Chapter III · Fairy Ways and Words

Heavens defend me from that Welsh fairy!

Shakespeare.

In the previous chapters, the fairy lore of the Principality was hastily skimmed without any method; and I fear that, now I have to reproduce some of the things which I gleaned somewhat later, there will be, if possible, still less method. The general reader, in case he chances on these pages, will doubtless feel that, as soon as he has read a few of the tales, the rest seem to be familiar to him, and exceedingly tiresome. It may be, however, presumed that all men anxious to arrive at an idea as to the origin among us of the belief in fairies, will agree that we should have as large and exhaustive a collection as possible of facts on which to work. If we can supply the data without stint, the student of anthropology may be trusted in time to discover their value for his inductions, and their place in the history of the human race.

I.

Morris, when a boy, used to be warned by his parents to 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 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 in a 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 the pistyỻ or 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 caught a 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 the Cambrian Journal for 1859, pp. 145–6, on which I have already drawn, pp. 130–3, above. The passage in point is to the following effect:—

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, called Y 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 the Tylwyth 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 with Iwerđon, ‘Ireland,’ which is commonly treated as if it began with the definite article, so that it is made into Y Werđon and Werđon. The fairy Werđon, in the radical form Gwerđon, not only recalls to my mind the Green Isles called Gwerđonau Ỻïon, but also the saying, common in North Wales, that a person in great anxiety ‘sees Y 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.

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 Ỻyn Ỻïon was no other than Bala Lake, through which the Dee makes her way.

II.

One day in August of the same year, I arrived at Dinas Station, and walked down to Ỻandwrog in order to see Dinas Dinỻe, and to ascertain what traditions still existed there respecting Caer Arianrhod, Ỻew Ỻawgyffes, Dylan Eilton, and other names that figure in the Mabinogi of Math ab Mathonwy. I called first on the schoolmaster, and he kindly took me to the clerk, Hugh Evans, a native of the neighbourhood of Ỻangefni, in Anglesey. He had often heard people talk of some women having once on a time come from Tregar Anthreg to Cae’r ’Loda’, a place near the shore, to fetch food or water, and that when they looked back they beheld the town overflowed by the sea: the walls can still be seen at low water. Gwennan was the name of one of the women, and she was buried at the place now called Beđ Gwennan, or Gwennan’s Grave. He had also heard the fairy tales of Waen Fawr and Nant y Bettws, narrated by the antiquary, Owen Williams of the former place. For instance, he had related to him the tale of the man who slept on a clump of rushes, and thought he was all the while in a magnificent mansion; see p. 100, above. Now I should explain that Tregar Anthreg is to be seen at low water from Dinas Dinỻe as a rock not far from the shore. The Caranthreg which it implies is one of the modern forms to which Caer Arianrhod has been reduced; and to this has been prefixed a synonym of caer, namely, tref, reduced to tre’, just as Carmarthen is frequently called Tre’ Gaerfyrđin. Cae’r ’Loda’ is explained as Cae’r Aelodau’, ‘The Field of the Limbs’; but I am sorry to say that I forgot to note the story explanatory of the name. It is given, I think, to a farm, and so is Beđ Gwennan likewise the name of a farm house. The tenant of the latter, William Roberts, was at home when I visited the spot. He told me the same story, but with a variation: three sisters had come from Tregan Anrheg to fetch provisions, when their city was overflowed. Gwen fled to the spot now called Beđ Gwennan, Elan to Tyđyn Elan, or Elan’s Holding, and Maelan to Rhos Maelan, or Maelan’s Moor; all three are names of places in the immediate neighbourhood.

From Dinas Dinỻe I was directed across Lord Newborough’s grounds at Glynỻifon to Pen y Groes Station; but on my way I had an opportunity of questioning several of the men employed at Glynỻifon. One of these was called William Thomas Solomon, an intelligent middle-aged man, who works in the garden there. He said that the three women who escaped from the submerged city were sisters, and that he had learned in his infancy to call them Gwennan bi Dôn, Elan bi Dôn, and Maelan bi Dôn. Lastly, the name of the city, according to him, was Tregan Anthrod. I had the following forms of the name that day:—Tregar Anrheg, Tregar Anthreg, Tregan Anrheg, Tregan Anthreg, and Tregan Anthrod. All these are attempts to reproduce what might be written Tre’-Gaer-Arianrhod. The modification of nrh into nthr is very common in North Wales, and Tregar Anrheg seems to have been fashioned on the supposition that the name had something to do with anrheg, ‘a gift.’ Tregan Anthrod is undoubtedly the Caer Arianrhod, or ‘fortress of Arianrhod,’ in the Mabinogi, and it is duly marked as such in a map of Speede’s at the spot where it should be. Now the Arianrhod of the Mabinogi of Math could hardly be called a lady of rude virtue, and it is the idea in the neighbourhood that the place was inundated on account of the wickedness of the inhabitants. So it would appear that Gwennan, Elan, and Maelan, Arianrhod’s sisters, were the just ones allowed to escape. Arianrhod was probably drowned as the principal sinner in possession; but I did not find, as I expected, that the crime which called for such an expiation was in this instance that of playing cards on Sunday. In fact, this part of the legend does not seem to have been duly elaborated as yet.

I must now come back to Solomon’s bi Dôn, which puzzles me not a little. Arianrhod was daughter of Dôn, and so several other characters in the same Mabinogi were children of Dôn. But what is bi Dôn? I have noticed that all the Welsh antiquaries who take Don out of books invariably call that personage Dòn or Donn with a short o, which is wrong, and this has saved me from being deceived once or twice: so I take it that bi Dôn is, as Solomon asserted, a local expression of which he did not know the meaning. I can only add, in default of a better explanation, that bi Dôn recalled to my mind what I had shortly before heard on my trip from Aberdaron to Bardsey Island. My wife and I, together with two friends, engaged, after much eloquent haggling, a boat at the former place, but one of the men who were to row us insinuated a boy of his, aged four, into the boat, an addition which did not exactly add to the pleasures of that somewhat perilous trip amidst incomprehensible currents. But the Aberdaron boatmen always called that child bi Donn, which I took to have been a sort of imitation of an infantile pronunciation of ‘baby John,’ for his name was John, which Welsh infants as a rule first pronounce Donn: I can well remember the time when I did. This, applied to Gwennan bi Dôn, would imply that Solomon heard it as a piece of nursery lore when he was a child, and that it meant simply—Gwennan, baby or child of Dôn. Lastly, the only trace of Dylan I could find was in the name of a small promontory, called variously by the Glynỻifon men Pwynt Maen Tylen, which was Solomon’s pronunciation, and Pwynt Maen Dulan. It is also known, as I was given to understand, as Pwynt y Wig: I believe I have seen it given in maps as Maen Dylan Point.

Solomon told me the following fairy tale, and he was afterwards kind enough to have it written out for me. I give it in his own words, as it is peculiar in some respects:—

That is exactly the tale, my informant tells me, as he heard it from his mother, who heard it from an old woman who lived at Garth Dorwen when his mother was a girl, about eighty-four years ago, as he guessed it to have been; but in his written version he has omitted one thing which he told me at Glynỻifon, namely, that, when the servant girl went out to the fairies to spin, an enormous amount of spinning used to be done. I mention this as it reminds me of the tales of other nations, where the girl who cannot spin straw into gold is assisted by a fairy, on certain conditions which are afterwards found very inconvenient. It may be guessed that in the case of Eilian the conditions involved her becoming a fairy’s wife, and that she kept to them. Lastly, I should like the archæologists of Carnarvonshire to direct their attention to Bryn y Pibion; for they might be expected to come across the remains there of a barrow or of a fort.

III.

The same summer I happened to meet the Rev. Robert Hughes, of Uwchlaw’r Ffynnon, near Ỻanaelhaearn, a village on which Tre’r Ceiri, or the Town of the Keiri, looks down in its primitive grimness from the top of one of the three heights of the Eifl, or Rivals as English people call them. The district is remarkable for the longevity of its inhabitants, and Mr. Hughes counted fifteen farmers in his immediate neighbourhood whose average age was eighty-three; and four years previously the average age of eighteen of them was no less than eighty-five. He himself was, when I met him, seventy-one years of age, and he considered that he represented the traditions of more than a century and a half, as he was a boy of twelve when one of his grandfathers died at the age of ninety-two: the age reached by one of his grandmothers was all but equal, while his father died only a few years ago, after nearly reaching his ninety-fifth birthday.

To return to Ỻanaelhaearn, it is right to say that good spirits too, who attend on good Calvinists, are there believed in. Morris Hughes, of Cwm Corryn, was the first Calvinistic Methodist at Ỻanaelhaearn; he was great-grandfather to Robert Hughes’ wife; and he used to be followed by two pretty little yellow birds. He would call to them, ‘Wryd, Wryd!’ and they would come and feed out of his hand, and when he was dying they came and flapped their wings against his window. This was testified to by John Thomas, of Moelfre Bach, who was present at the time. Thomas died some twenty-five years ago, at the age of eighty-seven. I have heard this story from other people, but I do not know what to make of it, though I may add that the little birds are believed to have been angels. In Mr. Rees’ Welsh Saints, pp. 305–6, Gwryd is given as the name of a friar who lived about the end of the twelfth century, and has been commemorated on November 1; and the author adds a note referring to the Cambrian Register for 1800, vol. iii. p. 221, where it is said that Gwryd relieved the bard Einion ab Gwalchmai of some oppression, probably mental, which had afflicted him for seven years. Is one to suppose that Gwryd sent two angels in the form of little birds to protect the first Ỻanaelhaearn Methodist? The call ‘Wryd, Wryd,’ would seem to indicate that the name was not originally Gwryd, but Wryd, to be identified possibly with the Pictish name Uoret in an inscription at St. Vigean’s, near Arbroath, and to be distinguished from the Welsh word gwryd, ‘valour,’ and from the Welsh name Gwriad, representing what in its Gaulish form was Viriatus. We possibly have the name Wryd in Hafod Wryd, a place in the Machno Valley above Bettws y Coed; otherwise one would have expected Hafod y Gwryd, making colloquially, Hafod Gwryd.

Mr. Hughes told me a variety of things about Nant Gwrtheyrn, one of the spots where the Vortigern story is localized. The Nant is a sort of a cul de sac hollow opening to the sea at the foot of the Eifl. There is a rock there called Y Farches, and the angle of the sea next to the old castle, which seems to be merely a mound, is called Y Ỻynclyn, or ‘The Whirlpool’; and this is perhaps an important item in the localizing of Vortigern’s city there. I was informed by Mr. Hughes that the grave of Olfyn is in this Nant, with a razed church close by: both are otherwise quite unknown to me. Coming away from this weird spot to the neighbourhood of Celynnog, one finds that the Pennarđ of the Mabinogi of Math is now called Pennarth, and has on it a well-known cromlech. Of course, I did not leave Mr. Hughes without asking him about Caer Arianrhod, and I found that he called it Tre’ Gaer Anrheg: he described it as a stony patch in the sea, and it can, he says, be reached on foot when the ebb is at its lowest in spring and autumn. The story he had heard about it when he was a boy at school with David Thomas, better known by his bardic name of Dafyđ Đu Eryri, was the following:—

‘Tregaer Anrheg was inhabited by a family of robbers, and among other things they killed and robbed a man at Glyn Iwrch, near the further wall of Glynnỻifon Park: this completed the measure of their lawlessness. There was one woman, however, living with them at Tregaer Anrheg, who was not related to them, and as she went out one evening with her pitcher to fetch water, she heard a voice crying out, Dos i ben y bryn i wel’d rhyfeđod, that is, Go up the hill to see a wonder. She obeyed, and as soon as she got to the top of the hill, whereby was meant Dinas Dinỻe, she beheld Tregaer Anrheg sinking in the sea.’

As I have wandered away from the fairies I may add the following curious bit of legend which Mr. Hughes gave me:—‘When St. Beuno lived at Celynnog, he used to go regularly to preach at Ỻanđwyn on the opposite side of the water, which he always crossed on foot. But one Sunday he accidentally dropped his book of sermons into the water, and when he had failed to recover it a gylfin-hir, or curlew, came by, picked it up, and placed it on a stone out of the reach of the tide. The saint prayed for the protection and favour of the Creator for the gylfin-hir: it was granted, and so nobody ever knows where that bird makes its nest.’

IV.

V.

When I was staying at Pwỻheli the same summer, I went out to the neighbouring village of Four Crosses, and found a native of the place, who had heard a great many curious things from his mother. His name was Lewis Jones: he was at the time over eighty, and he had formerly been a saddler. Among other things, his mother often told him that her grandmother had frequently been with the fairies, when the latter was a child. She lived at Plâs Du, and once she happened to be up near Carn Bentyrch when she saw them. She found them resembling little children, and playing in a brook that she had to cross. She was so delighted with them, and stayed so long with them, that a search was made for her, when she was found in the company of the fairies. Another time, they met her as she was going on an errand across a large bog on a misty day, when there was a sort of a drizzle, which one might call either dew or rain, as it was not decidedly either, but something between the two, such as the Welsh would call gwlithlaw, ‘dew-rain.’ She loitered in their company until a search was made for her again. Lewis Jones related to me the story of the midwife—he pronounced it in Welsh ‘midwaith’—who attended on a fairy. As in the other versions, she lost the sight of one eye in consequence of her discovering the gentleman fairy thieving; but the fair at which this happened was held in this instance at Nefyn. He related also how a farmer at Pennant had wedded a fairy called Bella. This tale proceeded like the other versions, and did not even omit the fighting at Penmorfa: see pp. 89, 93, 220. He had likewise the tale about the two youths who had gone out to fetch some cattle, and came, while returning about dusk, across a party of fairies dancing. The one was drawn into the circle, and the other was suspected at length of having murdered him, until, at the suggestion of a wizard, he went to the same place at the end of a year and a day: then he found him dancing, and managed to get him out. He had been reduced to a mere skeleton, but he inquired at once if the cattle he was driving were far ahead. Jones had heard of a child changed by the fairies when its mother had placed it in some hay while she worked at the harvest. She discovered he was not her own by brewing in an egg-shell, as usual. Then she refused to take any notice of him, and she soon found her own baby returned; but the latter looked much the worse for its sojourn in the land of the Tylwyth Teg.

My informant described to me Elis Bach of Nant Gwrtheyrn, already mentioned, p. 221, who died somewhat more than forty years ago. His father was a farmer there, and his children, both boys and girls, were like ordinary folks, excepting Elis, who was deformed, his legs being so short that his body seemed only a few inches from the ground when he walked. His voice was also small and squeaky. However, he was very sharp, and could find his way among the rocks pretty well when he went in quest of his father’s sheep and goats, of which there used to be plenty there formerly. Everybody believed Elis to have been a changeling, and one saying of his is still remembered in that part of the country. When strangers visited Nant Gwrtheyrn, a thing which did not frequently happen, and when his parents asked them to their table, and pressed them to eat, he would squeak out drily, Buta ‘nynna buta’r cwbwl, that is to say, ‘Eating that means eating all we have.’

He told me further that the servant girls used formerly to take care to bring a supply of water indoors at the approach of night, that the fairies might find plenty in which to bathe their children, for fear that they might use the milk instead, if water was wanting. Moreover, when they had been baking, they took care to leave the fairies both padeỻ and gradeỻ, that they might do their baking in the night. The latter used to pay for this kindness by leaving behind them a cake of fairy bread and sometimes money on the hob. I have, however, not been able to learn anything about the quality or taste of this fairy food.

He had also a great deal to say about the making of bonfires about the beginning of winter. A bonfire was always kindled on the farm called Cromlech on the eve of the Winter Calends or Nos Galan Gaeaf, as it is termed in Welsh; and the like were to be seen in abundance towards Ỻithfaen, Carnguwch, and Ỻanaelhaearn, as well as on the Merioneth side of the bay. Besides fuel, each person present used to throw into the fire a small stone, with a mark whereby he should know it again. If he succeeded in finding the stone on the morrow, the year would be a lucky one for him, but the contrary if he failed to recover it. Those who assisted at the making of the bonfire watched until the flames were out, and then somebody would raise the usual cry, when each ran away for his life, lest he should be found last. This cry, which is a sort of equivalent, well known over Carnarvonshire, of the English saying, ‘The devil take the hindmost,’ was in the Welsh of that county—

that is to say, ‘May the black sow without a tail seize the hindmost.’

The cutty black sow is often alluded to nowadays to frighten children in Arfon, and it is clearly the same creature that is described in some parts of North Wales as follows:—

Hwch đu gwta

Ar bob camfa

Yn nyđu a chardio

Bob nos G’langaea’.

A cutty black sow

On every stile,

Spinning and carding

Every Allhallows’ Eve.

In Cardiganshire this is reduced to the words:—

Nos Galan Gaea’,

Bwbach ar bob camfa.

On Allhallows’ Eve

A bogie on every stile.

Welsh people speak of only three Calends—Calan-mai, or the first of May; Calan-gaeaf, the Calends of Winter, or Allhallows; and Y Calan, or The Calends par excellence, that is to say, the first day of January, which last is probably not Celtic but Roman. The other two most certainly are, and it is one of their peculiarities that all uncanny spirits and bogies are at liberty the night preceding each of them. The Hwch đu gwta is at large on Allhallows’ Eve, and the Scottish Gaels have the name ‘Samhanach’ for any Allhallows’ demon, formed from the word Samhain, Allhallows. The eve of the first of May may be supposed to have been the same, as may be gathered from the story of Rhiannon’s baby and of Teyrnon’s colt, both of which were stolen by undescribed demons that night—I allude to the Mabinogi of Pwyỻ, Prince of Dyfed.

VI.

At Nefyn, Mr. John Williams (Alaw Ỻeyn) got from his mother the tale of the midwife. It stated that the latter lost the sight of her right eye at Nefyn Fair, owing to the fairy she there recognized, pricking her eye with a green rush. During my visit to Aberdaron, my wife and I went to the top of Mynyđ Anelog, and on the way up we passed a cottage, where a very illiterate woman told us that the Tylwyth Teg formerly frequented the mountain when there was mist on it; that they changed people’s children if they were left alone on the ground; and that the way to get the right child back was to leave the fairy urchin without being touched or fed. She also said that, after baking, people left the gradeỻ for the fairies to do their baking: they would then leave a cake behind them as pay. As for the fairies just now, they have been exorcised (wedi’ffrymu) for some length of time. Mrs. Williams, of Pwỻ Defaid, told me that the rock opposite, called Clip y Gylfinir, on Bodwyđog mountain, a part of Mynyđ y Rhiw, was the resort of the Tylwyth Teg, and that they revelled there when it was covered with mist; she added that a neighbouring farm, called Bodermud Isa’, was well known at one time as a place where the fairies came to do their baking. But the most remarkable tale I had in the neighbourhood of Aberdaron was from Evan Williams, a smith who lives at Yr Arđ Las, on Rhos Hirwaen. If I remember rightly, he is a native of Ỻaniestin, and what he told me relates to a farmer’s wife who lived at the Nant, in that parish. Now this old lady was frequently visited by a fairy who used to borrow padeỻ a gradeỻ from her. These she used to get, and she returned them with a loaf borne on her head in acknowledgement. But one day she came to ask for the loan of her troeỻ bach, or wheel for spinning flax. When handing her this, the farmer’s wife wished to know her name, as she came so often, but she refused to tell her. However, she was watched at her spinning, and overheard singing to the whir of the wheel:—

Bychan a wyđa’ hi

Mai Sìli go Dwt

Yw f’enw i.

Little did she know

That Silly go Dwt

Is my name.

This explains to some extent the sìli ffrit sung by a Corwrion fairy when she came out of the lake to spin: see p. 64 above. At first I had in vain tried to make out the meaning of that bit of legend; but since then I have also found the Ỻaniestin rhyme a little varied at Ỻanberis: it was picked up there, I do not exactly know how, by my little girls this summer. The words as they have them run thus:—

Bychan a wyđa’ hi

Mai Trwtyn-Tratyn

Yw f’enw i.

Here, instead of Sìli go Dwt or Sìli ffrit, the name is Trwtyn-Tratyn, and these doggerels at once remind one of the tale of Rumpelstiltzchen; but it is clear that we have as yet only the merest fragments of the whole, though I have been thus far unable to get any more. So one cannot quite say how far it resembled the tale of Rumpelstiltzchen: there is certainly one difference, which is at once patent, namely, that while the German Rumpelstiltzchen was a male fairy, our Welsh Sìli ffrit or Sìli go Dwt is of the other sex. Probably, in the Ỻaniestin tale, the borrowing for baking had nothing to do with the spinning, for all fairies in Ỻeyn borrow a padeỻ and a gradeỻ, while they do not usually appear to spin. Then may we suppose that the spinning was in this instance done for the farmer’s wife on conditions which she was able to evade by discovering the fairy helper’s name? At any rate one expects a story representing the farmer’s wife laid under obligation by the fairy, and not the reverse. I shall have an opportunity of returning to this kind of tale in chapter x.

VII.

Soon afterwards I went to the neighbourhood of Aber Soch and Ỻanengan, where I was lucky enough to find Professor Owen of St. David’s College, Lampeter, since appointed Bishop of St. David’s, on a visit to his native place. He took me round to those of the inhabitants who were thought most likely to have tales to tell; but I found nothing about the fairies except the usual story of their borrowing padeỻ a gradeỻ, and of their changing children. However, one version I heard of the process of recovering the stolen child differs from all others known to me: it was given us by Margaret Edwards, of Pentre Bach, whose age was then eighty-seven. It was to the effect that the mother, who had been given a fairy infant, was to place it on the floor, and that all those present in the house should throw a piece of iron at it. This she thought was done with the view of convincing the Tylwyth Teg of the intention to kill the changeling, and in order to induce them to bring the right child back. The plan was, we are told, always successful, and it illustrates, to my thinking, the supposed efficacy of iron against the fairies.

On the way to Aber Soch I passed by an old-fashioned house which has all the appearance of having once been a place of considerable importance; and on being told that its name is Casteỻmarch, I began thinking of March ab Meirchion mentioned in the Triads. He, I had long been convinced, ought to be the Welsh reflex of Labhraidh Lorc, or the Irish king with horse’s ears; and the corresponding Greek character of Midas with ass’s ears is so well known that I need not dwell on it. So I undertook to question various people in the neighbourhood about the meaning of the name of Casteỻmarch. Most of them analysed it into Casteỻ y March, the ‘Castle of the Steed,’ and explained that the knight of the shire or some other respectable obscurity kept his horses there. This treatment of the word is not very decidedly countenanced by the pronunciation, which makes the name into one word strongly accented on the middle syllable. It was further related to me how Casteỻmarch was once upon a time inhabited by a very wicked and cruel man, one of whose servants, after being very unkindly treated by him, ran away and went on board a man-of-war. Some time afterwards the man-of-war happened to be in Cardigan Bay, and the runaway servant persuaded the captain of the vessel to come and anchor in the Tudwal Roads. Furthermore he induced him to shell his old master’s mansion; and the story is regarded as proved by the old bullets now and then found at Casteỻmarch. It has since been suggested to me that the bullets are evidence of an attack on the place during the Civil War, which is not improbable. But having got so far as to find that there was a wicked, cruel man associated with Casteỻmarch, I thought I should at once hear the item of tradition which I was fishing for; but not so: it was not to be wormed out in a hurry. However, after tiring a very old blacksmith, whose memory was far gone, with my questions, and after he had in his turn tired me with answers of the kind I have already described, I ventured to put it to him at last whether he had never heard some very silly tale about the lord of Casteỻmarch, to the effect that he was not quite like other men. He at once admitted that he had heard it said that he had horse’s ears, but that he would never have thought of repeating such nonsense to me. This is not a bad instance of the difficulty which one has in eliciting this sort of tradition from the people. It is true that, as far as regards Casteỻmarch, nothing, as it happens, would have been lost if I had failed at Aber Soch, for I got the same information later at Sarn Fyỻteyrn; not to mention that after coming back to my books, and once more turning over the leaves of the Brython, I was delighted to find the tale there. It occurs at p. 431 of the volume for 1860. It is given with several other interesting bits of antiquity, and at the end the editor has put ‘Edward Ỻwyd, 1693’; so I suppose the whole comes from letters emanating from the great Lhwyd, for so, or rather Lhuyd, he preferred to write his name. It is to the following effect:—

VIII.

Some time ago I was favoured with a short but interesting tale by Mr. Evan Lloyd Jones, of Dinorwig, near Ỻanberis. Mr. Lloyd Jones, I may here mention, published not long ago, in Ỻais y Wlad (Bangor, North Wales), and in the Drych (Utica, United States of North America), a series of articles entitled Ỻen y Werin yn Sir Gaernarfon, or the Folklore of Carnarvonshire. I happened to see it at a friend’s house, and I found at once that the writer was passionately fond of antiquities, and in the habit of making use of the frequent opportunities he has in the Dinorwig quarries for gathering information as to what used to be believed by the people of Arfon and Anglesey. The tale about to be given relates to a lake called Marchlyn Mawr, or the Great Horse-lake, for there are two lakes called Marchlyn: they lie near one another, between the Fronỻwyd, in the parish of Ỻandegai, and the Elidyr, in the parishes of Ỻanđeiniolen and Ỻanberis. Mr. Lloyd Jones shall tell his tale in his own words:—

‘The Marchlyn Mawr is surrounded by rocks terrible to look at, and tradition relates how one of the sons of the farmer of Rhiwen, once on a time, when helping a sheep that had fallen among the rocks to get away, discovered a tremendous cave there; he entered, and saw that it was full of treasures and arms of great value; but, as it was beginning to grow dark, and as clambering back was a difficult matter even in the light of day, he went home that evening, and next morning with the grey dawn he set out again for the cave, when he found it without much trouble. He entered, and began to look about him at the treasures that were there. In the centre of the cave stood a huge table of pure gold, and on the table lay a crown of gold and pearls. He understood at once that they were the crown and treasures of Arthur. He approached the table, and as he stretched forth his hand to take hold of the crown he was frightened by an awful noise, the noise, as it were, of a thousand thunders bursting over his head, and the whole place became as dark as Tartarus. He tried to grope and feel his way out as fast as he could. When he had succeeded in reaching to the middle of the rocks, he cast his eye on the lake, which had been stirred all through, while its white-crested waves dashed through the jagged teeth of the rocks up to the spot on which he stood. But as he continued looking at the middle of the lake he beheld a coracle containing three women, the fairest that the eye of man ever fell on. They were being quickly rowed to the mouth of the cave; but the dread aspect of him who rowed was enough to send thrills of horror through the strongest of men. The youth was able somehow to escape home, but no health remained in his constitution after that, and even the mere mention of the Marchlyn in his hearing used to be enough to make him insane.’

Mr. Lloyd Jones appends to the tale a note to the following effect:—There is a small eminence on the shore of the Marchlyn Mawr, in the parish of Ỻandegai, called Bryn Cwrwgl, or the ‘Hill of the Coracle’; and Ogof y Marchlyn, or the ‘Marchlyn Cave,’ is a name familiar enough to everybody in these neighbourhoods. There were some—unless he ought to say that there still are some—who believed that there was abundance of treasure in the cave. Several young men from the quarries, both of the Cae and of Dinorwig, have been in the midst of the Marchlyn rocks, searching for the cave, and they succeeded in making their way into a cave. They came away, however, without the treasures. One old man, Robert Edwards (Iorwerth Sardis), used to tell him that he and several others had brought ropes from the quarry to go into the cave, but that they found no treasure. So far, I have given the substance of Mr. Jones’ words, to which I would add the following statement, which I have from a native of Dinorwig:—About seventy years ago, when the gentry were robbing the poor of these districts of their houses and of the lands which the latter had enclosed out of the commons, an old woman called Siân William of the Garneđ was obliged to flee from her house with her baby—the latter was known later in life as the Rev. Robert Ellis, of Ysgoldy—in her arms. It was in one of the Marchlyn caves that she found refuge for a day and night. Another kind of tale connected with the Marchlyn Mawr is recorded in the Powys-land Club’s Collections, Hist. and Arch., vol. xv. p. 137, by the Rev. Elias Owen, to the effect that ‘a man who was fishing in the lake found himself enveloped in the clouds that had descended from the hills to the water. A sudden gust of wind cleared a road through the mist that hung over the lake, and revealed to his sight a man busily engaged in thatching a stack. The man, or rather the fairy, stood on a ladder. The stack and ladder rested on the surface of the lake.’

IX.

Mr. E. S. Roberts, of Ỻandysilio School, near Ỻangoỻen (p. 138), has sent me more bits of legends about the fairies. He heard the following from Mr. Thomas Parry, of Tan y Coed Farm, who had heard it from his father, the late Evan Parry, and the latter from Thomas Morris, of Eglwyseg, who related it to him more than once:—Thomas Morris happened to be returning home from Ỻangoỻen very late on one Saturday night in the middle of the summer, and by the time he reached near home the day had dawned, when he saw a number of the Tylwyth Teg with a dog walking about hither and thither on the declivity of the Eglwyseg Rocks, which hung threateningly overhead. When he had looked at them for some minutes, he directed his steps towards them; but as they saw him approaching they hid themselves, as he thought, behind a large stone. On reaching the spot, he found under the stone a hole by which they had made their way into their subterranean home. So ends the tale as related to Mr. Roberts. It is remarkable as representing the fairies looking rather like poachers; but there are not wanting others which speak of their possessing horses and greyhounds, as all gentlemen were supposed to.

Whilst I am about it, I may as well go through Mr. Roberts’ contributions. The next is also a tale related to him by Mr. Hugh Francis, and, like the last, it comes from Anglesey. Mr. Francis’ great-grandfather was called Robert Francis, and he had a mill at Aberffraw about 100 years ago; and the substance of the following tale was often repeated in the hearing of Mr. Roberts’ informant by his father and his grandfather:—In winter Robert Francis used to remain very late at work drying corn in his kiln. As it was needful to keep a steady fire going, he used to go backwards and forwards from the house, looking after it not unfrequently until it was two o’clock in the morning. Once on a time he happened to leave a cauldron full of water on the floor of the kiln, and great was his astonishment on returning to find two little people washing themselves in the water. He abstained from entering to disturb them, and went back to the house to tell his wife of it. ‘Oh,’ said she, ‘they are fairies.’ He presently went back to the kiln and found that they were gone. He fancied they were man and wife. However, they had left the place very clean, and to crown all, he found a sum of money left by them to pay him, as he supposed, for the water and the use of the kiln. The ensuing night many more fairies came to the kiln, for the visitors of the previous night had brought their children with them; and the miller found them busy bathing them and looking very comfortable in the warm room where they were. The pay that night was also more considerable than the night before, as the visitors were more numerous. After this the miller never failed to leave a vessel full of water in the kiln every night, and the fairies availed themselves of it for years, until, in fact, they took offence at the miller telling the neighbours of the presents of money which had been left him in the kiln. Thenceforth no fairies were known to frequent the kiln belonging to the Aberffraw mill.

The last tale communicated to me by Mr. Roberts is the following, which he elicited from Margaret Davies, his housekeeper, by reading to her some of the fairy legends published in the Cymmrodor a short while ago—probably the Corwrion series, one of which bears great resemblance to hers. Mrs. Davies, who is sixty-one years of age, says that when her parents, Edward and Ann Williams, lived at Rhoslydan, near Bryneglwys, in Yale, some seventy-five years ago, the servant man happened one day in the spring to be ploughing in a field near the house. As he was turning his team back at one end of the field, he heard some one calling out from the other end, Y mae eisieu hoelen yn y pìl, or ‘The peel wants a nail’; for pìl is the English peel, a name given to a sort of shovel provided with a long handle for placing loaves in an oven, and for getting them out again. When at length the ploughman had reached the end of the field whence he guessed the call to have proceeded, he there saw a small peel, together with a hammer and a nail, under the hedge. He saw that the peel required a nail to keep it together, and as everything necessary for mending it were there ready to hand, he did as it had been suggested. Then he followed at the plough-tail until he came round again to the same place, and there he this time saw a cake placed for him on the spot where he had previously found the peel and the other things, which had now disappeared. When the servant related this to his master, he told him at once that it was one of the Tylwyth Teg of that locality that had called out to him. With this should be compared the story of the man who mended a fairy’s plough vice: see p. 64 above.

X.

Early this year I had occasion to visit the well-known Hengwrt Library at Peniarth, and during my stay there Mr. Wynne very kindly took me to see such of the Ỻanegryn people as were most likely to have somewhat to say about the fairies. Many of the inhabitants had heard of them, but they had no long tales about them. One man, however, told me of a William Pritchard, of Pentre Bach, near Ỻwyngwryl, who died at sixty, over eighty years ago, and of a Rhys Williams, the clerk of Ỻangelynin, how they were going home late at night from a cock-fight at Ỻanegryn, and how they came across the fairies singing and dancing on a plot of ground known as Gwastad Meirionyđ, ‘the Plain of Merioneth,’ on the way from Ỻwyngwryl to Ỻanegryn. It consists, I am told by Mr. Robert Roberts of Ỻanegryn, of no more than some twenty square yards, outside which one has a good view of Cardigan Bay and the heights of Merioneth and Carnarvonshire, while from the Gwastad itself neither sea nor mountain is visible. On this spot, then, the belated cockfighters were surrounded by the fairies. They swore at the fairies and took to their heels, but they were pursued as far as Clawđ Du. Also I was told that Elen Egryn, the authoress, some sixty years ago, of some poetry called Telyn Egryn, had also seen fairies in her youth, when she used to go up the hills to look after her father’s sheep. This happened near a little brook, from which she could see the sea when the sun was in the act of sinking in it; then many fairies would come out dancing and singing, and also crossing and re-crossing the little brook. It was on the side of Rhiwfelen, and she thought the little folks came out of the brook somewhere. She had been scolded for talking about the fairies, but she firmly believed in them to the end of her life. This was told me by Mr. W. Williams, the tailor, who is about sixty years of age; and also by Mr. Rowlands, the ex-bailiff of Peniarth, who is about seventy-five. I was moreover much interested to discover at Ỻanegryn a scrap of kelpie story, which runs as follows, concerning Ỻyn Gwernen, situated close to the old road between Dolgeỻey and Ỻanegryn:—

As a man from the village of Ỻanegryn was returning in the dusk of the evening across the mountain from Dolgeỻey, he heard, when hard by Ỻyn Gwernen, a voice crying out from the water:—

Daeth yr awr ond ni đaeth y dyn!

The hour is come but the man is not!

As the villager went on his way a little distance, what should meet him but a man of insane appearance, and with nothing on but his shirt. As he saw the man making full pelt for the waters of the lake, he rushed at him to prevent him from proceeding any further. But as to the sequel there is some doubt: one version makes the villager conduct the man back about a mile from the lake to a farm house called Dyffrydan, which was on the former’s way home. Others seem to think that the man in his shirt rushed irresistibly into the lake, and this I have no doubt comes nearer the end of the story in its original form. Lately I have heard a part of a similar story about Ỻyn Cynnwch, which has already been mentioned, p. 135, above. My informant is Miss Lucy Griffith, of Glynmalden, near Dolgeỻey, a lady deeply interested in Welsh folklore and Welsh antiquities generally. She obtained her information from a Dolgeỻey ostler, formerly engaged at the Ship Hotel, to the effect that on Gwyl Galan, ‘the eve of New Year’s Day,’ a person is seen walking backwards and forwards on the strand of Cynnwch Lake, crying out:—

Mae’r awr wedi dyfod a’r dyn heb đyfod!

The hour is come while the man is not!

The ostler stated also that lights are to be seen on Cader Idris on the eve of New Year’s Day, whatever that statement may mean. The two lake stories seem to suggest that the Lake Spirit was entitled to a victim once a year, whether the sacrifice was regarded as the result of accident or design. By way of comparison, one may mention the notion, not yet extinct, that certain rivers in various parts of the kingdom regularly claim so many victims: for some instances at random see an article by Mr. J. M. Mackinlay, on Traces of River Worship in Scottish Folklore, a paper published in the Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland, 1895–6, pp. 69–76. Take for example the following rhyme:—

Blood-thirsty Dee

Each year needs three;

But bonny Don

She needs none.

Or this:—

Tweed said to Till

‘What gars ye rin sae still?’

Till said to Tweed

‘Though ye rin wi’ speed

An’ I rin slaw,

Yet whar ye droon ae man

I droon twa.’

XI.

Another showed me a spot on the other side of the Teifi, where the Tylwyth Teg had a favourite spot for dancing; and at the neighbouring village of Swyđ Ffynnon, another meadow was pointed out as their resort on the farm of Dôl Bydyë. According to one account I had there, the fairies dressed themselves in very long clothes, and when they danced they took hold of one another’s enormous trains. Besides the usual tales concerning men enticed into the ring and retained in Faery for a year and a day, and concerning the fairies’ dread of pren cerdingen or mountain ash, I had the midwife tale in two or three forms, differing more or less from the versions current in North Wales. For the most complete of them I am indebted to one of the young men studying at the Grammar School, Mr. D. Ỻedrodian Davies. It used to be related by an old woman who died some thirty years ago at the advanced age of about 100. She was Pàli, mother of old Rachel Evans, who died seven or eight years ago, when she was about eighty. The latter was a curious character, who sometimes sang masweđ, or rhymes of doubtful propriety, and used to take the children of the village to see fairy rings. She also used to see the Tylwyth, and had many tales to tell of them. But her mother, Pàli, had actually been called to attend at the confinement of one of them. The beginning of the tale is not very explicit; but, anyhow, Pàli one evening found herself face to face with the fairy lady she was to attend upon. She appeared to be the wife of one of the princes of the country. She was held in great esteem, and lived in a very grand palace. Everything there had been arranged in the most beautiful and charming fashion. The wife was in her bed with nothing about her but white, and she fared sumptuously. In due time, when the baby had been born, the midwife had all the care connected with dressing it and serving its mother. Pàli could see or hear nobody in the whole place but the mother and the baby. She had no idea who attended on them, or who prepared all the things they required, for it was all done noiselessly and secretly. The mother was a charming person, of an excellent temper and easy to manage. Morning and evening, as she finished washing the baby, Pàli had a certain ointment given her to rub the baby with. She was charged not to touch it but with her hand, and especially not to put any near her eyes. This was carried out for some time, but one day, as she was dressing the baby, her eyes happened to itch, and she rubbed them with her hand. Then at once she saw a great many wonders she had not before perceived; and the whole place assumed a new aspect to her. She said nothing, and in the course of the day she saw a great deal more. Among other things, she observed small men and small women going in and out, following a variety of occupations. But their movements were as light as the morning breeze. To move about was no trouble to them, and they brought things into the room with the greatest quickness. They prepared dainty food for the confined lady with the utmost order and skill, and the air of kindness and affection with which they served her was truly remarkable. In the evening, as she was dressing the baby, the midwife said to the lady, ‘You have had a great many visitors to-day.’ To this she replied, ‘How do you know that? Have you been putting the ointment to your eyes?’ Thereupon she jumped out of bed, and blew into her eyes, saying, ‘Now you will see no more.’ She never afterwards could see the fairies, however much she tried, nor was the ointment entrusted to her after that day. According, however, to another version which I heard, she was told, on being found out, not to apply the ointment to her eyes any more. She promised she would not; but the narrator thought she broke that promise, as she continued to see the fairies as long as she lived.

The same aged woman at Bronnant has communicated to Mr. D. Ỻ. Davies another tale which differs from all those of the same kind that I happen to know of. On a certain day in spring the farmer living at —— (Mr. Davies does not remember the name of the farm) lost his calves; and the servant man and the servant girl went out to look for them, but as they were both crossing a marshy flat, the man suddenly missed the girl. He looked for her, and as he could not see her he concluded that she was playing a trick on him. However, after much shouting and searching about the place, he began to think that she must have found her way home, so he turned back and asked if the girl had come in, when he found to his surprise that nobody had seen her come back. The news of her being lost caused great excitement in the country around, since many suspected that he had for some reason put an end to her life: some accounted for it in this way, and some in another. But as nothing could be found out about her, the servant man was taken into custody on the charge of having murdered her. He protested with all his heart, and no evidence could be produced that he had killed the girl. Now, as some had an idea that she had gone to the fairies, it was resolved to send to ‘the wise man’ (Y dyn hysbys). This was done, and he found out that the missing girl was with the fairies: the trial was delayed, and he gave the servant man directions of the usual kind as to how to get her out. She was watched at the end of the period of twelve months and a day coming round in the dance in the fairy ring at the place where she was lost, and she was successfully drawn out of the ring; but the servant man had to be there in the same clothes as he had on when she left him. As soon as she was released and saw the servant she asked about the calves. On the way home she told her master, the servant man, and the others, that she would stay with them until her master should strike her with iron, but they went their way home in great joy at having found her. One day, however, when her master was about to start from home, and whilst he was getting the horse and cart ready, he asked the girl to assist him, which she did willingly; but as he was bridling the horse, the bit touched the girl and she disappeared instantly, and was never seen from that day forth.

I cannot explain this story, unless we regard it as made up of pieces of two different stories which had originally nothing to do with one another; consistency, however, is not to be expected in such matters. Mr. D. Ỻ. Davies has kindly given me two more tales like the first part of the one I have last summarized, also one in which the missing person, a little boy sent by his mother to fetch some barm for her, comes home of himself after being away a year or more playing with the Tylwyth Teg, whom he found to be very nice, pleasant people; they had been exceedingly kind to him, and they even allowed him to take the bottle with the barm home at the last. This was somewhere between Swyđ Ffynnon and Carmarthen.

Mr. D. Ỻ. Davies finds, what I have not found anywhere else, that it was a common idea among the old people in Cardiganshire, that once you came across one of the fairies you could not easily be rid of him; since the fairies were little beings of a very devoted nature. Once a man had become friendly with one of them, the latter would be present with him almost everywhere he went, until it became a burden to him. However, popular belief did not adopt this item of faith without another to neutralize it if necessary: so if one was determined to get rid of the fairy companion, one had in the last resort only to throw a piece of rusty iron at him to be quit of him for ever. Nothing was a greater insult to the fairies. But though they were not difficult to make friends of, they never forgave those who offended them: forgiveness was not an element in their nature. The general account my informant gives of the outward appearance of the fairies as he finds them in the popular belief, is that they were a small handsome race, and that their women dressed gorgeously in white, while the men were content with garments of a dark grey colour, usually including knee-breeches. As might be expected, the descriptions differ very much in different neighbourhoods, and even in different tales from the same neighbourhood: this will surprise no one. It was in the night they came out, generally near water, to sing and dance, and also to steal whatever took their fancy; for thieving was always natural to them; but no one ever complained of it, as it was supposed to bring good luck.

XII.

Mr. Richard L. Davies, teacher of the Board School at Ystalyfera, in the Tawë Valley, has been kind enough to write out for me a budget of ideas about the Cwm Tawë Fairies, as retailed to him by a native who took great delight in the traditions of his neighbourhood, John Davies (Shôn o’r Bont), who was a storekeeper at Ystalyfera. He died an old man about three years ago. I give his stories as transmitted to me by Mr. Davies, but the reader will find them a little hazy now and then, as when the fairies are made into ordinary conjurer’s devils:—

Rhywbeth rhyfeđ yw yr hen Gasteỻ yna (gan olygu Craig Ynys Geinon): yr wyf yn cofio yr amser pan y byđai yn đychryn gan bobl fyned yn agos ato—yn enwedig y nos: yr oeđ yn dra pheryglus rhag i đyn gael ei gymeryd at Bendith eu Mamau. Fe đywedir fod wmređ o’r rheiny yna, er na wn i pa le y maent yn cadw. ’R oeđ yr hen bobl yn arferol o đweyd fod pwỻ yn rhywle bron canol y Casteỻ, tua ỻathen o led, ac yn bump neu chwech ỻath o đyfnder, a charreg tua thair tynneỻ o bwysau ar ei wyneb e’, a bod fforđ dan y đaear ganđynt o’r pwỻ hynny bob cam i ogof Tan yr Ogof, bron blaen y Cwm (yn agos i balas Adelina Patti, sef Casteỻ Craig y Nos), mai yno y maent yn treulio eu hamser yn y dyđ, ac yn dyfod lawr yma i chwareu eu pranciau yn y nos.

Mae ganđynt, međe nhw, ysgol aur, o un neu đwy ar hugain o ffyn; ar hyd honno y maent yn tramwy i fyny ac i lawr. Mae ganđynt air bach, a dim ond i’r blaenaf ar yr ysgol đywedyd y gair hynny, mae y garreg yn codi o honi ei hunan; a gair araỻ, ond i’r olaf wrth fyned i lawr ei đywedyd, mae yn cauad ar eu hol.

Dywedir i was un o’r ffermyđ cyfagos wrth chwilio am wningod yn y graig, đygwyđ dyweyd y gair pan ar bwys y garreg, iđi agor, ac iđo yntau fyned i lawr yr ysgol, ond am na wyđai y gair i gauad ar ei ol, fe adnabu y Tylwyth wrth y draught yn diffođ y canwyỻau fod rhywbeth o le, daethant am ei draws, cymerasant ef atynt, a bu gyda hwynt yn byw ac yn bod am saith mlyneđ; ymhen y saith mlyneđ fe điangođ a ỻon’d ei het o guineas ganđo.

Yr oeđ efe erbyn hyn wedi dysgu y đau air, ac yn gwybod ỻawer am eu cwtches nhw. Fe đywedođ hwn y cwbl wrth ffarmwr o’r gymdogaeth, fe aeth hwnnw drachefn i lawr, ac yr oeđ rhai yn dyweyd iđo đyfod a thri ỻon’d cawnen halen o guineas, hanner guineas, a darnau saith-a-chwech, ođiyno yr un diwrnod. Ond fe aeth yn rhy drachwantus, ac fel ỻawer un trachwantus o’i flaen, bu ei bechod yn angeu iđo.

Canys fe aeth i lawr y bedwaređ waith yngwyỻ y nos, ond fe đaeth y Tylwyth am ei ben, ac ni welwyd byth o hono. Dywedir fod ei bedwar cwarter e’ yn hongian mewn ystafeỻ o dan y Casteỻ, ond pwy fu yno i’w gwel’d nhw, wn i đim.

Mae yn wir ei wala i’r ffarmwr crybwyỻedig fyned ar goỻ, ac na chlybuwyd byth am dano, ac mor wir a hynny i’w dylwyth đyfod yn abl iawn, bron ar unwaith yr amser hynny. A chi wyđoch gystal a finnau, eu bod nhw yn dywedyd fod ffyrđ tanđaearol ganđynt i ogofau Ystrad Feỻte, yn agos i Benderyn. A dyna y Garn Goch ar y Drum (Onỻwyn yn awr) maent yn dweyd fod canoeđ o dyneỻi o aur yn stôr ganđynt yno; a chi glywsoch am y stori am un o’r Gethings yn myned yno i glođio yn y Garn, ac iđo gael ei drawsffurfio gan y Tylwyth i olwyn o dân, ac iđo fethu cael ỻonyđ ganđynt, hyd nes iđo eu danfon i wneyd rhaff o sand!

Fe fu gynt hen fenyw yn byw mewn ty bychan gerỻaw i Ynys Geinon, ac yr oeđ hi yn gaỻu rheibo, međe nhw, ac yr oeđ sôn ei bod yn treulio saith diwrnod, saith awr, a saith mynyd gyda y Tylwyth Teg bob blwyđyn yn Ogof y Casteỻ. Yr oeđ y gred yn ỻed gyffredinol ei bod hi yn cael hyn a hyn o aur am bob plentyn a aỻai hi ladrata iđynt hwy, a dodi un o’i hen grithod hwy yn ei le: ’doeđ hwnnw byth yn cynyđu. Y fforđ y byđai hi yn gwneyd oeđ myned i’r tŷ dan yr esgus o ofyn cardod, a hen glogyn ỻwyd-đu mawr ar ei chefn, ac o dan hwn, un o blant Bendith y Mamau; a bob amser os byđai plentyn bach gwraig y tŷ yn y caweỻ, hi gymerai y swyđ o siglo y caweỻ, a dim ond i’r fam droi ei chefn am fynyd neu đwy, hi daflai y ỻedrith i’r caweỻ, ai ymaith a’r plentyn yn gyntaf byth y gaỻai hi. Fe fu plentyn gan đyn o’r gym’dogaeth yn lingran am flynyđau heb gynyđu dim, a barn pawb oeđ mai wedi cael ei newid gan yr hen wraig yr oeđ; fe aeth tad y plentyn i fygwth y gwr hysbys arni: fe đaeth yr hen wraig yno am saith niwrnod i esgus bađo y bachgen bach mewn dwfr oer, a’r seithfed bore cyn ei bod yn oleu, hi a gas genad i fyned ag ef dan rhyw bistyỻ, međe hi, ond međai’r cym’dogion, myned ag ef i newid a wnaeth. Ond, beth bynag, fe weỻođ y plentyn fel cyw yr wyđ o hynny i maes. Ond gorfu i fam e’ wneyd cystal a ỻw wrth yr hen wraig, y gwnai ei dwco mewn dwfr oer bob bore dros gwarter blwyđyn, ac yn mhen y chwarter hynny ’doeđ dim brafach plentyn yn y Cwm.

‘That is a wonderful thing, that old castle there, he would say, pointing to the Ynys Geinon Rock. I remember a time when people would be terrified to go near it, especially at night. There was considerable danger that one might be taken to Bendith eu Mamau. It is said that there are a great many of them there, though I know not where they abide. The old folks used to say that there was a pit somewhere about the middle of the Castle, about a yard wide and some five or six yards deep, with a stone about three tons in weight over the mouth of it, and that they had a passage underground from that pit all the way to the cave of Tan yr Ogof, near the top of the Cwm, that is, near Adelina Patti’s residence at Craig y Nos Castle: there, it was said, they spent their time during the day, while they came down here to play their tricks at night. They have, they say, a gold ladder of one or two and twenty rungs, and it is along that they pass up and down. They have a little word; and it suffices if the foremost on the ladder merely utters that word, for the stone to rise of itself; while there is another word, which it suffices the hindmost in going down to utter so that the stone shuts behind him. It is said that a servant from one of the neighbouring farms, when looking for rabbits in the rock, happened to say the word as he stood near the stone, that it opened for him, and that he went down the ladder; but that because he was ignorant of the word to make it shut behind him, the fairies discovered by the draught putting out their candles that there was something wrong. So they found him out and took him with them. He remained living with them for seven years, but at the end of the seven years he escaped with his hat full of guineas. He had by this time learnt the two words, and got to know a good deal about the hiding places of their treasures. He told everything to a farmer in the neighbourhood, so the latter likewise went down, and some used to say that he brought thence thrice the fill of a salt-chest of guineas, half-guineas, and seven-and-sixpenny pieces in one day. But he got too greedy, and like many a greedy one before him his crime proved his death; for he went down the fourth time in the dusk of the evening, when the fairies came upon him, and he was never seen any more. It is said that his four quarters hang in a room under the Castle; but who has been there to see them I know not. It is true enough that the above-mentioned farmer got lost, and that nothing was heard respecting him; and it is equally true that his family became very well to do almost at once at that time. You know as well as I do that they say, that the fairies have underground passages to the caves of Ystradfeỻte, near Penderyn. There is the Garn Goch also on the Drum (now called Onỻwyn); they say there are hundreds of tons of gold accumulated by them there, and you have heard the story about one of the Gethings going thither to dig in the Garn, and how he [sic] was transformed by the fairies into a wheel of fire, and that he could get no quiet from them until he sent them to manufacture a rope of sand!’—A more intelligible version of this story has been given at pp. 19–20 above.

‘There was formerly an old woman living in a small house near Ynys Geinon; and she had the power of bewitching, people used to say: there was a rumour that she spent seven days, seven hours, and seven minutes with the fairies every year in the cave at the Castle. It was a pretty general belief that she got such and such a quantity of gold for every child she could steal for them, and that she put one of those old urchins of theirs in its place: the latter never grew at all. The way she used to do it was to enter people’s houses with the excuse of asking for alms, having a large dark-grey old cloak on her back, and the cloak concealed one of the children of Bendith eu Mamau. Whenever she found the little child of the good woman of the house in its cradle, she would take upon herself to rock the cradle, so that if the mother only turned her back for a minute or two, she would throw the sham child into the cradle and hurry away as fast as she could with the baby. A man in the neighbourhood had a child lingering for years without growing at all, and it was the opinion of all that it had been changed by the old woman. The father at length threatened to call in the aid of “the wise man,” when the old woman came there for seven days, pretending that it was in order to bathe the little boy in cold water; and on the seventh day she got permission to take him, before it was light, under a certain spout of water: so she said, but the neighbours said it was to change him. However that was, the boy from that time forth got on as fast as a gosling. But the mother had all but to take an oath to the old woman, that she would duck him in cold water every morning for three months, and by the end of that time there was no finer infant in the Cwm.’

Mr. Davies has given me some account also of the annual pilgrimage to the Fan mountains to see the Lake Lady: these are his words on the subject—they recall pp. 15–16 above:—

‘It has been the yearly custom (for generations, as far as I can find) for young as well as many people further advanced in years to make a general excursion in carts, gambos, and all kinds of vehicles, to Ỻyn y Fan, in order to see the water nymph (who appeared on one day only, viz. the first Sunday in August). This nymph was said to have the lower part of her body resembling that of a dolphin, while the upper part was that of a beautiful lady: this anomalous form appeared on the first Sunday in August (if the lake should be without a ripple) and combed her tresses on the reflecting surface of the lake. The yearly peregrination to the abode of the Fan deity is still kept up in this valley—Cwmtawë; but not to the extent that it used to formerly.’

XIII.

Mewn amaethdy ag syđ yn aros yn y plwyf a elwir y Berth Gron, trigiannai gweđw ieuanc a’i phlentyn bychan. Yr oeđ wedi coỻi ei gwr, a’i hunig gysur yn ei hamđifadrwyđ a’i hunigrwyđ oeđ Gruff, ei mab. Yr oeđ ef yr amser hwn ođeutu tair blwyđ oed, ac yn blentyn braf ar ei oedran. Yr oeđ y plwyf, ar y pryd, yn orlawn o ‘Fendith y Mamau’; ac, ar amser ỻawn ỻoer, byđent yn cadw dynion yn effro a’u cerđoriaeth hyd doriad gwawr. Rhai hynod ar gyfrif eu hagrwch oeđ ‘Bendith’ Ỻanfabon, ac yr un mor hynod ar gyfrif eu castiau. Ỻadrata plant o’r caweỻau yn absenoldeb eu mamau, a denu dynion trwy eu swyno a cherđoriaeth i ryw gors afiach a diffaith, a ymđangosai yn gryn đifyrrwch iđynt. Nid rhyfeđ fod y mamau beunyđ ar eu gwyliadwriaeth rhag ofn coỻi eu plant. Yr oeđ y weđw o dan sylw yn hynod ofalus am ei mab, gymaint nes tynnu rhai o’r cymydogion i đywedyd wrthi ei bod yn rhy orofalus, ac y byđai i ryw anlwc orđiwes ei mab. Ond ni thalai unrhyw sylw i’w dywediadau. Ymđangosai fod ei hoỻ hyfrydwch a’i chysur ynghyd a’i gobeithion yn cydgyfarfod yn ei mab. Mođ bynnag, un diwrnod, clywođ ryw lais cwynfannus yn codi o gymydogaeth y beudy; a rhag bod rhywbeth wedi digwyđ i un o’r gwartheg rhedođ yn orwyỻt tuag yno, gan adael y drws heb ei gau, a’i mab bychan yn y ty. Ond pwy a fedr đesgrifio ei gofid ar ei gwaith yn dyfod i’r ty wrth weled eisiau ei mab? Chwiliođ bob man am dano, ond yn aflwyđiannus. Ođeutu machlud haul, wele lencyn bychan yn gwneuthur ei ymđangosiad o’i blaen, ac yn dywedyd, yn groyw, ‘Mam!’ Edrychođ y fam yn fanwl arno, a dywedođ o’r diweđ, ‘Nid fy mhlentyn i wyt ti!’ ‘Ië, yn sicr,’ atebai y bychan.

Nid ymđangosai y fam yn fođlon, na’i bod yn credu mai ei phlentyn hi ydoeđ. Yr oeđ rhywbeth yn sisial yn barhaus wrthi mai nid ei mab hi ydoeđ. Ond beth bynnag, bu gyda hi am flwyđyn gyfan, ac nid ymđangosai ei fod yn cynyđu dim, tra yr oeđ Gruff, ei mab hi, yn blentyn cynyđfawr iawn. Yr oeđ gwr bychan yn myned yn fwy hagr bob dyđ hefyd. O’r diweđ penderfynođ fyned at y ‘dyn hysbys,’ er cael rhyw wybodaeth a goleuni ar y mater. Yr oeđ yn digwyđ bod ar y pryd yn trigfannu yn Nghasteỻ y Nos, wr ag oeđ yn hynod ar gyfrif ei ymwybyđiaeth drwyadl o ‘gyfrinion y faỻ.’ Ar ol iđi osod ei hachos ger ei fron, ac yntau ei holi, sylwođ, ‘Crimbil ydyw, ac y mae dy blentyn di gyd a’r hen Fendith yn rhywle; ond i ti đilyn fy nghyfarwyđiadau i yn ffyđlon a manwl, fe adferir dy blentyn i ti yn fuan. Yn awr, ođeutu canol dyđ y foru, tor ŵy yn y canol, a thafl un hanner ymaith ođiwrthyt, a chadw y ỻaỻ yn dy law, a dechreu gymysg ei gynwysiad yn ol a blaen. Cofia fod y gwr bychan gerỻaw yn gwneuthur sylw o’r hyn ag a fyđi yn ei wneuthur. Ond cofia di a pheidio galw ei sylw—rhaid enniỻ ei sylw at y weithred heb ei alw: ac odid fawr na ofynna i ti beth fyđi yn ei wneuthur. A dywed wrtho mai cymysg pastai’r fedel yr wyt. A rho wybod i mi beth fyđ ei ateb.’

Y prydnawn hwnnw aeth y wraig at y ‘dyn cynnil’ er ei hysbysu o’r hyn a lefarwyd gan y còr. ‘O,’ ebai hwnnw, ‘un o’r hen frid ydyw!’ ‘Yn awr, byđ y ỻawn ỻoer nesaf ym mhen pedwar diwrnod; mae yn rhaid i ti fyned i ben y pedair heol syđ yn cydgyfarfod wrth ben Rhyd y Gloch; am đeuđeg o’r gloch y nos y byđ y ỻeuad yn ỻawn. Cofia guđio dy hun mewn man ag y cei lawn olwg ar bennau y croesffyrđ, ac os gweli rywbeth a bair i ti gynhyrfu, cofia fod yn ỻonyđ, ac ymatal rhag rhođi ffrwyn i’th deimladau, neu fe đistrywir y cynỻun, ac ni chei dy fab yn ol byth.’

Nis gwyđai y fam anffodus beth oeđ i’w đeaỻ wrth ystori ryfeđ y ‘dyn cynnil.’ Yr oeđ mewn cymaint o dywyỻwch ag erioed. O’r diweđ daeth yr amser i ben; ac ar yr awr apwyntiedig yr oeđ yn ymguđio yn ofalus tu cefn i lwyn mawr yn ymyl, o ba le y caffai olwg ar bob peth o gylch. Bu am hir amser yno yn gwylio heb đim i’w glywed na’i weled—dim ond distawrwyđ dwfn a phruđglwyfus yr hanner nos yn teyrnasu. O’r diweđ clywai sain cerđoriaeth yn dynesu ati o hirbeỻ. Nês, nês yr oeđ y sain felusber yn dyfod o hyd; a gwrandawai hithai gyda dyđordeb arni. Cyn hir yr oeđ yn ei hymyl, a deaỻođ mai gorymdaith o ‘Fendith y Mamau’ oeđynt yn myned i rywle. Yr oeđynt yn gannoeđ mewn rhif. Tua chanol yr orymdaith canfyđođ olygfa ag a drywanođ ei chalon, ac a berođ i’w gwaed sefyỻ yn ei rhedwelïau. Yn cerđed rhwng pedwar o’r ‘Bendith’ yr oeđ ei phlentyn bychan anwyl ei hun. Bu bron a ỻwyr anghofio ei hun, a ỻamu tuag ato er ei gipio ymaith ođiarnynt trwy drais os gaỻai. Ond pan ar neidio aỻan o’i hymguđfan i’r diben hwnnw međyliođ am gynghor y ‘dyn cynnil,’ sef y byđai i unrhyw gynhyrfiad o’i heiđo đistrywio y cwbl, ac na byđai iđi gael ei phlentyn yn ol byth.

Ar ol i’r orymdaith đirwyn i’r pen, ac i sain eu cerđoriaeth đistewi yn y peỻder, daeth aỻan o’i hymguđfan, gan gyfeirio ei chamrau tua ’i chartref. Os oeđ yn hiraethol o’r blaen ar ol ei mab, yr oeđ yn ỻawer mwy erbyn hyn; a’i hadgasrwyđ at y còr bychan oeđ yn hawlio ei fod yn fab iđi wedi cynyđu yn fawr iawn, waith yr oeđ yn sicr yn awr yn ei međwl mai un o’r hen frid ydoeđ. Nis gwyđai pa fođ i’w ođef am fynud yn hwy yn yr un ty a hi, chwaithach gođef iđo alw ‘mam’ arni hi. Ond beth bynnag, cafođ đigon o ras ataliol i ymđwyn yn weđaiđ at y gwr bychan hagr oeđ gyda hi yn y tŷ. Drannoeth aeth ar ei hunion at y ‘dyn cynnil’ i adrođ yr hyn yr oeđ wedi bod yn ỻygad dyst o hono y noson gynt, ac i ofyn am gyfarwyđyd peỻach. Yr oedd y ‘gwr cynnil’ yn ei disgwyl, ac ar ei gwaith yn dyfod i’r ty adnabyđođ wrthi ei bod wedi gweled rhywbeth oeđ wedi ei chyffroi. Adrođođ wrtho yr hyn ag oeđ wedi ei ganfod ar ben y croesffyrđ; ac wedi iđo glywed hynny, agorođ lyfr mawr ag oeđ ganđo, ac wedi hir syỻu arno hysbysođ hi ‘fod yn angenrheidiol iđi cyn cael ei phlentyn yn ol gael iâr đu heb un plufyn gwyn nac o un ỻiw araỻ arni, a’i ỻađ; ac ar ol ei ỻadd, ei gosod o flaen tan coed, pluf a chwbl, er ei phobi. Mor gynted ag y buasai yn ei gosod o flaen y tan, iđi gau pob twỻ a mynedfa yn yr adeilad ond un, a pheidio a dal sylw manwl ar ol y ‘crimbil,’ hyd nes byđai y iâr yn đigon, a’r pluf i syrthio ymaith oddiarni bob un, ac yna i edrych ym mha le yr oeđ ef.

Er mor rhyfeđ oeđ cyfarwyđyd y ‘gwr,’ penderfynođ ei gynnyg; a thrannoeth aeth i chwilio ym mhlith y ieir oeđ yno am un o’r desgrifiad angenrheidiol; ond er ei siomedigaeth methođ a chael yr un. Aeth o’r naiỻ ffermdy i’r ỻaỻ i chwilio, ond ymđangosai ffawd fel yn gwgu arni—waith methođ a chael yr un. Pan ym mron digaloni gan ei haflwyđiant daeth ar draws un mewn amaethdy yng nghwr y plwyf a phrynođ hi yn đioedi. Ar ol dychwelyd adref gosodođ y tan mewn trefn, a ỻađođ yr iâr, gan ei gosod o flaen y tan disglaer a losgai ar yr alch. Pan yn edrych arni yn pobi, anghofiođ y ‘crimbil’ yn hoỻol, ac yr oeđ wedi syrthio i rywfath o bruđlewyg, pryd y synnwyd hi gan sain cerđoriaeth y tu aỻan i’r ty, yn debyg i’r hyn a glywođ ychydig nosweithiau cyn hynny ar ben y croesffyrđ. Yr oeđ y pluf erbyn hyn wedi syrthio ymaith ođiar y iâr, ac erbyn edrych yr oeđ y ‘crimbil’ wedi diflannu. Edrychai y fam yn wyỻt o’i deutu, ac er ei ỻawenyđ clywai lais ei mab coỻedig yn galw arni y tu aỻan. Rhedođ i’w gyfarfod, gan ei gofleidio yn wresog; a phan ofynođ ym mha le yr oeđ wedi bod cyhyd, nid oeđ ganđo gyfrif yn y byd i’w rođi ond mai yn gwrando ar ganu hyfryd yr oeđ wedi bod. Yr oeđ yn deneu a threuliedig iawn ei weđ pan adferwyd ef. Dyna ystori ‘Y Plentyn Coỻedig.’

‘Strange as the advice of the wise man sounded, she resolved to try it; so she went the next day to search among the hens for one of the requisite description; but to her disappointment she failed to find one. She then walked from one farm house to another in her search; but fortune appeared to scowl at her, as she seemed to fail in her object. When, however, she was nearly disheartened, she came across the kind of hen she wanted at a farm at the end of the parish. She bought it, and after returning home she arranged the fire and killed the hen, which she placed in front of the bright fire burning on the hearth. Whilst watching the hen baking she altogether forgot the crimbil; and she fell into a sort of swoon, when she was astonished by the sound of music outside the house, similar to the music she had heard a few nights before at the cross-roads. The feathers had by this time fallen off the hen, and when she came to look for the crimbil he had disappeared. The mother cast wild looks about the house, and to her joy she heard the voice of her lost son calling to her from outside. She ran to meet him, and embraced him fervently. But when she asked him where he had been so long, he had no account in the world to give but that he had been listening to pleasant music. He was very thin and worn in appearance when he was restored. Such is the story of the Lost Child.’

Let me remark as to the urchin’s exclamation concerning the cooking done in the egg-shell, that Mr. Hughes, as the result of further inquiry, has given me what he considers a more correct version; but it is no less inconsequent, as will be seen:—

Mi glywais gan fy nhad ac yntau gan ei dad, a hwnnw gan ei dad yntau,

Fod mesen cyn derwen a’i phlannu mwn dár:

Ni chlywais yn unman am gymysg y bastai yn masgal wy iâr.

I heard from my father and he from his father, and that one from his father,

That the acorn exists before the oak and the planting of it in the ground:

Never anywhere have I heard of mixing the pasty in the shell of a hen’s egg.

Wy’n hén y dyđ heđy,

Ag yn byw cyn ’y ngeni:

Eriôd ni welas i ferwi

I call myself old this day,

And living before my birth:

Never have I seen food boiled

For the reapers in an egg-shell.

As to the urchin’s statement that he was old and had lived before, it is part of a creed of which we may have something to say in a later chapter. At this point let it suffice to call attention to the same idea in the Book of Taliessin, poem ix:—

Hynaf uyd dyn pan anher

A ieu ieu pop amser.

A man is wont to be oldest when born,

And younger and younger all the time.

XIV.

I have not been fortunate enough to come across anything systematic or comprehensive on the origin and meaning of ghostly rehearsals like the Welsh phantom funeral or coffin making. But the subject is an interesting one which deserves the attention of our leading folklore philosophers, as does also the cognate one of second sight, by which it is widely overlapped.

Quite recently—at the end of 1899 in fact—I received three brief stories, for which I am indebted to the further kindness of Alaw Ỻeyn (p. 228), who lives at Bynhadlog near Edern in Ỻeyn, and two out of the three touch on the question of language. But as the three belong to one and the same district, I give the substance of all in English as follows:—

(1) There were at a small harbour belonging to Nefyn some houses in which several families formerly lived; the houses are there still, but nobody lives in them now. There was one family there to which a little girl belonged: they used to lose her for hours every day; so her mother was very angry with her for being so much away. ‘I must know,’ said she, ‘where you go for your play.’ The girl answered that it was to Pin y Wig, ‘The Wig Point,’ which meant a place to the west of the Nefyn headland: it was there, she said, she played with many children. ‘Whose children?’ asked the mother. ‘I don’t know,’ she replied; ‘they are very nice children, much nicer than I am.’ ‘I must know whose children they are,’ was the reply; and one day the mother went with her little girl to see the children: it was a distance of about a quarter of a mile to Pin y Wig, and after climbing the slope and walking a little along the top they came in sight of the Pin. It is from this Pin that the people of Pen yr Aỻt got water, and it is from there they get it still. Now after coming near the Pin the little girl raised her hands with joy at the sight of the children. ‘O mother,’ said she, ‘their father is with them to-day: he is not with them always, it is only sometimes that he is.’ The mother asked the child where she saw them. ‘There they are, mother, running down to the Pin, with their father sitting down.’ ‘I see nobody, my child,’ was the reply, and great fear came upon the mother: she took hold of the child’s hand in terror, and it came to her mind at once that they were the Tylwyth Teg. Never afterwards was the little girl allowed to go to Pin y Wig: the mother had heard that the Tylwyth Teg exchanged people’s children.

Such is the first story, and it is only remarkable, perhaps, for its allusion to the father of the fairy children.

(2) There used to be at Edern an old woman who occupied a small farm called Glan y Gors: the same family lives there still. One day this old woman had gone to a fair at Criccieth, whence she returned through Pwỻheli. As she was getting above Gors Geirch, which was then a turbary and a pretty considerable bog, a noise reached her ears: she stopped and heard the sound of much talking. By-and-by she beheld a great crowd of men and women coming to meet her. She became afraid and stepped across the fence to let them go by. There she remained a while listening to their chatter, and when she thought that they had gone far enough she returned to the road and began to resume her way home. But before she had gone many steps she heard the same sort of noise again, and saw again the same sort of crowd coming; so she recrossed the fence in great fear, saying to herself, ‘Here I shall be all night!’ She remained there till they also had gone, and she wondered what they could be, and whether they were people who had been to visit Plas Madrun—afterwards, on inquiry, she found that no such people had been there that day. Now the old woman was near enough to the passers-by to hear them talking (clebran) and chattering (bregliach), but not a word could she understand of what they uttered: it was not Welsh and she did not think that it was English—it is, however, not supposed that she knew English. She related further that the last crowd shouted all together to the other crowd in advance of them Wi, and that the latter replied Wi Wei or something like that.

In the story of the Moeđin funeral the language of the toeli was not intelligible to the farmer and his wife, or to the tailor, and here in two stories from Ỻeyn we have it clearly stated that it was neither Welsh nor, probably, English. Since the fairies are always represented as old-fashioned in their ways, it is quite possible that they were once regarded as talking a more ancient language of the country. Which was it? An early version of these legends might perhaps have supplied the answer, and told us that it was Gwyđelig or Goidelic, if not an earlier idiom, to wit that of the Aborigines before they learnt Goidelic from the Celts of the first wave of Aryan invasion, whether it was in the region of the Eifl or in the Demetian half of Keredigion. As to the former it is worthy of note that when Griffith had reached Bwlch Trwyn Swncwl he was in the outskirts of the Eifl Mountains, on one of whose heights, not very far off, is the extensive prehistoric fortress of Tre’r Ceiri, or the Town of the Keiri, a vocable which may be provisionally rendered by ‘giants.’ In any case it dissociates that stronghold from the Brythonic people of Wales. We shall find, however, that a Goidel, or Pict, buried in a cairn on Snowdon, is known as Rhita Gawr, ‘Rhita the Giant’; and it is possible that in the Keiri of Tre’r Ceiri we have no other race than that of mixed Goidels and Picts whom the encroaching Brythons found in possession of the west of our island. Nay, one may say that this is rendered probable by the use made of the word ceiri in medieval Welsh: thus in some poetry composed by a certain Dafyđ Offeiriad, and copied by Thomas Williams of Trefriw, we have a line alluding to Britain in the words:—