Lake Fairies--The Gwragedd Annwn, or Dames of
Elfin-Land--St. Patrick and the Welshmen; a Legend of
Crumlyn Lake--The Elfin Cow of Llyn Barfog--Y Fuwch Laethwen
Lefrith--The Legend of the Meddygon Myddfai--The Wife of
Supernatural Race--The Three Blows; a Carmarthenshire
Legend--Cheese and the Didactic Purpose in Welsh
Folk-Lore--The Fairy Maiden's Papa--The Enchanted Isle in
the Mountain Lake--Legend of the Men of Ardudwy--Origin of
Water Fairies--Their prevalence in many Lands.
I.
The Gwragedd Annwn (literally, wives of the lower world, or hell) are
the elfin dames who dwell under the water. I find no resemblance in
the Welsh fairy to our familiar mermaid, beyond the watery abode, and
the sometimes winning ways. The Gwragedd Annwn are not fishy of
aspect, nor do they dwell in the sea. Their haunt is the lakes and
rivers, but especially the wild and lonely lakes upon the mountain
heights. These romantic sheets are surrounded with numberless
superstitions, which will be further treated of. In the realm of
faerie they serve as avenues of communication between this world and
the lower one of annwn, the shadowy domain presided over by Gwyn ap
Nudd, king of the fairies. This sub-aqueous realm is peopled by those
children of mystery termed Plant Annwn, and the belief is current
among the inhabitants of the Welsh mountains that the Gwragedd Annwn
still occasionally visit this upper world of ours.[23] The only
reference to Welsh mermaids I have either read or heard is contained
in Drayton's account of the Battle of Agincourt. There it is
mentioned, among the armorial ensigns of the counties of Wales:
As Cardigan, the next to them that went,
Came with a mermaid sitting on a rock.[24]
FOOTNOTES:
[23] 'Archaeologia Cambrensis,' 2nd Se., iv., 253.
[24] There is in 'Cymru Fu' a mermaid story, but its mermaid feature
is apparently a modern embellishment of a real incident, and without
value here.
II.
Crumlyn Lake, near the quaint village of Briton Ferry, is one of the
many in Wales which are a resort of the elfin dames. It is also
believed that a large town lies swallowed up there, and that the
Gwragedd Annwn have turned the submerged walls to use as the
superstructure of their fairy palaces. Some claim to have seen the
towers of beautiful castles lifting their battlements beneath the
surface of the dark waters, and fairy bells are at times heard ringing
from these towers. The way the elfin dames first came to dwell there
was this: A long, ay, a very long time ago, St. Patrick came over from
Ireland on a visit to St. David of Wales, just to say 'Sut yr y'ch
chwi?' (How d'ye do?); and as they were strolling by this lake
conversing on religious topics in a friendly manner, some Welsh people
who had ascertained that it was St. Patrick, and being angry at him
for leaving Cambria for Erin, began to abuse him in the Welsh
language, his native tongue. Of course such an insult could not go
unpunished, and St. Patrick caused his villifiers to be transformed
into fishes; but some of them being females, were converted into
fairies instead. It is also related that the sun, on account of this
insolence to so holy a man, never shed its life-giving rays upon the
dark waters of this picturesque lake, except during one week of the
year. This legend and these magical details are equally well
accredited to various other lakes, among them Llyn Barfog, near
Aberdovey, the town whose 'bells' are celebrated in immortal song.
III.
Llyn Barfog is the scene of the famous elfin cow's descent upon earth,
from among the droves of the Gwragedd Annwn. This is the legend of the
origin of the Welsh black cattle, as related to me in Carmarthenshire:
In times of old there was a band of elfin ladies who used to haunt the
neighbourhood of Llyn Barfog, a lake among the hills just back of
Aberdovey. It was their habit to make their appearance at dusk clad
all in green, accompanied by their milk-white hounds. Besides their
hounds, the green ladies of Llyn Barfog were peculiar in the
possession of droves of beautiful milk-white kine, called Gwartheg y
Llyn, or kine of the lake. One day an old farmer, who lived near
Dyssyrnant, had the good luck to catch one of these mystic cows, which
had fallen in love with the cattle of his herd. From that day the
farmer's fortune was made. Such calves, such milk, such butter and
cheese, as came from the milk-white cow never had been seen in Wales
before, nor ever will be seen again. The fame of the Fuwch Gyfeiliorn
(which was what they called the cow) spread through the country round.
The farmer, who had been poor, became rich; the owner of vast herds,
like the patriarchs of old. But one day he took it into his silly
noddle that the elfin cow was getting old, and that he had better
fatten her for the market. His nefarious purpose thrived amazingly.
Never, since beef steaks were invented, was seen such a fat cow as
this cow grew to be. Killing day came, and the neighbours arrived from
all about to witness the taking-off of this monstrously fat beast. The
farmer had already counted up the gains from the sale of her, and the
butcher had bared his red right arm. The cow was tethered, regardless
of her mournful lowing and her pleading eyes; the butcher raised his
bludgeon and struck fair and hard between the eyes--when lo! a shriek
resounded through the air, awakening the echoes of the hills, as the
butcher's bludgeon went through the goblin head of the elfin cow, and
knocked over nine adjoining men, while the butcher himself went
frantically whirling around trying to catch hold of something
permanent. Then the astonished assemblage beheld a green lady standing
on a crag high up over the lake, and crying with a loud voice:
Dere di felen Einion,
Cyrn Cyfeiliorn--braith y Llyn,
A'r foel Dodin,
Codwch, dewch adre.
Come yellow Anvil, stray horns,
Speckled one of the lake,
And of the hornless Dodin,
Arise, come home.
Whereupon not only did the elfin cow arise and go home, but all her
progeny to the third and fourth generations went home with her,
disappearing in the air over the hill tops and returning nevermore.
Only one cow remained of all the farmer's herds, and she had turned
from milky white to raven black. Whereupon the farmer in despair
drowned himself in the lake of the green ladies, and the black cow
became the progenitor of the existing race of Welsh black cattle.
This legend appears, in a slightly different form, in the 'Iolo MSS.,'
as translated by Taliesin Williams, of Merthyr:[25] 'The milk-white
milch cow gave enough of milk to every one who desired it; and however
frequently milked, or by whatever number of persons, she was never
found deficient. All persons who drank of her milk were healed of
every illness; from fools they became wise; and from being wicked,
became happy. This cow went round the world; and wherever she
appeared, she filled with milk all the vessels that could be found,
leaving calves behind her for all the wise and happy. It was from her
that all the milch cows in the world were obtained. After traversing
through the island of Britain, for the benefit and blessing of country
and kindred, she reached the Vale of Towy; where, tempted by her fine
appearance and superior condition, the natives sought to kill and eat
her; but just as they were proceeding to effect their purpose, she
vanished from between their hands, and was never seen again. A house
still remains in the locality, called Y Fuwch Laethwen Lefrith (The
Milk-white Milch Cow.)'
FOOTNOTE:
[25] Llandovery, published for the Welsh MSS. Society, 1848.
IV.
The legend of the Meddygon Myddfai again introduces the elfin cattle
to our notice, but combines with them another and a very interesting
form of this superstition, namely, that of the wife of supernatural
race. A further feature gives it its name, Meddygon meaning
physicians, and the legend professing to give the origin of certain
doctors who were renowned in the thirteenth century. The legend
relates that a farmer in the parish of Myddfai, Carmarthenshire,
having bought some lambs in a neighbouring fair, led them to graze
near Llyn y Fan Fach, on the Black Mountains. Whenever he visited
these lambs three beautiful damsels appeared to him from the lake, on
whose shores they often made excursions. Sometimes he pursued and
tried to catch them, but always failed; the enchanting nymphs ran
before him and on reaching the lake taunted him in these words:
Cras dy fara,
Anhawdd ein dala;
which, if one must render it literally, means:
Bake your bread,
'Twill be hard to catch us;
but which, more poetically treated, might signify:
Mortal, who eatest baken bread,
Not for thee is the fairy's bed!
One day some moist bread from the lake came floating ashore. The
farmer seized it, and devoured it with avidity. The following day, to
his great delight, he was successful in his chase, and caught the
nymphs on the shore. After talking a long time with them, he mustered
up the courage to propose marriage to one of them. She consented to
accept him on condition that he would distinguish her from her sisters
the next day. This was a new and great difficulty to the young farmer,
for the damsels were so similar in form and features, that he could
scarcely see any difference between them. He noted, however, a
trifling singularity in the strapping of the chosen one's sandal, by
which he recognized her on the following day. As good as her word, the
gwraig immediately left the lake and went with him to his farm. Before
she quitted the lake she summoned therefrom to attend her, seven cows,
two oxen, and one bull. She stipulated that she should remain with the
farmer only until such time as he should strike her thrice without
cause. For some years they dwelt peaceably together, and she bore him
three sons, who were the celebrated Meddygon Myddfai. One day, when
preparing for a fair in the neighbourhood, the farmer desired her to
go to the field for his horse. She said she would, but being rather
dilatory, he said to her humorously 'Dos, dos, dos,' i.e., 'Go, go,
go,' and at the same time slightly tapped her arm three times with his
glove.... The blows were slight--but they were blows. The terms of the
marriage contract were broken, and the dame departed, summoning with
her her seven cows, her two oxen, and the bull. The oxen were at that
moment ploughing in the field, but they immediately obeyed her call
and dragged the plough after them to the lake. The furrow, from the
field in which they were ploughing to the margin of the lake, is still
to be seen--in several parts of that country--at the present day.
After her departure, the gwraig annwn once met her three sons in the
valley now called Cwm Meddygon, and gave them a magic box containing
remedies of wonderful power, through whose use they became celebrated.
Their names were Cadogan, Gruffydd and Einion, and the farmer's name
was Rhiwallon. Rhiwallon and his sons, named as above, were physicians
to Rhys Gryg, Lord of Dynevor, and son of the last native prince of
Wales. They lived about 1230, and dying, left behind them a compendium
of their medical practice. 'A copy of their works is in the Welsh
School Library in Gray's Inn Lane.'[26]
FOOTNOTE:
[26] 'Cambro-Briton,' ii., 315.
V.
In a more polished and elaborate form this legend omits the medical
features altogether, but substitutes a number of details so peculiarly
Welsh that I cannot refrain from presenting them. This version
relates that the enamoured farmer had heard of the lake maiden, who
rowed up and down the lake in a golden boat, with a golden oar. Her
hair was long and yellow, and her face was pale and melancholy. In his
desire to see this wondrous beauty, the farmer went on New Year's Eve
to the edge of the lake, and in silence awaited the coming of the
first hour of the new year. It came, and there in truth was the maiden
in her golden boat, rowing softly to and fro. Fascinated, he stood for
hours beholding her, until the stars faded out of the sky, the moon
sank behind the rocks, and the cold gray dawn drew nigh; and then the
lovely gwraig began to vanish from his sight. Wild with passion, and
with the thought of losing her for ever, he cried aloud to the
retreating vision, 'Stay! stay! Be my wife.' But the gwraig only
uttered a faint cry, and was gone. Night after night the young farmer
haunted the shores of the lake, but the gwraig returned no more. He
became negligent of his person; his once robust form grew thin and
wan; his face was a map of melancholy and despair. He went one day to
consult a soothsayer who dwelt on the mountain, and this grave
personage advised him to besiege the damsel's heart with gifts of
bread and cheese. This counsel commending itself strongly to his Welsh
way of thinking, the farmer set out upon an assiduous course of
casting his bread upon the waters--accompanied by cheese. He began on
Midsummer eve by going to the lake and dropping therein a large cheese
and a loaf of bread. Night after night he continued to throw in loaves
and cheeses, but nothing appeared in answer to his sacrifices. His
hopes were set, however, on the approaching New Year's eve. The
momentous night arrived at last. Clad in his best array, and armed
with seven white loaves and his biggest and handsomest cheese, he set
out once more for the lake. There he waited till midnight, and then
slowly and solemnly dropped the seven loaves into the water, and with
a sigh sent the cheese to keep them company. His persistence was at
length rewarded. The magic skiff appeared; the fair gwraig guided it
to where he stood; stepped ashore, and accepted him as her husband.
The before-mentioned stipulation was made as to the blows; and she
brought her dower of cattle. One day, after they had been four years
married, they were invited to a christening. In the midst of the
ceremony the gwraig burst into tears. Her husband gave her an angry
look, and asked her why she thus made a fool of herself. She replied,
'The poor babe is entering a world of sin and sorrow; misery lies
before it. Why should I rejoice?' He pushed her pettishly away. 'I
warn you, husband,' said the gwraig; 'you have struck me once.' After
a time they were bidden to the funeral of the child they had seen
christened. Now the gwraig laughed, sang, and danced about. The
husband's wrath again arose, and again he asked her why she thus made
a fool of herself. She answered, 'The dear babe has escaped the misery
that was before it, and gone to be good and happy for ever. Why should
I grieve?' Again he pushed her from him, and again she warned him; he
had struck her twice. Soon they were invited to a wedding; the bride
was young and fair, the groom a tottering, toothless, decrepit old
miser. In the midst of the wedding feast the gwraig annwn burst into
tears, and to her husband's question why she thus made a fool of
herself she replied, 'Truth is wedded to age for greed, and not for
love--summer and winter cannot agree--it is the diawl's compact.' The
angry husband thrust her from him for the third and last time. She
looked at him with tender love and reproach, and said, 'The three
blows are struck--husband, farewell!' He never saw her more, nor any
of the flocks and herds she had brought him for her dowry.
[Illustration: THE GWRAIG OF THE GOLDEN BOAT.]
In its employment of the myth to preach a sermon, and in its
introduction of cheese, this version of the legend is very Welsh
indeed. The extent to which cheese figures in Cambrian folk-lore is
surprising; cheese is encountered in every sort of fairy company; you
actually meet cheese in the Mabinogion, along with the most romantic
forms of beauty known in story. And herein again is illustrated
Shakspeare's accurate knowledge of the Cambrian goblins. 'Heaven
defend me from that Welsh fairy!' says Falstaff, 'lest he transform me
to a piece of cheese!'[27] Bread is found figuring actively in the
folk-lore of every country, especially as a sacrifice to water-gods;
but cheese is, so far as I know, thus honoured only in Cambria.
FOOTNOTE:
[27] 'Merry Wives of Windsor,' Act V., Sc. 5.
VI.
Once more this legend appears, this time with a feature I have nowhere
else encountered in fairy land, to wit, the father of a fairy damsel.
The son of a farmer on Drws Coed farm was one foggy day looking after
his father's sheep, when crossing a marshy meadow he beheld a little
lady behind some rising ground. She had yellow hair, blue eyes and
rosy cheeks. He approached her, and asked permission to converse;
whereupon she smiled sweetly and said to him, 'Idol of my hopes, you
have come at last!' They there and then began to 'keep company,' and
met each other daily here and there along the farm meadows. His
intentions were honourable; he desired her to marry him. He was
sometimes absent for days together, no one knew where, and his friends
whispered about that he had been witched. Around the Turf Lake (Llyn
y Dywarchen) was a grove of trees, and under one of these one day the
fairy promised to be his. The consent of her father was now necessary.
One moonlight night an appointment was made to meet in this wood. The
father and daughter did not appear till the moon had disappeared
behind the hill. Then they both came. The fairy father immediately
gave his consent to the marriage, on one condition, namely, that her
future husband should never hit her with iron. 'If ever thou dost
touch her flesh with iron she shall be no more thine, but she shall
return to her own.' They were married--a good-looking pair. Large sums
of money were brought by her, the night before the wedding, to Drws
Coed. The shepherd lad became wealthy, had several handsome children,
and they were very happy. After some years, they were one day out
riding, when her horse sank in a deep mire, and by the assistance of
her husband, in her hurry to remount, she was struck on her knee by
the stirrup of the saddle. Immediately voices were heard singing on
the brow of the hill, and she disappeared, leaving all her children
behind. She and her mother devised a plan by which she could see her
beloved, but as she was not allowed to walk the earth with man, they
floated a large turf on the lake, and on this turf she stood for hours
at a time holding converse with her husband. This continued until his
death.[28]
FOOTNOTE:
[28] 'Cymru Fu,' 476.
VII.
The didactic purpose again appears in the following legend, which,
varying but little in phraseology, is current in the neighbourhood of
a dozen different mountain lakes: In other days, before the Cymry had
become reconciled to their Saxon foe, on every New Year's morning a
door was found open in a rock hard by the lake. Those mortals who had
the curiosity and the resolution to enter this door were conducted by
a secret passage to a small island in the middle of the lake. Here
they found a most enchanting garden, stored with the choicest fruits
and flowers, and inhabited by the Gwragedd Annwn, whose beauty could
be equalled only by the courtesy and affability which they exhibited
to those who pleased them. They gathered fruit and flowers for each of
their guests, entertained them with the most exquisite music,
disclosed to them many secrets of futurity, and invited them to stay
as long as they liked. 'But,' said they, 'the island is secret, and
nothing of its produce must be carried away.' The warning being
heeded, all went well. But one day there appeared among the visitors a
wicked Welshman, who, thinking to derive some magical aid therefrom,
pocketed a flower with which he had been presented, and was about to
leave the garden with his prize. But the theft boded him no good. As
soon as he had touched unhallowed ground the flower vanished, and he
lost his senses. However, of this abuse of their hospitality the
Gwragedd Annwn took no notice at the time. They dismissed their guests
with their accustomed courtesy, and the door was closed as usual. But
their resentment was bitter; for though the fairies of the lake and
their enchanted garden undoubtedly occupy the spot to this day, the
door which led to the island has never been reopened.
VIII.
In all these legends the student of comparative folk-lore traces the
ancient mythology, however overlain with later details. The
water-maidens of every land doubtless originally were the floating
clouds of the sky, or the mists of the mountain. From this have come
certain fair and fanciful creations with which Indo-European folk-lore
teems, the most familiar of which are Undine, Melusina, Nausicaa, and
the classic Muse. In Wales, as in other lands, the myth has many
forms. The dispersion of dark clouds from the mountains, by the beams
of the rising sun, or the morning breezes, is localized in the legend
of the Men of Ardudwy. These men make a raid on the maidens of the
Vale of Clwyd, and are pursued and slaughtered by the latter's fathers
and brothers. The maidens thereupon cast themselves headlong into the
lake, which is thenceforth called the Maidens' Lake, or Llyn y
Morwynion. In another legend, the river mist over the Cynwal is the
spirit of a traitress who perished long ago in the lake. She had
conspired with the sea-born pirates of the North (the ocean storms) to
rob her Cambrian lord of his domains. She was defeated by the aid of a
powerful enchanter (the sun), and fled up the river to the lake,
accompanied by her maidens, who were drowned with her there.[29]
FOOTNOTE:
[29] 'Arch. Camb.,' 4th Se., vii., 251.
IX.
As the mermaid superstition is seemingly absent in Wales, so there are
no fairy tales of maidens who lure mortals to their doom beneath the
water, as the Dracae did women and children, and as the Nymph of the
Lurley did marriageable young men. But it is believed that there are
several old Welsh families who are the descendants of the Gwragedd
Annwn, as in the case of the Meddygon Myddfai. The familiar Welsh name
of Morgan is sometimes thought to signify, 'Born of the Sea.'
Certainly mor in Welsh means sea, and gan a birth. It is curious,
too, that a mermaid is called in Basse Bretagne 'Mary Morgan.' But the
class of stories in which a mortal marries a water-maiden is large,
and while the local details smack of the soil, the general idea is so
like in lands far remote from each other as to indicate a common
origin in pre-historic times. In Wales, where the mountain lakes are
numerous, gloomy, lonely, and yet lovely; where many of them, too,
show traces of having been inhabited in ancient times by a race of
lake-dwellers, whose pile-supported villages vanished ages ago; and
where bread and cheese are as classic as beer and candles, these
particulars are localized in the legend. In the Faro Islands, where
the seal is a familiar yet ever-mysterious object, with its human-like
eyes, and glossy skin, the wife of supernatural race is a transformed
seal. She comes ashore every ninth night, sheds her skin, leaves it on
the shore, and dances with her fairy companions. A mortal steals her
sealskin dress, and when day breaks, and her companions return to
their abode in the sea, compels her to remain and be his wife. Some
day he offends her; she recovers her skin and plunges into the sea. In
China, the superstition appears in a Lew-chewan legend mentioned by
Dr. Dennys,[30] which relates how a fairy in the guise of a beautiful
woman is found bathing in a man's well. He persuades her to marry him,
and she remains with him for nine years, at the end of which time,
despite the affection she has for their two children, she 'glides
upwards into a cloud' and disappears.
FOOTNOTE:
[30] 'Folk-Lore of China,' 99.