The term Plant Rhys Dwfn has already been brought before the reader:

it means 'the Children of Rhys Dwfn,' and Rhys Dwfn means literally

Rhys the Deep, but the adjective in Welsh connotes depth of character

in the sense of shrewdness or cunning. Nay, even the English deep is

often borrowed for use in the same sense, as when one colloquially says

un dîp iawn yw e, 'he is a very calculating or cunning fellow.' The

following account of Rhys and his progeny is given by Gwynionyd

in the first volume of the Brython, p. 130, which deserves being

cited at length:--'There is a tale current in Dyfed, that there is,

or rather that there has been, a country between Cemmes, the northern

Hundred of Pembrokeshire, and Aberdaron in Lleyn. The chief patriarch

of the inhabitants was Rhys Dwfn, and his descendants used to be

called after him the Children of Rhys Dwfn. They were, it is said,

a handsome race enough, but remarkably small in size. It is stated

that certain herbs of a strange nature grew in their land, so that

they were able to keep their country from being seen by even the most

sharp sighted of invaders. There is no account that these remarkable

herbs grew in any other part of the world excepting on a small spot,

about a square yard in area, in a certain part of Cemmes. If it chanced

that a man stood alone on it, he beheld the whole of the territory

of Plant Rhys Dwfn; but the moment he moved he would lose sight of

it altogether, and it would have been utterly vain for him to look

for his footprints. In another story, as will be seen presently,

the requisite platform was a turf from St. David's churchyard. The

Rhysians had not much land--they lived in towns. So they were wont in

former times to come to market to Cardigan, and to raise the prices

of things terribly. They were seen of no one coming or going, but only

seen there in the market. When prices happened to be high, and the corn

all sold, however much there might have been there in the morning,

the poor used to say to one another on the way home, "Oh! they were

there to-day," meaning Plant Rhys Dwfn. So they were dear friends in

the estimation of Siôn Phil Hywel, the farmer; but not so high in the

opinion of Dafyd, the labourer. It is said, however, that they were

very honest and resolute men. A certain Gruffyd ab Einon was wont to

sell them more corn than anybody else, and so he was a great friend

of theirs. He was honoured by them beyond all his contemporaries by

being led on a visit to their home. As they were great traders like

the Phoenicians of old, they had treasures from all countries under

the sun. Gruffyd, after feasting his eyes to satiety on their wonders,

was led back by them loaded with presents. But before taking leave

of them, he asked them how they succeeded in keeping themselves safe

from invaders, as one of their number might become unfaithful, and go

beyond the virtue of the herbs that formed their safety. "Oh!" replied

the little old man of shrewd looks, "just as Ireland has been blessed

with a soil on which venomous reptiles cannot live, so with our land:

no traitor can live here. Look at the sand on the sea-shore: perfect

unity prevails there, and so among us. Rhys, the father of our race,

bade us, even to the most distant descendant, honour our parents

and ancestors; love our own wives without looking at those of our

neighbours; and do our best for our children and grandchildren. And

he said that if we did so, no one of us would ever prove unfaithful

to another, or become what you call a traitor. The latter is a wholly

imaginary character among us; strange pictures are drawn of him with

his feet like those of an ass, with a nest of snakes in his bosom,

with a head like the devil's, with hands somewhat like a man's, while

one of them holds a large knife, and the family lies dead around the

figure. Good-bye!" When Gruffyd looked about him he lost sight of the

country of Plant Rhys, and found himself near his home. He became very

wealthy after this, and continued to be a great friend of Plant Rhys

as long as he lived. After Gruffyd's death they came to market again,

but such was the greed of the farmers, like Gruffyd before them,

for riches, and so unreasonable were the prices they asked for their

corn, that the Rhysians took offence and came no more to Cardigan to

market. The old people used to think that they now went to Fishguard

market, as very strange people were wont to be seen there.' On the

other hand, some Fishguard people were lately of opinion that it was

at Haverfordwest the fairies did their marketing: I refer to a letter

of Mr. Ferrar Fenton's, in the Pembroke County Guardian of October 31,

1896, in which he mentions a conversation he had with a Fishguard woman

as to the existence of fairies: 'There are fairies,' she asserted,

'for they came to Ha'rfordwest market to buy things, so there must be.'

With this should be compared pp. 9-10 of Wirt Sikes' British Goblins,

where mention is made of sailors on the coast of Pembrokeshire and

Carmarthenshire, 'who still talk of the green meadows of enchantment

lying in the Irish Channel to the west of Pembrokeshire,' and of

men who had landed on them, or seen them suddenly vanishing. The

author then proceeds to abstract from Howells' Cambrian Superstitions,

p. 119, the following paragraph:--'The fairies inhabiting these islands

are said to have regularly attended the markets at Milford Haven and

Laugharne. They made their purchases without speaking, laid down their

money and departed, always leaving the exact sum required, which they

seemed to know without asking the price of anything. Sometimes they

were invisible; but they were often seen by sharp-eyed persons. There

was always one special butcher at Milford Haven upon whom the fairies

bestowed their patronage instead of distributing their favours

indiscriminately. The Milford Haven folk could see the green Fairy

Islands distinctly, lying out a short distance from land; and the

general belief was that they were densely peopled with fairies. It

was also said that the latter went to and fro between the islands and

the shore, through a subterranean gallery under the bottom of the sea.'

Another tale given in the Brython, ii. 20, by a writer who gives

his name as B. Davies [57], will serve to show, short though it be,

that the term Plant Rhys Dwfn was not confined to those honestly

dealing fairies, but was used in a sense wholly synonymous with that

of Tylwyth Teg, as understood in other parts of Wales. The story

runs as follows, and should be compared with the Dyffryn Mymbyr one

given above, pp. 100-3:--'One calm hot day, when the sun of heaven was

brilliantly shining, and the hay in the dales was being busily made by

lads and lasses, and by grown-up people of both sexes, a woman in the

neighbourhood of Emlyn placed her one-year-old infant in the gader,

or chair, as the cradle is called in these parts, and out she went

to the field for a while, intending to return, when her neighbour,

an old woman overtaken by the decrepitude of eighty summers, should

call to her that her darling was crying. It was not long before she

heard the old woman calling to her; she ran hurriedly, and as soon as

she set foot on the kitchen floor she took her little one in her arms

as usual, saying to him, "O my little one! thy mother's delight art

thou! I would not take the world for thee, &c." But to her surprise

he had a very old look about him, and the more the tender-hearted

mother gazed at his face, the stranger it seemed to her, so that at

last she placed him in the cradle and told her trouble and sorrow to

her relatives and acquaintances. And after this one and the other had

given his opinion, it was agreed at last that it was one of Rhys Dwfn's

children that was in the cradle, and not her dearly loved baby. In this

distress there was nothing to do but to fetch a sorcerer, as fast as

the fastest horse could gallop. He said, when he saw the child, that

he had seen his like before, and that it would be a hard job to get

rid of him, though not such a very hard job this time. The shovel was

made red hot in the fire by one of the Cefnarth [58] boys, and held

before the child's face; and in an instant the short little old man

took to his heels, and neither he nor his like was seen afterwards

from Aber Cuch to Aber Bargoed at any rate. The mother, it is said,

found her darling unscathed the next moment. I remember also hearing

that the strange child was as old as the grandfather of the one that

had been lost.'

As I see no reason to make any profound distinction between lake

maidens and sea maidens, I now give Gwynionyd's account of the mermaid

who was found by a fisherman from Llandydoch or St. Dogmael's [59],

near Cardigan: see the Brython, i. 82:--

'One fine afternoon in September, in the beginning of the last century,

a fisherman, whose name was Pergrin [60], went to a recess in the

rock near Pen Cemmes, where he found a sea maiden doing her hair,

and he took the water lady prisoner to his boat.... We know not

what language is used by sea maidens ... but this one, this time at

any rate, talked, it is said, very good Welsh; for when she was in

despair in Pergrin's custody, weeping copiously, and with her tresses

all dishevelled, she called out: 'Pergrin, if thou wilt let me go,

I will give thee three shouts in the time of thy greatest need.' So,

in wonder and fear, he let her go to walk the streets of the deep,

and visit her sweethearts there. Days and weeks passed without

Pergrin seeing her after this; but one hot afternoon, when the sea

was pretty calm, and the fishermen had no thought of danger, behold

his old acquaintance showing her head and locks, and shouting out in a

loud voice: 'Pergrin! Pergrin! Pergrin! take up thy nets, take up thy

nets, take up thy nets!' Pergrin and his companion instantly obeyed

the message, and drew their nets in with great haste. In they went,

past the bar, and by the time they had reached the Pwll Cam the most

terrible storm had overspread the sea, while he and his companion were

safe on land. Twice nine others had gone out with them, but they were

all drowned without having the chance of obeying the warning of the

water lady.' Perhaps it is not quite irrelevant to mention here the

armorial bearings which Drayton ascribes to the neighbouring county

of Cardigan in the following couplet in his Battaile of Agincourt

(London, 1631), p. 23:--

As Cardigan the next to them that went,

Came with a Mermayd sitting on a Rock.

A writer in the Brython, iv. 194, states that the people of Nefyn

in Lleyn claim the story of the fisher and the mermaid as belonging

to them, which proves that a similar legend has been current there:

add to this the fact mentioned in the Brython, iii. 133, that a red

mermaid with yellow hair, on a white field, figures in the coat of

arms of the family resident at Glasfryn in the parish of Llangybi,

in Eifionyd or the southern portion of Carnarvonshire; and we have

already suggested that Glasynys' story (pp. 117-25) was made up, to a

certain extent, of materials found on the coasts of Carnarvonshire. A

small batch of stories about South Wales mermaids is given by a writer

who calls himself Ab Nadol [61], in the Brython, iv. 310, as follows:--

'A few rockmen are said to have been working, about eighty years

ago, in a quarry near Porth y Rhaw, when the day was calm and clear,

with nature, as it were, feasting, the flowers shedding sweet scent

around, and the hot sunshine beaming into the jagged rocks. Though an

occasional wave rose to strike the romantic cliffs, the sea was like

a placid lake, with its light coverlet of blue attractive enough to

entice one of the ladies of Rhys Dwfn forth from the town seen by

Daniel Huws off Trefin as he was journeying between Fishguard and

St. David's in the year 1858, to make her way to the top of a stone

and to sit on it to disentangle her flowing silvery hair. Whilst

she was cleaning herself, the rockmen went down, and when they got

near her they perceived that, from her waist upwards, she was like

the lasses of Wales, but that, from her waist downwards, she had the

body of a fish. And, when they began to talk to her, they found she

spoke Welsh, though she only uttered the following few words to them:

"Reaping in Pembrokeshire and weeding in Carmarthenshire." Off she

then went to walk in the depth of the sea towards her home. Another

tale is repeated about a mermaid, said to have been caught by men

below the land of Llanwnda, near the spot, if not on the spot, where

the French made their landing afterwards, and three miles to the west

of Fishguard. It then goes on to say that they carried her to their

home, and kept her in a secure place for some time; before long, she

begged to be allowed to return to the brine land, and gave the people

of the house three bits of advice; but I only remember one of them,'

he writes, 'and this is it: "Skim the surface of the pottage before

adding sweet milk to it: it will be whiter and sweeter, and less of

it will do." I was told that this family follow the three advices to

this day.' A somewhat similar advice to that about the pottage is

said to have been given by a mermaid, under similar circumstances,

to a Manxman.

After putting the foregoing bits together, I was favoured by

Mr. Benjamin Williams with notes on the tales and on the persons from

whom he heard them: they form the contents of two or three letters,

mostly answers to queries of mine, and the following is the substance

of them:--Mr. Williams is a native of the valley of Troed yr Aur

[62], in the Cardiganshire parish of that name. He spent a part of

his youth at Verwig, in the angle between the northern bank of the

Teifi and Cardigan Bay. He heard of Rhys Dwfn's Children first from

a distant relative of his father's, a Catherine Thomas, who came to

visit her daughter, who lived not far from his father's house: that

would now be from forty-eight to fifty years ago. He was very young

at the time, and of Rhys Dwfn's progeny he formed a wonderful idea,

which was partly due also to the talk of one James Davies or Siàms

Mocyn, who was very well up in folklore, and was one of his father's

next-door neighbours. He was an old man, and nephew to the musician,

David Jenkin Morgan. The only spot near Mr. Williams' home, that

used to be frequented by the fairies, was Cefn y Ceirw, 'the Stag's

Ridge,' a large farm, so called from having been kept as a park for

their deer by the Lewises of Aber Nant Bychan. He adds that the late

Mr. Philipps, of Aberglasney, was very fond of talking of things

in his native neighbourhood, and of mentioning the fairies at Cefn

y Ceirw. It was after moving to Verwig that Mr. Williams began to

put the tales he heard on paper: then he came in contact with three

brothers, whose names were John, Owen, and Thomas Evans. They were

well-to-do and respectable bachelors, living together on the large

farm of Hafod Ruffyd. Thomas was a man of very strong common sense,

and worth consulting on any subject: he was a good arithmetician,

and a constant reader of the Baptist periodical, Seren Gomer, from

its first appearance. He thoroughly understood the bardic metres,

and had a fair knowledge of music. He was well versed in Scripture,

and filled the office of deacon at the Baptist Chapel. His death took

place in the year 1864. Now, the eldest of the three brothers, the

one named John, or Siôn, was then about seventy-five years of age,

and he thoroughly believed in the tales about the fairies, as will

be seen from the following short dialogue:--

Siôn: Williams bach, ma'n rhaid i bod nhw'i gâl: yr w i'n cofio yn

amser Bone fod marchnad Aberteifi yn llawn o lafir yn y bore--digon

yno am fis--ond cin pen hanner awr yr ôd y cwbwl wedi darfod. Nid ôd

possib i gweld nhwi: mâ gida nhwi faint a fynnon nhwi o arian.

Williams: Siwt na fyse dynion yn i gweld nhwi ynte, Siôn?

Siôn: O mâ gida nhwi dynion fel ninne yn pryni drostyn nhwi; ag y mâ

nhwi fel yr hen siówmin yna yn gelli gneid pob tric.

John: 'My dear Williams, it must be that they exist: I remember

Cardigan market, in the time of Bonaparte, full of corn in the

morning--enough for a month--but in less than half an hour it was

all gone. It was impossible to see them: they have as much money as

they like.'

Williams: 'How is it, then, that men did not see them, John?'

John: 'Oh, they have men like us to do the buying for them; and they

can, like those old showmen, do every kind of trick.'

At this kind of display of simplicity on the part of his brother,

Thomas used to smile and say: 'My brother John believes such things

as those;' for he had no belief in them himself. Still it is from

his mouth that Mr. Williams published the tales in the Brython, which

have been reproduced here, that of 'Pergrin and the Mermaid,' and all

about the 'Heir of Llech y Derwyd,' not to mention the ethical element

in the account of Rhys Dwfn's country and its people, the product

probably of his mind. Thomas Evans, or as he was really called,

Tommos Ifan, was given rather to grappling with the question of

the origin of such beliefs; so one day he called Mr. Williams out,

and led him to a spot about four hundred yards from Bol y Fron,

where the latter then lived: he pointed to the setting sun, and

asked Mr. Williams what he thought of the glorious sunset before

them. 'It is all produced,' he then observed, 'by the reflection

of the sun's rays on the mist: one might think,' he went on to say,

'that there was there a paradise of a country full of fields, forests,

and everything that is desirable.' And before they had moved away the

grand scene had disappeared, when Thomas suggested that the idea of

the existence of the country of Rhys Dwfn's Children arose from the

contemplation of that phenomenon. One may say that Thomas Evans was

probably far ahead of the Welsh historians who try to extract history

from the story of Cantre'r Gwaelod, 'the Bottom Hundred,' beneath the

waves of Cardigan Bay; but what was seen was probably an instance of

the mirage to be mentioned presently. Lastly, besides Mr. Williams'

contributions to the Brython, and a small volume of poetry, entitled

Briallen glan Ceri, some tales of his were published by Llallawg

in Bygones some years ago, and he had the prize at the Cardigan

Eistedfod of 1866 for the best collection in Welsh of the folklore

of Dyfed: his recollection was that it contained in all thirty-six

tales of all kinds; but since the manuscript, as the property of the

Committee of that Eistedfod, was sold, he could not now consult it:

in fact he is not certain as to who the owner of it may now be,

though he has an idea that it is either the Rev. Rees Williams,

vicar of Whitchurch, near Solva, Pembrokeshire, or R. D. Jenkins,

Esq., of Cilbronnau, Cardiganshire. Whoever the owner may be, he

would probably be only too glad to have it published, and I mention

this merely to call attention to it. The Eistedfod is to be commended

for encouraging local research, and sometimes even for burying the

results in obscurity, but not always.

X.

Before leaving Dyfed I wish to revert to the extract from Mr. Sikes,

p. 161 above. He had been helped partly by the article on Gavran,

in the Cambrian Biography, by William Owen, better known since as

William Owen Pughe and Dr. Pughe, and partly by a note of Southey's

on the following words in his Madoc (London, 1815), i. III:--

Where are the sons of Gavran? where his tribe,

The faithful? following their beloved Chief,

They the Green Islands of the Ocean sought;

Nor human tongue hath told, nor human ear,

Since from the silver shores they went their way,

Hath heard their fortunes.

The Gavran story, I may premise, is based on one of the Welsh

Triads--i. 34, ii. 41, iii. 80--and Southey cites the article in the

Cambrian Biography; but he goes on to give the following statements

without indicating on what sources he was drawing--the reader has,

however, been made acquainted already with the virtue of a blade of

grass, by the brief mention of Llyn Irdyn above, p. 148:--

'Of these Islands, or Green Spots of the Floods, there are some

singular superstitions. They are the abode of the Tylwyth Teg, or

the fair family, the souls of the virtuous Druids, who, not having

been Christians, cannot enter the Christian heaven, but enjoy this

heaven of their own. They however discover a love of mischief, neither

becoming happy spirits, nor consistent with their original character;

for they love to visit the earth, and, seizing a man, inquire whether

he will travel above wind, mid wind, or below wind; above wind is

a giddy and terrible passage, below wind is through bush and brake,

the middle is a safe course. But the spell of security is, to catch

hold of the grass, for these Beings have not power to destroy a blade

of grass. In their better moods they come over and carry the Welsh in

their boats. He who visits these Islands imagines on his return that

he has been absent only a few hours, when, in truth, whole centuries

have passed away. If you take a turf from St. David's churchyard,

and stand upon it on the sea shore, you behold these Islands. A man

once, who thus obtained sight of them, immediately put to sea to find

them; but they disappeared, and his search was in vain. He returned,

looked at them again from the enchanted turf, again set sail, and

failed again. The third time he took the turf into his vessel, and

stood upon it till he reached them.'

A correspondent signing himself 'the Antient Mariner,' and writing,

in the Pembroke County Guardian, from Newport, Pembrokeshire, Oct. 26,

1896, cites Southey's notes, and adds to them the statement, that

some fifty years ago there was a tradition amongst the inhabitants of

Trevine (Trefin) in his county, that these Islands could be seen from

Llan Non, or Eglwys Non, in that neighbourhood. To return to Madoc,

Southey adds to the note already quoted a reference to the inhabitants

of Arran More, on the coast of Galway, to the effect that they think

that they can on a clear day see Hy-Breasail, the Enchanted Island

supposed to be the Paradise of the Pagan Irish: compare the Phantom

City seen in the same sea from the coast of Clare. Then he asks a

question suggestive of the explanation, that all this is due to 'that

very extraordinary phenomenon, known in Sicily by the name of Morgaine

le Fay's works.' In connexion with this question of mirage I venture

to quote again from the Pembroke County Guardian. Mr. Ferrar Fenton,

already mentioned, writes in the issue of Nov. 1, 1896, giving a report

which he had received one summer morning from Captain John Evans,

since deceased. It is to the effect 'that once when trending up the

Channel, and passing Grasholm Island, in what he had always known

as deep water, he was surprised to see to windward of him a large

tract of land covered with a beautiful green meadow. It was not,

however, above water, but just a few feet below, say two or three,

so that the grass waved and swam about as the ripple flowed over it,

in a most delightful way to the eye, so that as watched it made one

feel quite drowsy. You know, he continued, I have heard old people

say there is a floating island off there, that sometimes rises to the

surface, or nearly, and then sinks down again fathoms deep, so that

no one sees it for years, and when nobody expects it comes up again

for a while. How it may be, I do not know, but that is what they say.'

Lastly, Mr. E. Perkins, of Penysgwarne, near Fishguard, wrote on

Nov. 2, 1896, as follows, of a changing view to be had from the top

of the Garn, which means the Garn Fawr, one of the most interesting

prehistoric sites in the county, and one I have had the pleasure of

visiting more than once in the company of Henry Owen and Edward Laws,

the historians of Pembrokeshire:--

'May not the fairy islands referred to by Professor Rhys have

originated from mirages? During the glorious weather we enjoyed

last summer, I went up one particularly fine evening to the top of

the Garn behind Penysgwarne to view the sunset. It would have been

worth a thousand miles' travel to go to see such a scene as I saw

that evening. It was about half an hour before sunset--the bay was

calm and smooth as the finest mirror. The rays of the sun made

A golden path across the sea,

and a picture indescribable. As the sun neared the horizon the rays

broadened until the sheen resembled a gigantic golden plate prepared

to hold the brighter sun. No sooner had the sun set than I saw a

striking mirage. To the right I saw a stretch of country similar

to a landscape in this country. A farmhouse and out-buildings were

seen, I will not say quite as distinct as I can see the upper part

of St. David's parish from this Garn, but much more detailed. We

could see fences, roads, and gateways leading to the farmyard, but

in the haze it looked more like a panoramic view than a veritable

landscape. Similar mirages may possibly have caused our old tadau to

think these were the abode of the fairies.'

To return to Mr. Sikes, the rest of his account of the Pembrokeshire

fairies and their green islands, of their Milford butcher, and

of the subterranean gallery leading into their home, comes, as

already indicated, for the most part from Howells. But it does not

appear on what authority Southey himself made departed druids of

the fairies. One would be glad to be reassured on this last point,

as such a hypothesis would fit in well enough with what we are told

of the sacrosanct character of the inhabitants of the isles on the

coast of Britain in ancient times. Take, for instance, the brief

account given by Plutarch of one of the isles explored by a certain

Demetrius in the service of the Emperor of Rome: see chapter viii.

XI.

Mr. Craigfryn Hughes, the author of a Welsh novelette [63] with its

scene laid in Glamorgan, having induced me to take a copy, I read it

and found it full of local colouring. Then I ventured to sound the

author on the question of fairy tales, and the reader will be able

to judge how hearty the response has been. Before reproducing the

tale which Mr. Hughes has sent me, I will briefly put into English

his account of himself and his authorities. Mr. Hughes lives at the

Quakers' Yard in the neighbourhood of Pontyprid, in Glamorganshire. His

father was not a believer [64] in tales about fairies or the like,

and he learned all he knows of the traditions about them in his

father's absence, from his grandmother and other old people. The old

lady's name was Rachel Hughes. She was born at Pandy Pont y Cymmer,

near Pontypool, or Pont ap Hywel as Mr. Hughes analyses the name,

in the year 1773, and she had a vivid recollection of Edmund Jones of

the Tranch, of whom more anon, coming from time to time to preach to

the Independents there. She came, however, to live in the parish of

Llanfabon, near the Quakers' Yard, when she was only twelve years

of age; and there she continued to live to the day of her death,

which took place in 1864, so that she was about ninety-one years of

age at the time. Mr. Hughes adds that he remembers many of the old

inhabitants besides his grandmother, who were perfectly familiar with

the story he has put on record; but only two of them were alive when

he wrote to me in 1881, and these were both over ninety years old,

with their minds overtaken by the childishness of age; but it was

only a short time since the death of another, who was, as he says,

a walking library of tales about corpse candles, ghosts, and Bendith

y Mamau [65], or 'The Mothers' Blessing,' as the fairies are usually

called in Glamorgan. Mr. Hughes' father tried to prevent his children

being taught any tales about ghosts, corpse candles, or fairies;

but the grandmother found opportunities of telling them plenty, and

Mr. Hughes vividly describes the effect on his mind when he was a

boy, how frightened he used to feel, how he pulled the clothes over

his head in bed, and how he half suffocated himself thereby under

the effects of the fear with which the tales used to fill him. Then,

as to the locality, he makes the following remarks:--'There are few

people who have not heard something or other about the old graveyard

of the Quakers, which was made by Lydia Phil, a lady who lived at a

neighbouring farm house, called Cefn y Fforest. This old graveyard lies

in the eastern corner of the parish of Merthyr Tydfil, on land called

Pantannas, as to the meaning of which there is much controversy. Some

will have it that it is properly Pant yr Aros, or the Hollow of the

Staying, because travellers were sometimes stopped there overnight

by the swelling of the neighbouring river; others treat it as Pant

yr Hanes, the Hollow of the Legend, in allusion to the following

story. But before the graveyard was made, the spot was called

Rhyd y Grug, or the Ford of the Heather, which grows thereabouts in

abundance. In front of the old graveyard towards the south the rivers

Taff and Bargoed, which some would make into Byrgoed or Short-Wood,

meet with each other, and thence rush in one over terrible cliffs of

rock, in the recesses of which lie huge cerwyni or cauldron-like pools,

called respectively the Gerwyn Fach, the Gerwyn Fawr, and the Gerwyn

Ganol, where many a drowning has taken place. As one walks up over

Tarren y Crynwyr, "the Quakers' Rift," until Pantannas is reached,

and proceeds northwards for about a mile and a half, one arrives at a

farm house called Pen Craig Daf [66], "the Top of the Taff Rock." The

path between the two houses leads through fertile fields, in which

may be seen, if one has eyes to observe, small rings which are greener

than the rest of the ground. They are, in fact, green even as compared

with the greenness around them--these are the rings in which Bendith

y Mamau used to meet to sing and dance all night. If a man happened

to get inside one of these circles when the fairies were there, he

could not be got out in a hurry, as they would charm him and lead

him into some of their caves, where they would keep him for ages,

unawares to him, listening to their music. The rings vary greatly in

size, but in point of form they are all round or oval. I have heard

my grandmother,' says Mr. Hughes, 'reciting and singing several of the

songs which the fairies sang in these rings. One of them began thus:--

Canu, canu, drwy y nos,

Dawnsio, dawnsio, ar Waen y Rhos

Y' ngoleuni'r lleuad dlos:

Hapus ydym ni!

Pawb ohonom syd yn llon

Heb un gofid dan ei fron:

Canu, dawnsio, ar y ton [67]--

Dedwyd ydym ni!

Singing, singing, through the night,

Dancing, dancing with our might,

Where the moon the moor doth light,

Happy ever we!

One and all of merry mien,

Without sorrow are we seen,

Singing, dancing on the green,

Gladsome ever we!

Here follows, in Mr. Hughes' own Welsh, a remarkable story of revenge

exacted by the fairies:--

Yn un o'r canrifoed a aethant heibio, preswyliai amaethwr yn nhydyn

Pantannas, a'r amser hwnnw yr oed bendith y mamau yn ymwelwyr aml ag

amryw gaeau perthynol ido ef, a theimlai yntau gryn gasineb yn ei

fynwes at yr 'atras fwstrog, leisiog, a chynllwynig,' fel y galwai

hwynt, a mynych yr hiraethai am allu dyfod o hyd i ryw lwybr er cael

eu gwared odiyno. O'r diwed hysbyswyd ef gan hen reibwraig, fod y

fford i gael eu gwared yn digon hawd, ac ond ido ef rodi godro un

hwyr a boreu idi hi, yr hysbysai y fford ido gyrraed yr hyn a fawr

dymunai. Bodlonod i'w thelerau a derbyniod yntau y cyfarwydyd, yr

hyn ydoed fel y canlyn:--Ei fod i aredig yr holl gaeau i ba rai yr

oed eu hoff ymgyrchfan, ac ond idynt hwy unwaith golli y ton glas,

y digient, ac na deuent byth mwy i'w boeni drwy eu hymweliadau a'r lle.

Dilynod yr amaethwr ei chyfarwydyd i'r llythyren, a choronwyd ei waith

a llwydiant. Nid oed yr un o honynt i'w weled odeutu y caeau yn awr;

ac yn lle sain eu caniadau soniarus, a glywid bob amser yn dyrchu

o Waen y Rhos, nid oed dim ond y distawrwyd trylwyraf yn teyrnasu o

gylch eu hen a'u hoff ymgyrchfan.

Hauod yr amaethwr wenith, &c., yn y caeau, ac yr oed y gwanwyn gwyrdlas

wedi gwthio y gauaf odiar ei sed, ac ymdangosai y maesyd yn arderchog

yn eu llifrai gwyrdleision a gwanwynol.

Ond un prydnawn, ar ol i'r haul ymgilio i yst felloed y gorllewin,

tra yr oed amaethwr Pantannas yn dychwelyd tua ei gartref cyfarfydwyd

ag ef gan fod bychan ar ffurf dyn, yn gwisgo hugan goch; a phan daeth

gyferbyn ag ef dadweiniod ei gled bychan, gan gyfeirio ei flaen at

yr amaethwr, a dywedyd,

Dial a daw,

Y mae gerllaw.

Ceisiod yr amaethwr chwerthin, ond yr oed rhywbeth yn edrychiad sarrug

a llym y gwr bychan ag a barod ido deimlo yn hynod o annymunol.

Ychydig o nosweithiau yn diwedarach, pan oed y teulu ar ymneillduo i'w

gorphwysleoed, dychrynwyd hwy yn fawr iawn gan drwst, fel pe bydai y

ty yn syrthio i lawr bendramwnwgl, ac yn union ar ol i'r twrf beidio,

clywent y geiriau bygythiol a ganlyn--a dim yn rhagor--yn cael eu

parablu yn uchel,

Daw dial.

Pan oed yr yd wedi cael ei fedi ac yn barod i gael ei gywain i'r

ysgubor, yn sydyn ryw noswaith llosgwyd ef fel nad oed yr un dywysen

na gwelltyn i'w gael yn un man o'r caeau, ac nis gallasai neb fod

wedi gosod yr yd ar dan ond Bendith y Mamau.

Fel ag y mae yn naturiol i ni fedwl teimlod yr amaethwr yn fawr

oherwyd y tro, ac edifarhaod yn ei galon darfod ido erioed wrando

a gwneuthur yn ol cyfarwydyd yr hen reibwraig, ac felly dwyn arno

digofaint a chasineb Bendith y Mamau.

Drannoeth i'r noswaith y llosgwyd yr yd fel yr oed yn arolygu y difrod

achoswyd gan y tan, wele'r gwr bychan ag ydoed wedi ei gyfarfod

ychydig o diwrnodau yn flaenorol yn ei gyfarfod eilwaith a chyda

threm herfeidiol pwyntiod ei gledyf ato gan dywedyd,

Nid yw ond dechreu.

Trod gwyneb yr amaethwr cyn wynned a'r marmor, a safod gan alw y gwr

bychan yn ol, ond bu y còr yn hynod o wydn ac anewyllysgar i droi ato,

ond ar ol hir erfyn arno trod yn ei ol gan ofyn yn sarrug beth yr oed

yr amaethwr yn ei geisio, yr hwn a hysbysod ido ei fod yn berffaith

fodlon i adael y caeau lle yr oed eu hoff ymgyrchfan i dyfu yn don

eilwaith, a rhodi caniatad idynt i dyfod idynt pryd y dewisent,

ond yn unig idynt beidio dial eu llid yn mhellach arno ef.

'Na,' oed yr atebiad penderfynol, 'y mae gair y brenin wedi ei roi

y byd ido ymdial arnat hyd eithaf ei allu ac nid oes dim un gallu ar

wyneb y greadigaeth a bair ido gael ei dynnu yn ol.'

Dechreuod yr amaethwr wylo ar hyn, ond yn mhen ychydig hysbysod y gwr

bychan y bydai ido ef siarad a'i bennaeth ar y mater, ac y cawsai

efe wybod y canlyniad ond ido dyfod i'w gyfarfod ef yn y fan honno

amser machludiad haul drennyd.

Adawod yr amaethwr dyfod i'w gyfarfod, a phan daeth yr amser

apwyntiedig o amgylch ido i gyfarfod a'r bychan cafod ef yno yn

ei aros, ac hysbysod ido fod y pennaeth wedi ystyried ei gais yn

difrifol, ond gan fod ei air bob amser yn anghyfnewidiol y buasai y

dialed bygythiedig yn rhwym o gymeryd lle ar y teulu, ond ar gyfrif

ei edifeirwch ef na chawsai digwyd yn ei amser ef nac eido ei blant.

Llonydod hynny gryn lawer ar fedwl terfysglyd yr amaethwr, a dechreuod

Bendith y Mamau dalu eu hymweliadau a'r lle eilwaith a mynych y clywid

sain eu cerdoriaeth felusber yn codi o'r caeau amgylchynol yn ystod

y nos.

Pasiod canrif heibio heb i'r dialed bygythiedig gael ei gyflawni,

ac er fod teulu Pantannas yn cael eu hadgofio yn awr ac eilwaith,

y buasai yn sicr o digwyd hwyr neu hwyrach, eto wrth hir glywed y waed,

Daw dial,

ymgynefinasant a hi nes eu bod yn barod i gredu na fuasai dim yn

dyfod o'r bygythiad byth.

Yr oed etifed Pantannas yn caru a merch i dirfediannyd cymydogaethol

a breswyliai mewn tydyn o'r enw Pen Craig Daf. Yr oed priodas y

par dedwyd i gymeryd lle yn mhen ychydig wythnosau ac ymdangosai

rhieni y cwpl ieuanc yn hynod o fodlon i'r ymuniad teuluol ag oed ar

gymeryd lle.

Yr oed yn amser y Nadolig--a thalod y darpar wraig ieuanc ymweliad a

theulu ei darpar wr, ac yr oed yno wled o wyd rostiedig yn baratoedig

gogyfer a'r achlysur.

Eistedai y cwmni odeutu y tan i adrod rhyw chwedlau difyrrus er mwyn

pasio yr amser, pryd y cawsant eu dychrynu yn fawr gan lais treidgar

yn dyrchafu megis o wely yr afon yn gwaedi

Daeth amser ymdïal.

Aethant oll allan i wrando a glywent y lleferyd eilwaith, ond nid oed

dim i'w glywed ond brochus drwst y dwfr wrth raiadru dros glogwyni

aruthrol y cerwyni. Ond ni chawsant aros i wrando yn hir iawn cyn

idynt glywed yr un lleferyd eilwaith yn dyrchafu i fyny yn uwch na

swn y dwfr pan yn bwrlymu dros ysgwydau y graig, ac yn gwaedi,

Daeth yr amser.

Nis gallent dyfalu beth yr oed yn ei arwydo, a chymaint ydoed eu

braw a'u syndod fel nad allent lefaru yr un gair a'u gilyd. Yn mhen

ennyd dychwelasant i'r ty a chyn idynt eisted credent yn dios fod yr

adeilad yn cael ei ysgwyd id ei sylfeini gan ryw dwrf y tu allan. Pan

yr oed yr oll wedi cael eu parlysio gan fraw, wele fenyw fechan yn

gwneuthur ei hymdangosiad ar y bwrd o'u blaen, yr hwn oed yn sefyll

yn agos i'r ffenestr.

'Beth yr wyt yn ei geisio yma, y peth bychan hagr?' holai un o'r

gwydfodolion.

'Nid oes gennyf unrhyw neges a thi, y gwr hir dafod,' oed atebiad y

fenyw fechan. 'Ond yr wyf wedi cael fy anfon yma i adrod rhyw bethau

ag syd ar digwyd i'r teulu hwn, a theulu arall o'r gymydogaeth ag a

dichon fod o dydordeb idynt, ond gan i mi derbyn y fath sarhad odiar

law y gwr du ag syd yn eisted yn y cornel, ni fyd i mi godi y llen

ag oed yn cudio y dyfodol allan o'u golwg.'

'Atolwg os oes yn dy fediant ryw wybodaeth parth dyfodol rhai o

honom ag a fydai yn dydorol i ni gael ei glywed, dwg hi allan,'

ebai un arall o'r gwydfodolion.

'Na wnaf, ond yn unig hysbysu, fod calon gwyryf fel llong ar y traeth

yn methu cyrraed y porthlad oherwyd digalondid y pilot.'

A chyda ei bod yn llefaru y gair diwedaf diflannod o'u gwyd, na wydai

neb i ba le na pha fod!

Drwy ystod ci hymweliad hi, peidiod y waed a godasai o'r afon, ond

yn fuan ar ol idi diflannu, dechreuod eilwaith a chyhoedi

Daeth amser dial,

ac ni pheidiod am hir amser. Yr oed y cynulliad wedi cael eu mediannu

a gormod o fraw i fedru llefaru yr un gair, ac yr oed llen o brudder

yn daenedig dros wyneb pob un o honynt. Daeth amser idynt i ymwahanu,

ac aeth Rhyderch y mab i hebrwng Gwerfyl ei gariadferch tua Phen

Craig Daf, o ba siwrnai ni dychwelod byth.

Cyn ymadael a'i fun dywedir idynt dyngu bythol ffydlondeb i'w gilyd,

pe heb weled y naill y llall byth ond hynny, ac nad oed dim a allai

beri idynt anghofio eu gilyd.

Mae yn debygol i'r llanc Rhyderch pan yn dychwelyd gartref gael ei

hun odifewn i un o gylchoed Bendith y Mamau, ac yna idynt ei hud-denu

i mewn i un o'u hogofau yn Nharren y Cigfrain, ac yno y bu.

Y mae yn llawn bryd i ni droi ein gwynebau yn ol tua Phantannas a Phen

Craig Daf. Yr oed rhieni y bachgen anffodus yn mron gwallgofi. Nid

oed gandynt yr un drychfedwl i ba le i fyned i chwilio am dano, ac

er chwilio yn mhob man a phob lle methwyd yn glir a dyfod o hyd ido,

na chael gair o'i hanes.

Ychydig i fyny yn y cwm mewn ogof dandaearol trigfannai hen feudwy

oedrannus, yr hwn hefyd a ystyrrid yn dewin, o'r enw Gweiryd. Aethant

yn mhen ychydig wythnosau i ofyn ido ef, a fedrai rodi idynt ryw

wybodaeth parthed i'w mab colledig--ond i ychydig bwrpas. Ni wnaeth

yr hyn a adrodod hwnnw wrthynt ond dyfnhau y clwyf a rhoi golwg fwy

anobeithiol fyth ar yr amgylchiad. Ar ol idynt ei hysbysu ynghylch

ymdangosiad y fenyw fechan ynghyd a'r llais wylofus a glywsent

yn dyrchafu o'r afon y nos yr aeth ar goll, hysbysod efe idynt

mai y farn fygythiedig ar y teulu gan Fendith y Mamau oed wedi

godiwedid y llanc, ac nad oed o un diben idynt fedwl cael ei weled

byth mwyach! Ond feallai y gwnelai ei ymdangosiad yn mhen oesau,

ond dim yn eu hamser hwy.

Pasiai yr amser heibio, a chwydod yr wythnosau i fisoed, a'r misoed

i flynydoed, a chasglwyd tad a mam Rhyderch at eu tadau. Yr oed y

lle o hyd yn parhau yr un, ond y preswylwyr yn newid yn barhaus,

ac yr oed yr adgofion am ei golledigaeth yn darfod yn gyflym, ond

er hynny yr oed un yn disgwyl ei dychweliad yn ol yn barhaus, ac

yn gobeithio megis yn erbyn gobaith am gael ei weled eilwaith. Bob

boreu gyda bod dorau y wawr yn ymagor dros gaerog fynydoed y dwyrain

gwelid hi bob tywyd yn rhedeg i ben bryn bychan, a chyda llygaid yn

orlawn o dagrau hiraethlon syllai i bob cyfeiriad i edrych a ganfydai

ryw argoel fod ei hanwylyd yn dychwelyd; ond i dim pwrpas. Canol dyd

gwelid hi eilwaith yn yr un man, a phan ymgollai yr haul fel pelen

eiriasgoch o dân dros y terfyngylch, yr oed hi yno.

Edrychai nes yn agos bod yn dall, ac wylai ei henaid allan o dyd i

dyd ar ol anwyldyn ei chalon. O'r diwed aeth y rhai syd yn edrych

drwy y ffenestri i omed eu gwasanaeth idi, ac yr oed y pren almon

yn coroni ei phen a'i flagur gwyryfol, ond parhai hi i edrych, ond

nid oed neb yn dod. Yn llawn o dydiau ac yn aedfed i'r bed rhodwyd

terfyn ar ei holl obeithion a'i disgwyliadau gan angeu, a chludwyd

ei gwedillion marwol i fynwent hen Gapel y Fan.

Pasiai blynydoed heibio fel mwg, ac oesau fel cysgodion y boreu, ac

nid oed neb yn fyw ag oed yn cofio Rhyderch, ond adrodid ei golliad

disymwyth yn aml. Dylasem fynegu na welwyd yr un o Fendith y Mamau

odeutu y gymydogaeth wedi ei golliad, a pheidiod sain eu cerdoriaeth

o'r nos honno allan.

Yr oed Rhyderch wedi cael ei hud-denu i fyned gyda Bendith y Mamau--ac

aethant ag ef i ffwrd i'w hogof. Ar ol ido aros yno dros ychydig o

diwrnodau fel y tybiai, gofynnod am ganiatad i dychwelyd, yr hyn a rwyd

ganiatawyd ido gan y brenin. Daeth allan o'r ogof, ac yr oed yn ganol

dyd braf, a'r haul yn llewyrchu odiar fynwes ffurfafen digwmwl. Cerdod

yn mlaen o Darren y Cigfrain hyd nes ido dyfod i olwg Capel y Fan,

ond gymaint oed ei syndod pan y gwelod nad oed yr un capel yno! Pa

le yr oed wedi bod, a pha faint o amser? Gyda theimladau cymysgedig

cyfeiriod ei gamrau tua Phen Craig Daf, cartref-le ei anwylyd, ond

nid oed hi yno, ac nid oed yn adwaen yr un dyn ag oed yno chwaith. Ni

fedrai gael gair o hanes ei gariad a chymerod y rhai a breswylient

yno mai gwallgofdyn ydoed.

Prysurod eilwaith tua Phantannas, ac yr oed ei syndod yn fwy fyth

yno! Nid oed yn adwaen yr un o honynt, ac ni wydent hwythau dim am dano

yntau. O'r diwed daeth gwr y ty i fewn, ac yr oed hwnnw yn cofio clywed

ei dad cu yn adrod am lanc ag oed wedi myned yn disymwyth i goll er ys

peth cannoed o flynydoed yn ol, ond na wydai neb i ba le. Rywfod neu

gilyd tarawod gwr y ty ei ffon yn erbyn Rhyderch, pa un a diflannod

mewn cawod o lwch, ac ni chlywyd air o son beth daeth o hono mwyach.

'In one of the centuries gone by, there lived a husbandman on the farm

of Pantannas; and at that time the fairies used to pay frequent visits

to several of the fields which belonged to him. He cherished in his

bosom a considerable hatred for the "noisy, boisterous, and pernicious

tribe," as he called them, and often did he long to be able to discover

some way to rid the place of them. At last he was told by an old witch

that the way to get rid of them was easy enough, and that she would

tell him how to attain what he so greatly wished, if he gave her one

evening's milking [68] on his farm, and one morning's. He agreed to her

conditions, and from her he received advice, which was to the effect

that he was to plough all the fields where they had their favourite

resorts, and that, if they found the green sward gone, they would take

offence, and never return to trouble him with their visits to the spot.

'The husbandman followed the advice to the letter, and his work was

crowned with success. Not a single one of them was now to be seen

about the fields, and, instead of the sound of their sweet music,

which used to be always heard rising from the Coarse Meadow Land,

the most complete silence now reigned over their favourite resort.

'He sowed his land with wheat and other grain; the verdant spring had

now thrust winter off its throne, and the fields appeared splendid

in their vernal and green livery.

'But one evening, when the sun had retired to the chambers of the west,

and when the farmer of Pantannas was returning home, he was met by

a diminutive being in the shape of a man, with a red coat on. When

he had come right up to him, he unsheathed his little sword, and,

directing the point towards the farmer, he said:--

Vengeance cometh,

Fast it approacheth.

'The farmer tried to laugh, but there was something in the surly

and stern looks of the little fellow which made him feel exceedingly

uncomfortable.

'A few nights afterwards, as the family were retiring to rest, they

were very greatly frightened by a noise, as though the house was

falling to pieces; and, immediately after the noise, they heard a

voice uttering loudly the threatening words--and nothing more:--

Vengeance cometh.

'When, however, the corn was reaped and ready to be carried to the

barn, it was, all of a sudden, burnt up one night, so that neither

an ear nor a straw of it could be found anywhere in the fields;

and now nobody could have set the corn on fire but the fairies.

'As one may naturally suppose, the farmer felt very much on account

of this event, and he regretted in his heart having done according

to the witch's direction, and having thereby brought upon him the

anger and hatred of the fairies.

'The day after the night of the burning of the corn, as he was

surveying the destruction caused by the fire, behold the little

fellow, who had met him a few days before, met him again, and, with

a challenging glance, he pointed his sword towards him, saying:--

It but beginneth.

The farmer's face turned as white as marble, and he stood calling the

little fellow to come back; but the dwarf proved very unyielding and

reluctant to turn to him; but, after long entreaty, he turned back,

asking the farmer, in a surly tone, what he wanted, when he was told

by the latter that he was quite willing to allow the fields, in which

their favourite resorts had been, to grow again into a green sward,

and to let them frequent them as often as they wished, provided they

would no further wreak their anger on him.

'"No," was the determined reply, "the word of the king has been given,

that he will avenge himself on thee to the utmost of his power;

and there is no power on the face of creation that will cause it to

be withdrawn."

'The farmer began to weep at this, and, after a while, the little

fellow said that he would speak to his lord on the matter, and that

he would let him know the result, if he would come there to meet him

at the hour of sunset on the third day after.

'The farmer promised to meet him; and, when the time appointed for

meeting the little man came, he found him awaiting him, and he was told

by him that his lord had seriously considered his request, but that,

as the king's word was ever immutable, the threatened vengeance was

to take effect on the family. On account, however, of his repentance,

it would not be allowed to happen in his time or that of his children.

'That calmed the disturbed mind of the farmer a good deal. The fairies

began again to pay frequent visits to the place, and their melodious

singing was again heard at night in the fields around.

'A century passed by without seeing the threatened vengeance carried

into effect; and, though the Pantannas family were reminded now and

again that it was certain sooner or later to come, nevertheless,

by long hearing the voice that said--

Vengeance cometh,

they became so accustomed to it, that they were ready to believe that

nothing would ever come of the threat.

'The heir of Pantannas was paying his addresses to the daughter of a

neighbouring landowner who lived at the farm house called Pen Craig

Daf, and the wedding of the happy pair was to take place in a few

weeks, and the parents on both sides appeared exceedingly content

with the union that was about to take place between the two families.

'It was Christmas time, and the intended wife paid a visit to the

family of her would-be husband. There they had a feast of roast goose

prepared for the occasion.

'The company sat round the fire to relate amusing tales to pass the

time, when they were greatly frightened by a piercing voice, rising,

as it were, from the bed of the river [69], and shrieking:--

The time for revenge is come.

'They all went out to listen if they could hear the voice a second

time, but nothing was to be heard save the angry noise of the water as

it cascaded over the dread cliffs of the kerwyni; they had not long,

however, to wait till they heard again the same voice rising above the

noise of the waters, as they boiled over the shoulders of the rock,

and crying:--

The time is come.

'They could not guess what it meant, and so great was their fright

and astonishment, that no one could utter a word to another. Shortly

they returned to the house, when they believed that beyond doubt

the building was being shaken to its foundations by some noise

outside. When all were thus paralysed by fear, behold a little woman

made her appearance on the table, which stood near the window.

'"What dost thou, ugly little thing, want here?" asked one of those

present.

'"I have nothing to do with thee, O man of the meddling tongue," said

the little woman, "but I have been sent here to recount some things

that are about to happen to this family and another family in the

neighbourhood, things that might be of interest to them; but, as I have

received such an insult from the black fellow that sits in the corner,

the veil that hides them from their sight shall not be lifted by me."

'"Pray," said another of those present, "if thou hast in thy possession

any knowledge with regard to the future of any one of us that would

interest us to hear, bring it forth."

'"No, I will but merely tell you that a certain maiden's heart is

like a ship on the coast, unable to reach the harbour because the

pilot has lost heart."

'As soon as she had cried out the last word, she vanished, no one

knew whither or how.

'During her visit, the cry rising from the river had stopped, but

soon afterwards it began again to proclaim:--

The time of vengeance is come;

nor did it cease for a long while. The company had been possessed by

too much terror for one to be able to address another, and a sheet

of gloom had, as it were, been spread over the face of each. The

time for parting came, and Rhyderch the heir went to escort Gwerfyl,

his lady-love, home towards Pen Craig Daf, a journey from which he

never returned.

'Before bidding one another "Good-bye," they are said to have sworn

to each other eternal fidelity, even though they should never see one

another from that moment forth, and that nothing should make the one

forget the other.

'It is thought probable that the young man Rhyderch, on his way back

towards home, got into one of the rings of the fairies, that they

allured him into one of their caves in the Ravens' Rift, and that

there he remained.

'It is high time for us now to turn back towards Pantannas and

Pen Craig Daf. The parents of the unlucky youth were almost beside

themselves: they had no idea where to go to look for him, and, though

they searched every spot in the place, they failed completely to find

him or any clue to his history.

'A little higher up the country, there dwelt, in a cave underground, an

aged hermit called Gweiryd, who was regarded also as a sorcerer. They

went a few weeks afterwards to ask him whether he could give them any

information about their lost son; but it was of little avail. What that

man told them did but deepen the wound and give the event a still more

hopeless aspect. When they had told him of the appearance of the little

woman, and the doleful cry heard rising from the river on the night

when their son was lost, he informed them that it was the judgement

threatened to the family by the fairies that had overtaken the youth,

and that it was useless for them to think of ever seeing him again:

possibly he might make his appearance after generations had gone by,

but not in their lifetime.

'Time rolled on, weeks grew into months, and months into years, until

Rhyderch's father and mother were gathered to their ancestors. The

place continued the same, but the inhabitants constantly changed,

so that the memory of Rhyderch's disappearance was fast dying

away. Nevertheless there was one who expected his return all the while,

and hoped, as it were against hope, to see him once more. Every morn,

as the gates of the dawn opened beyond the castellated heights of the

east, she might be seen, in all weathers, hastening to the top of a

small hill, and, with eyes full of the tears of longing, gazing in

every direction to see if she could behold any sign of her beloved's

return; but in vain. At noon, she might be seen on the same spot again;

she was also there at the hour when the sun was wont to hide himself,

like a red-hot ball of fire, below the horizon. She gazed until she

was nearly blind, and she wept forth her soul from day to day for

the darling of her heart. At last they that looked out at the windows

began to refuse their service, and the almond tree commenced to crown

her head with its virgin bloom. She continued to gaze, but he came

not. Full of days, and ripe for the grave, death put an end to all

her hopes and all her expectations. Her mortal remains were buried

in the graveyard of the old Chapel of the Fan [70].

'Years passed away like smoke, and generations like the shadows of

the morning, and there was no longer anybody alive who remembered

Rhyderch, but the tale of his sudden missing was frequently in

people's mouths. And we ought to have said that after the event no

one of the fairies was seen about the neighbourhood, and the sound

of their music ceased from that night.

'Rhyderch had been allured by them, and they took him away into their

cave. When he had stayed there only a few days, as he thought, he asked

for permission to return, which was readily granted him by the king. He

issued from the cave when it was a fine noon, with the sun beaming

from the bosom of a cloudless firmament. He walked on from the Ravens'

Rift until he came near the site of the Fan Chapel; but what was his

astonishment to find no chapel there! Where, he wondered, had he been,

and how long away? So with mixed feelings he directed his steps towards

Pen Craig Daf, the home of his beloved one, but she was not there nor

any one whom he knew either. He could get no word of the history of

his sweetheart, and those who dwelt in the place took him for a madman.

'He hastened then to Pantannas, where his astonishment was still

greater. He knew nobody there, and nobody knew anything about him. At

last the man of the house came in, and he remembered hearing his

grandfather relating how a youth had suddenly disappeared, nobody

knew whither, some hundreds of years previously. Somehow or other the

man of the house chanced to knock his walking-stick against Rhyderch,

when the latter vanished in a shower of dust. Nothing more was ever

heard of him.'

Before leaving Glamorgan, I may add that Mr. Sikes associates fairy

ladies with Crymlyn Lake, between Briton Ferry and Swansea; but,

as frequently happens with him, he does not deign to tell us whence

he got the legend. 'It is also believed,' he says at p. 35, 'that a

large town lies swallowed up there, and that the Gwraged 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 those towers.' So

much by the way: we shall return to Crymlyn in chapter vii.

XII.

The other day, as I was going to Gwent, I chanced to be in the Golden

Valley in Herefordshire, where the names in the churchyards seem

largely to imply a Welsh population, though the Welsh language has

not been heard there for ages. Among others I noticed Joneses and

Williamses in abundance at Abbey Dore, Evanses and Bevans, Morgans,

Prossers and Prices, not to mention Sayces--that is to say, Welshmen of

English extraction or education--a name which may also be met with in

Little England in Pembrokeshire, and probably on other English-Welsh

borders. Happening to have to wait for a train at the Abbey Dore

station, I got into conversation with the tenants of a cottage hard

by, and introduced the subject of the fairies. The old man knew

nothing about them, but his wife, Elizabeth Williams, had been a

servant girl at a place called Pen Pôch, which she pronounced with

the Welsh guttural ch: she said that it is near Llandeilo Cressenny

in Monmouthshire. It was about forty years ago when she served at

Pen Pôch, and her mistress' name was Evans, who was then about fifty

years of age. Now Mrs. Evans was in the habit of impressing on her

servant girls' minds, that, unless they made the house tidy before

going to bed, and put everything in its place overnight, the little

people--the fairies, she thinks she called them--would leave them

no rest in bed at night, but would come and 'pinch them like.' If

they put everything in its place, and left the house 'tidy like,' it

would be all right, and 'nobody would do anything to them like.' That

is all I could get from her without prompting her, which I did at

length by suggesting to her that the fairies might leave the tidy

servants presents, a shilling 'on the hearth or the hob like.' Yes,

she thought there was something of that sort, and her way of answering

me suggested that this was not the first time she had heard of the

shilling. She had never been lucky enough to have had one herself,

nor did she know of anybody else that 'had got it like.'

During a brief but very pleasant sojourn at Llanover in May, 1883,

I made some inquiries about the fairies, and obtained the following

account from William Williams, who now, in his seventieth year, works

in Lady Llanover's garden:--'I know of a family living a little way

from here at ----, or as they would now call it in English ----,

whose ancestors, four generations ago, used to be kind to Bendith

y Mamau, and always welcomed their visits by leaving at night a

basinful of bread and milk for them near the fire. It always used to

be eaten up before the family got up in the morning. But one night

a naughty servant man gave them instead of milk a bowlful of urine

[71]. They, on finding it out, threw it about the house and went

away disgusted. But the servant watched in the house the following

night. They found him out, and told him that he had made fools of

them, and that in punishment for his crime there would always be a

fool, i.e. an idiot, in his family. As a matter of fact, there was

one among his children afterwards, and there is one in the family

now. They have always been in a bad way ever since, and they never

prosper. The name of the man who originally offended the fairies

was ----; and the name of the present fool among his descendants is

----.' For evident reasons it is not desirable to publish the names.

Williams spoke also of a sister to his mother, who acted as servant

to his parents. There were, he said, ten stepping stones between his

father's house and the well, and on every one of these stones his

aunt used to find a penny every morning, until she made it known to

others, when, of course, the pennies ceased coming. He did not know

why the fairies gave money to her, unless it was because she was a

most tidy servant.

Another Llanover gardener remembered that the fairies used to

change children, and that a certain woman called Nani Fach in that

neighbourhood was one of their offspring; and he had been told that

there were fairy rings in certain fields not far away in Llanover

parish.

A third gardener, who is sixty-eight years of age, and is likewise in

Lady Llanover's employ, had heard it said that servant girls about

his home were wont to sweep the floor clean at night, and to throw

crumbs of bread about on it before going to bed.

Lastly, Mrs. Gardner of Ty Uchaf Llanover, who is ninety years of age,

remembers having a field close to Capel Newyd near Blaen Afon, in

Llanover Uchaf, pointed out to her as containing fairy rings; and she

recollects hearing, when she was a child, that a man had got into one

of them. He remained away from home, as they always did, she said, a

whole year and a day; but she has forgotten how he was recovered. Then

she went on to say that her father had often got up in the night to

see that his horses were not taken out and ridden about the fields

by Bendith y Mamau; for they were wont to ride people's horses late

at night round the four corners of the fields, and thereby they often

broke the horses' wind. This, she gave me to understand, was believed

in the parish of Llanover and that part of the country generally. So

here we have an instance probably of confounding fairies with witches.

I have not the means at my command of going at length into the folklore

of Gwent, so I will merely mention where the reader may find a good

deal about it. I have already introduced the name of the credulous

old Christian, Edmund Jones of the Tranch: he published at Trefecca

in the year 1779 a small volume entitled, A Geographical, Historical,

and Religious Account of the Parish of Aberystruth in the County of

Monmouth, to which are added Memoirs of several Persons of Note who

lived in the said Parish. In 1813, by which time he seems to have left

this world for another, where he expected to understand all about the

fairies and their mysterious life, a small volume of his was published

at Newport, bearing the title, A Relation of Apparitions of Spirits

in the County of Monmouth and the Principality of Wales, with other

notable Relations from England, together with Observations about

them, and Instructions from them, designed to confute and to prevent

the Infidelity of denying the Being and Apparition of Spirits, which

tends to Irreligion and Atheism. By the late Rev. Edmund Jones, of the

Tranch. Naturally those volumes have been laid under contribution by

Mr. Sikes, though the tales about apparitions in them are frequently

of a ghastly nature, and sometimes loathsome: on the whole, they

remind me more than anything else I have ever read of certain Breton

tales which breathe fire and brimstone: all such begin to be now out

of fashion in Protestant countries. I shall at present only quote a

passage of quite a different nature from the earlier volume, p. 72--it

is an interesting one, and it runs thus:--'It was the general opinion

in times past, when these things were very frequent, that the fairies

knew whatever was spoken in the air without the houses, not so much

what was spoken in the houses. I suppose they chiefly knew what

was spoken in the air at night. It was also said that they rather

appeared to an uneven number of persons, to one, three, five, &c.;

and oftener to men than to women. Thomas William Edmund, of Havodavel,

an honest pious man, who often saw them, declared that they appeared

with one bigger than the rest going before them in the company.' With

the notion that the fairies heard everything uttered out of doors

may be compared the faculty attributed to the great magician king,

Math ab Mathonwy, of hearing any whisper whatsoever that met the wind:

see the Oxford Mabinogion, p. 60, and Guest's Mabinogion, iii. 219; see

also respectively pp. 94, 96, and pp. 308, 310, as to the same faculty

belonging to the fairy people of the Corannians, and the strange

precautions taken against them by the brothers Llûd and Llevelys.

CHAPTER III

FAIRY WAYS AND WORDS

Heavens defend me from that Welsh fairy!

Shakespeare.

In the previous chapters, the fairy lore of the Principality was

hastily skimmed without any method; and I fear that, now I have to

reproduce some of the things which I gleaned somewhat later, there

will be, if possible, still less method. The general reader, in case

he chances on these pages, will doubtless feel that, as soon as he

has read a few of the tales, the rest seem to be familiar to him,

and exceedingly tiresome. It may be, however, presumed that all men

anxious to arrive at an idea as to the origin among us of the belief

in fairies, will agree that we should have as large and exhaustive a

collection as possible of facts on which to work. If we can supply

the data without stint, the student of anthropology may be trusted

in time to discover their value for his inductions, and their place

in the history of the human race.

I.

In the course of the summer of 1882 [72] I was a good deal in Wales,

especially Carnarvonshire, and I made notes of a great many scraps

of legends about the fairies, and other bits of folklore. I will now

string some of them together as I found them. I began at Trefriw [73],

in Nant Conwy, where I came across an old man, born and bred there,

called Morris Hughes. He appears to be about seventy years of age:

he formerly worked as a slater, but now he lives at Llanrwst, and

tries to earn a livelihood by angling. He told me that fairies came a

long while ago to Cowlyd Farm, near Cowlyd Lake, with a baby to dress,

and asked to be admitted into the house, saying that they would pay

well for it. Their request was granted, and they used to leave money

behind them. One day the servant girl accidentally found they had

also left some stuff they were in the habit of using in washing their

children. She examined it, and, one of her eyes happening to itch, she

rubbed it with the finger that had touched the stuff; so when she went

to Llanrwst Fair she saw the same fairy folks there stealing cakes from

a standing, and asked them why they did that. They inquired with what

eye she saw them: she put her hand to the eye, and one of the fairies

quickly rubbed it, so that she never saw any more of them. They were

also very fond of bringing their children to be dressed in the houses

between Trefriw and Llanrwst; and on the flat land bordering on the

Conwy they used to dance, frolic, and sing every moonlight night. Evan

Thomas of Sgubor Gerrig used to have money from them. He has been dead,

Morris Hughes said, over sixty years: he had on his land a sort of

cowhouse where the fairies had shelter, and hence the pay.

Morris, when a boy, used to be warned by his parents to take care

lest he should be stolen by the fairies. He knew Thomas Williams

of Bryn Syllty, or, as he was commonly called, Twm Bryn Syllty, who

was a changeling. He was a sharp, small man, afraid of nothing. He

met his death some years ago by drowning near Eglwys Fach, when he

was about sixty-three years of age. There are relatives of his about

Llanrwst still: that is, relatives of his mother, if indeed she was

his mother (os oed hi'n fam ido fo, ynté). Lastly, Morris had a tale

about a mermaid cast ashore by a storm near Conway. She entreated

the fishermen who found her to help her back into her native element;

and on their refusing to comply she prayed them to place her tail at

least in the water. A very crude rhyme describes her dying of exposure

to the cold, thus:--

Y forforwyn ar y traeth,

Crio gwaedu'n arw wnaeth,

Ofn y deuai drycin drannoeth:

Yr hin yn oer a rhewi wnaeth.

The stranded mermaid on the beach

Did sorely cry and sorely screech,

Afraid to bide the morrow's breeze:

The cold it came, and she did freeze.

But before expiring, the mermaid cursed the people of Conway to be

always poor, and Conway has ever since, so goes the tale, laboured

under the curse; so that when a stranger happens to bring a sovereign

there, the Conway folk, if silver is required, have to send across

the water to Llansanffraid for change.

My next informant was John Duncan Maclaren, who was born in 1812,

and lives at Trefriw. His father was a Scotsman, but Maclaren is in

all other respects a Welshman. He also knew the Sgubor Gerrig people,

and that Evan Thomas and Lowri his wife had exceeding great trouble to

prevent their son Roger from being carried away by the fairies. For

the fairy maids were always trying to allure him away, and he was

constantly finding fairy money. The fairy dance, and the playing

and singing that accompanied it, used to take place in a field in

front of his father's house; but Lowri would never let her son go

out after the sun had gone to his battlements (ar ol i'r haul fyn'd

i lawr i gaera). The most dangerous nights were those when the moon

shone brightly, and pretty wreaths of mist adorned the meadows by the

river. Maclaren had heard of a man, whom he called Siôn Catrin of Tyn

Twll, finding a penny every day at the pistyll or water-spout near

the house, when he went there to fetch water. The flat land between

Trefriw and Llanrwst had on it a great many fairy rings, and some of

them are, according to Maclaren, still to be seen. There the fairies

used to dance, and when a young man got into one of the rings the

fairy damsels took him away; but he could be got out unharmed at the

end of a year and a day, when he would be found dancing with them in

the same ring: he must then be dexterously touched by some one of his

friends with a piece of iron and dragged out at once. This is the

way in which a young man whom my notes connect with a place called

Bryn Glas was recovered. He had gone out with a friend, who lost him,

and he wandered into a fairy ring. He had new shoes on at the time,

and his friends brought him out at the end of the interval of a year

and a day; but he could not be made to understand that he had been away

more than five minutes, until he was asked to look at his new shoes,

which were by that time in pieces. Maclaren had also something to

say concerning the history and habitat of the fairies. Those of Nant

Conwy dress in green; and his mother, who died about sixty-two years

ago, aged forty-seven, had told him that they lived seven years on

the earth, seven years in the air, and seven years underground. He

also had a mermaid tale, like that of Pergrin from Dyfed, p. 163. A

fisherman from Llandrillo yn Rhos, between Colwyn and Llandudno,

had caught a mermaid in his net. She asked to be set free, promising

that she would, in case he complied, do him a kindness. He consented,

and one fine day, a long while afterwards, she suddenly peeped out

of the water near him, and shouted: Siôn Ifan, cwyd dy rwyda' a thyn

tua'r lan, 'John Evans, take up thy nets and make for the shore.' He

obeyed, and almost immediately there was a terrible storm, in which

many fishermen lost their lives. The river Conwy is the chief haunt of

the mysterious afanc, already mentioned, p. 130, and Maclaren stated

that its name used to be employed within his memory to frighten girls

and children: so much was it still dreaded. Perhaps I ought to have

stated that Maclaren is very fond of music, and that he told me of

a gentleman at Conway who had taken down in writing a supposed fairy

tune. I have made inquiries of the latter's son, Mr. Hennessy Hughes

of Conway; but his father's papers seem to have been lost, so that

he cannot find the tune in question, though he has heard of it.

Whilst on this question of music let me quote from the Llwyd letter

in the Cambrian Journal for 1859, pp. 145-6, on which I have already

drawn, pp. 130-3, above. The passage in point is to the following

effect:--

'I will leave these tales aside whilst I go as far as the Ogo Du,

"the Black Cave," which is in the immediate vicinity of Crigcieth [74],

and into which the musicians entered so far that they lost their way

back. One of them was heard to play on his pipe, and another on his

horn, about two miles from where they went in; and the place where

the piper was heard is called Braich y Bib, and where the man with

the horn was heard is called Braich y Cornor. I do not believe that

even a single man doubts but that this is all true, and I know not

how the airs called Ffarwel Dic y Pibyd, "Dick the Piper's Farewell,"

and Ffarwel Dwm Bach, "Little Tom's Farewell," had those names, unless

it was from the musicians above mentioned. Nor do I know that Ned Puw

may not have been the third, and that the air called Ffarwel Ned Puw,

"Ned Pugh's Farewell," may not have been the last he played before

going into the cave. I cannot warrant this to be true, as I have only

heard it said by one man, and he merely held it as a supposition,

which had been suggested by this air of Ffarwel Dic y Pibyd.'

A story, however, mentioned by Cyndelw in the Brython for 1860, p. 57,

makes Ned Pugh enter the cave of Tal y Clegyr, which the writer in

his article identifies with Ness Cliff, near Shrewsbury. In that

cave, which was regarded as a wonderful one, he says the musician

disappeared, while the air he was playing, Ffarwel Ned Puw, "Ned Pugh's

Farewell," was retained in memory of him. Some account of the departure

of Ned Pugh and of the interminable cave into which he entered, will be

found given in a rambling fashion in the Cambrian Quarterly Magazine

(London, 1829), vol. i, pp. 40-5, where the minstrel's Welsh name

is given as Iolo ap Huw. There we are told that he was last seen in

the twilight of a misty Halloween, and the notes of the tune he was

last heard to play are duly given. One of the surmises as to Iolo's

ultimate fate is also recorded, namely, that in the other world he has

exchanged his fiddle for a bugle, and become huntsman-in-chief to Gwyn

ab Nûd, so that every Halloween he may be found cheering Cwn Annwn,

'the Hounds of the Other World,' over Cader Idris [75].

The same summer I fell in with Mr. Morris Evans, of Cerrig Mân, near

Amlwch. He is a mining agent on the Gwydir Estate in the Vale of Conwy,

but he is a native of the neighbourhood of Parys Mountain, in Anglesey,

where he acquired his knowledge of mining. He had heard fairy tales

from his grandmother, Grace Jones, of Llwyn Ysgaw near Mynyd Mechell,

between Amlwch and Holyhead. She died, nearly ninety years of age,

over twenty years ago. She used to relate how she and others of her

own age were wont in their youth to go out on bright moonlight nights

to a spot near Llyn y Bwch. They seldom had to wait there long before

they would hear exquisite music and behold a grand palace standing

on the ground. The diminutive folks of fairyland would then come

forth to dance and frolic. The next morning the palace would be found

gone, but the grandmother used to pick up fairy money on the spot,

and this went on regularly so long as she did not tell others of her

luck. My informant, who is himself a man somewhat over fifty-two,

tells me that at a place not far from Llyn y Bwch there were plenty

of fairy rings to be seen in the grass; and it is in them the fairies

were supposed to dance [76].

From Llanrwst I went up to see the bard and antiquary, Mr. Gethin

Jones. His house was prettily situated on the hillside on the left

of the road as you approach the village of Penmachno. I was sorry to

find that his memory had been considerably impaired by a paralytic

stroke from which he had suffered not long before. However, from his

room he pointed out to me a spot on the other side of the Machno,

called Y Werdon, which means 'The Green Land,' or more literally,

'The Greenery,' so to say. It was well known for its green, grassy

fairy rings, formerly frequented by the Tylwyth Teg; and he said he

could distinguish some of the rings even then from where he stood. The

Werdon is on the Bennar, and the Bennar is the high ground between

Penmachno and Dolwydelan. The spot in question is on the part nearest

to the Conwy Falls. This name, Y Werdon, is liable to be confounded

with Iwerdon, 'Ireland,' which is commonly treated as if it began with

the definite article, so that it is made into Y Werdon and Werdon. The

fairy Werdon, in the radical form Gwerdon, not only recalls to my mind

the Green Isles called Gwerdonau Llïon, but also the saying, common

in North Wales, that a person in great anxiety 'sees Y Werdon.' Thus,

for instance, a man who fails to return to his family at the hour

expected, and believes his people to be in great anxiety about him,

expresses himself by saying that they will have 'seen the Werdon on my

account' (mi fydan' wedi gwel'd y Werdon am dana'i). Is that Ireland,

or is it the land of the fairies, the other world, in fact? If the

latter, it might simply mean they will have died of anxiety; but I

confess I have not so far been able to decide. I am not aware that

the term occurs in any other form of expression than the one I have

given; if it had, and if the Werdon were spoken of in some other way,

that might possibly clear up the difficulty. If it refers to Ireland,

it must imply that sighting Ireland is equivalent to going astray at

sea, meaning in this sort of instance, getting out of one's senses;

but the Welsh are not very much given to nautical expressions. It

reminds me somewhat of Gerald Griffin's allusion to the Phantom City,

and the penalty paid by those who catch a glimpse of its turrets as

the dividing waves expose them for a moment to view on the western

coast of Ireland:--

Soon close the white waters to screen it,

And the bodement, they say, of the wonderful sight,

Is death to the eyes that have seen it.

The Fairy Glen above Bettws y Coed is called in Welsh Ffos 'Nodyn,

'the Sink of the Abyss'; but Mr. Gethin Jones told me that it was

also called Glyn y Tylwyth Teg, which is very probable, as some

such a designation is required to account for the English name, 'the

Fairy Glen.' People on the Capel Garmon side used to see the Tylwyth

playing there, and descending into the Ffos or Glen gently and lightly

without occasioning themselves the least harm. The Fairy Glen was,

doubtless, supposed to contain an entrance to the world below. This

reminds one of the name of the pretty hollow running inland from the

railway station at Bangor. Why should it be called Nant Uffern, or

'The Hollow of Hell'? Can it be that there was a supposed entrance

to the fairy world somewhere there? In any case, I am quite certain

that Welsh place-names involve allusions to the fairies much oftener

than has been hitherto supposed; and I should be inclined to cite, as

a further example, Moel Eilio [77] or Moel Eilian, from the personal

name Eilian, to be mentioned presently. Moel Eilian is a mountain under

which the fairies were supposed to have great stores of treasure. But

to return to Mr. Gethin Jones, I had almost forgotten that I have

another instance of his in point. He showed me a passage in a paper

which he wrote in Welsh some time ago on the antiquities of Yspyty

Ifan. He says that where the Serw joins the Conwy there is a cave,

to which tradition asserts that a harpist was once allured by the

Tylwyth Teg. He was, of course, not seen afterwards, but the echo of

the music made by him and them on their harps is still to be heard

a little lower down, under the field called to this day Gweirglod y

Telynorion, 'The Harpers' Meadow': compare the extract from Edward

Llwyd's correspondence at p. 202 above.

Mr. Gethin Jones also spoke to me of the lake called Llyn Pencraig,

which was drained in hopes of finding lead underneath it, an

expectation not altogether doomed to disappointment, and he informed

me that its old name was Llyn Llifon; so the moor around it was called

Gwaen Llifon. It appears to have been a large lake, but only in wet

weather, and to have no deep bed. The names connected with the spot

are now Nant Gwaen Llifon and the Gwaith (or Mine) of Gwaen Llifon:

they are, I understand, within the township of Trefriw. The name Llyn

Llifon is of great interest when taken in connexion with the Triadic

account of the cataclysm called the Bursting of Llyn Llifon. Mr. Gethin

Jones, however, believed himself that Llyn Llïon was no other than

Bala Lake, through which the Dee makes her way.

II.

One day in August of the same year, I arrived at Dinas Station, and

walked down to Llandwrog in order to see Dinas Dinlle, and to ascertain

what traditions still existed there respecting Caer Arianrhod,

Llew Llawgyffes, Dylan Eilton, and other names that figure in the

Mabinogi of Math ab Mathonwy. I called first on the schoolmaster,

and he kindly took me to the clerk, Hugh Evans, a native of the

neighbourhood of Llangefni, in Anglesey. He had often heard people

talk of some women having once on a time come from Tregar Anthreg

to Cae'r 'Loda', a place near the shore, to fetch food or water, and

that when they looked back they beheld the town overflowed by the sea:

the walls can still be seen at low water. Gwennan was the name of one

of the women, and she was buried at the place now called Bed Gwennan,

or Gwennan's Grave. He had also heard the fairy tales of Waen Fawr

and Nant y Bettws, narrated by the antiquary, Owen Williams of the

former place. For instance, he had related to him the tale of the man

who slept on a clump of rushes, and thought he was all the while in

a magnificent mansion; see p. 100, above. Now I should explain that

Tregar Anthreg is to be seen at low water from Dinas Dinlle as a

rock not far from the shore. The Caranthreg which it implies is one

of the modern forms to which Caer Arianrhod has been reduced; and to

this has been prefixed a synonym of caer, namely, tref, reduced to

tre', just as Carmarthen is frequently called Tre' Gaerfyrdin. Cae'r

'Loda' is explained as Cae'r Aelodau', 'The Field of the Limbs'; but

I am sorry to say that I forgot to note the story explanatory of the

name. It is given, I think, to a farm, and so is Bed Gwennan likewise

the name of a farm house. The tenant of the latter, William Roberts,

was at home when I visited the spot. He told me the same story,

but with a variation: three sisters had come from Tregan Anrheg to

fetch provisions, when their city was overflowed. Gwen fled to the

spot now called Bed Gwennan, Elan to Tydyn Elan, or Elan's Holding,

and Maelan to Rhos Maelan, or Maelan's Moor; all three are names of

places in the immediate neighbourhood.

From Dinas Dinlle I was directed across Lord Newborough's grounds at

Glynllifon to Pen y Groes Station; but on my way I had an opportunity

of questioning several of the men employed at Glynllifon. One of

these was called William Thomas Solomon, an intelligent middle-aged

man, who works in the garden there. He said that the three women

who escaped from the submerged city were sisters, and that he had

learned in his infancy to call them Gwennan bi Dôn, Elan bi Dôn,

and Maelan bi Dôn. Lastly, the name of the city, according to him,

was Tregan Anthrod. I had the following forms of the name that

day:--Tregar Anrheg, Tregar Anthreg, Tregan Anrheg, Tregan Anthreg,

and Tregan Anthrod. All these are attempts to reproduce what might

be written Tre'-Gaer-Arianrhod. The modification of nrh into nthr

is very common in North Wales, and Tregar Anrheg seems to have been

fashioned on the supposition that the name had something to do with

anrheg, 'a gift.' Tregan Anthrod is undoubtedly the Caer Arianrhod,

or 'fortress of Arianrhod,' in the Mabinogi, and it is duly marked

as such in a map of Speede's at the spot where it should be. Now the

Arianrhod of the Mabinogi of Math could hardly be called a lady of

rude virtue, and it is the idea in the neighbourhood that the place

was inundated on account of the wickedness of the inhabitants. So

it would appear that Gwennan, Elan, and Maelan, Arianrhod's sisters,

were the just ones allowed to escape. Arianrhod was probably drowned as

the principal sinner in possession; but I did not find, as I expected,

that the crime which called for such an expiation was in this instance

that of playing cards on Sunday. In fact, this part of the legend

does not seem to have been duly elaborated as yet.

I must now come back to Solomon's bi Dôn, which puzzles me not

a little. Arianrhod was daughter of Dôn, and so several other

characters in the same Mabinogi were children of Dôn. But what is bi

Dôn? I have noticed that all the Welsh antiquaries who take Don out

of books invariably call that personage Dòn or Donn with a short o,

which is wrong, and this has saved me from being deceived once or

twice: so I take it that bi Dôn is, as Solomon asserted, a local

expression of which he did not know the meaning. I can only add,

in default of a better explanation, that bi Dôn recalled to my mind

what I had shortly before heard on my trip from Aberdaron to Bardsey

Island. My wife and I, together with two friends, engaged, after much

eloquent haggling, a boat at the former place, but one of the men who

were to row us insinuated a boy of his, aged four, into the boat, an

addition which did not exactly add to the pleasures of that somewhat

perilous trip amidst incomprehensible currents. But the Aberdaron

boatmen always called that child bi Donn, which I took to have been

a sort of imitation of an infantile pronunciation of 'baby John,' for

his name was John, which Welsh infants as a rule first pronounce Donn:

I can well remember the time when I did. This, applied to Gwennan bi

Dôn, would imply that Solomon heard it as a piece of nursery lore when

he was a child, and that it meant simply--Gwennan, baby or child of

Dôn. Lastly, the only trace of Dylan I could find was in the name of

a small promontory, called variously by the Glynllifon men Pwynt Maen

Tylen, which was Solomon's pronunciation, and Pwynt Maen Dulan. It is

also known, as I was given to understand, as Pwynt y Wig: I believe

I have seen it given in maps as Maen Dylan Point.

Solomon told me the following fairy tale, and he was afterwards kind

enough to have it written out for me. I give it in his own words,

as it is peculiar in some respects:--

Mi'r oed gwr a gwraig yn byw yn y Garth Dorwen [78] ryw gyfnod maith yn

ol, ag aethant i Gaer'narfon i gyflogi morwyn ar dyd ffair G'langaeaf,

ag yr oed yn arferiad gan feibion a merched y pryd hynny i'r rhai oed

yn sefyll allan am lefyd aros yn top y maes presennol wrth boncan las

oed yn y fan y lle saif y Post-office presennol; aeth yr hen wr a'r

hen wraig at y fan yma a gwelent eneth lan a gwallt melyn yn sefyll

'chydig o'r neilldu i bawb arall; aeth yr hen wraig ati a gofynnod i'r

eneth oed arni eisiau lle. Atebod fod, ag felly cyflogwyd yr eneth

yn dioed a daeth i'w lle i'r amser penodedig. Mi fydai yn arferiad

yr adeg hynny o nydu ar ol swper yn hirnos y gauaf, ag fe fydai y

forwyn yn myn'd i'r weirglod i nydu wrth oleu y lloer; ag fe fydai

tylwyth teg yn dwad ati hi i'r weirglod i ganu a dawnsio. A ryw bryd

yn y gwanwyn pan esdynnod y dyd diangod Eilian gyd a'r tylwythion teg

i ffwrd, ag ni welwyd 'mo'ni mwyach. Mae y cae y gwelwyd hi diwethaf

yn cael ei alw hyd y dyd hedyw yn Gae Eilian a'r weirglod yn Weirglod

y Forwyn. Mi'r oed hen wraig y Garth Dorwen yn arfer rhoi gwraged yn

eu gwlâu, a bydai pawb yn cyrchu am dani o bob cyfeiriad; a rhyw bryd

dyma wr bonedig ar ei geffyl at y drws ar noswaith loergan lleuad,

a hithau yn glawio 'chydig ag yn niwl braid, i 'nol yr hen wreigan at

ei wraig; ag felly aeth yn sgil y gwr dïarth ar gefn y march i Ros y

Cowrt. Ar ganol y Rhos pryd hynny 'r oed poncan lled uchel yn debyg i

hen amdiffynfa a llawer o gerrig mawrion ar ei phen a charned fawr o

gerrig yn yr ochor ogledol idi, ag mae hi i'w gwel'd hyd y dyd hedyw

dan yr enw Bryn y Pibion. Pan gyrhaedasan' y lle aethan' i ogo' fawr

ag aethan' i 'stafell lle'r oed y wraig yn ei gwely, a'r lle crandia'

a welod yr hen wraig yrioed. Ag fe roth y wraig yn ei gwely ag aeth at

y tan i drin y babi; ag ar ol idi orphen dyna y gwr yn dod a photel

i'r hen wraig i hiro llygaid y babi ag erfyn arni beidio a'i gyffwr'

a'i llygaid ei hun. Ond ryw fod ar ol rhoi y botel heibio fe daeth

cosfa ar lygaid yr hen wraig a rhwbiod ei llygaid â'r un bys ag oed

wedi bod yn rhwbio llygaid y baban a gwelod hefo 'r llygad hwnnw

y wraig yn gorfed ar docyn o frwyn a rhedyn crinion mewn ogo' fawr

o gerrig mawr o bob tu idi a 'chydig bach o dan mewn rhiw gornel,

a gwelod mai Eilian oed hi, ei hen forwyn, ag hefo'r llygad arall yn

gwel'd y lle crandia' a welod yrioed. Ag yn mhen ychydig ar ol hynny

aeth i'r farchnad i Gaer'narfon a gwelod y gwr a gofynnod ido--'Pa

sud mae Eilian?' 'O y mae hi yn bur da,' medai wrth yr hen wraig: 'a

pha lygad yr ydych yn fy ngwel'd?' 'Hefo hwn,' medai hithau. Cymerod

babwyren ag a'i tynod allan ar unwaith.

'An old man and his wife lived at the Garth Dorwen in some period

a long while ago. They went to Carnarvon to hire a servant maid at

the Allhallows' [79] fair; and it was the custom then for young men

and women who stood out for places to station themselves at the top

of the present Maes, by a little green eminence which was where the

present Post-office stands. The old man and his wife went to that

spot, and saw there a lass with yellow hair, standing a little apart

from all the others; the old woman went to her and asked her if she

wanted a place. She replied that she did, and so she hired herself at

once and came to her place at the time fixed. In those times it was

customary during the long winter nights that spinning should be done

after supper. Now the maid servant would go to the meadow to spin by

the light of the moon, and the Tylwyth Teg used to come to her to sing

and dance. But some time in the spring, when the days had grown longer,

Eilian escaped with the Tylwyth Teg, so that she was seen no more. The

field where she was last seen is to this day called Eilian's Field,

and the meadow is known as the Maid's Meadow. The old woman of Garth

Dorwen was in the habit of putting women to bed, and she was in great

request far and wide. Some time after Eilian's escape there came a

gentleman on horseback to the door one night when the moon was full,

while there was a slight rain and just a little mist, to fetch the

old woman to his wife. So she rode off behind the stranger on his

horse, and came to Rhos y Cowrt. Now there was at that time, in the

centre of the rhos, somewhat of a rising ground that looked like an

old fortification, with many big stones on the top, and a large cairn

of stones on the northern side: it is to be seen there to this day,

and it goes by the name of Bryn y Pibion, but I have never visited the

spot. When they reached the spot, they entered a large cave, and they

went into a room where the wife lay in her bed; it was the finest place

the old woman had seen in her life. When she had successfully brought

the wife to bed, she went near the fire to dress the baby; and when she

had done, the husband came to the old woman with a bottle of ointment

[80] that she might anoint the baby's eyes; but he entreated her not

to touch her own eyes with it. Somehow after putting the bottle by,

one of the old woman's eyes happened to itch, and she rubbed it with

the same finger that she had used to rub the baby's eyes. Then she

saw with that eye how the wife lay on a bundle of rushes and withered

ferns in a large cave, with big stones all round her, and with a little

fire in one corner; and she saw also that the lady was only Eilian,

her former servant girl, whilst, with the other eye, she beheld the

finest place she had ever seen. Not long afterwards the old midwife

went to Carnarvon to market, when she saw the husband, and said to

him, "How is Eilian?" "She is pretty well," said he to the old woman,

"but with what eye do you see me?" "With this one," was the reply;

and he took a bulrush and put her eye out at once.'

That is exactly the tale, my informant tells me, as he heard it from

his mother, who heard it from an old woman who lived at Garth Dorwen

when his mother was a girl, about eighty-four years ago, as he guessed

it to have been; but in his written version he has omitted one thing

which he told me at Glynllifon, namely, that, when the servant girl

went out to the fairies to spin, an enormous amount of spinning used to

be done. I mention this as it reminds me of the tales of other nations,

where the girl who cannot spin straw into gold is assisted by a fairy,

on certain conditions which are afterwards found very inconvenient. It

may be guessed that in the case of Eilian the conditions involved her

becoming a fairy's wife, and that she kept to them. Lastly, I should

like the archæologists of Carnarvonshire to direct their attention to

Bryn y Pibion; for they might be expected to come across the remains

there of a barrow or of a fort.

III.

The same summer I happened to meet the Rev. Robert Hughes, of Uwchlaw'r

Ffynnon, near Llanaelhaearn, a village on which Tre'r Ceiri, or the

Town of the Keiri, looks down in its primitive grimness from the

top of one of the three heights of the Eifl, or Rivals as English

people call them. The district is remarkable for the longevity of its

inhabitants, and Mr. Hughes counted fifteen farmers in his immediate

neighbourhood whose average age was eighty-three; and four years

previously the average age of eighteen of them was no less than

eighty-five. He himself was, when I met him, seventy-one years of

age, and he considered that he represented the traditions of more

than a century and a half, as he was a boy of twelve when one of his

grandfathers died at the age of ninety-two: the age reached by one

of his grandmothers was all but equal, while his father died only a

few years ago, after nearly reaching his ninety-fifth birthday.

Story-telling was kept alive in the parish of Llanaelhaearn by the

institution known there as the pilnos, or peeling night, when the

neighbours met in one another's houses to spend the long winter

evenings dressing hemp and carding wool, though I guess that a

pilnos was originally the night when people met to peel rushes for

rushlights. When they left these merry meetings they were ready, as

Mr. Hughes says, to see anything. In fact, he gives an instance of some

people coming from a pilnos across the mountain from Nant Gwrtheyrn

to Llithfaen, and finding the fairies singing and dancing with all

their might: they were drawn in among them and found themselves left

alone in the morning on the heather. Indeed, Mr. Hughes has seen the

fairies himself: it was on the Pwllheli road, as he was returning in

the grey of the morning from the house of his fiancée when he was

twenty-seven. The fairies he saw came along riding on wee horses:

his recollection is that he now and then mastered his eyes and

found the road quite clear, but the next moment the vision would

return, and he thought he saw the diminutive cavalcade as plainly

as possible. Similarly, a man of the name of Solomon Evans, when,

thirty years ago, making his way home late at night through Glynllifon

Park, found himself followed by quite a crowd of little creatures,

which he described as being of the size of guinea pigs and covered

with red and white spots. He was an ignorant man, who knew no better

than to believe to the day of his death, some eight or nine years

ago, that they were demons. This is probably a blurred version of

a story concerning Cwn Annwn, 'Hell hounds,' such as the following,

published by Mr. O. M. Edwards in his Cymru for 1897, p. 190, from

Mr. J. H. Roberts' essay mentioned above at p. 148:--'Ages ago as

a man who had been engaged on business, not the most creditable in

the world, was returning in the depth of night across Cefn Creini,

and thinking in a downcast frame of mind over what he had been

doing, he heard in the distance a low and fear-inspiring bark; then

another bark, and another, and then half a dozen and more. Ere long

he became aware that he was being pursued by dogs, and that they were

Cwn Annwn. He beheld them coming: he tried to flee, but he felt quite

powerless and could not escape. Nearer and nearer they came, and he

saw the shepherd with them: his face was black and he had horns on

his head. They had come round him and stood in a semicircle ready to

rush upon him, when he had a remarkable deliverance: he remembered

that he had in his pocket a small cross, which he showed them. They

fled in the greatest terror in all directions, and this accounts for

the proverb, Mwy na'r cythraul at y groes (Any more than the devil

to the cross).' That is Mr. Roberts' story; but several allusions

have already been made to Cwn Annwn. It would be right probably to

identify them in the first instance with the pack with which Arawn,

king of Annwn, is found hunting by Pwyll, king of Dyfed, when the

latter happens to meet him in Glyn Cuch in his own realm. Then in a

poem in the Black Book of Carmarthen we find Gwyn ab Nûd with a pack

led by Dormarth, a hound with a red snout which he kept close to the

ground when engaged in the chase; similarly in the story of Iolo ab

Huw the dogs are treated as belonging to Gwyn. But on the whole the

later idea has more usually been, that the devil is the huntsman,

that his dogs give chase in the air, that their quarry consists of

the souls of the departed, and that their bark forebodes a death,

since they watch for the souls of men about to die. This, however,

might be objected to as pagan; so I have heard the finishing touch

given to it in the neighbourhood of Ystrad Meurig, by one who, like

Mr. Pughe, explained that it is the souls only of notoriously wicked

men and well-known evil livers. With this limitation the pack [81]

seems in no immediate danger of being regarded as poaching.

To return to Llanaelhaearn, it is right to say that good spirits too,

who attend on good Calvinists, are there believed in. Morris Hughes,

of Cwm Corryn, was the first Calvinistic Methodist at Llanaelhaearn;

he was great-grandfather to Robert Hughes' wife; and he used to be

followed by two pretty little yellow birds. He would call to them,

'Wryd, Wryd!' and they would come and feed out of his hand, and

when he was dying they came and flapped their wings against his

window. This was testified to by John Thomas, of Moelfre Bach, who

was present at the time. Thomas died some twenty-five years ago, at

the age of eighty-seven. I have heard this story from other people,

but I do not know what to make of it, though I may add that the little

birds are believed to have been angels. In Mr. Rees' Welsh Saints,

pp. 305-6, Gwryd is given as the name of a friar who lived about the

end of the twelfth century, and has been commemorated on November 1;

and the author adds a note referring to the Cambrian Register for

1800, vol. iii. p. 221, where it is said that Gwryd relieved the bard

Einion ab Gwalchmai of some oppression, probably mental, which had

afflicted him for seven years. Is one to suppose that Gwryd sent two

angels in the form of little birds to protect the first Llanaelhaearn

Methodist? The call 'Wryd, Wryd,' would seem to indicate that the

name was not originally Gwryd, but Wryd, to be identified possibly

with the Pictish name Uoret in an inscription at St. Vigean's,

near Arbroath, and to be distinguished from the Welsh word gwryd,

'valour,' and from the Welsh name Gwriad, representing what in its

Gaulish form was Viriatus. We possibly have the name Wryd in Hafod

Wryd, a place in the Machno Valley above Bettws y Coed; otherwise one

would have expected Hafod y Gwryd, making colloquially, Hafod Gwryd.

Mr. Hughes told me a variety of things about Nant Gwrtheyrn, one of the

spots where the Vortigern story is localized. The Nant is a sort of a

cul de sac hollow opening to the sea at the foot of the Eifl. There is

a rock there called Y Farches, and the angle of the sea next to the

old castle, which seems to be merely a mound, is called Y Llynclyn,

or 'The Whirlpool'; and this is perhaps an important item in the

localizing of Vortigern's city there. I was informed by Mr. Hughes

that the grave of Olfyn is in this Nant, with a razed church close by:

both are otherwise quite unknown to me. Coming away from this weird

spot to the neighbourhood of Celynnog, one finds that the Pennard

of the Mabinogi of Math is now called Pennarth, and has on it a

well-known cromlech. Of course, I did not leave Mr. Hughes without

asking him about Caer Arianrhod, and I found that he called it Tre'

Gaer Anrheg: he described it as a stony patch in the sea, and it can,

he says, be reached on foot when the ebb is at its lowest in spring

and autumn. The story he had heard about it when he was a boy at school

with David Thomas, better known by his bardic name of Dafyd Du Eryri,

was the following:--

'Tregaer Anrheg was inhabited by a family of robbers, and among

other things they killed and robbed a man at Glyn Iwrch, near the

further wall of Glynnllifon Park: this completed the measure of

their lawlessness. There was one woman, however, living with them at

Tregaer Anrheg, who was not related to them, and as she went out one

evening with her pitcher to fetch water, she heard a voice crying out,

Dos i ben y bryn i wel'd rhyfedod, that is, Go up the hill to see a

wonder. She obeyed, and as soon as she got to the top of the hill,

whereby was meant Dinas Dinlle, she beheld Tregaer Anrheg sinking in

the sea.'

As I have wandered away from the fairies I may add the following

curious bit of legend which Mr. Hughes gave me:--'When St. Beuno

lived at Celynnog, he used to go regularly to preach at Llandwyn on

the opposite side of the water, which he always crossed on foot. But

one Sunday he accidentally dropped his book of sermons into the water,

and when he had failed to recover it a gylfin-hir, or curlew, came

by, picked it up, and placed it on a stone out of the reach of the

tide. The saint prayed for the protection and favour of the Creator

for the gylfin-hir: it was granted, and so nobody ever knows where

that bird makes its nest.'

IV.

One day in August of the same summer I went to have another look

at the old inscribed stone at Gesail Gyfarch [82], near Tremadoc,

and, instead of returning the same way, I walked across to Criccieth

Station; but on my way I was directed to call at a farm house called

Llwyn y Mafon Uchaf, where I was to see Mr. Edward Llewelyn, a bachelor

then seventy-six years of age. He is a native of the neighbourhood,

and has always lived in it; moreover, he has now been for some time

blind. He had heard a good many fairy tales. Among others he mentioned

John Roberts, a slater from the Garn, that is Carn Dolbenmaen, as

having one day, when there was a little mist and a drizzling rain,

heard a crowd of fairies talking together in great confusion, near

a sheepfold on Llwytmor Mountain; but he was too much afraid to look

at them. He also told me of a man at Ystum Cegid, a farm not far off,

having married a fairy wife on condition that he was not to touch her

with any kind of iron on pain of her leaving him for ever. Then came

the usual accident in catching a horse in order to go to a fair at

Carnarvon, and the immediate disappearance of the wife. At this point

Mr. Llewelyn's sister interposed to the effect that the wife did once

return and address her husband in the rhyme, Os byd anwyd ar fy mab,

&c.: see pp. 44, 55 above. Then Mr. Llewelyn enumerated several people

who are of this family, among others a girl, who is, according to him,

exactly like the fairies. This made me ask what the fairies are like,

and he answered that they are small unprepossessing creatures, with

yellow skin and black hair. Some of the men, however, whom he traced

to a fairy origin are by no means of this description. The term there

for men of fairy descent is Belsiaid, and they live mostly in the

neighbouring parish of Pennant, where it would never do for me to

go and collect fairy tales, as I am told; and Mr. Llewelyn remembers

the fighting that used to take place at the fairs at Penmorfa if the

term Belsiaid once began to be heard. Mr. Llewelyn was also acquainted

with the tale of the midwife that went to a fairy family, and how the

thieving husband had deprived her of the use of one eye. He also spoke

of the fairies changing children, and how one of these changelings,

supposed to be a baby, expressed himself to the effect that he had

seen the acorn before the oak, and the egg before the chick, but

never anybody who brewed ale in an egg-shell: see p. 62 above. As to

modes of getting rid of the changelings, a friend of Mr. Llewelyn's

mentioned the story that one was once dropped into the Glaslyn river,

near Bedgelert. The sort of children the fairies liked were those

that were unlike their own; that is, bairns whose hair was white, or

inclined to yellow, and whose skin was fair. He had a great deal to say

of a certain Elis Bach of Nant Gwrtheyrn, who used to be considered

a changeling. With the exception of this changing of children the

fairies seemed to have been on fairly good terms with the inhabitants,

and to have been in the habit of borrowing from farm houses a padell

and gradell for baking. The gradell is a sort of round flat iron,

on which the dough is put, and the padell is the patella or pan put

over it: they are still commonly used for baking in North Wales. Well,

the fairies used to borrow these two articles, and by way of payment

to leave money on the hob at night. All over Lleyn the Tylwyth are

represented as borrowing padell a gradell. They seem to have never

been very strong in household furniture, especially articles made of

iron. Mr. Llewelyn had heard that the reason why people do not see

fairies nowadays is that they have been exorcised (wedi eu hoffrymu)

for hundreds of years to come.

About the same time I was advised to try the memory of Miss Jane

Williams, who lives at the Graig, Tremadoc: she was then, as I was

told, seventy-five, very quick-witted, but by no means communicative

to idlers. The most important information she had for me was to the

effect that the Tylwyth Teg had been exorcised away (wedi 'ffrymu)

and would not be back in our day. When she was about twelve she served

at the Gelli between Tremadoc and Pont Aberglaslyn. Her master's

name was Siôn Ifan, and his wife was a native of the neighbourhood

of Carnarvon; she had many tales to tell them about the Tylwyth,

how they changed children, how they allured men to the fairy rings,

and how their dupes returned after a time in a wretched state, with

hardly any flesh on their bones. She heard her relate the tale of

a man who married a fairy, and how she left him; but before going

away from her husband and children she asked the latter by name which

they would like to have, a dirty cow-yard (buches fudur) or a clean

cow-yard (buches lân). Some gave the right answer, a dirty cow-yard,

but some said a clean cow-yard: the lot of the latter was poverty,

for they were to have no stock of cattle. The same question is asked in

a story recorded by the late Rev. Elias Owen, in his Welsh Folk-lore,

p. 82 [83]: his instance belongs to the neighbourhood of Pentrevoelas,

in Denbighshire.

V.

When I was staying at Pwllheli the same summer, I went out to the

neighbouring village of Four Crosses, and found a native of the place,

who had heard a great many curious things from his mother. His name

was Lewis Jones: he was at the time over eighty, and he had formerly

been a saddler. Among other things, his mother often told him that her

grandmother had frequently been with the fairies, when the latter was

a child. She lived at Plâs Du, and once she happened to be up near Carn

Bentyrch when she saw them. She found them resembling little children,

and playing in a brook that she had to cross. She was so delighted with

them, and stayed so long with them, that a search was made for her,

when she was found in the company of the fairies. Another time, they

met her as she was going on an errand across a large bog on a misty

day, when there was a sort of a drizzle, which one might call either

dew or rain, as it was not decidedly either, but something between the

two, such as the Welsh would call gwlithlaw, 'dew-rain.' She loitered

in their company until a search was made for her again. Lewis Jones

related to me the story of the midwife--he pronounced it in Welsh

'midwaith'--who attended on a fairy. As in the other versions,

she lost the sight of one eye in consequence of her discovering

the gentleman fairy thieving; but the fair at which this happened

was held in this instance at Nefyn. He related also how a farmer at

Pennant had wedded a fairy called Bella. This tale proceeded like the

other versions, and did not even omit the fighting at Penmorfa: see

pp. 89, 93, 220. He had likewise the tale about the two youths who had

gone out to fetch some cattle, and came, while returning about dusk,

across a party of fairies dancing. The one was drawn into the circle,

and the other was suspected at length of having murdered him, until,

at the suggestion of a wizard, he went to the same place at the end

of a year and a day: then he found him dancing, and managed to get

him out. He had been reduced to a mere skeleton, but he inquired at

once if the cattle he was driving were far ahead. Jones had heard of

a child changed by the fairies when its mother had placed it in some

hay while she worked at the harvest. She discovered he was not her

own by brewing in an egg-shell, as usual. Then she refused to take any

notice of him, and she soon found her own baby returned; but the latter

looked much the worse for its sojourn in the land of the Tylwyth Teg.

My informant described to me Elis Bach of Nant Gwrtheyrn, already

mentioned, p. 221, who died somewhat more than forty years ago. His

father was a farmer there, and his children, both boys and girls,

were like ordinary folks, excepting Elis, who was deformed, his legs

being so short that his body seemed only a few inches from the ground

when he walked. His voice was also small and squeaky. However, he was

very sharp, and could find his way among the rocks pretty well when

he went in quest of his father's sheep and goats, of which there used

to be plenty there formerly. Everybody believed Elis to have been a

changeling, and one saying of his is still remembered in that part of

the country. When strangers visited Nant Gwrtheyrn, a thing which did

not frequently happen, and when his parents asked them to their table,

and pressed them to eat, he would squeak out drily, Buta 'nynna buta'r

cwbwl, that is to say, 'Eating that means eating all we have.'

He told me further that the servant girls used formerly to take care

to bring a supply of water indoors at the approach of night, that the

fairies might find plenty in which to bathe their children, for fear

that they might use the milk instead, if water was wanting. Moreover,

when they had been baking, they took care to leave the fairies both

padell and gradell, that they might do their baking in the night. The

latter used to pay for this kindness by leaving behind them a cake of

fairy bread and sometimes money on the hob. I have, however, not been

able to learn anything about the quality or taste of this fairy food.

He had also a great deal to say about the making of bonfires about the

beginning of winter. A bonfire was always kindled on the farm called

Cromlech on the eve of the Winter Calends or Nos Galan Gaeaf, as it

is termed in Welsh; and the like were to be seen in abundance towards

Llithfaen, Carnguwch, and Llanaelhaearn, as well as on the Merioneth

side of the bay. Besides fuel, each person present used to throw into

the fire a small stone, with a mark whereby he should know it again. If

he succeeded in finding the stone on the morrow, the year would be a

lucky one for him, but the contrary if he failed to recover it. Those

who assisted at the making of the bonfire watched until the flames were

out, and then somebody would raise the usual cry, when each ran away

for his life, lest he should be found last. This cry, which is a sort

of equivalent, well known over Carnarvonshire, of the English saying,

'The devil take the hindmost,' was in the Welsh of that county--

Yr hwch du gwta [84] A gipio'r ola';

that is to say, 'May the black sow without a tail seize the hindmost.'

The cutty black sow is often alluded to nowadays to frighten children

in Arfon, and it is clearly the same creature that is described in

some parts of North Wales as follows:--

Hwch du gwta A cutty black sow

Ar bob camfa On every stile,

Yn nydu a chardio Spinning and carding

Bob nos G'langaea'. Every Allhallows' Eve.

In Cardiganshire this is reduced to the words:--

Nos Galan Gaea', On Allhallows' Eve

Bwbach ar bob camfa. A bogie on every stile.

Welsh people speak of only three Calends--Calan-mai, or the first of

May; Calan-gaeaf, the Calends of Winter, or Allhallows; and Y Calan,

or The Calends par excellence, that is to say, the first day of

January, which last is probably not Celtic but Roman. The other two

most certainly are, and it is one of their peculiarities that all

uncanny spirits and bogies are at liberty the night preceding each

of them. The Hwch du gwta is at large on Allhallows' Eve, and the

Scottish Gaels have the name 'Samhanach' for any Allhallows' demon,

formed from the word Samhain, Allhallows. The eve of the first of May

may be supposed to have been the same, as may be gathered from the

story of Rhiannon's baby and of Teyrnon's colt, both of which were

stolen by undescribed demons that night--I allude to the Mabinogi of

Pwyll, Prince of Dyfed.

VI.