Classification of Welsh Fairies--General Designation--Habits
of the Tylwyth Teg--Ellyllon, or Elves--Shakspeare's Use of
Welsh Folk-Lore--Rowli Pugh and the Ellyll--Household Story
Roots--The Ellylldan--The Pooka--Puck Valley,
Breconshire--Where Shakspeare got his Puck--Pwca'r
Trwyn--Usual Form of the Pooka Story--Coblynau, or Mine
Fairies--The Knockers--Miners' Superstitions--Basilisks and
Fire Fiends--A Fairy Coal-mine--The Dwarfs of Cae
Caled--Counterparts of the Coblynau--The Bwbach, or
Household Fairy--Legend of the Bwbach and the
Preacher--Bogies and Hobgoblins--Carrying Mortals through
the Air--Counterparts and Originals.
I.
Fairies being creatures of the imagination, it is not possible to
classify them by fixed and immutable rules. In the exact sciences,
there are laws which never vary, or if they vary, their very
eccentricity is governed by precise rules. Even in the largest sense,
comparative mythology must demean itself modestly in order to be
tolerated in the severe company of the sciences. In presenting his
subjects, therefore, the writer in this field can only govern himself
by the purpose of orderly arrangement. To secure the maximum of
system, for the sake of the student who employs the work for reference
and comparison, with the minimum of dullness, for the sake of the
general reader, is perhaps the limit of a reasonable ambition.
Keightley[8] divides into four classes the Scandinavian elements of
popular belief as to fairies, viz.: 1. The Elves; 2. The Dwarfs, or
Trolls; 3. The Nisses; and 4. The Necks, Mermen, and Mermaids. How
entirely arbitrary this division is, the student of Scandinavian
folk-lore at once perceives. Yet it is perhaps as satisfactory as
another. The fairies of Wales may be divided into five classes, if
analogy be not too sharply insisted on. Thus we have, 1. The Ellyllon,
or elves; 2. The Coblynau, or mine fairies; 3. The Bwbachod, or
household fairies; 4. The Gwragedd Annwn, or fairies of the lakes and
streams; and 5. The Gwyllion, or mountain fairies.
The modern Welsh name for fairies is y Tylwyth Teg, the fair folk or
family. This is sometimes lengthened into y Tylwyth Teg yn y Coed, the
fair family in the wood, or Tylwyth Teg y Mwn, the fair folk of the
mine. They are seen dancing in moonlight nights on the velvety grass,
clad in airy and flowing robes of blue, green, white, or
scarlet--details as to colour not usually met, I think, in accounts of
fairies. They are spoken of as bestowing blessings on those mortals
whom they select to be thus favoured; and again are called Bendith y
Mamau, or their mother's blessing, that is to say, good little
children whom it is a pleasure to know. To name the fairies by a harsh
epithet is to invoke their anger; to speak of them in flattering
phrase is to propitiate their good offices. The student of fairy
mythology perceives in this propitiatory mode of speech a fact of wide
significance. It can be traced in numberless lands, and back to the
beginning of human history, among the cloud-hung peaks of Central
Asia. The Greeks spoke of the furies as the Eumenides, or gracious
ones; Highlanders mentioned by Sir Walter Scott uncover to the gibbet
and call it 'the kind gallows;' the Dayak will not name the small-pox,
but calls it 'the chief;' the Laplander calls the bear 'the old man
with the fur coat;' in Ammam the tiger is called 'grandfather;' and it
is thought that the maxim, 'Speak only good of the dead,' came
originally from the notion of propitiating the ghost of the
departed,[9] who, in laying off this mortal garb, had become endowed
with new powers of harming his late acquaintance.
FOOTNOTES:
[8] 'Fairy Mythology' (Bohn's Ed.), 78.
[9] John Fiske, 'Myths and Myth-makers,' 223.
II.
The Ellyllon are the pigmy elves who haunt the groves and valleys, and
correspond pretty closely with the English elves. The English name was
probably derived from the Welsh _el_, a spirit, _elf_, an element;
there is a whole brood of words of this class in the Welsh language,
expressing every variety of flowing, gliding, spirituality, devilry,
angelhood, and goblinism. Ellyllon (the plural of ellyll), is also
doubtless allied with the Hebrew Elilim, having with it an identity
both of origin and meaning.[10] The poet Davydd ab Gwilym, in a
humorous account of his troubles in a mist, in the year 1340, says:
Yr ydoedd ym mhob gobant
Ellyllon mingeimion gant.
There was in every hollow
A hundred wrymouthed elves.
The hollows, or little dingles, are still the places where the
peasant, belated on his homeward way from fair or market, looks for
the ellyllon, but fails to find them. Their food is specified in Welsh
folk-lore as fairy butter and fairy victuals, ymenyn tylwyth teg and
bwyd ellyllon; the latter the toadstool, or poisonous mushroom, and
the former a butter-resembling substance found at great depths in the
crevices of limestone rocks, in sinking for lead ore. Their gloves,
menyg ellyllon, are the bells of the digitalis, or fox-glove, the
leaves of which are well known to be a strong sedative. Their
queen--for though there is no fairy-queen in the large sense that Gwyn
ap Nudd is the fairy-king, there is a queen of the elves--is none
other than the Shakspearean fairy spoken of by Mercutio, who comes
In shape no bigger than an agate-stone
On the forefinger of an alderman.[11]
Shakspeare's use of Welsh folk-lore, it should be noted, was extensive
and peculiarly faithful. Keightley in his 'Fairy Mythology' rates the
bard soundly for his inaccurate use of English fairy superstitions;
but the reproach will not apply as regards Wales. From his Welsh
informant Shakspeare got Mab, which is simply the Cymric for a little
child, and the root of numberless words signifying babyish, childish,
love for children (mabgar), kitten (mabgath), prattling (mabiaith),
and the like, most notable of all which in this connection is
mabinogi, the singular of Mabinogion, the romantic tales of
enchantment told to the young in by-gone ages.
FOOTNOTES:
[10] Pughe's 'Welsh Dictionary.' (Denbigh, 1866.)
[11] 'Romeo and Juliet,' Act II., Sc. 4.
III.
In the Huntsman's Rest Inn at Peterstone-super-Ely, near Cardiff, sat
a group of humble folk one afternoon, when I chanced to stop there to
rest myself by the chimney-side, after a long walk through green
lanes. The men were drinking their tankards of ale and smoking their
long clay pipes; and they were talking about their dogs and horses,
the crops, the hard times, and the prospect of bettering themselves by
emigration to America. On this latter theme I was able to make myself
interesting, and acquaintance was thereupon easily established on a
friendly footing. I led the conversation into the domain of folk-lore;
and this book is richer in illustration on many a page, in
consequence. Among others, this tale was told:
On a certain farm in Glamorganshire lived Rowli Pugh, who was known
far and wide for his evil luck. Nothing prospered that he turned his
hand to; his crops proved poor, though his neighbours' might be good;
his roof leaked in spite of all his mending; his walls remained damp
when every one else's walls were dry; and above all, his wife was so
feeble she could do no work. His fortunes at last seemed so hard that
he resolved to sell out and clear out, no matter at what loss, and try
to better himself in another country--not by going to America, for
there was no America in those days. Well, and if there was, the poor
Welshman didn't know it. So as Rowli was sitting on his wall one day,
hard by his cottage, musing over his sad lot, he was accosted by a
little man who asked him what was the matter. Rowli looked around in
surprise, but before he could answer the ellyll said to him with a
grin, 'There, there, hold your tongue, I know more about you than you
ever dreamed of knowing. You're in trouble, and you're going away. But
you may stay, now I've spoken to you. Only bid your good wife leave
the candle burning when she goes to bed, and say no more about it.'
With this the ellyll kicked up his heels and disappeared. Of course
the farmer did as he was bid, and from that day he prospered. Every
night Catti Jones, his wife,[12] set the candle out, swept the hearth,
and went to bed; and every night the fairies would come and do her
baking and brewing, her washing and mending, sometimes even furnishing
their own tools and materials. The farmer was now always clean of
linen and whole of garb; he had good bread and good beer; he felt like
a new man, and worked like one. Everything prospered with him now as
nothing had before. His crops were good, his barns were tidy, his
cattle were sleek, his pigs the fattest in the parish. So things went
on for three years. One night Catti Jones took it into her head that
she must have a peep at the fair family who did her work for her; and
curiosity conquering prudence, she arose while Rowli Pugh lay snoring,
and peeped through a crack in the door. There they were, a jolly
company of ellyllon, working away like mad, and laughing and dancing
as madly as they worked. Catti was so amused that in spite of herself
she fell to laughing too; and at sound of her voice the ellyllon
scattered like mist before the wind, leaving the room empty. They
never came back any more; but the farmer was now prosperous, and his
bad luck never returned to plague him.
[Illustration: ROWLI AND THE ELLYLL.]
The resemblance of this tale to many he has encountered will at once
be noted by the student of comparative folk-lore. He will also observe
that it trenches on the domain of another class in my own enumeration,
viz., that of the Bwbach, or household fairy. This is the stone over
which one is constantly stumbling in this field of scientific
research. Mr. Baring-Gould's idea that all household tales are
reducible to a primeval root (in the same or a similar manner that we
trace words to their roots), though most ingeniously illustrated by
him, is constantly involved in trouble of the sort mentioned. He
encounters the obstacle which lies in the path of all who walk this
way. His roots sometimes get inextricably gnarled and intertwisted
with each other. But some effort of this sort is imperative, and we
must do the best we can with our materials. Stories of the class of
Grimm's Witchelmaenner (Kinder und Hausmaerchen) will be recalled by the
legend of Rowli Pugh as here told. The German Hausmaenner are elves of
a domestic turn, sometimes mischievous and sometimes useful, but
usually looking for some material reward for their labours. So with
the English goblin named by Milton in 'L'Allegro,' which drudges,
To earn his cream-bowl duly set.
FOOTNOTE:
[12] Until recently, Welsh women retained their maiden names even
after marriage.
IV.
The Ellylldan is a species of elf exactly corresponding to the English
Will-o'-wisp, the Scandinavian Lyktgubhe, and the Breton Sand Yan y
Tad. The Welsh word dan means fire; dan also means a lure; the
compound word suggests a luring elf-fire. The Breton Sand Yan y Tad
(St. John and Father)[13] is a double ignis fatuus fairy, carrying at
its finger-ends five lights, which spin round like a wheel. The
negroes of the southern seaboard states of America invest this goblin
with an exaggeration of the horrible peculiarly their own. They call
it Jack-muh-lantern, and describe it as a hideous creature five feet
in height, with goggle-eyes and huge mouth, its body covered with long
hair, and which goes leaping and bounding through the air like a
gigantic grasshopper. This frightful apparition is stronger than any
man, and swifter than any horse, and compels its victims to follow it
into the swamp, where it leaves them to die.
Like all goblins of this class, the Ellylldan was, of course, seen
dancing about in marshy grounds, into which it led the belated
wanderer; but, as a distinguished resident in Wales has wittily said,
the poor elf 'is now starved to death, and his breath is taken from
him; his light is quenched for ever by the improving farmer, who has
drained the bog; and, instead of the rank decaying vegetation of the
autumn, where bitterns and snipes delighted to secrete themselves,
crops of corn and potatoes are grown.'[14]
A poetic account by a modern character, called Iolo the Bard, is thus
condensed: 'One night, when the moon had gone down, as I was sitting
on a hill-top, the Ellylldan passed by. I followed it into the valley.
We crossed plashes of water where the tops of bulrushes peeped above,
and where the lizards lay silently on the surface, looking at us with
an unmoved stare. The frogs sat croaking and swelling their sides, but
ceased as they raised a melancholy eye at the Ellylldan. The wild
fowl, sleeping with their heads under their wings, made a low cackle
as we went by. A bittern awoke and rose with a scream into the air. I
felt the trail of the eels and leeches peering about, as I waded
through the pools. On a slimy stone a toad sat sucking poison from the
night air. The Ellylldan glowed bravely in the slumbering vapours. It
rose airily over the bushes that drooped in the ooze. When I lingered
or stopped, it waited for me, but dwindled gradually away to a speck
barely perceptible. But as soon as I moved on again, it would shoot up
suddenly and glide before. A bat came flying round and round us,
flapping its wings heavily. Screech-owls stared silently at us with
their broad eyes. Snails and worms crawled about. The fine threads of
a spider's web gleamed in the light of the Ellylldan. Suddenly it shot
away from me, and in the distance joined a ring of its fellows, who
went dancing slowly round and round in a goblin dance, which sent me
off to sleep.'[15]
FOOTNOTES:
[13] Keightley, 'Fairy Mythology,' 441.
[14] Hon. W. O. Stanley, M.P., in 'Notes and Queries.'
[15] 'The Vale of Glamorgan.' (London, 1839.)
V.
Pwca, or Pooka, is but another name for the Ellylldan, as our Puck is
another name for the Will-o'-wisp; but in both cases the shorter term
has a more poetic flavour and a wider latitude. The name Puck was
originally applied to the whole race of English fairies, and there
still be few of the realm who enjoy a wider popularity than Puck, in
spite of his mischievous attributes. Part of this popularity is due to
the poets, especially to Shakspeare. I have alluded to the bard's
accurate knowledge of Welsh folk-lore; the subject is really one of
unique interest, in view of the inaccuracy charged upon him as to the
English fairyland. There is a Welsh tradition to the effect that
Shakspeare received his knowledge of the Cambrian fairies from his
friend Richard Price, son of Sir John Price, of the priory of Brecon.
It is even claimed that Cwm Pwca, or Puck Valley, a part of the
romantic glen of the Clydach, in Breconshire, is the original scene of
the 'Midsummer Night's Dream'--a fancy as light and airy as Puck
himself.[16] Anyhow, there Cwm Pwca is, and in the sylvan days, before
Frere and Powell's ironworks were set up there, it is said to have
been as full of goblins as a Methodist's head is of piety. And there
are in Wales other places bearing like names, where Pwca's pranks are
well remembered by old inhabitants. The range given to the popular
fancy in Wales is expressed with fidelity by Shakspeare's words in the
mouth of Puck:
I'll follow you, I'll lead you about a round,
Through bog, through bush, through brake, through brier,
Sometime a horse I'll be, sometime a hound,
A hog, a headless bear, sometime a fire;
And neigh, and bark, and grunt, and roar, and burn,
Like horse, hound, hog, bear, fire, at every turn.[17]
The various stories I have encountered bear out these details almost
without an omission.
[Illustration: {SKETCH OF PWCA.}]
In his own proper character, however, Pwca has a sufficiently
grotesque elfish aspect. It is stated that a Welsh peasant who was
asked to give an idea of the appearance of Pwca, drew the above figure
with a bit of coal.
A servant girl who attended to the cattle on the Trwyn farm, near
Abergwyddon, used to take food to 'Master Pwca,' as she called the
elf. A bowl of fresh milk and a slice of white bread were the
component parts of the goblin's repast, and were placed on a certain
spot where he got them. One night the girl, moved by the spirit of
mischief, drank the milk and ate most of the bread, leaving for Master
Pwca only water and crusts. Next morning she found that the fastidious
fairy had left the food untouched. Not long after, as the girl was
passing the lonely spot, where she had hitherto left Pwca his food,
she was seized under the arm pits by fleshly hands (which, however,
she could not see), and subjected to a castigation of a most
mortifying character. Simultaneously there fell upon her ear in good
set Welsh a warning not to repeat her offence on peril of still worse
treatment. This story 'is thoroughly believed in there to this
day.'[18]
I visited the scene of the story, a farm near Abergwyddon (now called
Abercarne), and heard a great deal more of the exploits of that
particular Pwca, to which I will refer again. The most singular fact
of the matter is that although at least a century has elapsed, and
some say several centuries, since the exploits in question, you cannot
find a Welsh peasant in the parish but knows all about Pwca'r Trwyn.
FOOTNOTES:
[16] According to a letter written by the poet Campbell to Mrs.
Fletcher, in 1833, and published in her Autobiography, it was thought
Shakspeare went in person to see this magic valley. 'It is no later than
yesterday,' wrote Campbell, 'that I discovered a probability--almost
near a certainty--that Shakspeare visited friends in the very town
(Brecon in Wales) where Mrs. Siddons was born, and that he there found
in a neighbouring glen, called "The Valley of Fairy Puck," the principal
machinery of his "Midsummer Night's Dream."'
[17] 'Midsummer Night's Dream,' Act III., Sc. 3.
[18] 'Archaeologia Cambrensis,' 4th Se., vi., 175. (1875.)
VI.
The most familiar form of the Pwca story is one which I have
encountered in several localities, varying so little in its details
that each account would be interchangeable with another by the
alteration of local names. This form presents a peasant who is
returning home from his work, or from a fair, when he sees a light
travelling before him. Looking closer he perceives that it is carried
by a dusky little figure, holding a lantern or candle at arm's length
over its head. He follows it for several miles, and suddenly finds
himself on the brink of a frightful precipice. From far down below
there rises to his ears the sound of a foaming torrent. At the same
moment the little goblin with the lantern springs across the chasm,
alighting on the opposite side; raises the light again high over its
head, utters a loud and malicious laugh, blows out its candle and
disappears up the opposite hill, leaving the awestruck peasant to get
home as best he can.
[Illustration: PWCA.
COBLYNAU.]
VII.
Under the general title of Coblynau I class the fairies which haunt
the mines, quarries and underground regions of Wales, corresponding to
the cabalistic Gnomes. The word coblyn has the double meaning of
knocker or thumper and sprite or fiend; and may it not be the original
of goblin? It is applied by Welsh miners to pigmy fairies which dwell
in the mines, and point out, by a peculiar knocking or rapping, rich
veins of ore. The faith is extended, in some parts, so as to cover the
indication of subterranean treasures generally, in caves and secret
places of the mountains. The coblynau are described as being about
half a yard in height and very ugly to look upon, but extremely
good-natured, and warm friends of the miner. Their dress is a
grotesque imitation of the miner's garb, and they carry tiny hammers,
picks and lamps. They work busily, loading ore in buckets, flitting
about the shafts, turning tiny windlasses, and pounding away like
madmen, but really accomplishing nothing whatever. They have been
known to throw stones at the miners, when enraged at being lightly
spoken of; but the stones are harmless. Nevertheless, all miners of a
proper spirit refrain from provoking them, because their presence
brings good luck.
VIII.
Miners are possibly no more superstitious than other men of equal
intelligence; I have heard some of their number repel indignantly the
idea that they are superstitious at all; but this would simply be to
raise them above the level of our common humanity. There is testimony
enough, besides, to support my own conclusions, which accredit a
liberal share of credulity to the mining class. The _Oswestry
Advertiser_, a short time ago, recorded the fact that, at Cefn, 'a
woman is employed as messenger at one of the collieries, and as she
commences her duty early each morning she meets great numbers of
colliers going to their work. Some of them, we are gravely assured,
consider it a bad omen to meet a woman first thing in the morning; and
not having succeeded in deterring her from her work by other means,
they waited upon the manager and declared that they should remain at
home unless the woman was dismissed.' This was in 1874. In June, 1878,
the _South Wales Daily News_ recorded a superstition of the quarrymen
at Penrhyn, where some thousands of men refused to work on Ascension
Day. 'This refusal did not arise out of any reverential feeling, but
from an old and widespread superstition, which has lingered in that
district for years, that if work is continued on Ascension Day an
accident will certainly follow. A few years ago the agents persuaded
the men to break through the superstition, and there were accidents
each year--a not unlikely occurrence, seeing the extent of works
carried on, and the dangerous nature of the occupation of the men. This
year, however, the men, one and all, refused to work.' These are
examples dealing with considerable numbers of the mining class, and are
quoted in this instance as being more significant than individual cases
would be. Of these last I have encountered many. Yet I should be sorry
if any reader were to conclude from all this that Welsh miners are not
in the main intelligent, church-going, newspaper-reading men. They are
so, I think, even beyond the common. Their superstitions, therefore,
like those of the rest of us, must be judged as 'a thing apart,' not to
be reconciled with intelligence and education, but co-existing with
them. Absolute freedom from superstition can come only with a degree of
scientific culture not yet reached by mortal man.
It can hardly be cause for wonder that the miner should be
superstitious. His life is passed in a dark and gloomy region, fathoms
below the earth's green surface, surrounded by walls on which dim
lamps shed a fitful light. It is not surprising that imagination (and
the Welsh imagination is peculiarly vivid) should conjure up the faces
and forms of gnomes and coblynau, of phantoms and fairy men. When they
hear the mysterious thumping which they know is not produced by any
human being, and when in examining the place where the noise was heard
they find there are really valuable indications of ore, the sturdiest
incredulity must sometimes be shaken. Science points out that the
noise may be produced by the action of water upon the loose stones in
fissures and pot-holes of the mountain limestone, and does actually
suggest the presence of metals.
In the days before a Priestley had caught and bottled that demon which
exists in the shape of carbonic acid gas, when the miner was smitten
dead by an invisible foe in the deep bowels of the earth it was
natural his awestruck companions should ascribe the mysterious blow to
a supernatural enemy. When the workman was assailed suddenly by what
we now call fire-damp, which hurled him and his companions right and
left upon the dark rocks, scorching, burning, and killing, those who
survived were not likely to question the existence of the mine fiend.
Hence arose the superstition--now probably quite extinct--of basilisks
in the mines, which destroyed with their terrible gaze. When the
explanation came, that the thing which killed the miner was what he
breathed, not what he saw; and when chemistry took the fire-damp from
the domain of faerie, the basilisk and the fire fiend had not a leg to
stand on. The explanation of the Knockers is more recent, and less
palpable and convincing.
IX.
The Coblynau are always given the form of dwarfs, in the popular
fancy; wherever seen or heard, they are believed to have escaped from
the mines or the secret regions of the mountains. Their homes are
hidden from mortal vision. When encountered, either in the mines or on
the mountains, they have strayed from their special abodes, which are
as spectral as themselves. There is at least one account extant of
their secret territory having been revealed to mortal eyes. I find it
in a quaint volume (of which I shall have more to say), printed at
Newport, Monmouthshire, in 1813.[19] It relates that one William
Evans, of Hafodafel, while crossing the Beacon Mountain very early in
the morning, passed a fairy coal mine, where fairies were busily at
work. Some were cutting the coal, some carrying it to fill the sacks,
some raising the loads upon the horses' backs, and so on; but all in
the completest silence. He thought this 'a wonderful extra natural
thing,' and was considerably impressed by it, for well he knew that
there really was no coal mine at that place. He was a person of
'undoubted veracity,' and what is more, 'a great man in the
world--above telling an untruth.'
That the Coblynau sometimes wandered far from home, the same
chronicler testifies; but on these occasions they were taking a
holiday. Egbert Williams, 'a pious young gentleman of Denbighshire,
then at school,' was one day playing in a field called Cae Caled, in
the parish of Bodfari, with three girls, one of whom was his sister.
Near the stile beyond Lanelwyd House they saw a company of fifteen or
sixteen coblynau engaged in dancing madly. They were in the middle of
the field, about seventy yards from the spectators, and they danced
something after the manner of Morris-dancers, but with a wildness and
swiftness in their motions. They were clothed in red like British
soldiers, and wore red handkerchiefs spotted with yellow wound round
their heads. And a strange circumstance about them was that although
they were almost as big as ordinary men, yet they had unmistakably the
appearance of dwarfs, and one could call them nothing but dwarfs.
Presently one of them left the company and ran towards the group near
the stile, who were direfully scared thereby, and scrambled in great
fright to go over the stile. Barbara Jones got over first, then her
sister, and as Egbert Williams was helping his sister over they saw
the coblyn close upon them, and barely got over when his hairy hand
was laid on the stile. He stood leaning on it, gazing after them as
they ran, with a grim copper-coloured countenance and a fierce look.
The young people ran to Lanelwyd House and called the elders out, but
though they hurried quickly to the field the dwarfs had already
disappeared.
FOOTNOTE:
[19] 'A Relation of Apparitions of Spirits in the County of Monmouth
and the Principality of Wales.' By Rev. Edmund Jones of the Tranch.
(Newport, 1813.)
X.
The counterparts of the Coblynau are found in most mining countries.
In Germany, the Wichtlein (little Wights) are little old long-bearded
men, about three-quarters of an ell high, which haunt the mines of the
southern land. The Bohemians call the Wichtlein by the name of
Haus-schmiedlein, little House-smiths, from their sometimes making a
noise as if labouring hard at the anvil. They are not so popular as in
Wales, however, as they predict misfortune or death. They announce the
doom of a miner by knocking three times distinctly, and when any
lesser evil is about to befall him they are heard digging, pounding,
and imitating other kinds of work. In Germany also the kobolds are
rather troublesome than otherwise, to the miners, taking pleasure in
frustrating their objects, and rendering their toil unfruitful.
Sometimes they are downright malignant, especially if neglected or
insulted, but sometimes also they are indulgent to individuals whom
they take under their protection. 'When a miner therefore hit upon a
rich vein of ore, the inference commonly was not that he possessed
more skill, industry, or even luck than his fellow-workmen, but that
the spirits of the mine had directed him to the treasure.'[20]
The intimate connection between mine fairies and the whole race of
dwarfs is constantly met throughout the fairy mythology; and the
connection of the dwarfs with the mountains is equally universal.
'God,' says the preface to the Heldenbuch, 'gave the dwarfs being,
because the land and the mountains were altogether waste and
uncultivated, and there was much store of silver and gold and precious
stones and pearls still in the mountains.' From the most ancient
times, and in the oldest countries, down to our own time and the new
world of America, the traditions are the same. The old Norse belief
which made the dwarfs the current machinery of the northern Sagas is
echoed in the Catskill Mountains with the rolling of the thunder among
the crags where Hendrik Hudson's dwarfs are playing ninepins.
FOOTNOTE:
[20] Scott, 'Demonology and Witchcraft,' 121.
XI.
The Bwbach, or Boobach, is the good-natured goblin which does good
turns for the tidy Welsh maid who wins its favour by a certain course
of behaviour recommended by long tradition. The maid having swept the
kitchen, makes a good fire the last thing at night, and having put the
churn, filled with cream, on the whitened hearth, with a basin of
fresh cream for the Bwbach on the hob, goes to bed to await the event.
In the morning she finds (if she is in luck) that the Bwbach has
emptied the basin of cream, and plied the churn-dasher so well that
the maid has but to give a thump or two to bring the butter in a great
lump. Like the Ellyll which it so much resembles, the Bwbach does not
approve of dissenters and their ways, and especially strong is its
aversion to total abstainers.
There was a Bwbach belonging to a certain estate in Cardiganshire,
which took great umbrage at a Baptist preacher who was a guest in the
house, and who was much fonder of prayers than of good ale. Now the
Bwbach had a weakness in favour of people who sat around the hearth
with their mugs of cwrw da and their pipes, and it took to pestering
the preacher. One night it jerked the stool from under the good man's
elbows, as he knelt pouring forth prayer, so that he fell down flat on
his face. Another time it interrupted the devotions by jangling the
fire-irons on the hearth; and it was continually making the dogs fall
a-howling during prayers, or frightening the farm-boy by grinning at
him through the window, or throwing the maid into fits. At last it had
the audacity to attack the preacher as he was crossing a field. The
minister told the story in this wise: 'I was reading busily in my
hymn-book as I walked on, when a sudden fear came over me and my legs
began to tremble. A shadow crept upon me from behind, and when I
turned round--it was myself!--my person, my dress, and even my
hymn-book. I looked in its face a moment, and then fell insensible to
the ground.' And there, insensible still, they found him. This
encounter proved too much for the good man, who considered it a
warning to him to leave those parts. He accordingly mounted his horse
next day and rode away. A boy of the neighbourhood, whose veracity
was, like that of all boys, unimpeachable, afterwards said that he saw
the Bwbach jump up behind the preacher, on the horse's back. And the
horse went like lightning, with eyes like balls of fire, and the
preacher looking back over his shoulder at the Bwbach, that grinned
from ear to ear.
XII.
The same confusion in outlines which exists regarding our own Bogie
and Hobgoblin gives the Bwbach a double character, as a household
fairy and as a terrifying phantom. In both aspects it is ludicrous,
but in the latter it has dangerous practices. To get into its clutches
under certain circumstances is no trifling matter, for it has the
power of whisking people off through the air. Its services are brought
into requisition for this purpose by troubled ghosts who cannot sleep
on account of hidden treasure they want removed; and if they can
succeed in getting a mortal to help them in removing the treasure,
they employ the Bwbach to transport the mortal through the air.
This ludicrous fairy is in France represented by the gobelin. Mothers
threaten children with him. 'Le gobelin vous mangera, le gobelin vous
emportera.'[21] In the English 'hobgoblin' we have a word apparently
derived from the Welsh hob, to hop, and coblyn, a goblin, which
presents a hopping goblin to the mind, and suggests the Pwca (with
which the Bwbach is also confused in the popular fancy at times), but
should mean in English simply the goblin of the hob, or household
fairy. In its bugbear aspect, the Bwbach, like the English bogie, is
believed to be identical with the Slavonic 'bog,' and the 'baga' of
the Cuneiform Inscriptions, both of which are names for the Supreme
Being, according to Professor Fiske. 'The ancestral form of these
epithets' is found in 'the old Aryan "Bhaga," which reappears
unchanged in the Sanskrit of the Vedas, and has left a memento of
itself in the surname of the Phrygian Zeus "Bagaios." It seems
originally to have denoted either the unclouded sun, or the sky of
noonday illuminated by the solar rays.... Thus the same name which to
the Vedic poet, to the Persian of the time of Xerxes, and to the
modern Russian, suggests the supreme majesty of deity, is in English
associated with an ugly and ludicrous fiend, closely akin to that
grotesque Northern Devil of whom Southey was unable to think without
laughing.'[22]
FOOTNOTES:
[21] Pere l'Abbe, 'Etymologie,' i., 262.
[22] Fiske, 'Myths and Myth-makers,' 105.