Note 16 — Chapter II · The Fairies’ Revenge (continued 2)

‘One day, two friends went to hunt otters on the banks of the Pennant, and when they were directing their steps towards the river, they beheld some small creature of a red colour running fast across the meadows in the direction of the river. Off they ran after it, and saw that it went beneath the roots of a tree on the brink of the river to hide itself. The two men thought it was an otter, but, at the same time, they could not understand why it seemed to them to be of a red colour. They wished to take it alive, and off one of them went to a farm house that was not far away to ask for a sack, which he got, to put the creature into it. Now there were two holes under the roots of the tree, and while one held the sack with its mouth open over one of them, the other pushed his stick into the other hole, and presently the creature went into the sack. The two men thought they had caught an otter, which they looked upon as no small feat. They set out for home, but before they had proceeded the width of one field, the inmate of the sack spoke to them in a sad voice, and said, “My mother is calling for me; oh, my mother is calling for me!” This gave the two hunters a great fright, so that they at once threw down the sack; and great was their surprise to see a little man in a red dress running out of the sack towards the river. He disappeared from their sight in the bushes by the river. The two men were greatly terrified, and felt that it was more prudent to go home than meddle any further with the fair family.’ So far as I know, this story stands alone in Welsh folklore; but it has an exact parallel in Lancashire16.