Welsh Folklore and Fairytales
THE TOUCH OF CLAY
Welsh Fairy Tales
Long, long ago before the Cymry came into the beautiful land of Wales,
there were dark-skinned people living in caves.
In these early times there were a great many fairies of all sorts, but
of very different kinds of behavior, good and bad.
It was in this age of the world that fairies got an idea riveted into
their heads which nothing, not even hammers, chisels or crowbars can
pry up. Neither horse power, nor hydraulic force nor sixteen-inch
bombs, nor cannon balls, nor torpedoes can drive it out.
It is a settled matter of opinion in fairy land that, compared with
fairies, human beings are very stupid. The fairies think that mortals
are dull witted and awfully slow, when compared to the smarter and
more nimble fairies, that are always up to date in doing things.
Perhaps the following story will help explain why this is.
These ancient folks who lived in caves, could not possibly know some
things that are like A B C to the fairies of to-day. For the Welsh
fairies, King Puck and Queen Mab, know all about what is in the
telegraphs, submarine cables and wireless telegraphy of to-day. Puck
would laugh if you should say that a telephone was any new thing to
him. Long ago, in Shakespeare's time, he boasted that he could "put a
girdle round the earth in forty minutes." Men have been trying ever
since to catch up with him, but they have not gone ahead of him yet.
If, only three hundred years ago, this were the case, what must have
been Puck's fun, when he saw men in the early days, working so hard to
make even a clay cup or saucer. These people who slept and ate in cave
boarding-houses, knew nothing of metals, or how to make iron or brass
tools, wire, or machines, or how to touch a button and light up a
whole room, which even a baby can now do.
There is one thing that we, who have traveled in many fairy lands,
have often noticed and told our friends, the little folks, and that is
this:
All the fairies we ever knew are very slow to change either their
opinions, or their ways, or their fashions. Like many mortals, they
think a great deal of their own notions. They imagine that the only
way to do a thing is in that which they say is the right one.
So it came to pass that even when the Cymric folk gave up wearing the
skins of animals, and put on pretty clothes woven on a loom, and ate
out of dishes, instead of clam shells, there were still some fairies
that kept to the notions and fashions of the cave days. To one of
these, came trouble because of this failing.
Now there was once a pretty nymph, who lived in the Red Lake, to which
a young and handsome farmer used to come to catch fish. One misty day,
when the lad could see only a few feet before him, a wind cleared the
air and blew away the fog. Then he saw near him a little old man,
standing on a ladder. He was hard at work in putting a thatched roof
on a hut which he had built.
A few minutes later, as the mist rose and the breezes blew, the farmer
could see no house, but only the ripplings of water on the lake's
surface.
Although he went fishing often, he never again saw anything unusual,
during the whole summer.
On one hot day in the early autumn, while he stopped to let his horse
drink, he looked and saw a very lovely face on the water. Wondering to
whom it might belong, there rose up before him the head and shoulders
of a most beautiful woman. She was so pretty that he had two tumbles.
He fell off his horse and he fell in love with her at one and the same
time.
Rushing toward the lovely vision, he put out his arms at that spot
where he had seen her, but only to embrace empty air. Then he
remembered that love is blind. So he rubbed his eyes, to see if he
could discern anything. Yet though he peered down into the water, and
up over the hills, he could not see her anywhere.
But he soon found out to his joy that his eyes were all right, for in
another place, the face, flower-crowned hair, and her reflection in
the water came again. Then his desire to possess the damsel was
doubled. But again, she disappeared, to rise again somewhere else.
Five times he was thus tantalized and disappointed. She rose up, and
quickly disappeared.
It seemed as though she meant only to tease him. So he rode home
sorrowing, and scarcely slept that night.
Early morning, found the lovelorn youth again at the lake side, but
for hours he watched in vain. He had left his home too excited to have
eaten his usual breakfast, which greatly surprised his housekeeper.
Now he pulled out some sweet apples, which a neighbor had given him,
and began to munch them, while still keeping watch on the waters.
No sooner had the aroma of the apples fallen on the air, than the
pretty lady of the lake bobbed up from beneath the surface, and this
time quite near him. She seemed to have lost all fear, for she asked
him to throw her one of the apples.
"Please come, pretty maid, and get it yourself," cried the farmer.
Then he held up the red apple, turning it round and round before her,
to tempt her by showing its glossy surface and rich color.
Apparently not afraid, she came up close to him and took the apple
from his left hand. At once, he slipped his strong right arm around
her waist, and hugged her tight. At this, she screamed loudly.
Then there appeared in the middle of the lake the old man, he had seen
thatching the roof by the lake shore. This time, besides his long
snowy beard, he had on his head a crown of water lilies.
"Mortal," said the venerable person. "That is my daughter you are
clasping. What do you wish to do with her?"
At once, the farmer broke out in passionate appeal to the old man that
she might become his wife. He promised to love her always, treat her
well, and never be rough or cruel to her.
The old father listened attentively. He was finally convinced that the
farmer would make a good husband for his lovely daughter. Yet he was
very sorry to lose her, and he solemnly laid one condition upon his
future son-in-law.
He was never under any pretense, or in any way, to strike her with
clay, or with anything made or baked from clay. Any blow with that
from which men made pots and pans, and jars and dishes, or in fact,
with earth of any sort, would mean the instant loss of his wife. Even
if children were born in their home, the mother would leave them, and
return to fairy land under the lake, and be forever subject to the law
of the fairies, as before her marriage.
The farmer was very much in love with his pretty prize, and as
promises are easily made, he took oath that no clay should ever touch
her.
They were married and lived very happily together. Years passed and
the man was still a good husband and lover. He kept up the habit which
he had learned from a sailor friend. Every night, when far from home
and out on the sea, he and his mates used to drink this toast;
"Sweethearts and wives: may every sweetheart become a wife and every
wife remain a sweetheart, and every husband continue a lover."
So he proved that though a husband he was still a lover, by always
doing what she asked him and more. When the children were born and
grew up, their father told them about their mother's likes and
dislikes, her tastes and her wishes, and warned them always to be
careful. So it was altogether a very happy family.
One day, the wife and mother said to her husband, that she had a great
longing for apples. She would like to taste some like those which he
long ago gave her. At once, the good man dropped what he was doing and
hurried off to his neighbor, who had first presented him with a
trayful of these apples.
The farmer not only got the fruit, but he also determined that he
would plant a tree and thus have apples for his wife, whenever she
wanted them. So he bought a fine young sapling, to set in his orchard,
for the children to play under and to keep his pantry full of the fine
red-cheeked fruit. At this his wife was delighted.
So happy enough--in fact, too merry to think of anything else, they,
both husband and wife, proceeded to set the sapling in the ground. She
held the tree, while he dug down to make the hole deep enough to make
sure of its growing.
But farmers are sometimes very superstitious. They even believe in
luck, though not in Puck. Some of them have faith in what the almanac,
and the patent medicine may say, and in planting potatoes according to
the moon, but they scout the idea of there being any fairies.
With the farmer, this had become a fixed state of mind and now it
brought him to grief, as we shall see. For though he remembered what
his wife liked and disliked, and recalled what her father had told
him, he had forgotten that she was a fairy.
With this farmer and other Welsh mortals, it had become a habit, when
planting a young tree, to throw the last shovelful of earth over the
left shoulder. This was for good luck. The farmer was afraid to break
such a good custom, as he thought it to be.
So merrily he went to work, forgetting everything in his adherence to
habit. He became so absorbed in his job, that he did not look where
his spadeful went, and it struck his dear wife full in the breast.
At that moment, she cried out bitterly, not in pain, but in sorrow.
Then she started to run towards the lake. At the shore, she called
out, "Good-by, dear, dear husband." Then, leaping into the water, she
was never seen again and all his tears and those of the children never
brought her back.