Note 22 — Chapter XII · Race in Folklore and Myth

The most common name for the fairies in Welsh is y Tylwyth Teg, ‘the Fair or Beautiful Family’; but in South Cardiganshire we have found them called Plant Rhys Đwfn, ‘the Children of Rhys the Deep’ (pp. 151, 158), while in Gwent and Morgannwg they are more usually known as Bendith y Mamau, ‘the Blessing of the Mothers’ (p. 174). Our fourteenth century poet, D. ab Gwilym, uses the first-mentioned term, Tylwyth Teg, in poem xxxix, and our prose literature has a word corr, cor in the sense of a dwarf, and corres for a she dwarf. The old Cornish had also cor, which in Breton is written korr22, with a feminine korrez, and among the other derivatives one finds korrik, ‘a dwarf, a fairy, a wee little sorcerer,’ and korrigez or korrigan, ‘a she dwarf, a fairy woman, a diminutive sorceress.’ The use of these words in Breton recalls the case of the cor, called Rhuđlwm or else Eiđilig, teaching his magic to Coỻ, son of Coỻfrewi: see pp. 326, 503, 505. Then we have uncanny dwarfs in the romances, such, for example, as the rude cor in the service of Edern ab Nuđ, as described in French in Chrétien’s romance of Erec et Enide and in Welsh in that of Gereint vab Erbin, also the cor and corres who figure in the story of Peredur. The latter had belonged to that hero’s father and mother till the break-up of the family, when the dwarfs went to Arthur’s Court, where they lived a whole year without speaking to anybody. When, however, Peredur made his rustic appearance there, they hailed him loudly as the chief of warriors and the flower of knighthood, which brought on them the wrath of Cai, on whom they were eventually avenged by Peredur. In the case23 of both Edern and Peredur we find the dwarfs loyally interested in the fortunes of their masters and their masters’ friends. With them also the shape-shifting Menw, though not found placed in the same unfavourable light, is probably to be ranged, as one may gather from his name and his rôle of wizard scout for Arthur’s men (p. 510). In the like attachment on the part of the fairies, which was at times liable to develop into devotedness of an embarrassing nature (p. 250), we seem to have one of the germs of the idea of a household fairy or banshee, as illustrated by the case of the ugly wee woman in the Pantannas legend (p. 188); and it seems natural to regard the interested voices in the Kenfig legend, and other stories of the same kind (p. 452), as instances of amalgamating the idea of a fairy with that of an ancestral person.