details in this instance are wanting; but it was no doubt the Ellyllon who led all these folk astray, and put a cap of oblivion on their heads, which prevented them from ever telling their adventures clearly.

IV.

Dancing and music play a highly important part in stories of this class.

The Welsh fairies are most often dancing together when seen.

They seek to entice mortals to dance with them, and when anyone is drawn to do so, it is more than probable he will not return to his friends for a long time.

Edmund William Rees, of Aberystruth, was thus drawn away by the fairies, and came back at the year's end, looking very bad.

But he could not give a very clear account of what he had been about, only said he had been dancing.

This was a common thing in these cases.

Either they were not able to, or they dared not, talk about their experiences.

Two farm servants named Rhys and Llewellyn were one evening at twilight returning home from their work, when Rhys cried out that he heard the fairy music.

Llewellyn could hear nothing, but Rhys said it was a tune to which he had danced a hundred times, and would again, and at once.

'Go on,' says he, 'and I'll soon catch you up again.'

Llewellyn objected, but Rhys stopped to hear no more; he bounded away and left Llewellyn to go home alone, which he did, believing Rhys had merely gone off on a spree, and would come home drunk before morning.

But the morning came, and no Rhys.

In vain search was made, still no Rhys.

Time passed on; days grew into months; and at last suspicion fell on Llewellyn, that he had murdered Rhys.

He was put in prison.

A

farmer learned in fairy-lore, suspecting how it was, proposed that he and a company of neighbours should go with poor Llewellyn to the spot where he had last seen Rhys.

Agreed.

Arrived at the spot, 'Hush,' cried Llewellyn, 'I hear music!

I hear the sweet music of the harps!'

They all listened, but could hear nothing.

'Put your foot on mine, David,' says Llewellyn to one of the company; his own foot was on the outward edge of a fairy ring as he spoke.

David put his foot on Llewellyn's, and so did they all, one after another; and then they heard the sound of many harps, and saw within a circle about twenty feet across, great numbers of little people dancing round and round.

And there was Rhys, dancing away like a madman!

As he came whirling by, Llewellyn caught him by his smock-frock and pulled him out of the circle.

'Where are the horses?

where are the horses?'

cried Rhys in an excited manner.

'Horses, indeed!'

sneered Llewellyn, in great disgust;

'wfft!

go home.

Horses!'

But Rhys was for dancing longer, declaring he had not been there five minutes.

'You've been there,' says Llewellyn, 'long enough to come near getting me hanged, anyhow.'

They got him home finally, but he was never the same man again, and soon after he died.

V.

In the great majority of these stories the hero dies immediately after his release from the thraldom of the fairies--in some cases with a suddenness and a completeness of obliteration as appalling as dramatic.

The following story, well known in Carmarthenshire, presents this detail with much force: There was a certain farmer who, while going early one morning to fetch his horses from the pasture, heard harps playing.

Looking carefully about for the source of this music, he presently saw a company of Tylwyth Teg footing it merrily in a corelw.

Resolving to join their dance and cultivate their acquaintance, the farmer stepped into the fairy ring.

Never had man his resolution more thoroughly carried out, for having once begun the reel he was not allowed to finish it till years had elapsed.

Even then he might not have been released, had it not chanced that a man one day passed by the lonely spot, so close to the ring that he saw the farmer dancing.

'Duw catto ni!'

cried the man, 'God save us!

but this is a merry one.

Hai, holo!

man, what, in Heaven's name, makes you so lively?'

This question, in which the name of Heaven was uttered, broke the spell which rested on the farmer, who spoke like one in a dream: 'O dyn!'

cried he, 'what's become of the horses?'

Then he stepped from the fairy circle and instantly crumbled away and mingled his dust with the earth.

A similar tale is told in Carnarvon, but with the fairy dance omitted and a pious character substituted, which helps to indicate the antiquity of this class of legend, by showing that it was one of the monkish adoptions of an earlier story.

Near Clynog, in Carnarvonshire, there is a place called Llwyn y Nef, (the Bush of Heaven,) which thus received its name: In Clynog lived a monk of most devout life, who longed to be taken to heaven.

One evening, whilst walking without the monastery by the riverside, he sat down under a green tree and fell into a deep reverie, which ended in sleep; and he slept for thousands of years.

At last he heard a voice calling unto him, 'Sleeper, awake and be up.'

He awoke.

All was strange to him except the old monastery, which still looked down upon the river.

He went to the monastery, and was made much of.

He asked for a bed to rest himself on and got it.

Next morning when the brethren sought him, they found nothing in the bed but a handful of ashes.

[40] So in the monkish tale of the five saints, who sleep in the cave of Caio, reappears the legend of Arthur's sleeping warriors under Craig-y-Ddinas.

FOOTNOTE:

[40] 'Cymru Fu,' 188. VI.

[Illustration: PLUCKED FROM THE FAIRY CIRCLE.

] A tradition is current in Mathavarn, in the parish of Llanwrin, and the Cantref of Cyfeillioc, concerning a certain wood called Ffridd yr Ywen, (the Forest of the Yew,) that it is so called on account of a magical yew-tree which grows exactly in the middle of the forest.

Under that tree there is a fairy circle called The Dancing Place of the Goblin.

There are several fairy circles in the Forest of the Yew, but the one under the yew-tree in the middle has this legend connected with it: Many years ago, two farm-servants, whose names were Twm and Iago, went out one day to work in the Forest of the Yew.

Early in the afternoon the country became covered with so dense a mist that the youths thought the sun was setting, and they prepared to go home; but when they came to the yew-tree in the middle of the forest, suddenly they found all light around them.

They now thought it too early to go home, and concluded to lie down under the yew-tree and have a nap.

By-and-by Twm awoke, to find his companion gone.

He was much surprised at this, but concluded Iago had gone to the village on an errand of which they had been speaking before they fell asleep.

So Twm went home, and to all inquiries concerning Iago, he answered, 'Gone to the cobbler's in the village.'

But Iago was still absent next morning, and now Twm was cross-questioned severely as to what had become of his fellow-servant.

Then he confessed that they had fallen asleep under the yew where the fairy circle was, and from that moment he had seen nothing more of Iago.

They searched the whole forest over, and the whole country round, for many days, and finally Twm went to a gwr cyfarwydd (or conjuror), a common trade in those days, says the legend.

The conjuror gave him this advice: 'Go to the same place where you and the lad slept.

Go there exactly a year after the boy was lost.

Let it be on the same day of the year and at the same time of the day;

but take care that you do not step inside the fairy ring.

Stand on the border of the green circle you saw there, and the boy will come out with many of the goblins to dance.

When you see him so near to you that you may take hold of him, snatch him out of the ring as quickly as you can.'

These instructions were obeyed.

Iago appeared, dancing in the ring with the Tylwyth Teg, and was promptly plucked forth.

'Duw!

Duw!'

cried Tom, 'how wan and pale you look!

And don't you feel hungry too?'

'No,' said the boy, 'and if I did, have I not here in my wallet the remains of my dinner that I had before I fell asleep?'

But when he looked in his wallet, the food was not there.

'Well, it must be time to go home,' he said, with a sigh; for he did not know that a year had passed by.

His look was like a skeleton, and as soon as he had tasted food, he mouldered away.

VII.

Taffy ap Sion, the shoemaker's son, living near Pencader, Carmarthenshire, was a lad who many years ago entered the fairy circle on the mountain hard by there, and having danced a few minutes, as he supposed, chanced to step out.

He was then astonished to find that the scene which had been so familiar was now quite strange to him.

Here were roads and houses he had never seen, and in place of his father's humble cottage there now stood a fine stone farm-house.

About him were lovely cultivated fields instead of the barren mountain he was accustomed to.

'Ah,' thought he, 'this is some fairy trick to deceive my eyes.

It is not ten minutes since I stepped into that circle, and now when I step out they have built my father a new house!

Well, I only hope it is real; anyhow, I'll go and see.'

So he started off by a path he knew instinctively, and suddenly struck against a very solid hedge.

He rubbed his eyes, felt the hedge with his fingers, scratched his head, felt the hedge again, ran a thorn into his fingers and cried out, 'Wbwb!

this is no fairy hedge anyhow, nor, from the age of the thorns, was it grown in a few minutes' time.'

So he climbed over it and walked on.

'Here was I born,' said he, as he entered the farmyard, staring wildly about him, 'and not a thing here do I know!'

His mystification was complete when there came bounding towards him a huge dog, barking furiously.

'What dog is this?

Get out, you ugly brute!

Don't you know I'm master here?

--at least, when mother's from home, for father don't count.'

But the dog only barked the harder.

'Surely,' muttered Taffy to himself, 'I have lost my road and am wandering through some unknown neighbourhood; but no, yonder is the Careg Hir!'

and he stood staring at the well-known erect stone thus called, which still stands on the mountain south of Pencader, and is supposed to have been placed there in ancient times to commemorate a victory.

As Taffy stood thus looking at the Long Stone, he heard footsteps behind him, and turning, beheld the occupant of the farm-house, who had come out to see why his dog was barking.

Poor Taffy was so ragged and wan that the farmer's Welsh heart was at once stirred to sympathy.

'Who are you, poor man?'

he asked.

To which Taffy answered, 'I know who I was, but I do not know who I _am now_.

I was the son of a shoemaker who lived in this place, this morning; for that rock, though it is changed a little, I know too well.'

'Poor fellow,' said the farmer, 'you have lost your senses.

This house was built by my great-grandfather, repaired by my grandfather;

and that part there, which seems newly built, was done about three years ago at my expense.

You must be deranged, or have missed the road;

but come in and refresh yourself with some victuals, and rest.'

Taffy was half persuaded that he had overslept himself and lost his road, but looking back he saw the rock before mentioned, and exclaimed, 'It is but an hour since I was on yonder rock robbing a hawk's nest.'

'Where have you been since?'

Taffy related his adventure.

'Ah,' quoth the farmer, 'I see how it is--you have been with the fairies.

Pray, who was your father?'

'Sion Evan y Crydd o Glanrhyd,' was the answer.

'I never heard of such a man,' said the farmer, shaking his head, 'nor of such a place as Glanrhyd, either: but no matter, after you have taken a little food we will step down to Catti Shon, at Pencader, who will probably be able to tell us something.'

With this he beckoned Taffy to follow him, and walked on; but hearing behind him the sound of footsteps growing weaker and weaker, he turned round, when to his horror he beheld the poor fellow crumble in an instant to about a thimbleful of black ashes.

The farmer, though much terrified at this sight, preserved his calmness sufficiently to go at once and see old Catti, the aged crone he had referred to, who lived at Pencader, near by.

He found her crouching over a fire of faggots, trying to warm her old bones.

'And how do you do the day, Catti Shon?'

asked the farmer.

'Ah,' said old Catti, 'I'm wonderful well, farmer, considering how old I am.'

'Yes, yes, you're very old.

Now, since you are so old, let me ask you--do you remember anything about Sion y Crydd o Glanrhyd?

Was there ever such a man, do you know?'

'Sion Glanrhyd?

O!

I have some faint recollection of hearing my grandfather, old Evan Shenkin, Penferdir, relate that Sion's son was lost one morning, and they never heard of him afterwards, so that it was said he was taken by the fairies.

His father's cot stood somewhere near your house.'

'Were there many fairies about at that time?'

asked the farmer.

'O yes; they were often seen on yonder hill, and I was told they were lately seen in Pant Shon Shenkin, eating flummery out of egg-shells, which they had stolen from a farm hard by.'

'Dir anwyl fi!'

cried the farmer; 'dear me!

I recollect now--I saw them myself!'

Pant Shon[41] Shenkin, it must be here remarked, was a famous place for the Carmarthenshire fairies.

The traditions thereabout respecting them are numerous.

Among the strangest is, that a woman once actually caught a fairy on the mountain near Pant Shon Shenkin, and that it remained long in her custody, retaining still the same height and size, but at last made its escape.

Another curious tradition relates that early one Easter Monday, when the parishioners of Pencarreg and Caio were met to play at football, they saw a numerous company of Tylwyth Teg dancing.

Being so many in number, the young men were not intimidated at all, but proceeded in a body towards the puny tribe, who, perceiving them, removed to another place.

The young men followed, whereupon the little folks suddenly appeared dancing at the first place.

Seeing this, the men divided and surrounded them, when they immediately became invisible, and were never more seen there.

FOOTNOTE:

[41] Sion and Shon are the same word, just as are our Smith and Smyth.

Where there are so few personal names as in Wales, while I would not myself change a single letter in order to render the actors in a tale more distinct, it is perhaps as well to encourage any eccentricities of spelling which we are so lucky as to find on the spot.