Mountain Fairies--The Gwyllion--The Old Woman of the
Mountain--The Black Mountain Gwyll--Exorcism by
Knife--Occult Intellectual Powers of Welsh Goats--The Legend
of Cadwaladr's Goat.
I.
The Gwyllion are female fairies of frightful characteristics, who
haunt lonely roads in the Welsh mountains, and lead night-wanderers
astray. They partake somewhat of the aspect of the Hecate of Greek
mythology, who rode on the storm, and was a hag of horrid guise. The
Welsh word gwyll is variously used to signify gloom, shade, duskiness,
a hag, a witch, a fairy, and a goblin; but its special application is
to these mountain fairies of gloomy and harmful habits, as distinct
from the Ellyllon of the forest glades and dingles, which are more
often beneficent. The Gwyllion take on a more distinct individuality
under another name--as the Ellyllon do in mischievous Puck--and the
Old Woman of the Mountain typifies all her kind. She is very carefully
described by the Prophet Jones,[31] in the guise in which she haunted
Llanhiddel Mountain in Monmouthshire. This was the semblance of a poor
old woman, with an oblong four-cornered hat, ash-coloured clothes, her
apron thrown across her shoulder, with a pot or wooden can in her
hand, such as poor people carry to fetch milk with, always going
before the spectator, and sometimes crying 'Wow up!' This is an
English form of a Welsh cry of distress, 'Wwb!' or 'Ww-bwb!'[32]
Those who saw this apparition, whether by night or on a misty day,
would be sure to lose their way, though they might be perfectly
familiar with the road. Sometimes they heard her cry, 'Wow up!' when
they did not see her. Sometimes when they went out by night, to fetch
coal, water, etc., the dwellers near that mountain would hear the cry
very close to them, and immediately after they would hear it afar off,
as if it were on the opposite mountain, in the parish of Aberystruth.
The popular tradition in that district was that the Old Woman of the
Mountain was the spirit of one Juan White, who lived time out of mind
in those parts, and was thought to be a witch; because the mountains
were not haunted in this manner until after Juan White's death.[33]
When people first lost their way, and saw her before them, they used
to hurry forward and try to catch her, supposing her to be a
flesh-and-blood woman, who could set them right; but they never could
overtake her, and she on her part never looked back; so that no man
ever saw her face. She has also been seen in the Black Mountain in
Breconshire. Robert Williams, of Langattock, Crickhowel, 'a
substantial man and of undoubted veracity,' tells this tale: As he was
travelling one night over part of the Black Mountain, he saw the Old
Woman, and at the same time found he had lost his way. Not knowing her
to be a spectre he hallooed to her to stay for him, but receiving no
answer thought she was deaf. He then hastened his steps, thinking to
overtake her, but the faster he ran the further he found himself
behind her, at which he wondered very much, not knowing the reason of
it. He presently found himself stumbling in a marsh, at which
discovery his vexation increased; and then he heard the Old Woman
laughing at him with a weird, uncanny, crackling old laugh. This set
him to thinking she might be a gwyll; and when he happened to draw out
his knife for some purpose, and the Old Woman vanished, then he was
sure of it; for Welsh ghosts and fairies are afraid of a knife.
FOOTNOTES:
[31] See p. 104.
[32] Pronounced Wooboob.
[33] 'Juan (Shui) White is an old acquaintance of my boyhood,' writes
to me a friend who was born some thirty years ago in Monmouthshire. 'A
ruined cottage on the Lasgarn hill near Pontypool was understood by us
boys to have been her house, and there she appeared at 12 p.m.,
carrying her head under her arm.'
II.
Another account relates that John ap John, of Cwm Celyn, set out one
morning before daybreak to walk to Caerleon Fair. As he ascended
Milfre Mountain he heard a shouting behind him as if it were on Bryn
Mawr, which is a part of the Black Mountain in Breconshire. Soon after
he heard the shouting on his left hand, at Bwlch y Llwyn, nearer to
him, whereupon he was seized with a great fright, and began to suspect
it was no human voice. He had already been wondering, indeed, what any
one could be doing at that hour in the morning, shouting on the
mountain side. Still going on, he came up higher on the mountain, when
he heard the shouting just before him, at Gilfach fields, to the
right--and now he was sure it was the Old Woman of the Mountain, who
purposed leading him astray. Presently he heard behind him the noise
of a coach, and with it the special cry of the Old Woman of the
Mountain, viz., 'Wow up!' Knowing very well that no coach could go
that way, and still hearing its noise approaching nearer and nearer,
he became thoroughly terrified, and running out of the road threw
himself down upon the ground and buried his face in the heath,
waiting for the phantom to pass. When it was gone out of hearing, he
arose; and hearing the birds singing as the day began to break, also
seeing some sheep before him, his fear went quite off. And this, says
the Prophet Jones, was 'no profane, immoral man,' but 'an honest,
peaceable, knowing man, and a very comely person' moreover.
III.
The exorcism by knife appears to be a Welsh notion; though there is an
old superstition of wide prevalence in Europe that to give to or
receive from a friend a knife or a pair of scissors cuts friendship. I
have even encountered this superstition in America; once an editorial
friend at Indianapolis gave me a very handsome pocket-knife, which he
refused to part with except at the price of one cent, lawful coin of
the realm, asserting that we should become enemies without this
precaution. In China, too, special charms are associated with knives,
and a knife which has slain a fellow-being is an invaluable
possession. In Wales, according to Jones, the Gwyllion often came into
the houses of the people at Aberystruth, especially in stormy weather,
and the inmates made them welcome--not through any love they bore
them, but through fear of the hurts the Gwyllion might inflict if
offended--by providing clean water for them, and taking especial care
that no knife, or other cutting tool, should be in the corner near the
fire, where the fairies would go to sit. 'For want of which care many
were hurt by them.' While it was desirable to exorcise them when in
the open air, it was not deemed prudent to display an inhospitable
spirit towards any member of the fairy world. The cases of successful
exorcism by knife are many, and nothing in the realm of faerie is
better authenticated. There was Evan Thomas, who, travelling by night
over Bedwellty Mountain, towards the valley of Ebwy Fawr, where his
house and estate were, saw the Gwyllion on each side of him, some of
them dancing around him in fantastic fashion. He also heard the sound
of a bugle-horn winding in the air, and there seemed to be invisible
hunters riding by. He then began to be afraid, but recollected his
having heard that any person seeing Gwyllion may drive them away by
drawing out a knife. So he drew out his knife, and the fairies
vanished directly. Now Evan Thomas was 'an old gentleman of such
strict veracity that he' on one occasion 'did confess a truth against
himself,' when he was 'like to suffer loss' thereby, and
notwithstanding he 'was persuaded by some not to do it, yet he would
persist in telling the truth, to his own hurt.'
Should we find, in tracing these notions back to their source, that
they are connected with Arthur's sword Excalibur? If so, there again
we touch the primeval world.
Jones says that the Old Woman of the Mountain has, since about 1800,
(at least in South Wales,) been driven into close quarters by the
light of the Gospel--in fact, that she now haunts mines--or in the
preacher's formal words, 'the coal-pits and holes of the earth.'
IV.
Among the traditions of the origin of the Gwyllion is one which
associates them with goats. Goats are in Wales held in peculiar esteem
for their supposed occult intellectual powers. They are believed to be
on very good terms with the Tylwyth Teg, and possessed of more
knowledge than their appearance indicates. It is one of the
peculiarities of the Tylwyth Teg that every Friday night they comb
the goats' beards to make them decent for Sunday. Their association
with the Gwyllion is related in the legend of Cadwaladr's goat:
Cadwaladr owned a very handsome goat, named Jenny, of which he was
extremely fond; and which seemed equally fond of him; but one day, as
if the very diawl possessed her, she ran away into the hills, with
Cadwaladr tearing after her, half mad with anger and affright. At last
his Welsh blood got so hot, as the goat eluded him again and again,
that he flung a stone at her, which knocked her over a precipice, and
she fell bleating to her doom. Cadwaladr made his way to the foot of
the crag; the goat was dying, but not dead, and licked his hand--which
so affected the poor man that he burst into tears, and sitting on the
ground took the goat's head on his arm. The moon rose, and still he
sat there. Presently he found that the goat had become transformed to
a beautiful young woman, whose brown eyes, as her head lay on his arm,
looked into his in a very disturbing way. 'Ah, Cadwaladr,' said she,
'have I at last found you?' Now Cadwaladr had a wife at home, and was
much discomfited by this singular circumstance; but when the goat--yn
awr maiden--arose, and putting her black slipper on the end of a
moonbeam, held out her hand to him, he put his hand in hers and went
with her. As for the hand, though it looked so fair, it felt just like
a hoof. They were soon on the top of the highest mountain in Wales,
and surrounded by a vapoury company of goats with shadowy horns. These
raised a most unearthly bleating about his ears. One, which seemed to
be the king, had a voice that sounded above the din as the castle
bells of Carmarthen used to do long ago above all the other bells in
the town. This one rushed at Cadwaladr and butting him in the stomach
sent him toppling over a crag as he had sent his poor nannygoat. When
he came to himself, after his fall, the morning sun was shining on him
and the birds were singing over his head. But he saw no more of either
his goat or the fairy she had turned into, from that time to his
death.