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Fairy Tale Stories      Children's Fairy Tales      Fairies       Faery Woodlands Magazine      Blog     About Welsh List of Fairies The information and stories on the Welsh  fairies in this list have been extracted from; Rhys, John, Celtic Folklore: Welsh and Manx (1901)and Sikes, Wirt, British Goblins (1880) Adern Y Corph A death portent in the form of a bird which sings outside the door of a person who’s going to die. Bwbchod and Bwca The Bwabach or Boobach is a Welsh house fairy of the brownie arch type. Much like many other similar fairies he tends to do good deeds for those who treat him well by giving him cream, don’t try to look at him, or guess his name. When the Bwabach is mistreated they turn into a a poltergeist like being known as the bwca and after gaining revenge flee the house which they came from in search of a new home with people who will treat them properly. At times however they refuse to leave a place and so must be exercised. Coblynau A friendly fairy of Welsh mines which leads people to rich vains of ore, often by knocking where they should dig and which helps prevent cave ins. Cyhyraeth A death portent spirit much like the banshee Ellylldan A mischievous fairy which lives in bogs and uses light to lure travlers astray. Ellyllon Welsh Elves which fit the more modern idea of fairies, they are wispy, ethreal, beautiful little creatures which eat toadstools and fairy butter (a fungus found in the roots of old trees). Yet in many stories they also appear a bit more like pixies. Gwyllion Frightful haglike fairies which haunt lonely mountain roads. Gwrach y Rhibyn Haglike fairies which act as death portents Llamhigyn Y Dwr Called the Water Leaper in English the Llamhigyn Y Dwr is described as a giant frog with a bat's wings instead of forelegs, a long tail and stinger instead of hindlegs It haunts fishermen breaking their fishing lines and while leap out of the water to eat them or livestock. Pellings (Welsh Fairy) A tribe of half-Fairies who are decended from Penelope Plant Annwn Beautiful lake fairies which have been compaired to nymphs Tolaeth Ominous sounds which act as a death portent Tylwyth Teg The fairies of Wales Adern Y Corph (Welsh Fairy) The Aderyn y Corph is a bird which chirps at the door of the person who is about to die, and makes a noise that sounds like the Welsh word for ' Come ! come ! ' the summons to death. ^ In ancient tradition, it had no feathers nor wings, soaring with- out support high in the heavens, and, when not engaged upon some earthly message, dweling in the land of illusion and phantasy.^ This corpse-bird may properly be associated with the superstition regarding the screech-owl, whose cry near a sick-bed inevitably portends death. The untimely crowing of a cock also foretells the sudden demise of some member of the family. In North Wales the cry of the golden plover is a death-omen ; these birds are called, in this connection, the whistlers.^ The same superstition prevails in Warwickshire, and the sound is called the seven whistlers. Bwbchod and Bwca (Welsh Fairy) The Bwbach, or Boobach, is the good-natured goblin which does good turns for the tidy Welsh maid who wins its favour by a certain course of behaviour recommended by long tradition. The maid having swept the kitchen, makes a good fire the last thing at night, and having put the churn, filled with cream, on the whitened hearth, with a basin of fresh cream for the Bwbach on the hob, goes to bed to await the event. In the morning she finds (if she is in luck) that the Bwbach has emptied the basin of cream, and plied the churn-dasher so well that the maid has but to give a thump or two to bring the butter in a great lump. Like the Ellyll which it so much resembles, the Bwbach does not approve of dissenters and their ways, and especially strong is its aversion to total abstainers. There was a Bwbach belonging to a certain estate in Cardiganshire, which took great umbrage at a Baptist preacher who was a guest in the house, and who was much fonder of prayers than of good ale. Now the Bwbach had a weakness in favour of people who sat around the hearth with their mugs of cwrw da and their pipes, and it took to pestering the preacher. One night it jerked the stool from under the good man's elbows, as he knelt pouring forth prayer, so that he fell down Hat on his face. Another time it interrupted the devotions by jangling the fire-irons on the hearth and it was continually making the dogs fall a-howling during prayers, or frightening the farm boy by grinning at him through the window, or throwing the maid into fits. At last it had the audacity to attack the preacher as he was crossing a field. The minister told the story in this wise 'I was reading busily in my hymn-book as I walked on, when a sudden fear came over me and my legs began to tremble. A shadow crept upon me from behind, and when I turned round--it was myself!--my person, my dress, and even my hymn-book. I looked in its face a moment, and then fell insensible to the ground.' And there, insensible still, they found him. This encounter proved too much for the good man, who considered it a warning to him to leave those parts. He accordingly mounted his horse next day and rode away. A boy of the neighbourhood, whose veracity was, like that of all boys, unimpeachable, afterwards said that lie saw the Bwbach jump up behind the preacher, on the horse's back. And the horse went like lightning, with eyes like balls of fire, and the preacher looking back over his shoulder at the Bwbach, that grinned from ear to ear. The same confusion in outlines which exists regarding our own Bogie and Hobgoblin gives the Bwbach a double character, as a household fairy and as a terrifying phantom. In both aspects it is ludicrous, but in the latter it has dangerous practices. To get into its clutches under certain circumstances is no trifling matter, for it has the power of whisking people off through the air. Its services are brought into requisition for this purpose by troubled ghosts who cannot sleep on account of hidden treasure they want removed; and if they can succeed in getting a mortal to help them in removing the treasure, they employ the Bwbach to transport the mortal through the air. This ludicrous fairy is in France represented by the gobelin. Mothers threaten children with him. 'Le gobelin vous mangera, le gobelin vous emportera.' [Père l'Abbé, 'Etymologie,' 262] In the English 'hobgoblin' we have a word apparently derived from the Welsh hob, to hop, and coblyn, a goblin, which presents a hopping goblin to the mind, and suggests the Pwca (with which the Bwbach is also confused in the popular fancy at times), but should mean in English simply the goblin of the hob, or household fairy. In its bugbear aspect, the Bwbach, like the English bogie, is believed to be identical with the Slavonic 'bog,' and the 'baga' of the Cuneiform Inscriptions, both of which are names for the Supreme Being, according to Professor Fiske. 'The ancestral form of these epithets' is found in 'the old Aryan "Bhaga," which reappears unchanged in the Sanskrit of the Vedas, and has left a memento of itself in the surname of the Phrygian Zeus " Bagaios." It seems originally to have denoted either the unclouded sun, or the sky of noonday illuminated by the solar rays. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- So the elf proved very useful to the maid, for he did everything for her— washing, ironing, spinning and twisting wool; in fact they say that he was remarkably handy at the spinning- wheel. Moreover, he expected only a bowlful of sweet milk and wheat bread, or some flummery, for his work. So she took care to place the bowl with his food at the bottom of the stairs every night as she went to bed. It ought to have been mentioned that she was never allowed to catch a sight of him ; for he always did his work in the dark. Nor did anybody know when he ate his food : she used to leave the bowl there at night, and it would be empty by the time when she got up in the morning, the bwca having cleared it. But one night, by way of cursedness, what did she do but fill the bowl with some of the stale urine which they used in dyeing wool and other things about the house. But heavens ! it would have been better for her not to have done it ; for when she got up next morning what should he do but suddenly spring from some corner and seize her by the neck! He began to beat her and kick her from one end of the house to the other, while he shouted at the top of his voice at every kick : — Y faidan din dwmp — The idea that the thick-buttocked lass y« rhoi bara haii a thrwnc Should give barley bread and p — Vr bwca ! To the bogie ! Meanwhile she screamed for help, but none came for some time ; when, however, he heard the servant men getting up, he took to his heels as hard as he could ; and nothing was heard of him for some time. But at the end of two years he was found to be at another farm in the neighbourhood, called Hafod yr Ynys, where he at once became great friends with the servant girl : for she fed him like a young chicken, by giving him a little bread and milk all the time. So he worked willingly and well for her in return for his favourite food. More especially, he used to spin and wind the yam for her ; but she wished him in time to show his face, or to tell her his name : he would by no means do either. One evening, however, when all the men were out, and when he was spinning hard at the wheel, she deceived him by telling him that she was also going out. He believed her ; and when he heard the door shutting, he began to sing as he plied the wheel : — Hi warddn iawn pe gwypa hi, How she would laugh, did she know Taw Gwarwyn-a-throt yafm enw i. That Gwarwyn-a-throt is my name ! 'Ha! ha!' said the maid at the bottom of the stairs; ' I know thy name now.' ' What is it, then ? ' he asked. She replied, ' Gwarwyn-a-throt ' ; and as soon as she uttered the words he left the wheel where it was, and off he went. He was next heard of at a farmhouse not far off, where there happened to be a servant man named Moses, with whom he became great friends at once. He did all his work for Moses with great ease. He once, however, gave him a good beating for doubt- ing his word ; but the two remained together afterwards for some years on the best possible terms : the end of it was that Moses became a soldier. He went away to fight against Richard Crookback, and fell on the field of Bosworth. The bogie, after losing his friend, began to be troublesome and difficult to live with. He would harass the oxen when they ploughed, and draw them after him everywhere, plough and all ; nor could any one prevent them. Then, when the sun set in the evening he would play his pranks again, and do all sorts of mischief about the house, upstairs, and in the cowhouses. So the farmer was advised to visit a wise man (dyji cynnil), and to see if he could devise some means of getting rid of the bogie. He called on the wise man, who happened to be living near Caerleon on the Usk ; and the wise man, having waited till the moon should be full, came to the farmer's house. In due time the wise man, by force of manoeuvring, secured the bogie by the very long nose which formed the principal ornament of his face, and earned for him the name of Bwca'r Trwyn, 'the Bogie of the Nose.' Whilst secured by the nose, the bogie had something read to him out of the wise man's big book ; and he was condemned by the wise man to be transported to the banks of the Red Sea for fourteen generations, and to be conveyed thither by ' the upper wind ' (yr uwchwynf). No sooner had this been pronounced by the cunning man than there came a whirlwind which made the whole house shake. Then came a still mightier wind, and as it began to blow the owner of the big book drew the awl out of the bogie's nose ; and it is supposed that the bogie was carried away by that wind, for he never troubled the place any more. ------------------------------------------------------ Speculation on the Bwbach by Zeluna.net (The below article his highly speculative) We see in the Bwabach the remnants of the good nature that many original fairies were said to have, mixed with the vengeful nature against those who had wronged them. Like most beings of a spiritual nature these fairies tended to put very specific demands on people. What’s unique about the Bwabach is that despite the fact that they demand that those they live with to be they hate those who refuse to drink or play around. It is of a common fairy trait to love to play games, and house fairies have tended to have varying degrees of playfulness but the Bwabach seems to be the most playful of any European house fairies outside of the Nis. Unlike the later and the Household fairies of Eastern Europe the Welsh Bwabach doesn’t seem to be an ancestral spirit, because it is willing to move from place to place in search of friendly people and because it seeks to help maids, not necessarily the members of the family. Their connection to the maids and the demands which they put on them would seem to indicate that part of their original social function was to get the maids to be industrious on the one had, while also preventing them from becoming to obsessed with their work. Which means that as with many other fairies the stories about it likely came from multiple stories (the people who hired maids and the maids themselves). Their desire for cream is interesting as Briggs asserts that cats are a form of Celtic fairy in their own right. Although the tales I’ve seen to indicate this are Scottish and Irish, this does not discount the possibility that such stories once existed among the Welsh. Further Jacob Grimm asserts that Puss in Boots was a house fairy and although that story is German/French those countries were once dominated by the Celts so some stories should remain from that era. It is highly speculative of course to think that the Bwabach might have once been related to a form of cat fairy, unfortunately however we are left with only a very few stories about them and their activities.  of them and no description of the way which they look so such speculation is all we have. Their appearance as small shaggy brown men is vague and doesn’t really indicate an animal origin. However many beings seem to have evolved in a similar manner, satyrs for example, started out with no animal features except for a horse’s tale. Sirens in Greece were depicted early on as being birds with only a women’s head but they eventually came to be portrayed in many works of art as fully human. Others have speculated that based on their appearance the fairies of the Brownie type creatures are related to the folk memory of a previous people. I tend to think that humans are creative enough to create fairies without such explanations and that these fairies evolve (or are created in the first place) to help fulfill social/emotional needs. At the same time the stories about fairies do adapt and so they can pick up the traits of humans and animals. Coblynau (Welsh Fairy) This form presents a peasant who is returning home from his work, or from a fair, when he sees a light travelling before him. Looking closer he perceives that it is carried by a dusky little figure, holding a lantern or candle at arm's length over its head. He follows it for several miles, and suddenly finds himself on the brink of a frightful precipice. From far down below there rises to his ears the sound of a foaming torrent. At the same moment the little goblin with the lantern springs across the chasm, alighting on the opposite side ; raises the light again high over its head, utters a loud and macious laugh, blows out its candle and disappears up the opposite hill, leaving the awestruck peasant to get home as best he can.  Under the general title of Coblynau I class the fairies which haunt the mines, quarries and under- ground regions of Wales, corresponding to the cabalistic Gnomes. The word coblyn has the double meaning of knocker or thumper and sprite or fiend ; and may it not be the original of goblin ? It is applied by Welsh miners to pigmy fairies which dwell in the mines, and point out, by a peculiar knocking or rapping, rich veins of ore. The faith is extended, in some parts, so as to cover the indi- cation of subterranean treasures generally, in caves and secret places of the mountains. The cobly'nau are described as being about half a yard in height and very ugly to look upon, but extremely good- natured, and warm friends of the miner. Their dress is a grotesque imitation of the miner's garb, and they carry tiny hammers, picks and lamps. They work busily, loading ore in buckets, flitting about the shafts, turning tiny windlasses, and pound- ing away like madmen, but really accomplishing nothing whatever. They have been known to throw stones at the miners, when enraged at being lightly spoken of; but the stones are harmless. Nevertheless, all miners of a proper spirit refrain from provoking them, because their presence brings good luck. Miners are possibly no more superstitious than other men of equal intelligence ; I have heard some of their number repel indignantly the idea that they are superstitious at all ; but this would simply be to raise them above the level of our common humanity. There is testimony enough, besides, to support my own conclusions, which accredit a liberal share of credulity to the mining class. The Oswestry Adver- tiser, a short time ago, recorded the fact that, at Cefn, *a woman is employed as messenger at one of the collieries, and as she commences her duty early each morning she meets great numbers of colliers going to their work. Some of them, we are gravely assured, consider it a bad omen to meet a woman first thing in the morning ; and not having succeeded in deterring her from her work by other means, they waited upon the manager and declared that they should remain at home unless the woman was dismissed.' This was in 1874. In June, 1878, the South Wales Daily News recorded a superstition of the quarrymen at Penrhyn, where some thousands of men refused to work on Ascension Day. ' This refusal did not arise out of any reverential feeling, but from an old and wide-spread superstition, which has lingered in that district for years, that if work is continued on Ascension Day an accident will certainly follow. A few years ago the agents persuaded the men to break through the supersti- tion, and there were accidents each year — a not unlikely occurrence, seeing the extent of works carried on, and the dangerous nature of the occupa- tion of the men. This year, however, the men, one and all, refused to work.' These are examples dealing with considerable numbers of the mining class, and are quoted in this instance as being more significant than individual cases would be. Of these last I have encountered many. It can hardly be cause for wonder that the miner should be superstitious. His life is passed in a dark and gloomy region, fathoms below the earth's green surface, surrounded by walls on which dim lamps shed a fitful light. It is not surprising that imagination (and the Welsh imagination is pecu- liarly vivid) should conjure up the faces and forms of gnomes and coblynau, of phantoms and fairy men. When they hear the mysterious thumping which they know is not produced by any human being, and when in examining the place where the noise was heard they find there are really valuable indications of ore, the sturdiest incredulity must sometimes be shaken. Science points out that the noise may be produced by the action of water upon the loose stones in fissures and pot-holes of the mountain limestone, and does actually suggest the presence of metals. In the days before a Priestley had caught and bottled that demon which exists in the shape of carbonic acid gas, when the miner was smitten dead by an invisible foe in the deep bowels of the earth it was natural his awe-struck companions should ascribe the mysterious blow to a supernatural enemy. When the workman was assailed suddenly by what we now call fire-damp, which hurled him and his companions right and left upon the dark rocks, scorching, burning, and killing, those who survived were not likely to question the existence of the mine fiend. Hence arose the superstition — now probably quite extinct — of basilisks in the mines, which destroyed with their terrible gaze. When the explanation came, that the thing which killed the miner was what he breathed, not what he saw ; and when chemistry took the fire-damp from the domain of faerie, the basilisk and the fire fiend had not a leg to stand on. The explanation of the Knockers is more recent, and less palpable and convincing. The Coblynau are always given the form of dwarfs, in the popular fancy ; never seen or heard, they are believed to have escaped from the mines or the secret regions of the mountains. Their homes are hidden from mortal vision. When encountered, either in the mines or on the mountains, they have strayed from their special abodes, which are as spectral as themselves. There is at least one account extant of their secret territory having been revealed to mortal eyes. I find it in a quaint volume (of which I shall have more to say), printed at Newport, Monmouthshire, in 1813.^ It relates that one William Evans, of Hafodafel, while crossing the Beacon Mountain very early in the morning, passed a fairy coal mine, where fairies were busily at work. Some were cutting the coal, some carrying it to fill the sacks, some raising the loads upon the horses' backs, and so on ; but all in the completest silence. He thought this 'a wonderful extra natural thing,' and was considerably impressed by it, for well he knew that there really was no coal mine at that place. He was a person of ' undoubted veracity,' and what is more, ' a great man in the world — above telling an untruth.' That the Coblynau sometimes wandered far from home, the same chronicler testifies ; but on these occasions they were taking a holiday. Egbert Williams, 'a pious young gentleman of Denbigh- shire, then at school,' was one day playing in a field called Cae Caled, in the parish of Bodfari, with three girls, one of whom was his sister. Near the stile beyond Lanelwyd House they saw a company of fifteen or sixteen coblynau engaged in dancing madly. They were in the middle of the field, about seventy yards from the spectators, and they danced something after the manner of Morris-dancers, but with a wildness and swiftness in their motions. They were clothed in red like British soldiers, and wore red handkerchiefs spotted with yellow wound round their heads. And a strange circumstance about them was that although they were almost as big as ordinary men, yet they had unmistakably the appearance of dwarfs, and one could call them nothing but dwarfs. Presently one of them left the company and ran towards the group near the stile, who were direfully scared thereby, and scrambled in great fright to go over the stile. Barbara Jones got over first, then her sister, and as Egbert Williams was helping his sister over they saw the coblyn close upon them, and barely got over when his hairy hand was laid on the stile. He stood leaning on it, gazing after them as they ran, with a grim copper-coloured countenance and a fierce look. The young people ran to Lanelwyd House and called the elders out, but though they hurried quickly to the field the dwarfs had already disappeared. The counterparts of the Coblynau are found in most mining countries. In Germany, the Wichtlein (little Wights) are little old long-bearded men, about three-quarters of an ell high, which haunt the mines of the southern land. The Bohemians call the Wichtlein by the name of Haus-schmiedlein, little House-smiths, from their sometimes making a noise as if labouring hard at the anvil. They are not so popular as in Wales, however, as they predict misfortune or death. They announce the doom of a miner by knocking three times distinctly, and when any lesser evil is about to befall him they are heard digging, pounding, and imitating other kinds of work. In Germany also the kobolds are rather troublesome than otherwise, to the miners, taking pleasure in frustrating their objects, and rendering their toil unfruitful. Sometimes they are down- right malignant, especially if neglected or insulted, but sometimes also they are indulgent to individuals whom they take under their protection. * When a miner therefore hit upon a rich vein of ore, the inference commonly was not that he possessed more skill, industry, or even luck than his fellow-workmen, but that the spirits of the mine had directed him to the treasure.'  The intimate connection between mine fairies and the whole race of dwarfs is constantly met through- out the fairy mythology ; and the connection of the dwarfs with the mountains is equally universal. ' God/ says the preface to the Heldenbuch, * gave the dwarfs being, because the land and the mountains were altogether waste and uncultivated, and there was much store of silver and gold and precious stones and pearls still in the mountains.' From the most ancient times, and in the oldest countries, down to our own time and the new world of America, I the traditions are the same. The old Norse belief *; which made the dwarfs the current machinery of the northern Sagas is echoed in the Catskill Moun- tains with the rolling of the thunder among the crags where Hendrik Hudson's dwarfs are playing I ninepins....... Cwn Annwn Welsh Fairy The Gwyllgi finds its counterpart in the Mauthe Doog of the Isle of Man and the Shock of the Norfolk coast. It there comes up out of the sea and travels about in the lanes at night. To meet it is a sign of trouble and death. The Gwyllgi also is confined to sea-coast parishes mainly, and although not classed among death-omens, to look on it is deemed dangerous. The hunting dogs, Cwn Annwn, or dogs of hell, whose habitat is the sky overhead, have also other attributes which distinguish them clearly from the Gwyllgi. They are death-omens, ancient of lineage and still encountered. The Gwyllgi, while suggesting some interesting com- parisons with the old mythology, appears to have lost vogue since smuggling ceased to be profitable. Confined to the coast, too, are those stories of phantom ships and phantom islands which, too familiar to merit illustration here, have their origin in the mirage. That they also touch the ancient mythology is undoubted ; but their source in the mirage is probably true of the primeval belief as well as of the medieval, and that of our time. The Chinese also have the mirage, but not its scientific explanation, and hence of course their belief in its supernatural character is undisturbed. There are death portents In every country, and in endless variety ; in Wales these portents assume distinct and striking individual ties, in great number and with clearly defined attributes. The banshee, according to Mr. Baring-Gould, has no correspond- ing feature in Scandinavian, Teutonic, or classic mythology, and belongs entirely to the Celts. The Welsh have the banshee in its most blood-curdling form under the name of the Gwrach y Rhibyn ; they have also the Cyhyraeth, which Is never seen, but Is heard, moaning dolefully and dreadfully in the night ; the Tolaeth, also only heard, not groaning but Imitating some earthly sound, such as sawing, singing, or the tramping of feet ; the Cwn Annwn and Cwn y Wybr, Dogs of Hell and Dogs of the Sky ; the Canwyll Corph, or Corpse Candle ; the Teulu, or Goblin Funeral, and many others — all of them death-portents. These, as the more Important and striking, I will describe further ; but there are several others which must first be mentioned. The death portent called Cwn Annwn, or Dogs of Hell, is a pack of hounds which howl through the air with a voice frightfully disproportionate to their size, full of a wild sort of lamentation. There is a tradition that one of them once fell on a tomb- stone, but no one was able to secure it. A pecu- liarity of these creatures is that the nearer they are to a man the less loud their voice sounds, resembling then the voice of small beagles, and the farther off they are the louder is their cry. Sometimes a voice like that of a great hound is heard sounding among them — a deep hollow voice, as if it were the voice of a monstrous bloodhound. Although terrible to hear, and certain portents of death, they are in themselves harmless. ' They have never been known,' says a most respectable authority,^ *to commit any mischief on the persons of either man or woman, goat, sheep, or cow.' Sometimes they are called Cwn y Wybr, or Dogs of the Sky, but the mo sulphreurous name is the favourite one. They are also sometimes called Dogs of the Fairies. Their origin in fairyland is traced to the famous mabinogi of Pwyll, Prince of Dyfed ; but in that fascinating tale of enchantment their right to be called Cwn Annwn is clearly set forth, for they are there the hounds of a King of Annwn. There are several translations of this mabinogi in existence, and its popularity in South Wales is great, for the villages, vales, and streams mentioned in it are familiar to residents in Pembroke, Carmarthen, and Cardigan shires. Pwyll, the Prince, was at Nar- berth, where was his chief palace, when he went one day to a wood in Glyn Cych. Here ' he sounded his horn and began to enter upon the chase, following his dogs and separating from his companions. And as he was listening to the cry of his pack, he could distinctly hear the cry of another pack, different from that of his own, and which was coming in an opposite direction. He could also discern an opening in the woods towards a level plain ; and as his pack was entering the skirt of the opening he perceived a stag before the other pack, and about the middle of the glade the pack in the rear coming up and throwing the stag on the ground. Upon this he fixed his attention on the colour of the pack, without recollecting to look at the stag : and of all the hounds in the world he had ever seen he never saw any like them in colour. Their colour was a shining clear white, with red ears ; and the whiteness of the dogs and the redness of their ears were equally conspicuous.'* They were the hounds of Arawn, a crowned king in the land of Annwn, the shadow-land of Hades. The Cwn Annwn are sometimes held to be the hell-hounds which hunt through the air the soul of the wicked man, the instant it quits the body — a truly terrific idea to the vulgar mind. The Prophet Jones has several accounts of them : Thomas Phillips, of Trelech parish, heard them with the voice of the great dog sounding among them, and noticed that they followed a course that was never followed by funerals, which surprised him very much, as he had always heard that the Dogs of the Sky invariably went the same way that the corpse was to follow. Not long after a woman from an adjoining parish died at Trelech, and being carried to her own parish church to be buried, her corpse did actually pass the same way in which the spirit dogs had been heard to hunt. Thomas Andrew, of the parish of Llanhiddel, heard them one night as he was coming home. ' He heard them coming towards him, though he saw them not.' Their cry grew fainter as they drew near him, passed him, and louder again as they went from him. They went down the steeps towards the river Ebwy. And Thomas Andrew was * a religious man, who would not have told an untruth for fear or for favour.' That the Cwn Annwn are descendants of the wish-hound of Hermes, hardly admits of doubt. The same superstition prevails among all Aryan peoples, with details differing but little. The souls of the dying are carried away by the howling winds, the dogs of Hermes, in the ancient mytho- logy as in surviving beliefs ; on this follows the custom of opening the windows at death, so that the released soul may escape. In Devonshire they say no soul can escape from the house in which its body dies, unless all the locks and bolts are opened. In China a hole is made in the roof for a like purpose. The early Aryan conception of the wind as a howl- ing dog or wolf speeding over the house-tops caused the inmates to tremble with fear, lest their souls should be called to follow them. It must be con- stantly borne in mind that all these creatures of fancy were more or less interchangeable, and the god Hermes was at times his own dog, which escorted the soul to the river Styx. The winds were now the maruts, or spirits of the breeze, serving Indra, the sky-god ; again they were the great psychopomp himself. The peasant who to-day tells you that dogs can see death enter the house where a person is about to die, merely repeats the idea of a primeval man whose ignorance of physical science was complete.   Cyhyraeth (Welsh Fairy) A death-portent which is often confused with the Gwrach y Rhibyn, yet which is rendered quite dis- tinct by its special attributes, is the Cyhyraeth. This is a groaning spirit. It is never seen, but the noise it makes is no less terrible to the ear than the ^ Avagddu means both hell and the devil, as our word Heaven means both the Deity and his abode. appearance of Its visible sister Is to the eye. Among groaning spirits It Is considered to be the chief. The Prophet Jones succinctly characterises It as ' a dole- ful, dreadful noise In the night, before a burying.' David Prosser, of Llanybyther parish, ' a sober, sen- sible man and careful to tell the truth,' once heard the Cyhyraeth in the early part of the night, his wife and maid-servant being together In the house, and also hearing it ; and when it came opposite the window. It ' pronounced these strange words, of no signification that we know of,' viz. ' Woolach I Woolach I ' Some time afterward a funeral passed that way. The judicious Joshua Coslet, who lived by the river Towy in Carmarthenshire, testified that the Cyhyraeth Is often heard there, and that it is ' a doleful, disagreeable sound heard before the deaths of many, and most apt to be heard before foul weather. The voice resembles the groaning of sick persons who are to die ; heard at first at a dis- tance, then comes nearer, and the last near at hand ; so that it Is a threefold warning of death. It begins strong, and louder than a sick man can make ; the second cry is lower, but not less doleful, but rather more so ; the third yet lower, and soft, like the groaning of a sick man almost spent and dying.' A person 'well remembering the voice' and coming to the sick man's bed, 'shall hear his groans exactly like' those which he had before heard from the Cyhyraeth. This crying spirit especially affected the twelve parishes in the hundred of Inis Cenin, which lie on the south-east side of the river Towy, * where some time past it groaned before the death of every person who lived that side of the country.' It also sounded before the death of persons 'who were born in these parishes, but died elsewhere.' Sometimes the voice is heard long before death, but not longer than three quarters of a year. So com- mon was it in the district named, that among the people there a familiar form of reproach to any one making a disagreeable noise, or ' children crying or groaning unreasonable,' was to ejaculate, ' Oh 'r Cyhyraeth ! ' A reason why the Cyhyraeth was more often heard in the hundred of Inis Cenin was thought to be that Non, the mother of St. David, lived in those parts, where a village is called after her name, Llan-non, the church of Non. On the southern sea-coast, in Glamorganshire, the Cyhyraeth is sometimes heard by the people in the villages on shore passing down the channel with loud moans, while those dismal lights which forebode a wreck are seen playing along the waves. Watchers by the sea-shore have also heard its moan far out on the ocean, gradually drawing nearer and nearer, and then dying away ; and when they thought it gone it has suddenly shrieked close to their startled ears, chilling their very marrows. Then, long after, they would hear it, now faint, now loud, going along the sands into the distant darkness. One or more corpses were usually washed ashore soon after. In the villages the Cyhyraeth is heard passing through the empty streets and lanes by night, groaning dismally, sometimes rattling the window-shutters, or flinging open the door as it flits by. When going along the country lanes it will thus horrify the inmates of every house it passes. Some old people say it is only heard before the death of such as are of strayed mind, or who have long been ill ; but it always comes when an epidemic is about to visit the neighbour- hood. A tradition of the Cyhyraeth is connected with the parish churchyard at St. Mellons, a quaint old- fashioned village within easy tramping distance of Cardiff, but in Monmouthshire. It is of a boy who was sent on an errand, and who heard the Cyhyraeth crying in the churchyard, first in one place, then in another, and finally in a third place, where it rested. Some time after, a corpse was brought to that churchyard to be buried, but some person came and claimed the grave. They went to another place, but that also was claimed. Then they went to a third place, and there they were allowed to bury their dead in peace. And this going about with the corpse was *just the same as the boy declared it.' Of course the boy could not know what was to come to pass, * but this crying spirit knew exactly what would come to pass.' I was also told by a person at St. Mellons that a ghost had been seen sitting upon the old stone cross which stands on the hillside near the church. Other groaning spirits are sometimes heard. A girl named Mary Morgan, living near Crumlyn Bridge, while standing on the bridge one evening was seized with mortal terror on hearing a groaning voice going up the river, uttering the words, * O Dduw, beth a wnaf fi ?' (O God, what shall I do ?) many times repeated, amid direful groans. The conclusion of this narration is a hopeless mystery, as Mary fainted away with her fright. This was at Evansville, Indiana, and the banshee had appeared before the deaths of five members of a family, the last of whom was the father. His name was Feast, and the circumstances attending the banshee's visits were gravely described in a local journal as a matter of news. Less dis- tinguished death-portents are common enough in the United States. That the Cambrian portents are so picturesque and clearly defined must be considered strong testimony to the vivid imagination of the Welsh. Figures born of the fancy, as distinguished from creatures born of the flesh, prove their parent- age by the vagueness of their outlines. The outlines of the Cyhyraeth and the Gwrach y Rhibyn some- times run into and mingle with each other, and so do those of the Tolaeth and the Goblin Funeral ; but the wonder is they are such distinct entities as they are. Ellylldan (Welsh Fairy) The Ellylldan is a species of elf exactly corre- sponding to the English Will-o'-wisp, the Scandi- navian Lyktgubhe, and the Breton Sand Yan y Tad. The Welsh word dan means fire ; dan also means a lure ; the compound word suggests a luring elf- fire. The Breton Sand Yan y Tad (St. John and Father)^ is a double ignis fatuus fairy, carrying at its finger-ends five lights, which spin round like a wheel. The negroes of the southern seaboard states of America invest this goblin with an exagge- ration of the horrible peculiarly their own. They call it Jack-muh-lantern, and describe it as a hideous creature five feet in height, with goggle-eyes and huge mouth, its body covered with long hair, and which goes leaping and bounding through the air like a gigantic grasshopper. This frightful appari- tion is stronger than any man, and swifter than any horse, and compels its victims to follow it into the swamp, where it leaves them to die. ^ Like all goblins of this class, the Ellylldan was;^ of course, seen dancing about in marshy grounds, into which it led the belated wanderer; but, as a distinguished resident in Wales has wittily said, the poor elf ' is now starved to death, and his breath is taken from him ; his light is quenched for ever by the improving farmer, who has drained the bog; and, instead of the rank decaying vegetation of the autumn, where bitterns and snipes delighted to secrete themselves, crops of corn and potatoes are grown/ ^ A poetic account by a modern character, called lolo the Bard, is thus condensed : * One night, when the moon had gone down, as I was sitting on a hill-top, the Ellylldan passed by. I followed it into the valley. We crossed plashes of water where the tops of bulrushes peeped above, and where the lizards lay silently on the surface, looking at us with an unmoved stare. The frogs sat croaking and swelling their sides, but ceased as they raised a melancholy eye at the Ellylldan. The wild fowl, sleeping with their heads under their wings, made a low cackle as we went by. A bittern awoke and rose with a scream into the air. I felt the trail of the eels and leeches peering about, as I waded through the pools. On a slimy stone a toad sat sucking poison from the night air. The Ellylldan glowed bravely in the slumbering vapours. It rose airily over the bushes that drooped in the ooze. When I lingered or stopped, it waited for me, but dwindled gradually away to a speck barely per- ceptible. But as soon as I moved on again, it would shoot up suddenly and glide before. A bat came flying round and round us, flapping its wings heavily. Screech-owls stared silently at us with their broad eyes. Snails and worms crawled about. The fine threads of a spider's web gleamed in the light of the Ellylldan. Suddenly it shot away from me, and in the distance joined a ring of its fellows, who went dancing slowly round and round in a goblin dance, which sent me off to sleep.' ^ Pwca, or Pooka, is but another name for the Ellyll- dan, as our Puck is another name for the Will-o'- wisp ; but in both cases the shorter term has a more poetic flavour and a wider latitude. The name Puck was originally applied to the whole race of English fairies, and there still be few of the realm who enjoy a wider popularity than Puck, in spite of his mischievous attributes. Part of this popularity is due to the poets, especially to Shakspeare. I have alluded to the bard's accurate knowledge of Vv^elsh folk-lore ; the subject is really one of unique interest, in view of the inaccuracy charged upon him as to the English fairyland. There is a Welsh tradition to the effect that Shakspeare received his knowledge of the Cambrian fairies from his friend Richard Price, son of Sir John Price, of the priory of Brecon. It is even claimed that Cwm Pwca, or Puck Valley, a part of the romantic glen of the Clydach, in Breconshire, is the original scene of the * Midsummer Night's Dream ' — a fancy as light and airy as Puck himself.^ Anyhow, there Cwm Pwca is, and in the sylvan days, before Frere and Powells ironworks were set up there, it is said to have been as full of goblins as a Methodist's head is of piety. And there are in Wales other places bearing like names, where Pwca's pranks are well remembered by old inhabitants. Ellyllon (Welsh Fairy) The Ellyllon are the pigmy elves who haunt the groves and valleys, and correspond pretty closely with the English elves. The English name was probably derived from the Welsh el, a spirit, elf, an element ; there is a whole brood of words of this class in the Welsh language, expressing every variety of flowing, gliding, spirituality, devilry, angelhood, and goblinism. Ellyllon (the plural of ellyll), is also doubtless allied with the Hebrew Elilim, having with it an identity both of origin and meaning.^ The poet Davydd ab Gwilym, in a humorous account of his troubles in a mist, in the year 1340, says : Yr ydoedd ym mhob gobant Ellyllon mingeimion gant. There was in every hollow A hundred wrymouthed elves. The hollows, or little dingles, are still the places where the peasant, belated on his homeward way from fair or market, looks for the ellyllon, but fails to find them. Their food is specified in Welsh folk-lore as fairy butter and fairy victuals, ymenyn tylwyth teg and bwyd ellyllon ; the latter the toad- stool, or poisonous mushroom, and the former a butter-resembling substance found at great depths in the crevices of limestone rocks, in sinking for lead ore. Their gloves, menyg ellyllon, are the bells of the digitalis, or fox-glove, the leaves of which are well known to be a strong sedative. Their queen — for though there is no fairy-queen in the large sense that Gwyn ap Nudd is the fairy-king, there is a queen of the elves — is none other than the Shakspearean fairy spoken of by Mercutio, who comes In shape no bigger than an agate- stone On the forefinger of an alderman.^ Shakspeare's use of Welsh folk-lore, it should be noted, was extensive and peculiarly faithful. Keightley in his ' Fairy Mythology ' rates the bard soundly for his inaccurate use of English fairy superstitions ; but the reproach will not apply as regards Wales. From his Welsh informant Shak- speare got Mab, which is simply the Cymric for a little child, and the root^ of numberless words signi- fying babyish, childish, love for children (mabgar), kitten (mabgath), prattling (mabiaith), and the like, most notable of all which in this connection is rrvabinogi, the singular of Mabinogion, the romantic tales of enchantment told to the young in by-gone ages. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "Then where is your harp ? A Welshman even cannot dance without a harp." '' Oh," said the little man, '' I can discourse better dance music upon my fiddle." " Is it a fiddle you call that stringed wooden spoon in your hand ? " asked Tudur, for he had never seen such an instru- ment before. And now Tudur beheld through the dusk hundreds of pretty little sprites converging towards the spot where they stood, from all parts of the mountain. Some were dressed in white, and some in blue, and some in pink, and some carried glow-worms in their hands for torches. And so lightly did they tread that not a blade nor a flower was crushed beneath their weight, and every one made a curtsey or a bow to Tudur as they passed, and Tudur doffed his cap and moved to them in return. Presently the little minstrel drew his bow across the strings of his instrument, and the music produced was so enchanting that Tudur stood trans- fixed to the spot.' At the sound of the sweet melody, the Tylwyth Teg ranged themselves in groups, and began to dance. Now of all the dancing Tudur had ever seen, none was to be compared to that he saw at this moment going on. He could not help keeping time with his hands and feet to the merry music, but he dared not join in the dance, ' for he thought within himself that to dance on a mountain at night in strange company, to perhaps the devil's fiddle, might not be the most direct route to heaven.' But at last he found there was no resist- ing this bewitching strain, joined to the sight of the capering Ellyllon. ' '* Now for it, then," screamed Tudur, as he pitched his cap into the air under the excitement of delight. *' Play away, old devil ; brimstone and water, if you like ! " No sooner were the words uttered than everything underwent a change. The gorse-blossom cap vanished from the minstrel's head, and a pair of goat's horns branched out instead. His face turned as black as soot ; a long tail grew out of his leafy coat, while cloven feet replaced the beetle-wing pumps. Tudur's heart was heavy, but his heels were light. Horror was in his bosom, but the impetus of motion was in his feet. The fairies changed into a variety of forms. Some became goats, and some became dogs, some assumed the shape of foxes, and others that of cats. It was the strangest crew that ever surrounded a human being. The dance became at last so furious that Tudur could not distinctly make out the forms of the dancers. They reeled around him with such rapidity that they almost resembled a wheel of fire. Still Tudur danced on. He could not stop, the devil's fiddle was too much for him, as the figure with the goat's horns kept pouring it out with unceasing vigour, and Tudur kept reeling around in spite of himself. Next day Tudur's master ascended the mountain in search of the lost shepherd and his sheep. He found the sheep all right at the foot of the Fron, but fancy his astonishment when, ascend- ing higher, he saw Tudur spinning like mad in the middle of the basin now known as Nant yr Ellyllon.' Some pious words of the master broke the charm, and restored Tudur to his home in Llangollen, where he told his adventures with great gusto for Many years afterwards.^ IX. Polly Williams, a good dame who was born in Trefethin parish, and lived at the Ship Inn, at Pontypool, Monmouthshire, was wont to relate that, when a child, she danced with the Tylwyth Teg. The first time was one day while coming home from school. She saw the fairies dancing in a pleasant, dry place, under a crab-tree, and, thinking they were children like herself, went to them, when they induced her to dance with them. She brought them into an empty barn and they danced there together. After that, during three or four years, she often met and danced with them, when going to or coming from school. She never could hear the sound of their feet, and having come to know that they were fairies, took off her ffollachau (clogs), so that she, too, might make no noise, fearful that the clattering of her clog-shodden feet was displeasing to them. They were all dressed in blue and green aprons, and, though they were so small, she could see by their mature faces that they were no children. Once when she came home barefoot, after dancing with the fairies, she was chided for going to school in that condition ; but she held her tongue about the fairies, for fear of trouble, and never told of them till after she grew up. She gave over going with them to dance, however, after three or four years, and this displeased them. They tried to coax her back to them, and, as she would not come, hurt her by dislocating 'one of her walking members,'^ which, as a euphemism for legs, surpasses anything charged against American prudery. Contrasting strongly with this matter-of-fact account of a modern witness is the glowing descrip- tion of fairy life contained in the legend of the Fairies of Frennifawr. About ten miles south of Cardigan is the Pembrokeshire mountain called Frennifawr, which is the scene of this tale : A shepherd's lad was tending his sheep on the small mountains called Frennifach one fine morning in June. Looking to the top of Frennifawr to note what way the fog hung — for if the fog on that mountain hangs on the Pembrokeshire side, there will be fair weather, if on the Cardigan side, storm — he saw the Tylwyth Teg, in appearance like tiny soldiers, dancing in a ring. He set out for the scene of revelry, and soon drew near the ring where, in a gay company of males and females, they were footing it to the music of the harp. Never had he seen such handsome people..... Gwyllion (Welsh Fairy) The Gwyllion are female fairies of frightful charac- teristics, who haunt lonely roads in the Welsh mountains, and lead night-wanderers astray. They partake somewhat of the aspect of the Hecate of Greek mythology, who rode on the storm, and was a hag of horrid guise. The Welsh word gwyll is variously used to signify gloom, shade, duskiness, a hag, a witch, a fairy, and a goblin ; but its special application is to these mountain fairies of gloomy and harmful habits, as distinct from the Ellyllon of the forest glades and dingles, which are more often beneficent. The Gwyllion take on a more distinct individuality under another name — as the Ellyllon do in mischievous Puck — and the Old Woman of the Mountain typifies all her kind. She is very carefully described by the Prophet J ones, ^ in the guise in which she haunted Llanhyddel Mountain in Monmouthshire. This was the semblance of a poor old woman, with an oblong four-cornered hat, ash-coloured clothes, her apron thrown across her shoulder, with a pot or wooden can in her hand, such as poor people carry to fetch milk with, always going before the spectator, and sometimes crying * Wow up ! ' This is an English form of a Welsh cry of distress, * Wwb ! * or ' Ww-bwb ! ' ^ Those who saw this apparition, whether by night or on a misty day, would be sure to lose their way, though they might be perfectly familiar with the road. Some- times they heard her cry, ' Wow up ! ' when they did not see her. Sometimes when they went out by night, to fetch coal, water, etc., the dwellers near that mountain would hear the cry very close to them, and immediately after they would hear it | afar off, as if it were on the opposite mountain, in the parish of Aberystruth. The popular tradition in that district was that the Old Woman of the Mountain was the spirit of one Juan White, who | lived time out of mind in those parts, and was thought to be a witch ; because the mountains were not haunted in this manner until after Juan White's ' death.^ When people first lost their way, and saw I her before them, they used to hurry forward and try i to catch her, supposing her to be a flesh-and-blood ] woman, who could set them right ; but they never could overtake her, and she on her part never looked back ; so that no man ever saw her face. ; She has also been seen in the Black Mountain in I Breconshire. Robert Williams, of Langattock, Crick- | howel, ' a substantial man and of undoubted veracity,' I tells this tale : As he was travelling one night over part of the Black Mountain, he saw the Old Woman, and at the same time found he had lost i his way. Not knowing her to be a spectre he ; hallooed to her to stay for him, but receiving no j answer thought she was deaf. He then hastened his steps, thinking to overtake her, but the faster he ran the further he found himself behind her, at which he wondered very much, not knowing the reason of it. He presently found himself stumbling in a marsh, at which discovery his vexation increased ; and then he heard the Old Woman laughing at him with a weird, uncanny, crackling old laugh. This set him to thinking she might be a gwyll ; and when he happened to draw out his knife for some purpose, and the Old Woman vanished, then he was sure of it ; for Welsh ghosts and fairies are afraid of a knife. Another account relates that John ap John, of Cwm Celyn, set out one morning before daybreak to walk to Caerleon Fair. As he ascended Milfre Mountain he heard a shouting behind him as if it were on Bryn Mawr, which is a part of the Black Mountain in Breconshire. Soon after he heard the shouting on his left hand, at Bwlch y Llwyn, nearer to him, whereupon he was seized with a great fright, and began to suspect it was no human voice. He had already been wondering, indeed, what any one could be doing at that hour in the morning, shouting on the mountain side. Still going on, he came up higher on the mountain, when he heard the shouting just before him, at Gilfach fields, to the right — and now he was sure it was the Old Woman of the Mountain, who purposed leading him astray. Presently he heard behind him the noise of a coach, and with it the special cry of the Old Woman of the Mountain, viz., ' Wow up ! ' Knowing very well hat no coach could go that way, and still hearing its noise approaching nearer and nearer, he became thoroughly terrified, and running out of the road threw himself down upon the ground and buried his face in the heath, waiting for the phantom to pass. When it was gone out of hearing, he arose ; and hearing the birds singing as the day began to break, also seeing some sheep before him, his fear went quite off. And this, says the Prophet Jones, was ' no profane, immoral man,* but ' an honest, peace- able, knowing man, and a very comely person ' more- over. The exorcism by knife appears to be a Welsh notion ; though there is an old superstition of wide prevalence in Europe that to give to or receive from a friend a knife or a pair of scissors cuts friend- ship. I have even encountered this superstition in America; once an editorial friend at Indianapolis gave me a very handsome pocket-knife, which he refused to part with except at the price of one cent, lawful coin of the realm, asserting that we should become enemies without this precaution. In China, too, special charms are associated with knives, and a knife which has slain a fellow-being is an invaluable possession. In Wales, according to Jones, the Gwyllion often came into the houses of the people at Aberystruth, especially in stormy weather, and the inmates made them welcome — not through any love they bore them, but through fear of the hurts the Gwyllion might inflict if offended — by providing clean water for them, and taking especial care that no knife, or other cutting tool, should be in the corner near the fire, where the fairies would go to sit. ' For want of which care many were hurt by them.' While it was desirable to exorcise them when in the open air, it was not deemed prudent to display an inhospitable spirit towards any member of the fairy world. The cases of successful exorcism by knife are many, and no- thing in the realm of faerie is better authenticated. There was Evan Thomas, who, travelling by night over Bedwellty Mountain, towards the valley of Ebwy Fawr, where his house and estate were, saw the Gwyllion on each side of him, some of them dancing around him in fantastic fashion. He also heard the sound of a bugle-horn winding in the air, and there seemed to be invisible hunters riding by. He then began to be afraid, but recollected his having heard that any person seeing Gwyllion may drive them away by drawing out a knife. So he drew out his knife, and the fairies vanished directly. Now Evan Thomas was * an old gentleman of such strict veracity that he ' on one occasion ' did confess a truth against himself,' when he was 'like to suffer loss ' thereby, and notwithstanding he ' was per- suaded by some not to do it, yet he would persist in telling the truth, to his own hurt.' Jones says that the Old Woman of the Mountain has, since about 1800, (at least in South Wales,) been driven into close quarters by the light of the Gospel — in fact, that she now haunts mines — or in the preacher's formal words, 'the coal-pits and holes of the earth.' Among the traditions of the origin of the Gwyllion is one which associates them with goats. Goats are in Wales held in peculiar esteem for their supposed occult intellectual powers. They are believed to be on very good terms with the Tylwyth Teg, and possessed of more knowledge than their appear- ance indicates. It is one of the peculiarities of the Tylwyth Teg that every Friday night they comb the goats' beards to make them decent for Sunday. Their association with the GwylHon is related in the legend of Cadwaladr's goat : Cadwaladr owned a very handsome goat, named Jenny, of which he was extremely fond ; and which seemed equally fond of him ; but one day, as if the very diawl possessed her, she ran away into the hills, with Cadwaladr tearing after her, half mad with anger and affright. At last his Welsh blood got so hot, as the goat eluded him again and again, that he flung a stone at her, which knocked her over a pre- cipice, and she fell bleating to her doom. Cadwaladr made his way to the foot of the crag ; the goat was dying, but not dead, and licked his hand — which so affected the poor man that he burst into tears, and sitting on the ground took the goat's head on his arm. The moon rose, and still he sat there. Presently he found that the goat had become trans- formed to a beautiful young woman, whose brown eyes, as her head lay on his arm, looked into his in a very disturbing way. * Ah, Cadwaladr,' said she, * have I at last found you ?* Now Cadwaladr had a wife at home, and was much discomfited by this singular circumstance ; but when the goat — yn awr maiden — arose, and putting her black slipper on the end of a moonbeam, held out her hand to him, he put his hand in hers and went with her.   Gwrach y Rhibyn (Welsh Fairy) A frightful figure among Welsh apparitions is the Gwrach y Rhibyn, whose crowning distinction is its prodigious ugliness. The feminine pronoun is generally used in speaking of this goblin, which unlike the majority of its kind, is supposed to be a female. A Welsh saying, regarding one of her sex who is the reverse of lovely, is, ' Y mae mor salw a Gwrach y Rhibyn,' (She is as ugly as the \ Gwrach y Rhibyn.) The spectre is a hideous being I with dishevelled hair, long black teeth, long, lank, withered arms, leathern wings, and a cadaverous appearance. In the stillness of night it comes and flaps its wings against the window, uttering at the same time a blood-curdling howl, and calling by name on the person who is to die, in a lengthened dying tone, as thus : ' Da-a-a-vy ! ' ' De-i-i-o-o-o ba-a-a-ch 1' The effect of its shriek or howl is in- describably terrific, and its sight blasting to the eyes of the beholder. It is always an omen of ; death, though its warning cry is heard under vary- ing circumstances ; sometimes it appears in the mist "! on the mountain side, or at cross-roads, or by a piece of water which it splashes with its hands. The gender of apparitions is no doubt as a rule the neuter, but the Gwrach y Rhibyn defies all rules by being a female which at times sees fit to be a male. In its female character it has a trick of crying at intervals, in a most doleful tone, ' Oh ! oh ! fy ngwr, fy ngwr !' (my husband ! my hus- band !) But when it chooses to be a male, this cry is changed to * Fy ngwraig ! fy ngwraig!' (my wife ! my wife !) or ' Fy mlentyn, fy mlentyn bach !' (my child, my little child !) There is a frightful story of a dissipated peasant who met this goblin on the road one night, and thought it was a living woman ; he therefore made wicked and improper overtures to it, with the result of having his soul nearly frightened out of his body in the horror of discovering his mistake. As he emphatically exclaimed, ' Och, Dduw ! it was the Gwrach y Rhibyn, and not a woman at all.' The Gwrach y Rhibyn recently appeared, accord- ing to an account given me by a person who claimed to have seen it, at Llandaff. Surely, no more probable site for the appearance of a spectre so ancient of lineage could be found, than that ancient cathedral city where some say was the earliest Christian fane in Great Britain, and which was certainly the seat of the earliest Christian bishopric. My narrator was a respectable-looking man of the peasant-farmer class, whom I met in one of my walks near Cardiff, in the summer of 1878. * It was at Llandaff,' he said to me, ' on the fourteenth of last November, when I was on a visit to an old friend, that I saw and heard the Gwrach y Rhibyn. I was sleeping in my bed, and was woke at midnight by a frightful screeching and a shaking of my window. It was a loud and clear screech, and the shaking of the window was very plain, but it seemed to go by like the wind. I was not so much frightened, sir, as you may think ; excited I was — that's the word — excited ; and I jumped out of bed and rushed to the window and flung it open. Then I saw the Gwrach y Rhibyn, saw her plainly, sir, a horrible old woman with long red hair and a face like chalk, and great teeth like tusks, looking back over her shoulder at me as she went through the air with a long black gown trailing along the ground below her arms, for body I could make out none. She gave another unearthly screech while I looked at her ; then I heard her flapping her wings against the window of a house just below the one I was in, and she vanished from my sight. But I kept on staring into the darkness, and as I am a living man, sir, I saw her go in at the door of the Cow and Snuffers Inn, and return no more. I watched the door of the inn a long time, but she did not come out. The next day, it's the honest truth I'm telling you, they told me the man who kept the Cow and Snuffers Inn was dead — had died in the night. His name was Llewellyn, sir — you can ask any one about him, at Llandaff — he had kept the inn there for seventy years, and his family before him for three hundred years, just at that very spot. It's not these new families that the Gwrach y Rhibyn ever troubles, sir, it's the old stock.' i The close resemblance of this goblin to the banshee (or benshi) will be at once perceived. The same superstition is found among other peoples of Celtic origin. Sir Walter Scott mentions it among the highlands of Scotland.^ It is not traced among other than Celtic peoples distinctly, but its associa- tion with the primeval mythology is doubtless to be found in the same direction with many other death- omens, to wit, the path of the wind-god Hermes. The frightful ugliness of the Gwrach y Rhibyn is a consistent feature of the superstition, in both its forms ; it recalls the Black Maiden who came to Caerleon and liberated Peredur : ^ ' Blacker were her face and her two hands than the blackest iron covered with pitch ; and her hue was not more frightful than her form. High cheeks had she, and a face lengthened downwards, and a short nose with distended nostrils. And one eye was of a piercing mottled gray, and the other was as black as jet, deep-sunk in her head. And her teeth were long and yellow, more yellow were they than the flower of the broom. And her stomach rose from the breast-bone, higher than her chin. And her back was in the shape of a crook, and her legs were large and bony. And her figure was very thin and spare, except her feet and legs, which were of huge size.' The Welsh word ' gwrach ' means a hag or witch, Pellings (Welsh Fairy) A tribe of half-Fairies who are decended from Penelope To return again to the fairies, some of them are described as more comely and good-looking than the rest but the fairy women are always pictured as fascinating, though their offspring as changelings are as uniformly presented in the light of repulsive urchins ; but whole groups of the fairy popu- lation are sometimes described as being as ugly of face as they were thievish in disposition — those, for instance, of BLanfabon, in Glamorganshire There is one district, however, which is an exception to the tenor of fairy physiognomy : it is that of the Pennant neighbourhood, in Carnarvonshire, together with the hills and valleys, roughly speaking, from Cwm Strattyn to ILwytmor and from Drws y Coed to Dolbenmaen. The fairies of that tract are said to have been taller than the others, and characterized by light or even flaxen hair, together with eyes of clear blue: Nor is that all, for we are told that they would not let a person of dark complexion come near them. The other fairies, when kidnapping, it is true, preferred the blond infants of other people to their own swarthy brats, which, perhaps, means that it was a policy of their people to recruit itself with men of the superior physique of the more powerful population around them. The supposed fairy ances- tress of the people of the Pennant Valley bears, in the stories in point, such names as Penelope, Bella, Pelisha, and Sibi, while her descendants are still taunted with their descent— a quarrel which, within living memory, used to be fought out with fists at the fairs at Penmorfa and elsewhere. This seems to indicate a comparatively late settlement ^ in the district of a family or group of families from without, and an origin, therefore, some- what similar to that of the Simychiaid and Cowperiaid of a more eastern portion of the same count}', rather than anything deserving to be considered with the rest of the annals of Faery. Plant Annwn (Welsh Fairy) The Gwragedd Annwn (literally, wives of the lower world, or hell) are the elfin dames who dwell under the water. I find no resemblance in the Welsh fairy to our familiar mermaid, beyond the watery abode, and the sometimes winning ways. The Gwragedd Annwn are not fishy of aspect, nor do they dwell in the sea. Their haunt is the lakes and rivers, but especially the wild and lonely lakes upon the mountain heights. These romantic sheets are surrounded with numberless superstitions, which will be further treated of. In the realm of faerie they serve as avenues of communication between this world and the lower one of annwn, the shadowy domain presided over by Gwyn ap Nudd, king of the fairies. This sub-aqueous realm is peopled by those children of mystery termed Plant Annwn, and the belief is current among the inhabitants of the Welsh mountains that the Gwragedd Annwn still occasionally visit this upper world of ours.^ The only reference to Welsh mermaids I have either read or heard Is contained In Drayton's account of the Battle of Aglncourt. There It Is mentioned, among the armorial ensigns of the counties of Wales : As Cardigan, the next to them that went. Came with a mermaid sitting on a rock. Crumlyn Lake, near the quaint village of Briton Ferry, Is one of the many In Wales which are a resort of the elfin dames. It Is also believed that a large town lies swallowed up there, and that the Gwragedd Annwn have turned the submerged walls to use as the superstructure of their fairy palaces. Some claim to have seen the towers of beautiful castles lifting their battlements beneath the surface of the dark waters, and fairy bells are at times heard ringing from these towers. The way the elfin dames first came to dwell there was this : A long, ay, a very long time ago, St. Patrick came over from Ireland on a visit to St. David of Wales, just to say * Sut yr y'ch chwl ? ' (How d ye do ?) ; and as they were strolling by this lake conversing on religious topics In a friendly manner, some Welsh people who had ascer- tained that It was St. Patrick, and being angry at him for leaving Cambria for Erin, began to abuse him In the Welsh language, his native tongue. Of course such an Insult could not go unpunished, and St. Patrick caused his vllllfiers to be transformed Into fishes ; but some of them being females, were converted Into fairies Instead. It Is also related that the sun, on account of this insolence to so holy a man, never shed Its life-giving rays upon the dark There is in * Cyraru Fu ' a mermaid story, but its mermaid feature is apparently a modern embellishment of a real incident, and without value here. Tolaeth The Tolaeth is an ominous sound, imitating some earthly sound of one sort or another, and always heard before either a funeral or some dreadful catastrophe. Carpenters of a superstitious turn of mind will tell you that they invariably hear the Tolaeth when they are going to receive an order to make a coffin ; in this case the sound is that of the sawing of wood, the hammering of nails, and the turning of screws, such as are heard in the usual process of making a coffin. This is called the * Tolaeth before the Coffin.' The ' Tolaeth before Death ' is a supernatural noise heard about the house, such as a knocking, or the sound of footsteps in the dead of night. Sometimes it is the sound of a tolling bell, where no bell is ; and the direction in which the ear is held at the time points out the place of the coming death. Formerly the veritable church-bell in its steeple would foretell death, by tolling thrice at the hour of midnight, unrung by human hands. The bell of Blaenporth, Cardigan- shire, was noted for thus warning the neighbours. The ' Tolaeth before the Burying ' is the sound of the funeral procession passing by, unseen, but heard. The voices are heard singing the ' Old Hundredth/ which is the psalm tune usually sung by funeral bands ; the slow regular tramp of the feet is heard, and the sobbing and groaning of the mourners. Tylwyth Teg (Welsh Fairies) But to return to the question of the words approach- ing to the nature of the thing intended, there is an old story current among us concerning a woman whose children had been exchanged by the Tylwyth Teg. Whether it is truth or falsehood does not much matter, yet it shows what the men of that age thought concern- ing the sound of words, and how they fancied that the language of those sprites was of a ghastly and lumpy kind. The story is as follows :— The woman whose two children had been exchanged, chanced to overhear the two fair heirs, whom she got instead of them, reasoning with one another beyond what became their age and persons. So she picked up the two sham children, one under each arm, in order to go and throw them from a bridge into a river, that they might be drowned as she fancied. But hardly had the one in his fall reached the bottom when he cried out to his comrade in the following words : — Grippiach greppiach Grippiach Greppiach, Dal dafel yn y wrach. Keep thy hold on the hag. Hi aeth yn rhowyr 'faglach — It got too late, thou urchin — Mi eis i ir mwthlach '.' I fell into the ... In spite of the obscurity of these words, it is quite clear that it was thought the most natural thing in the world to return the fairies to the river, and no sooner were they dropped there than the right infants were found to have been sent home. • The meaning of the word mwthlach is doubtful, as it is now current in Gwyneit only in the sense of a soft, doughy, or puffy person who is all of a heap, so to say. Pughe gives miuythlan and mwythlen with similar significations. But mwthlach would seem to have had some such a meaning in the doggerel as that of rough ground or a place covered with a scrubby, tangled growth. It is possibly the same word as the Irish mothlach, ' rough, bushy, ragged, shaggy'; see the Vision of Laisren, edited by Professor K. Meyer, in the Otia Merseiana, pp. 114, 117. ---------------------------------------------------------- Or take the following, from J. H. Roberts' essay, as given in Welsh in Edwards' Q,ymru for 1897, p. 190 : it reminds one of an ordinary fairy tale, but it is not quite like any other which I happen to know :— In the western end of the Arennig Fawr there is a cave : in fact there are several caves there, and some of them are very large too ; but there is one to which the finger of tradition points as an ancient abode of the Tylwyth Teg. About two generations ago, the shepherds of that country used to be enchanted by one of them called Mary, who was remarkable for her beauty. Many an effort was made to catch her or to meet her face to face, but without success, as she was too quick on her feet. She used to show herself day after day, and she might be seen, with her little harp, climbing the bare slopes of the mountain. In misty weather when the days were longest in summer, the music she made used to be wafted by the breeze to the ears of the love-sick shepherds. Many a time had the boys of the Filttir Gerrig heard sweet singing when passing the cave in the full light of day, but they were subject to some spell, so that they never ventured to enter. But the shepherd of Boch y Rhaiadr had a better view of the fairies one Allhallows night {ryw noson Galangaeaf) when re- turning home from a merry-making at Amnod. On the sward in front of the cave what should he see but scores of the Tylwyth Teg singing and dancing! He never saw another assembly in his life so fair, and great was the trouble he had to resist being drawn into their circles. ------------------------- He could procure nothing readily that would satisfy him as a mark, so it occurred to him to dot his path with the chippings of his stick, which he whittled all the way as he went back until he came to a familiar track : the chips were to guide him back to the cave. So when the morning came he and his friend set out, but when they reached the point where the chips should begin, not one was to be seen : the Tylwyth Teg had picked up every one of them. So that discovery of articles of brass— more probably bronze— was in vain. But, says the writer, it is not fated to be always in vain, for there is a tradition in the valley that it is a Gwydel, ' Goidel, Irishman,' who is to have these treasures, and that it will happen in this wise : — A Gwydel will come to the neighbourhood to be a shepherd, and one day when he goes up the mountain to see to the sheep, just when it pleases the fates a black sheep with a speckled head will run before him and make straight for the cave : the sheep will go in, with the Gwydel in pursuit trying to catch him. When the Gwydel enters he sees the treasures, looks at them with surprise, and takes posses- sion of them ; and thus, in some generation to come, the Gwydyl will have their own restored to them. That is the tradition which Derfel Hughes found in the vale of the Ogwen, and he draws from it the inference which it seems to warrant, in words to the following effect : — Perhaps this shows us that the Gwydyl had some time or other something to do with these parts, and that we are not to regard as stories without founda- tions all that is said of that nation ; and the sajdngs of old people to this day show that there is always some spite between our nation and the Gwydyl. Thus, for instance, he goes on to say, if a man proves changeable, he is said to have become a Gwydel ( Y mae wedi trot 'n Wydet), or if one is very shameless and cheeky he is called a Gwydel and told to hold his tongue ( Taw yr hen Wydel) ; and a number of such locutions used by our people proves, he thinks, the former prevalence of much contention between the two sister-nations. Ex- pressions of the kind mentioned by Mr. Hughes are well known in all parts of the Principality, and it is difficult to account for them except on the supposition that Goidels and Brythons lived for a long time face to face, so to say, with one another over large areas in the west of our island. ----------------------- The most common name for the fairies in Welsh is y Tylwyth Teg, ' the Fair or Beautiful Family ' ; but in South Cardiganshire we have found them called Plant Rhys-Dwfn, ' the Children of Rhys the Deep '(pp. 151, 158), while in Gwent and Morgannwg they are more usually known as Bendithy Mamau,' the Blessing of the Mothers' (p. 174). Our fourteenth century poet, D. ab Gwilym, uses the first-mentioned term, Tylwyth Teg, in poem xxxix, and our prose literature has a word corr, cor in the sense of a dwarf, and corres for a she dwarf. The old Cornish had also cor, which in Breton is written korr^, with a feminine korrez, and among the other derivatives one finds korrik, ' a dwarf, a fairy, a wee little sorcerer,' and korrigez or korrigan, ' a she dwarf, a fairy woman, a diminutive sorceress.' The use of these words in Breton recalls the case of the cor, called Rhudlwm or ' The difference between Mod. Welsh cor and Breton korris one of spelling, for the reformed orthography of Welsh words only doubles the r where it is dwelt on in the accented syllable of a longer word : in other terms, when that syllable closes with the consonant and the next syllable begins with it. Thus cor has, as its derivatives, cor-rach, 'a dwarf,' plural co-rdchod, cor-ryn, ' a male dwarf,' plural co-rynnod. Some of these enter into place-names, such as Cwm Corryn near ILanaelhaearn (p. 217) and Cwm Corryn draining into the Vale of Neath ; so possibly with Corwen for Cor-waen, in the sense of ' the Fairies' Meadow.' Cor and corryn are also used for the spider, as in gw^r cor OT gtu^r corryn, 'a spider's web," the spider being so called on account of its spinning, an occupation in which the fairies are represented likewise frequently engaged ; not to mention that gossamer (guiawn) is also some- times regarded as a product of the fairy loom (p. 103). The derivation of cor is not satisfactorily cleared up : it has been conjectured to be related to a Med. Irish word cerl, ' small, little,' and Latin curtus, ' shortened or mutilated.' To me this means that the origin of the word still remains to be discovered. ------- Some additional light on the doggerel dialogue will be found thrown by the following story, which I find cited in Welsh by one of the Liverpool Eistetffod competitors : — There is in the parish of Yspytty Ifan, in Carnarvonshire, a farm called Trwyn Swch, where eighty years ago lived a man and his wife, who were both young, and had twins born to them. Now the mother went one day to milk, leaving the twins alone in the cradle -the husband was not at home — and who should enter the house but one of the Tylwyth Teg I He took the twins away and left two of his own breed in the cradle in their stead. Thereupon the mother returned home and saw what had come to pass ; she then in her excitement snatched the Tylwyth Teg twins and took them to the bridge that crosses the huge gorge of the river Conwy not very far from the house, and she cast them into the whirlpool below. By this time the Tylwyth Teg had come on the spot, some trying to save the children, and some making for the woman. ' Seize the old hag I ' {Crap aryr hen wrach f) said one of the chiefs of the Tylwyth Teg. ' Too late ! ' cried the woman on the edge of the bank ; and many of them ran after her to the house. As they ran three or four of them lost their pipes in the field. They are pipes ingeniously made of the blue stone {carreg las) of the gully. They measure three or four inches long, and from time to time several of them have been found near the cave of Trwyn Swch. — This is the first indication which I have discovered, that the fairies are addicted to smoking. P. 506. A Rhiw Cyferthwch (printed Rywgyverthwch) occurs in the Record of Carnarvon, p. 200 ; but it seems to have been in Merionethshire, and far enough from Arfon. In the article already cited from the Romania, M. Paris finds Twrch Trwyth in the boar Tortain of a French romance: see xxviii. 217, where he mentions a legend concerning the strange pedigree of that beast. The subject requires to be further studied. A less probable explanation of Latio would be to suppose orti understood. This has been suggested to me by Mr. Nicholson's treatment of the ILanaelhaiarn inscription as Alt ortus Elmetiaco hie iacet, where I should regard .<4 A' as standing for an earlier nominative Alecs, and intended as the Celtic equivalent for Cephas or Peter : AH would be the word which is in Med. Irish ail, genitive ailech, ' a rock or stone.' ------------------------------------------------------------ The modern Welsh name for fairies is y Tylwyth Teg, the fair folk or family. This is sometimes lengthened into y Tylwyth Teg yn y Coed, the fair family in the wood, or Tylwyth Teg y Mwn, the fair folk of the mine. They are seen dancing in moonlight nights on the velvety grass, clad in airy and flowing robes of blue, green, white, or scarlet — details as to colour not usually met, I think, in accounts of fairies. They are spoken of as bestowing blessings on those mortals whom they select to be thus favoured ; and again are called Bendith y Mamau, or their mothers blessing, that is to say, good little children whom it is a pleasure to know. To name the fairies by a harsh epithet is to invoke their anger ; to speak of them in flatter- ing phrase is to propitiate their good offices. The student of fairy mythology perceives in this pro- pitiatory mode of speech a fact of wide significance. It can be traced in numberless lands, and back to the beginning of human history, among the cloud- hung peaks of Central Asia. ------------------------ Among the traditions of the origin of the Gwyllion is one which associates them with goats. Goats are in Wales held in peculiar esteem for their supposed occult intellectual powers. They are believed to be on very good terms with the Tylwyth Teg, and possessed of more knowledge than their appear- ance indicates. It is one of the peculiarities of the Tylwyth Teg that every Friday night they comb the goats' beards to make them decent for Sunday. Their association with the GwylHon is related in the legend of Cadwaladr's goat : Cadwaladr owned a very handsome goat, named Jenny, of which he was extremely fond ; and which seemed equally fond of him ; but one day, as if the very diawl possessed her, she ran away into the hills, with Cadwaladr tearing after her, half mad with anger and affright. At last his Welsh blood got so hot, as the goat eluded him again and again, that he flung a stone at her, which knocked her over a pre- cipice, and she fell bleating to her doom. Cadwaladr made his way to the foot of the crag ; the goat was dying, but not dead, and licked his hand — which so affected the poor man that he burst into tears, and sitting on the ground took the goat's head on his arm. The moon rose, and still he sat there. Presently he found that the goat had become trans- formed to a beautiful young woman, whose brown eyes, as her head lay on his arm, looked into his in a very disturbing way. * Ah, Cadwaladr,' said she, * have I at last found you ?* Now Cadwaladr had a wife at home, and was much discomfited by this singular circumstance ; but when the goat — yn awr maiden — arose, and putting her black slipper on the end of a moonbeam, held out her hand to him, he put his hand in hers and went with her. As for the hand, though it looked so fair, it felt just like a hoof. They were soon on the top of the highest mountain in Wales, and surrounded by a vapoury company of goats with shadowy horns. These raised a most unearthly bleating about his ears. One, which seemed to be the king, had a voice that sounded above the din as the castle bells of Car- marthen used to do long ago above all the other bells in the town. This one rushed at Cadwaladr and butting him in the stomach sent him toppling over a crag as he had sent his poor nannygoat. When he came to himself, after his fall, the morning sun was shining on him and the birds were singing over his head. But he saw no more of either his goat or the fairy she had turned into, from that time to his death. ----------------------------------------------------------- The Tylwyth Teg have a fatal admiration for lovely- children. Hence the abundant folk-lore concerning infants who have been stolen from their cradles, and a plentyn-newid (change-child — the equivalent of our changeling) left in its place by the Tylwyth Teg. The plentyn-newid has the exact appearance of the stolen infant, at first ; but its aspect speedily alters. It grows ugly of face, shrivelled of form, ill-tempered, wailing, and generally frightful. It bites and strikes, and becomes a terror to the poor mother. Sometimes it is idiotic ; but again it has a supernatural cunning, not only impossible in a mortal babe, but not even appertaining to the oldest heads, on other than fairy shoulders. The veracious Prophet Jones testifies to a case where he himself saw the plentyn-newid — an idiot left in the stead of a son of Edmund John William, of the Church Valley, Monmouthshire. Says Jones : ' I saw him myself. There was something diabolical in his aspect,' but especially in his motions. He ' made very disagreeable screaming sounds,* which used to frighten strangers greatly, but otherwise he was harmless. He was of a ' dark, tawny complexion.' He lived longer than such children usually lived in Wales in that day, (a not altogether pleasant intimation regarding the hard lot to which such children were subjected by their unwilling parents,) reaching the age of ten or twelve years. But the creed of ignorance everywhere as regards changelings is a very cruel one, and reminds us of the tests of the witchcraft trials. Under the pretence of proving whether the objectionable baby is a changeling or not, it is held on a shovel over the fire, or it is bathed in a solution of the fox-glove, which kills it ; a case where this test was applied is said to have actually occurred in Carnarvonshire in 1857. That there is nothing specially Welsh in this, needs not to be pointed out. Apart from the fact that infanticide, like murder, is of no country, similar practices as to changelings have prevailed in most European lands, either to test the child's uncanny quality, or, that being admitted, to drive it away and thus compel the fairies to restore the missing infant. In Denmark the mother heats the oven, and places the changeling on the peel, pretending to put it in ; or whips it severely with a rod ; or throws it into the water. In Sweden they employ similar methods. In Ireland the hot shovel is used. With regard to a changeling which Martin Luther tells of in his ' Colloquia Mensalia/ the great reformer declared to the Prince of Anhalt, that if he were prince of that country he would 'venture homicidium thereon, and would throw it into the River Moldaw.' He admonished the people to pray devoutly to God to take away the devil, which ' was done accordingly ; and the second year after the changeling died.' ----------------------- In the great majority of these stories the hero dies immediately after his release from the thraldom of the fairies — in some cases with a suddenness and a completeness of obliteration as appalling as dramatic. The following story, well known in Car- marthenshire, presents this detail with much force : There was a certain farmer who, while going early one morning to fetch his horses from the pasture, heard harps playing. Looking carefully about for the source of this music, he presently saw a company of Tylwyth Teg footing it merrily in a corelw. Resolving to join their dance and cultivate their acquaintance, the farmer stepped into the fairy ring. Never had man his resolution more thoroughly* carried out, for having once begun the reel he was not allowed to finish it till years had elapsed. Even then he might not have been released, had it not chanced that a man one day passed by the lonely spot, so close to the ring that he saw the farmer dancing. ' Duw catto ni ! ' cried the man, ' God save us ! but this is a merry one. Hai, holo ! man, what, in Heaven's name, makes you so lively?' This question, in which the name of Heaven was uttered, broke the spell which rested on the farmer, who spoke like one in a dream : ' O dyn ! ' cried he, * what's become of the horses ? ' Then he stepped from the fairy circle and instantly crumbled away and mingled his dust with the earth. Go to the same place where you and the lad slept. Go there exactly a year after the boy was lost. Let it be on the same day of the year and at the same time of the day ; but take care that you do not step inside the fairy ring. Stand on the border of the green circle you saw there, and the boy will come out with many of the goblins to dance. When you see him so near to you that you may take hold of him, snatch him out of the ring as quickly as you can.' These instructions were obeyed. I ago appeared, dancing in the ring with the Tylwyth Teg, and was promptly plucked forth. ' Duw ! Duw ! ' cried Tom, ' how wan and pale you look ! And don't you feel hungry too?' 'No,' said the boy, 'and if I did, have I not here in my wallet the remains of my dinner that I had before I fell asleep ?' But when he looked in his wallet, the food was not there. ' Well, it must be time to go home,' he said, with a sigh ; for he did not know that a year had passed by. His look was like a skeleton, and as soon as he had tasted food, he mouldered away. ------------------------------- --------------------------------- Another curious tradition relates that early one Easter Monday, when the parishioners of Pencarreg and Caio were met to play at football, they saw a numerous company of Tylwyth Teg dancing. Being so many in number, the young men were not intimidated at all, but proceeded in a body towards the puny tribe, who^ perceiving them, removed to another place. The young men followed, whereupon the little folks suddenly appeared dancing at the first place. Seeing this, the men divided and surrounded them, when they immediately became invisible, and were never more seen there. ------------------------- And so lightly did they tread that not a blade nor a flower was crushed beneath their weight, and every one made a curtsey or a bow to Tudur as they passed, and Tudur doffed his cap and moved to them in return. Presently the little minstrel drew his bow across the strings of his instrument, and the music produced was so enchanting that Tudur stood trans- fixed to the spot.' At the sound of the sweet melody, the Tylwyth Teg ranged themselves in groups, and began to dance. Now of all the dancing Tudur had ever seen, none was to be compared to that he saw at this moment going on. He could not help keeping time with his hands and feet to the merry music, but he dared not join in the dance, ' for he thought within himself that to dance on a mountain at night in strange company, to perhaps the devil's fiddle, might not be the most direct route to heaven.' But at last he found there was no resist- ing this bewitching strain, joined to the sight of the capering Ellyllon. ' '* Now for it, then," screamed Tudur, as he pitched his cap into the air under the excitement of delight. *' Play away, old devil ; brimstone and water, if you like ! " No sooner were the words uttered than everything underwent a change. The gorse-blossom cap vanished from the minstrel's head, and a pair of goat's horns branched out instead. His face turned as black as soot ; a long tail grew out of his leafy coat, while cloven feet replaced the beetle-wing pumps. Tudur's heart was heavy, but his heels were light. Horror was in his bosom, but the impetus of motion was in his feet. The fairies changed into a variety of forms. Some became goats, and some became dogs, some assumed the shape of foxes, and others that of cats. ------------------------------------------ olly Williams, a good dame who was born in Trefethin parish, and lived at the Ship Inn, at Pontypool, Monmouthshire, was wont to relate that, when a child, she danced with the Tylwyth Teg. The first time was one day while coming home from school. She saw the fairies dancing in a pleasant, dry place, under a crab-tree, and, thinking they were children like herself, went to them, when they induced her to dance with them. She brought them into an empty barn and they danced there together. After that, during three or four years, she often met and danced with them, when going to or coming from school. She never could hear the sound of their feet, and having come to know that they were fairies, took off her ffollachau (clogs), so that she, too, might make no noise, fearful that the clattering of her clog-shodden feet was displeasing to them. They were all dressed in blue and green aprons, and, though they were so small, she could see by their mature faces that they were no children. Once when she came home barefoot, after dancing with the fairies, she was chided for going to school in that condition ; but she held her tongue about the fairies, for fear of trouble, and never told of them till after she grew up. She gave over going with them to dance, however, after three or four years, and this displeased them. They tried to coax her back to them, and, as she would not come, hurt her by dislocating 'one of her walking members,'^ which, as a euphemism for legs, surpasses anything charged against American prudery. ------------------- Contrasting strongly with this matter-of-fact account of a modern witness is the glowing descrip- tion of fairy life contained in the legend of the Fairies of Frennifawr. About ten miles south of Cardigan is the Pembrokeshire mountain called Frennifawr, which is the scene of this tale : A shepherd's lad was tending his sheep on the small mountains called Frennifach one fine morning in June. Looking to the top of Frennifawr to note what way the fog hung — for if the fog on that mountain hangs on the Pembrokeshire side, there will be fair weather, if on the Cardigan side, storm — he saw the Tylwyth Teg, in appearance like tiny soldiers, dancing in a ring. He set out for the scene of revelry, and soon drew near the ring where, in a gay company of males and females, they were footing it to the music of the harp. Never had he seen such handsome people, nor any so enchantingly cheerful. They beckoned him with laughing faces to join them as they leaned backward almost falling, whirling round and round with joined hands. Those who were dancing never swerved from the perfect circle ; but some were clambering over the old cromlech, and others chasing each other with sur- prising swiftness and the greatest glee. Still others rode about on small white horses of the most beautiful form ; these riders were little ladies, and their dresses were indescribably elegant, surpassing the sun in radiance, and varied in colour, some being of bright whiteness, others the most vivid scarlet. The males wore red tripled caps, and the ladies a light fantastic headdress which waved in the wind. -------------------------- A Carmarthenshire tradition names among those who lived for a period among the Tylwyth Teg no less a person than the translator into Welsh of Bunyan's ' Pilgrim's Progress.' He was called I ago ap Dewi, and lived in the parish of Llan- llawddog, Carmarthenshire, in a cottage situated in the wood of Llangwyly. He was absent from the neighbourhood for a long period, and the universal belief among the peasantry was that I ago ' got out of bed one night to gaze on the starry sky, as he was accustomed (astrology being one of his favourite studies), and whilst thus occupied the fairies (who were accustomed to resort in a neighbouring wood), passing by, carried him away, and he dwelt with them seven years. Upon his return he was questioned by many as to where he had been, but always avoided giving them a reply.' -------------------------- In those rare cases where it Is not dancing which holds the victim of Tylwyth Teg in its fatal fascina- tion, the seducer is music. There is a class of stories still common in Wales, In which is preserved a wondrously beautiful survival of the primitive mythology. In the vast middle ground between our own commonplace times and the pre-historic ages we encounter more than once the lovely legend of the Birds of Rhiannon, which sang so sweetly that the warrior knights stood listening entranced for eighty years. This legend appears in the Mabinogi of ' Bran wen, daughter of Llyr,' and, as we read it there, is a medieval tale ; but the medieval authors of the Mabinogion as we know them were working over old materials — telling again the old tales which had come down through unnumbered centuries from father to son by tradition. Cambrian poets of an earlier age often allude to the birds of Rhiannon ; they are mentioned in the Triads. In the Mabinogi, the period the warriors listened is seven years. Seven men only had escaped from a certain battle with the Irish, and they were bidden by their dying chief to cut off his head and bear it to London and bury it with the face towards France. ----------------------- The harp is played by Welsh fairies to an extent unknown in those parts of the world where the harp is less popular among the people. When any instrument is distinctly heard in fairy cymmoedd it is usually the harp. Sometimes it is a fiddle, but then on close examination it will be discovered that it is a captured mortal who is playing it ; the Tylwyth Teg prefer the harp. They play the bugle on specially grand occasions, and there is a case or two on record where the drone of the bagpipes was heard ; but it is not doubted that the player was some stray fairy from Scotland or else- where over the border. On the top of Craig-y- Ddinas thousands of white fairies dance to the music of many harps. In the dingle called Cwm Pergwm, in the Vale of Neath, the Tylwyth Teg make music behind the waterfall, and when they go off over the mountains the sounds of their harps are heard dying away as they recede. The story which presents the Cambrian equivalent of the Magic Flute substitutes a harp for the (to Welsh- men) less familiar instrument. As told to me this story runs somewhat thus : A company of fairies which frequented Cader Idris were in the habit of going about from cottage to cottage In that part of Wales, in pursuit of information concerning the degree of benevolence possessed by the cottagers. Those who gave these fairies an ungracious wel- come were subject to bad luck during the rest of their lives, but those who were good to the little folk became the recipients of their favour. Old Morgan ap Rhys sat one night in his own chimney corner making himself comfortable with his pipe and his pint of cwrw da. The good ale having melted his soul a trifle, he was In a more jolly mood than was natural to him, when there came a little rap at the door, which reached his ear dully through the smoke of his pipe and the noise of his own voice — for In his merriment Morgan was singing a roystering song, though he could not sing any better than a haw — which is Welsh for a donkey. But Morgan did not take the trouble to get up at sound of the rap ; his manners were not the most refined ; he thought it was quite enough for a man on hospitable purposes bent to bawl forth In ringing Welsh, ' Gwaed dyn a'i gilydd ! Why don't you come In when you've got as far as the door ?' The welcome was not very polite, but It was sufficient. The door opened, and three travellers entered, looking worn and weary. Now these were the fairies from Cader Idris, disguised In this manner for purposes of observation, and Morgan never suspected they were other than they appeared. --------------- -------------------------------------------------------------------------- The circles In the grass of green fields, which are commonly called fairy rings, are numerous in Wales, and it is deemed just as well to keep out of them, even in our day. The peasantry no longer believe that the fairies can be seen dancing there, nor that the cap of invisibility will fall on the head of one who enters the circle ; but they do believe that the fairies, in a time not long gone, made these circles with the tread of their tripping feet, and that some misfortune will probably befall any person intruding upon this forbidden ground. An old man at Peterstone-super-Ely told me he well remembered in his childhood being warned by his mother to keep away from the fairy rings. The counsel thus given him made so deep an impression on his mind, that he had never in his life entered one. He remarked further, in answer to a question, that he had never walked under a ladder, because it was unlucky to walk under a ladder. This class of superstitions is a very large one, and is encountered the world over ; and the fairy rings seem to fall into this class, so far as present-day belief in Wales is concerned. ------------------------ As she stood, struck with the miserable poverty of the human abode, a faint sigh came from behind the gorse. She went close and said, " Betty, where are you ? " Betty instantly recognised her voice, and ventured to turn herself round from the wall. Mrs. Stanley then made a small opening in the gorse barricade, which sadly pricked her fingers ; she saw Betty in her bed and asked her, " Are you not well ? are you cold, that you are so closed up ? " " Cold ! no. It is not cold, Mrs. Stanley ; it is the Tylwyth Teg ; they never will leave me alone, there they sit making faces at me, and trying to come to me." '' Indeed ! oh how I should like to see them, Betty." "• Like to see them, is it ? Oh, don't say so." " Oh but Betty, they must be so pretty and good." ** Good ? they are not good." By this time the old woman got excited, and Mrs. Stanley knew she should hear more from her about the fairies, so she said, "Well, I will go out ; they never will come if I am here." Old Betty replied sharply, '* No, do not go. You must not leave me. I will tell you all about them. Ah ! they come and plague me sadly. If I am up they will sit upon the table ; they turn my milk sour and spill my tea ; then they will not leave me at peace in my bed, but come all round me and mock at me." " But Betty, tell me what is all this gorse for ? It must have been great trouble for you to make it all so close." "Is it not to keep them off? They cannot get through this, it pricks them so bad, and then I get some rest." So she replaced the gorse and left old Betty Griffith happy in her device for getting rid of the Tvlwyth Teg.' -------------------------------- * This is fairy gold, boy, and 'twill prove so,' says the old shepherd in ' Winter's Tale ;' sagely adding, ' Up with it, keep it close ; home, home, the next way. We are lucky, boy, and to be so still, requires nothing but secrecy.' ^ Here we have the traditional belief of the Welsh peasantry in a nut-shell. Fairy money is as good as any, so long as its source is kept a profound secret ; if the finder relate the par- ticulars of his good fortune, it will vanish. Some- times — especially in cases where the money has been spent — the evil result of tattling consists in there being no further favours of the sort. The same law governs fairy gifts of all kinds. A Breconshire legend tells of the generosity of the Tylwyth Teg in presenting the peasantry with loaves of bread, which turned to toadstools next morning ; it was necessary to eat the bread in darkness and silence to avoid this transformation. The story of Gitto Bach, a familiar one in Wales, is a picturesque example. Gitto Bach (little Griffith), a good little farmer's boy of Glamorganshire, used often to ramble to the top of the mountain to look after his father's sheep. ----------------------------- On his return he would show his brothers and sisters pieces of remarkably white paper, like crown pieces, with letters stamped upon them, which he said were given to him by the little children with whom he played on the mountain. One day he did not return. For two years nothing was heard of him. Meantime other children occasionally got like crown-pieces of paper from the mountains. One morning when Gitto's mother opened the door there he sat^ — the truant ! — dressed exactly as he was when she saw him last, two years before. He had a little bundle under his arm. ' Where in the world have you been all this time ? ' asked the mother. * Why, it's only yesterday I went away ! ' quoth Gitto. ' Look at the pretty clothes the children gave me on the mountain, for dancing with them to the music of their harps.' With this he opened his bundle, and showed a handsome dress ; and behold, it was only paper, like the fairy money. But usually, throughout Wales, it is simply a dis continuance of fairy favour which follows blabbing. A legend is connected with a bridge in Anglesea, of a lad who often saw the fairies there, and profited by their generosity. Every morning, while going to fetch his father's cows from pasture, he saw them, and after they were gone he always found a groat on a certain stone of Cymmunod Bridge. The boy's having money so often about him excited his father's suspicion, and one Sabbath day he cross-questioned the lad as to the manner in which it was obtained. Oh, the meddlesomeness of fathers ! Of course the poor boy confessed that it was through the medium of the fairies, and of course, though he often went after this to the field, he never found any money on the bridge, nor saw the offended Tylwyth Teg again. Through his divulging the secret their favour was lost. -------------------------------------- A Pembrokeshire Welshman told me this story as a tradition well known in that part of Wales. lanto Llewellyn was a man who lived in the parish of Llanfihangel, not more than fifty or eighty years ago, and who had precious good reason to believe in the fairies. He used to keep his fire of coal balls burning all night long, out of pure kindness of heart, in case the Tylwyth Teg should be cold. That they came into his kitchen every night he was well aware ; he often heard them. One night when they were there as usual, lanto was lying wide awake and heard them say, ' I wish we had some good bread and cheese this cold night, but the poor man has only a morsel left ; and though it's true that would be a good meal for us, it is but a mouthful to him, and he might starve if we took it.' At this lanto cried out at the top of his voice, * Take anything I've got in my cupboard and welcome to you !' Then he turned over and went to sleep. The next morning, when he descended into the kitchen, he looked in his cupboard, to see if by good luck there might be a bit of crust there. He had no sooner opened the cupboard door than he cried out, * O'r anwyl ! what's this ?' for there stood the finest cheese he had ever seen in his life, with two loaves of bread on top of it. ' Lwc dda iti!' cried lanto, waving his hand toward the wood where he knew the fairies lived ; ' good luck to you ! May you never be hungry or penniless ! * And he had not got the words out of his mouth when he saw — what do you think ? — a shilling on the hob ! But that was the lucky shilling. ----------------------------------------- The thought will naturally occur that by fostering belief in such tales as some of the foregoing, roguery might make the superstition useful in silencing inquiry as to Ill-gotten gains. But on the other hand the virtues of hospitality and generosity were no doubt fostered by the same Influences. If any one was favoured by the fairies in this manner, the immediate explanation was, that he had done a good turn to them, generally without suspecting who they were. The virtues of neatness, In young girls and servants, were encouraged by the like notions ; the belief that a fairy will leave money only on a clean-kept hob, could tend to nothing more directly. It was also made a condition of pleasing the Tylwyth Teg that the hearth should be carefully swept and the pails left full of water. Then the fairies would come at midnight, continue their revels till daybreak, sing the well-known strain of ' Toriad y Dydd,' or ' The Dawn,' leave a piece of money on the hob, and disappear. Here Is seen a precaution against fire In the clean-swept hearth and the provision of filled water-pails. That the promised reward did not always arrive, was not evidence it would never arrive ; and so the virtue of perseverance was also fostered. --------------------------- Concerning the origin of the Tylwyth Teg, there are two popular explanations, the one poetico-reli- gious in its character, the other practical and realistic. Both are equally wide of the truth, the true origin of fairies being found in the primeval mythology ; but as my purpose is to avoid enlarging in directions generally familiar to the student, 1 have only to present the local aspects of this, as of the other - features of the subject. The realistic theory of the origin of the Tylwyth Teg must be mentioned respectfully, because among its advocates have been men of culture and good sense. This theory presumes that the first fairies were men and women of mortal flesh and blood, and that the later superstitions are a mere echo of tales which first were told of real beings. In quasi- support of this theory, there is a well-authenticated tradition of a race of beings who, in the middle of the sixteenth century, inhabited the Wood of the Great Dark Wood (Coed y Dugoed Mawr) in Merionethshire, and who were called the Red Fairies. They lived in dens in the ground, had fiery red hair and long strong arms, and stole sheep and cattle by night. There are cottages In Cemmaes parish, near the Wood of the Great Dark Wood, with scythes in the chimneys, which were put there to keep these terrible beings out. One Christmas eve a valiant knight named Baron Owen headed a company of warriors who assailed the Red Fairies, and found them flesh and blood. The Baron hung a hundred of them ; but spared the women, one of whom begged hard for the life of her son. The Baron refused her prayer, whereupon she opened her breast and shrieked, ' This breast has nursed other sons than he, who will yet wash their hands in thy blood. Baron Owen ! ' Not very long there- after, the Baron was waylaid at a certain spot by the sons of the ' fairy ' woman, who washed their hands in his warm and reeking blood, in fulfilment of their mother's threat. And to this day that spot goes by the name of Llidiart y Barwn (the Baron s Gate) ; any peasant of the neighbourhood will tell you the story, as one told it to me. There is of course no better foundation for the fairy features of it than the fancies of the ignorant mind, but the legend itself is — very nearly in this shape — historical. The beings in question were a band of outlaws, who might naturally find it to their interest to foster belief in their supernatural powers. ------------------------------------------- Curiously interesting is the hypothesis concerning the realistic origin of the Tylwyth Teg, which was put forth at the close of the last century by several writers, among them the Rev. Peter Roberts, author of the ' Collectanea Cambrica.' This hypothesis precisely accounts for the fairies anciently as being the Druids, in hiding from their enemies, or if not they, other persons who had such cause for living concealed in subterraneous places, and venturing forth only at night. ' Some conquered aborigines,' thought Dr. Guthrie ; while Mr. Roberts fancied that as the Irish had frequently landed hostilely in Wales, * it was very possible that some small bodies of that nation left behind, or unable to return, and fearing discovery, had hid themselves in caverns during the day, and sent their children out at night, fantastically dressed, for food and exercise, and thus secured themselves/ But there were objections to this presumption, and the Druidical theory was the favourite one. Says Mr. Roberts : ' The fairy customs appeared evidently too systematic, and too general, to be those of an accidental party reduced to distress. They are those of a consistent and regular policy instituted to prevent discovery, and to inspire fear of their power, and a high opinion of their beneficence. Accordingly tradition notes, that to attempt to discover them was to incur certain destruction. "They are fairies," says Falstaff: "he that looks on them shall die." They were not to be impeded in ingress or egress ; a bowl of milk was to be left for them at night on the hearth ; and, in return, they left a small present in money when they departed, if the house was kept clean ; if not, they inflicted some punishment on the negligent, which, as it was death to look on them, they were obliged to suffer, and no doubt but many unlucky tricks were played on such occasions. Their general dress was green, that they might be the better con- cealed ; and, as their children might have betrayed their haunts, they seem to have been suffered to go out only in the night time, and to have been enter- tained by dances on moonlight nights. These dances, like those round the May-pole, have been said to be performed round a tree ; and on an elevated spot, mostly a tumulus, beneath which was probably their habitation, or its entrance. The older persons, probably, mixed as much as they dared with the world ; and, if they happened to be at any time recognised, the certainty of their ven- geance was their safety. If by any chance their society was thinned, they appear to have stolen children, and changed feeble for strong infants. The stolen children, if beyond infancy, being brought into their subterraneous dwellings, seem to have had a soporific given them, and to have been carried to a distant part of the country ; and, being there allowed to go out merely by night, mistook the night for the day, and probably were not undeceived until it could be done securely. The regularity and generality of this system shows that there was a body of people existing in the kingdom distinct from its known inhabitants, and either confederated, or obliged to live or meet mysteriously ; and their rites, particularly that of dancing round a tree, probably an oak, as Herne-s, etc., as well as their character for truth and probity, refer them to a Druidic origin. If this was the case, it is easy to conceive, as indeed history shows, that, as the Druids were persecuted by the Romans and Chris- tians, they used these means to preserve themselves and their families, and whilst the country was thinly peopled, and thickly wooded, did so successfully ; and, perhaps, to a much later period than is imagined : till the increase of population made it impossible. As the Druidical was one of the most ancient religions, so it must have been one of the first persecuted, and forced to form a regular plan of security, which their dwelling in caves may have suggested, and necessity improved.' ------------------------------------- It will be observed that one of the points in this curious speculation rests on the green dress of the fairies. I do not call attention to it with any Quixotic purpose of disputing the conclusion it assists ; it is far more interesting as one feature of the general subject of fairies' attire. The Welsh fairies are described with details as to colour in costume not commonly met with in fairy tales, a fact to which I have before alluded. In the legend of the Place of Strife, the Tylwyth Teg encountered by the women are called ' the old elves of the blue petticoat/ A connection with the blue of the sky has here been suggested. It has also been pointed out that the sacred Druidical dress was blue. The blue petticoat fancy seems to be local to North Wales. In Cardiganshire, the tradition respecting an encampment called Moyddin, which the fairies frequented, is that they were always in green dresses, and were never seen there but in the vernal month of May. There is a Glamorgan- shire goblin called the Green Lady of Caerphilly, the colour of whose dress is indicated by her title. She haunts the ruin of Caerphilly Castle at night, wearing a green robe, and has the power of turn- ing herself into ivy and mingling with the ivy growing on the wall. A more ingenious mode of getting rid of a goblin was perhaps never invented. The fairies of Frennifawr, in Pembrokeshire, were on the contrary gorgeous in scarlet, with red caps, and feathers waving in the wind as they danced. But others were in white, and this appears to be the favourite hue of modern Welsh fairy costume, when the Tylwyth Teg are in holiday garb. These various details of colour are due to the fervour of the Welsh fancy, of course, and perhaps their variety may in part be ascribed to a keener sense of the fitness of things among moderns than was current in earlier times. White, to the Welsh, would naturally be the favourite colour for a beautiful creature, dancing in the moonlight on the velvet sward. The most popular pet name for a Welsh lass is to-day exactly what it has been for centuries, viz., Gwenny, the dimi- nutive of Gwenllian (Anglicised into Gwendoline) — a name which means simply white linen ; and the white costume of the favourite fairies undoubtedly signifies a dress of white Hnen. This fabric, common as it is in our day, was In ancient times of inestimable value. In the Mabinogion, linen Is repeatedly particularised in the gorgeous descriptions of fabled splendour in princely castles — linen, silk, satin, velvet, gold-lace, and jewels, are the constantly-recurring features of sumptuous attire. In his account of the royal tribes of Wales, Yorke mentions that linen was so rare in the reign of Charles VII. of France (I.e., in the fif- teenth century) ' that her majesty the queen could boast of only two shifts of that commodity.' The first cause of the fairies' robes being white is evi- dently to be discerned here ; and In Wales the ancient sentiment as to whiteness remains. The Welsh peasantry, coarsely and darkly clad them- selves, would make white a purely holiday colour, and devise some other hue for such commoner fairies as the Bwbach and his sort : The coarse and country fairy, That doth haunt the hearth and dairy .^ So the Bwbach Is usually brown, often hairy ; and the Coblynau are black or copper-coloured In face as well as dress. ---------------------------------------------------------------- The common or popular theory, however, is in Wales the poetico-religious one. This is, in a word, the belief that the Tylwyth Teg are the souls of dead mortals not bad enough for hell nor good enough for heaven. They are doomed to live on earth, to dwell in secret places, until the resurrec- tion day, when they will be admitted into paradise. Meantime they must be either incessantly toiling or incessantly playing, but their toil is fruitless and their pleasure unsatisfying. A variation of this general belief holds these souls to be the souls of the ancient Druids, a fancy which is specially im- pressive, as indicating the duration of their penance, and reminds us of the Wandering Jew myth. It is confined mainly to the Coblynau, or dwellers in mines and caves. Another variation considers the fairies bad spirits of still remoter origin — the same in fact who were thrown over the battlements of heaven along with Satan, but did not fall into hell — landed on the earth instead, where they are per- mitted to tarry till doomsday as above. A detail of this theory is in explanation of the rare appear- ance of fairies nowadays ; they are refraining from mischief in view of the near approach of the judg- ment, with the hope of thus conciliating heaven. -------------------------------- The Prophet Jones, in explaining why the fairies have been so active in Wales, expounds the poetico- religious theory in masterly form. After stating that some in Monmouthshire were so ignorant as to think the fairies happy spirits, because they had music and dancing among them, he proceeds to assert, in the most emphatic terms, that the Tylwyth Teg are nothing else, 'after all the talking about them,' but the disembodied spirits of men who lived and died without the enjoyment of the means of grace and salvation, as Pagans and others, and whose punish- ment therefore is far less severe than that of those who have enjoyed the means of salvation. ' But some persons may desire to know why these fairies hape appeared in Wales more than in some other countries ? to which I answer, that I can give no other reason but this, that having lost the light of the true religion in the eighth and ninth centuries of Christianity, and received Popery in its stead, it became dark night upon them ; and then these spirits of darkness became more bold and intruding; and the people, as I said before, in their great igno- rance seeing them like a company of children in dry clean places, dancing and having music among them, thought them to be some happy beings, . . . and made them welcome in their houses. . . . The Welsh entered into familiarity with the fairies in the time of Henry IV., and the evil then increased ; the severe laws of that prince enjoining, among other things, that they were not to bring up their children to learning, etc., by which a total darkness came upon them ; ^ which cruel laws were occasioned by the rebellion of Owen Glandwr, and the Welsh which joined with him ; foolishly thinking to shake off the Saxon yoke before they had repented of their sins.*