but Rhiannon explained to Gwawl, that it was not his castle or hall.
So, he could not give the banquet; but, in a year from that date, if
Gwawl would come for her, she would be his bride. Then, a new bridal
feast would be set for the wedding.
In the meantime, Rhiannon planned with Powell to get out of the
trouble. For this purpose, she gave him a magical bag, which he was to
use when the right time should come.
Quickly the twelve months passed and then Gwawl appeared again, to
claim his bride, and a great feast was spread in his honor.
All were having a good time, when in the midst of their merriment, a
beggar appeared in the hall. He was in rags, and carried the usual
beggar's wallet for food or alms. He asked only that, out of the
abundance on the table, his bag might be filled.
Gwawl agreed, and ordered his servants to attend to the matter.
But the bag never got full. What they put into it, or how much made no
difference. Dish after dish was emptied. By degrees, most of the food
on the table was in the beggar's bag.
"My soul alive! Will that bag never get full?" asked Gwawl.
"No, by Heaven! Not unless some rich man shall get into it, stamp it
down with his feet, and call out 'enough.'"
Then Rhiannon, who sat beside Gwawl, urged him to attempt the task, by
putting his two feet in the bag to stamp it down.
No sooner had Gwawl done this, than the supposed beggar pushed him
down inside the bag. Then drawing the mouth shut, he tied it tight
over Gwawl's head.
Then the beggar's rags dropped, and there stood forth the handsome
leader, Powell. He blew his horn, and in rushed his knights who
overcame and bound the followers of Gwawl.
Then they proceeded to play a merry game of football, using the bag,
in which Gwawl was tied, as men in our day kick pigskin. One called to
his mate, or rival, "What's in the bag?" and others answered, "a
badger." So they played the game of "Badger in the Bag," kicking it
around the hall.
They did not let the prisoner out of the bag, until he had promised to
pay the pipers, the harpers, and the singers, who should come to the
wedding of Powell and Rhiannon. He must give up all his claims, and
register a vow never to take revenge. This oath given, and promises
made, the bag was opened and the agreements solemnly confirmed in
presence of all.
Then Gwawl, and every one of his men, knights and servants, were let
go, and they went back to their own country.
A few evenings later, in the large banqueting hall, Powell and
Rhiannon were married. Besides the great feast, presents were given to
all present, high and low. Then the happy pair made their wedding
journey to Gwawl's palace at Narberth. There the lovely bride gave a
ring, or a gem, to every lord and lady in her new realm, and everybody
was happy.
XXI
WHY THE BACK DOOR WAS FRONT
In the days when were no books, or writing, and folk tales were the
only ones told, there was an old woman, who had a bad reputation. She
pretended to be very poor, so as not to attract or tempt robbers. Yet
those who knew her best, knew also, as a subject of common talk, that
she was always counting out her coins.
Besides this, she lived in a nice house, and it was believed that she
made a living by stealing babies out of their cradles to sell to the
bad fairies.
It was matter of rumor that she would, for an extra large sum, take a
wicked fairy's ugly brat, and put it in place of a mother's darling.
In addition to these horrid charges against her, it was rumored that
she laid a spell, or charm, on the cattle of people whom she did not
like, in order to take revenge on them.
The old woman denied all this, and declared it was only silly gossip
of envious people who wanted her money. She lived so comfortably, she
averred, because her son, who was a stone mason, who made much money
by building chimneys, which had then first come into fashion. When he
brought to her the profits of his jobs, she counted the coins, and
because of this, some people were jealous, and told bad stories about
her. She declared she was thrifty, but neither a miser, nor a
kidnaper, nor a witch.
One day, this old woman wanted more feathers to stuff into her bed, to
make it softer and feel pleasanter for her old bones to rest upon, for
what she slept on was nearly worn through. So she went to a farm,
where they were plucking geese, and asked for a few handfuls of
feathers.
But the rich farmer's people refused and ordered her out of the farm
yard.
Shortly after this event, the cows of this farmer, who was opposed to
chimneys, and did not like her or her son, suffered dreadfully from
the disease called the black quarter. As they had no horse doctors or
professors of animal economy, or veterinaries in those days, many of
the cows died. The rich farmer lost much money, for he had now no milk
or beef to sell. At once, he suspected that his cattle were bewitched,
and that the old woman had cast a spell on them. In those days, it was
very easy to think so.
So the angry man went one day to the old crone, when she was alone,
and her stout son was away on a distant job. He told her to remove the
charm, which she had laid on his beasts, or he would tie her arms and
legs together, and pitch her into the river.
The old woman denied vehemently that she possessed any such powers, or
had ever practiced such black arts.
To make sure of it, the farmer made her say out loud, "The Blessing of
God be upon your cattle!" To clinch the matter, he compelled her to
repeat the Lord's Prayer, which she was able to do, without missing
one syllable. She used the form of words which are not found in the
prayer book, but are in the Bible, and was very earnest, when she
prayed "Forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors."
But after all that trouble, and the rough way which the rich farmer
took to save his cattle, his efforts were in vain. In spite of that
kind of religion which he professed--which was shown by bullying a
poor old woman--his cattle were still sick, with no sign of
improvement. He was at his wits' end to know what to do next.
Now, as we have said, this was about the time that chimneys came into
fashion. In very old days, the Cymric house was a round hut, with a
thatched roof, without glass windows, and the smoke got out through
the door and holes in the walls, in the best way it could. The only
tapestry in the hut was in the shape of long festoons of soot, that
hung from the roof or rafters. These, when the wind blew, or the fire
was lively, would swing or dance or whirl, and often fall on the
heads, or into the food, while the folks were eating. When the
children cried, or made wry faces at the black stuff, their daddy only
laughed, and said it was healthy, or was for good luck.
But by and by, the carpenters and masons made much improvement,
especially when, instead of flint hatchets, they had iron axes and
tools. Then they hewed down trees, that had thick cross branches and
set up columns in the center, and made timber walls and rafters. Then
the house was square or oblong. In other words, the Cymric folks
squared the circle.
Now they began to have lattices, and, much later, even glass windows.
They removed the fireplace from the middle of the floor and set it at
the end of the house, opposite the door, and built chimneys.
Then they set the beds at the side, and made sleeping rooms. This was
done by stretching curtains between partitions. They had also a loft,
in which to keep odds and ends. They hung up the bacon and hams, and
strings of onions, and made a mantle piece over the fireplace. They
even began to decorate the walls with pictures and to set pewter
dishes, china cats, and Dresden shepherds in rows on the shelves for
ornaments.
Now people wore shoes and the floor, instead of being muddy, or dusty,
with pools and puddles of water in the time of rainy weather and with
the pigs and chickens running in and out, was of clay, beaten down
flat and hard, and neatly whitewashed at the edges. Outside, in front,
were laid nice flat flagstones, that made a pleasant path to the front
door. Flowers, inside and out, added to the beauty of the home and
made perfume for those who loved them.
The rich farmer had just left his old round hut and now lived in one
of the new and better kind of houses. He was very proud of his
chimney, which he had built higher than any of his neighbors, but he
could not be happy, while so many of his cows were sick or dying.
Besides, he was envious of other people's prosperity and cared
nothing, when they, too, suffered.
One night, while he was standing in front of his fine house and
wondering why he must be vexed with so many troubles, he talked to
himself and, speaking out loud, said:
"Why don't my cows get well?"
"I'll tell you," said a voice behind him. It seemed half way between a
squeak and a growl.
He turned round and there he saw a little, angry man. He was dressed
in red, and stood hardly as high as the farmer's knee. The little old
man glared at the big fellow and cried out in a high tone of voice:
"You must change your habits of disposing of your garbage, for other
people have chimneys besides you."
"What has that to do with sickness among my cows?"
"Much indeed. Your family is the cause of your troubles, for they
throw all their slops down my chimney and put out my fire."
The farmer was puzzled beyond the telling, for he owned all the land
within a mile, and knew of no house in sight.
"Put your foot on mine, and then you will have the power of vision, to
see clearly."
The farmer's big boot was at once placed on the little man's slipper,
and when he looked down he almost laughed at the contrast in size.
What was his real surprise, when he saw that the slops thrown out of
his house, did actually fall down; and, besides, the contents of the
full bucket, when emptied, kept on dripping into the chimney of a
house which stood far below, but which he had never seen before.
But as soon as he took his foot off that of the tiny little man, he
saw nothing. Everything like a building vanished as in a dream.
"I see that my family have done wrong and injured yours. Pray forgive
me. I'll do what I can to make amends for it."
"It's no matter now, if you only do as I ask you. Shut up your front
door, build a wall in its place, and then my family will not suffer
from yours."
The rich farmer thought all this was very funny, and he had a hearty
laugh over it all.
Yet he did exactly as the little man in the red cloak had so politely
asked him. He walled up the old door at the front, and built another
at the back of the house, which opened out into the garden. Then he
made the path, on which to go in from the roadway to the threshold,
around the corners and over a longer line of flagstones. Then he
removed the fireplace and chimney to what had been the front side of
the house, but was now the back. For the next thing, he had a copper
doorsill nailed down, which his housemaid polished, until it shone as
bright as gold.
Yet long before this, his cows had got well, and they now gave more
and richer milk than ever. He became the wealthiest man in the
district. His children all grew up to be fine looking men and women.
His grandsons were famous engineers and introduced paving and drainage
in the towns so that to-day, for both man and beast, Wales is one of
the healthiest of countries.
XXII
THE RED BANDITS OF MONTGOMERY
When chimneys were first added to houses in Wales, and the style of
house-building changed, from round to square, many old people found
fault with the new fashion of letting the smoke out.
They declared they caught colds and sneezed oftener, than in the times
gone by. The chimneys, they said, cost too much money, and were
useless extravagances. They got along well enough, in the good old
days, when the smoke had its own way of getting out. Then, it took
plenty of time to pass through the doors and windholes, for no one
person or thing was in a hurry, when they were young. Moreover, when
the fireplace was in the middle of the floor, the whole family sat
around it and had a sociable time.
It was true, as they confessed, when argued with, that the smell of
the cooking used to linger too long. The soot also, hung in long
streamers from the rafters, and stuck to the house, like old friends.
But the greatest and most practical objection of the old folks to the
chimneys was that robbers used them to climb down at night and steal
people's money, when they were asleep. So, many householders used to
set old scythe blades across the new smoke holes, to keep out the
thieves, or to slice them up, if they persisted.
In Montgomery, which is one of the Welsh shires, there was an epidemic
of robbery, and the doings of the Red Bandits are famous in history.
Now there was a young widow, whose husband had been killed by the
footpads, or road robbers. She was left alone in the world, with a
little boy baby in the cradle and only one cow in the byre. She had
hard work to pay her rent, but as there were three or four scythes set
in the chimney, and the cow stable had a good lock on it, she thought
she was safe from burglars or common thieves.
But the Reds picked out the most expert chimney-climber in their gang,
and he one night slipped down into the widow's cottage, without making
any noise or cutting off his nose, toes, or fingers. Then, robbing the
widow of her rent money, he picked the lock of the byre and drove off
the cow. In the morning, the poor woman found both doors open, but
there was no money and no cow.
While she was crying over her loss, and wringing her hands, because of
her poverty, she heard a knock at the door.
"Come in," said the widow.
There entered an old lady with a kindly face. She was very tall and
well dressed. Her cloak, her gloves, and shoes, and the ruffles under
her high peaked Welsh head dress, were all green. The widow thought
she looked like an animated leek. In her right hand was a long staff,
and in her left, under her cloak, she held a little bag, that was
green, also.
"Why do you weep?" asked the visitor.
Then the widow told her tale of woe--the story of the loss of her
husband, and how a red robber, in spite of the scythe blades set in
the chimney, had come down and taken away both her money and her cow.
Now, although she had sold all her butter and cream, she could neither
pay her rent, nor have any buttermilk with her rye bread and flummery.
"Dry your tears and take comfort," said the tall lady in the green
peaked hat. "Here is money enough to pay your rent and buy another
cow." With that, she sat down at the round table near the peat fire.
Opening her bag, the shining gold coins slid out and formed a little
heap on the table.
"There, you can have all this, if you will give me all I want."
At first, the widow's eyes opened wide, and then she glanced at the
cradle, where her baby was sleeping. Then she wondered, though she
said nothing.
But the next moment, she was laughing at herself, and looking around
at her poor cottage. She tried to guess what there was in it, that the
old lady could possibly want.
"You can have anything I have. Name it," she said cheerfully to her
visitor.
But only a moment more, and all her fears returned at the thought that
the visitor might ask for her boy.
The old lady spoke again and said:
"I want to help you all I can, but what I came here for is to get the
little boy in the cradle."
The widow now saw that the old woman was a fairy, and that if her
visitor got hold of her son, she would never see her child again.
So she begged piteously of the old lady, to take anything and
everything, except her one child.
"No, I want that boy, and, if you want the gold, you must let me take
him."
"Is there anything else that I can do for you, so that I may get the
money?" asked the widow.
"Well, I'll make it easier for you. There are two things I must tell
you to cheer you."
"What are they?" asked the widow, eagerly.
"One is, that by our fairy law, I cannot take your boy, until three
days have passed. Then, I shall come again, and you shall have the
gold; but only on the one condition I have stated."
"And the next?" almost gasped the widow.
"If you can guess my name, you will doubly win; for then, I shall give
you the gold and you can keep your boy."
Without waiting for another word, the lady in green scooped up her
money, put it back in the bag, and moved off and out the door.
The poor woman, at once a widow and mother, and now stripped of her
property, fearing to lose her boy, brooded all night over her troubles
and never slept a wink.
In the morning, she rose up, left her baby with a neighbor, and went
to visit some relatives in the next village, which was several miles
distant. She told her story, but her kinsfolk were too poor to help
her. So, all disconsolate, she turned her face homewards.
On her way back she had to pass through the woods, where, on one side,
was a clearing. In the middle of this open space, was a ring of grass.
In the ring a little fairy lady was tripping around and singing to
herself.
Creeping up silently, the anxious mother heard to her joy, a rhymed
couplet and caught the sound of a name, several times repeated. It
sounded like "Silly Doot."
Hurrying home and perfectly sure that she knew the secret that would
save her boy, she set cheerily about her regular work and daily tasks.
In fact, she slept soundly that night.
Next day, in came the lady in green as before, with her bag of money.
Taking her seat at the round table, near the fire, she poured out the
gold. Then jingling the coins in the pile, she said:
"Now give up your boy, or guess my name, if you want me to help you."
The young widow, feeling sure that she had the old fairy in a trap,
thought she would have some fun first.
"How many guesses am I allowed?" she asked.
"All you want, and as many as you please," answered the green lady,
smiling.
The widow rattled off a string of names, English, Welsh and Biblical;
but every time the fairy shook her head. Her eyes began to gleam, as if
she felt certain of getting the boy. She even moved her chair around
to the side nearest the cradle.
"One more guess," cried the widow. "Can it be Silly Doot?"
At this sound, the fairy turned red with rage. At the same moment, the
door opened wide and a blast of wind made the hearth fire flare up.
Leaving her gold behind her, the old woman flew up the chimney, and
disappeared over the housetops.
The widow scooped up the gold, bought two cows, furnished her cottage
with new chairs and fresh flowers, and put the rest of the coins away
under one of the flag stones at the hearth. When her boy grew up, she
gave him a good education, and he became one of the fearless judges,
who, with the aid of Baron Owen, rooted out of their lair the Red
Bandits, that had robbed his mother. Since that day, there has been
little crime in Wales--the best governed part of the kingdom.
XXIII
THE FAIRY CONGRESS
One can hardly think of Wales without a harp. The music of this most
ancient and honorable instrument, which emits sweet sounds, when heard
in a foreign land makes Welsh folks homesick for the old country and
the music of the harp. Its strings can wail with woe, ripple with
merriment, sound out the notes of war and peace, and lift the soul in
heavenly melody.
Usually a player on the harp opened the Eistedfodd, as the Welsh
literary congress is called, but this time they had engaged for the
fairies a funny little fellow to start the programme with a solo on
his violin.
The figure of this musician, at the congress of Welsh fairies, was the
most comical of any in the company. The saying that he was popular
with all the mountain spirits was shown to be true, the moment he
began to scrape his fiddle, for then they all crowded around him.
"Did you ever see such a tiny specimen?" asked Queen Mab of Puck.
The little fiddler came forward and drawing his instrument from under
his arm, proceeded to scrape the strings. He had on a pair of moss
trousers, and his coat was a yellow gorse flower. His feet were clad
in shoes made of beetles' wings, which always kept bright, as if
polished with a brush.
When one looked at the fiddle, he could see that it was only a wooden
spoon, with strings across the bowl. But the moment he drew the bow
from one side to the other, all the elves, from every part of the
hills, came tripping along to hear the music, and at once began
dancing.
Some of these elves were dressed in pink, some in blue, others in
yellow, and many had glow worms in their hands. Their tread was so
light that the flower stems never bent, nor was a petal crushed, when
they walked over the turf. All, as they came near, bowed or dropped a
curtsey. Then the little musician took off his cap to each, and bowed
in return.
There was too much business before the meeting for dancing to be kept
up very long, but when the violin solo was over, at a sign given by
the fiddler, the dancers took seats wherever they could find them, on
the grass, or gorse, or heather, or on the stones. After order had
been secured, the chairman of the meeting read regrets from those who
had been invited but could not be present.
The first note was from the mermaids, who lived near the Green Isles
of the Ocean. They asked to be excused from traveling inland and
climbing rocks. In the present delicate state of their health this
would be too fatiguing. Poor things!
It was unanimously voted that they be excused.
Queen Mab was dressed, as befitted the occasion, like a Welsh lady,
not wearing a crown, but a high peaked hat, pointed at the top and
about half a yard high. It was black and was held on by fastenings of
scalloped lace, that came down around her neck.
The lake fairies, or Elfin Maids, were out in full force. These lived
at the bottom of the many ponds and pools in Wales. Many stories are
told of the wonderful things they did with boats and cattle.
Nowadays, when they milk cows by electric machinery and use steam
launches on the water, most of the water sprites of all kinds have
been driven away, for they do not like the smell of kerosene or
gasoline. It is for these reasons that, in our day, they are not often
seen. In fact, cows from the creameries can wade out into the water
and even stand in it, while lashing their tails to keep off the flies,
without any danger, as in old times, of being pulled down by the Elfin
Maids.
The little Red Men, that could hide under a thimble, and have plenty
of room to spare, were all out. The elves, and nixies and sprites, of
all colors and many forms were on hand.
The pigmies, who guard the palace of the king of the world
underground, came in their gay dresses. There were three of them, and
they brought in their hands balls of gold, with which to play tenpins,
but they were not allowed to have any games while the meeting was
going on.
In fact, just when these little fellows from down under the earth were
showing off their gay clothes and their treasures from the caves, one
mischievous fairy maid sidled up to their chief and whispered in his
ear:
"Better put away your gold, for this is in modern Wales, where they
have pawn shops. Three golden balls, two above the one below, which
you often see nowadays, mean that two to one you will never get it
again. These hang out as the sign of a pawnbroker's shop, and what you
put in does not, as a rule, come out. I am afraid that some of the
Cymric fairies from Cornwall, or Montgomery, or Cheshire, might think
you were after business, and you understand that no advertising is
allowed here."
In a moment, each of the three leaders thrust his ball into his bosom.
It made his coat bulge out, and at this, some of the fairies wondered,
but all they thought of was that this spoiled a handsome fellow's
figure. Or was it some new idea? To tell the truth, they were vexed at
not keeping up with the new fashions, for they knew nothing of this
latest fad among such fine young gallants.
Much of the chat and gossip, before and after the meeting, was between
the fairies who live in the air, or on mountains, and those down in
the earth, or deep in the sea. They swapped news, gossip and scandal
at a great rate.
There were a dozen or two fine-looking creatures who had high brows,
who said they were Co-eds. This did not mean that these fairies had
ever been through college. "Certainly the college never went through
them," said one very homely fairy, who was spiteful and jealous. The
simple fact was that the one they called Betty, the Co-ed, and others
from that Welsh village, called Bryn Mawr, and another from Flint, and
another from Yale, and still others from Brimbo and from Co-ed Poeth,
had come from places so named and down on the map of Wales, though
they were no real Co-ed girls there, that could talk French, or
English, or read Latin. In fact, Co-ed simply meant that they were
from the woods and lived among the trees; for Co-ed in Welsh means a
forest.