Chapter III: Fairy Ways and Words (1)

Heavens defend me from that Welsh fairy!

Shakespeare.

In the previous chapters, the fairy lore of the Principality was hastily skimmed without any method; and I fear that, now I have to reproduce some of the things which I gleaned somewhat later, there will be, if possible, still less method. The general reader, in case he chances on these pages, will doubtless feel that, as soon as he has read a few of the tales, the rest seem to be familiar to him, and exceedingly tiresome. It may be, however, presumed that all men anxious to arrive at an idea as to the origin among us of the belief in fairies, will agree that we should have as large and exhaustive a collection as possible of facts on which to work. If we can supply the data without stint, the student of anthropology may be trusted in time to discover their value for his inductions, and their place in the history of the human race.

I.

In the course of the summer of 1882 [72] I was a good deal in Wales, especially Carnarvonshire, and I made notes of a great many scraps of legends about the fairies, and other bits of folklore. I will now string some of them together as I found them. I began at Trefriw [73], in Nant Conwy, where I came across an old man, born and bred there, called Morris Hughes. He appears to be about seventy years of age: he formerly worked as a slater, but now he lives at Llanrwst, and tries to earn a livelihood by angling. He told me that fairies came a long while ago to Cowlyd Farm, near Cowlyd Lake, with a baby to dress, and asked to be admitted into the house, saying that they would pay well for it. Their request was granted, and they used to leave money behind them. One day the servant girl accidentally found they had also left some stuff they were in the habit of using in washing their children. She examined it, and, one of her eyes happening to itch, she rubbed it with the finger that had touched the stuff; so when she went to Llanrwst Fair she saw the same fairy folks there stealing cakes from a standing, and asked them why they did that. They inquired with what eye she saw them: she put her hand to the eye, and one of the fairies quickly rubbed it, so that she never saw any more of them. They were also very fond of bringing their children to be dressed in the houses between Trefriw and Llanrwst; and on the flat land bordering on the Conwy they used to dance, frolic, and sing every moonlight night. Evan Thomas of Sgubor Gerrig used to have money from them. He has been dead, Morris Hughes said, over sixty years: he had on his land a sort of cowhouse where the fairies had shelter, and hence the pay.

Morris, when a boy, used to be warned by his parents to take care lest he should be stolen by the fairies. He knew Thomas Williams of Bryn Syllty, or, as he was commonly called, Twm Bryn Syllty, who was a changeling. He was a sharp, small man, afraid of nothing. He met his death some years ago by drowning near Eglwys Fach, when he was about sixty-three years of age. There are relatives of his about Llanrwst still: that is, relatives of his mother, if indeed she was his mother (os oed hi'n fam ido fo, ynté). Lastly, Morris had a tale about a mermaid cast ashore by a storm near Conway. She entreated the fishermen who found her to help her back into her native element; and on their refusing to comply she prayed them to place her tail at least in the water. A very crude rhyme describes her dying of exposure to the cold, thus:--

Y forforwyn ar y traeth,
Crio gwaedu'n arw wnaeth,
Ofn y deuai drycin drannoeth:
Yr hin yn oer a rhewi wnaeth.

The stranded mermaid on the beach
Did sorely cry and sorely screech,
Afraid to bide the morrow's breeze:
The cold it came, and she did freeze.

But before expiring, the mermaid cursed the people of Conway to be always poor, and Conway has ever since, so goes the tale, laboured under the curse; so that when a stranger happens to bring a sovereign there, the Conway folk, if silver is required, have to send across the water to Llansanffraid for change.

My next informant was John Duncan Maclaren, who was born in 1812, and lives at Trefriw. His father was a Scotsman, but Maclaren is in all other respects a Welshman. He also knew the Sgubor Gerrig people, and that Evan Thomas and Lowri his wife had exceeding great trouble to prevent their son Roger from being carried away by the fairies. For the fairy maids were always trying to allure him away, and he was constantly finding fairy money. The fairy dance, and the playing and singing that accompanied it, used to take place in a field in front of his father's house; but Lowri would never let her son go out after the sun had gone to his battlements (ar ol i'r haul fyn'd i lawr i gaera). The most dangerous nights were those when the moon shone brightly, and pretty wreaths of mist adorned the meadows by the river. Maclaren had heard of a man, whom he called Siôn Catrin of Tyn Twll, finding a penny every day at the pistyll or water-spout near the house, when he went there to fetch water. The flat land between Trefriw and Llanrwst had on it a great many fairy rings, and some of them are, according to Maclaren, still to be seen. There the fairies used to dance, and when a young man got into one of the rings the fairy damsels took him away; but he could be got out unharmed at the end of a year and a day, when he would be found dancing with them in the same ring: he must then be dexterously touched by some one of his friends with a piece of iron and dragged out at once. This is the way in which a young man whom my notes connect with a place called Bryn Glas was recovered. He had gone out with a friend, who lost him, and he wandered into a fairy ring. He had new shoes on at the time, and his friends brought him out at the end of the interval of a year and a day; but he could not be made to understand that he had been away more than five minutes, until he was asked to look at his new shoes, which were by that time in pieces. Maclaren had also something to say concerning the history and habitat of the fairies. Those of Nant Conwy dress in green; and his mother, who died about sixty-two years ago, aged forty-seven, had told him that they lived seven years on the earth, seven years in the air, and seven years underground. He also had a mermaid tale, like that of Pergrin from Dyfed, p. 163. A fisherman from Llandrillo yn Rhos, between Colwyn and Llandudno, had caught a mermaid in his net. She asked to be set free, promising that she would, in case he complied, do him a kindness. He consented, and one fine day, a long while afterwards, she suddenly peeped out of the water near him, and shouted: Siôn Ifan, cwyd dy rwyda' a thyn tua'r lan, 'John Evans, take up thy nets and make for the shore.' He obeyed, and almost immediately there was a terrible storm, in which many fishermen lost their lives. The river Conwy is the chief haunt of the mysterious afanc, already mentioned, p. 130, and Maclaren stated that its name used to be employed within his memory to frighten girls and children: so much was it still dreaded. Perhaps I ought to have stated that Maclaren is very fond of music, and that he told me of a gentleman at Conway who had taken down in writing a supposed fairy tune. I have made inquiries of the latter's son, Mr. Hennessy Hughes of Conway; but his father's papers seem to have been lost, so that he cannot find the tune in question, though he has heard of it.

Whilst on this question of music let me quote from the Llwyd letter in the Cambrian Journal for 1859, pp. 145-6, on which I have already drawn, pp. 130-3, above. The passage in point is to the following effect:--

'I will leave these tales aside whilst I go as far as the Ogo Du, "the Black Cave," which is in the immediate vicinity of Crigcieth [74], and into which the musicians entered so far that they lost their way back. One of them was heard to play on his pipe, and another on his horn, about two miles from where they went in; and the place where the piper was heard is called Braich y Bib, and where the man with the horn was heard is called Braich y Cornor. I do not believe that even a single man doubts but that this is all true, and I know not how the airs called Ffarwel Dic y Pibyd, "Dick the Piper's Farewell," and Ffarwel Dwm Bach, "Little Tom's Farewell," had those names, unless it was from the musicians above mentioned. Nor do I know that Ned Puw may not have been the third, and that the air called Ffarwel Ned Puw, "Ned Pugh's Farewell," may not have been the last he played before going into the cave. I cannot warrant this to be true, as I have only heard it said by one man, and he merely held it as a supposition, which had been suggested by this air of Ffarwel Dic y Pibyd.'

A story, however, mentioned by Cyndelw in the Brython for 1860, p. 57, makes Ned Pugh enter the cave of Tal y Clegyr, which the writer in his article identifies with Ness Cliff, near Shrewsbury. In that cave, which was regarded as a wonderful one, he says the musician disappeared, while the air he was playing, Ffarwel Ned Puw, "Ned Pugh's Farewell," was retained in memory of him. Some account of the departure of Ned Pugh and of the interminable cave into which he entered, will be found given in a rambling fashion in the Cambrian Quarterly Magazine (London, 1829), vol. i, pp. 40-5, where the minstrel's Welsh name is given as Iolo ap Huw. There we are told that he was last seen in the twilight of a misty Halloween, and the notes of the tune he was last heard to play are duly given. One of the surmises as to Iolo's ultimate fate is also recorded, namely, that in the other world he has exchanged his fiddle for a bugle, and become huntsman-in-chief to Gwyn ab Nûd, so that every Halloween he may be found cheering Cwn Annwn, 'the Hounds of the Other World,' over Cader Idris [75].

The same summer I fell in with Mr. Morris Evans, of Cerrig Mân, near Amlwch. He is a mining agent on the Gwydir Estate in the Vale of Conwy, but he is a native of the neighbourhood of Parys Mountain, in Anglesey, where he acquired his knowledge of mining. He had heard fairy tales from his grandmother, Grace Jones, of Llwyn Ysgaw near Mynyd Mechell, between Amlwch and Holyhead. She died, nearly ninety years of age, over twenty years ago. She used to relate how she and others of her own age were wont in their youth to go out on bright moonlight nights to a spot near Llyn y Bwch. They seldom had to wait there long before they would hear exquisite music and behold a grand palace standing on the ground. The diminutive folks of fairyland would then come forth to dance and frolic. The next morning the palace would be found gone, but the grandmother used to pick up fairy money on the spot, and this went on regularly so long as she did not tell others of her luck. My informant, who is himself a man somewhat over fifty-two, tells me that at a place not far from Llyn y Bwch there were plenty of fairy rings to be seen in the grass; and it is in them the fairies were supposed to dance [76].

From Llanrwst I went up to see the bard and antiquary, Mr. Gethin Jones. His house was prettily situated on the hillside on the left of the road as you approach the village of Penmachno. I was sorry to find that his memory had been considerably impaired by a paralytic stroke from which he had suffered not long before. However, from his room he pointed out to me a spot on the other side of the Machno, called Y Werdon, which means 'The Green Land,' or more literally, 'The Greenery,' so to say. It was well known for its green, grassy fairy rings, formerly frequented by the Tylwyth Teg; and he said he could distinguish some of the rings even then from where he stood. The Werdon is on the Bennar, and the Bennar is the high ground between Penmachno and Dolwydelan. The spot in question is on the part nearest to the Conwy Falls. This name, Y Werdon, is liable to be confounded with Iwerdon, 'Ireland,' which is commonly treated as if it began with the definite article, so that it is made into Y Werdon and Werdon. The fairy Werdon, in the radical form Gwerdon, not only recalls to my mind the Green Isles called Gwerdonau Llïon, but also the saying, common in North Wales, that a person in great anxiety 'sees Y Werdon.' Thus, for instance, a man who fails to return to his family at the hour expected, and believes his people to be in great anxiety about him, expresses himself by saying that they will have 'seen the Werdon on my account' (mi fydan' wedi gwel'd y Werdon am dana'i). Is that Ireland, or is it the land of the fairies, the other world, in fact? If the latter, it might simply mean they will have died of anxiety; but I confess I have not so far been able to decide. I am not aware that the term occurs in any other form of expression than the one I have given; if it had, and if the Werdon were spoken of in some other way, that might possibly clear up the difficulty. If it refers to Ireland, it must imply that sighting Ireland is equivalent to going astray at sea, meaning in this sort of instance, getting out of one's senses; but the Welsh are not very much given to nautical expressions. It reminds me somewhat of Gerald Griffin's allusion to the Phantom City, and the penalty paid by those who catch a glimpse of its turrets as the dividing waves expose them for a moment to view on the western coast of Ireland:--

Soon close the white waters to screen it,
And the bodement, they say, of the wonderful sight,
Is death to the eyes that have seen it.

The Fairy Glen above Bettws y Coed is called in Welsh Ffos 'Nodyn, 'the Sink of the Abyss'; but Mr. Gethin Jones told me that it was also called Glyn y Tylwyth Teg, which is very probable, as some such a designation is required to account for the English name, 'the Fairy Glen.' People on the Capel Garmon side used to see the Tylwyth playing there, and descending into the Ffos or Glen gently and lightly without occasioning themselves the least harm. The Fairy Glen was, doubtless, supposed to contain an entrance to the world below. This reminds one of the name of the pretty hollow running inland from the railway station at Bangor. Why should it be called Nant Uffern, or 'The Hollow of Hell'? Can it be that there was a supposed entrance to the fairy world somewhere there? In any case, I am quite certain that Welsh place-names involve allusions to the fairies much oftener than has been hitherto supposed; and I should be inclined to cite, as a further example, Moel Eilio [77] or Moel Eilian, from the personal name Eilian, to be mentioned presently. Moel Eilian is a mountain under which the fairies were supposed to have great stores of treasure. But to return to Mr. Gethin Jones, I had almost forgotten that I have another instance of his in point. He showed me a passage in a paper which he wrote in Welsh some time ago on the antiquities of Yspyty Ifan. He says that where the Serw joins the Conwy there is a cave, to which tradition asserts that a harpist was once allured by the Tylwyth Teg. He was, of course, not seen afterwards, but the echo of the music made by him and them on their harps is still to be heard a little lower down, under the field called to this day Gweirglod y Telynorion, 'The Harpers' Meadow': compare the extract from Edward Llwyd's correspondence at p. 202 above.

Mr. Gethin Jones also spoke to me of the lake called Llyn Pencraig, which was drained in hopes of finding lead underneath it, an expectation not altogether doomed to disappointment, and he informed me that its old name was Llyn Llifon; so the moor around it was called Gwaen Llifon. It appears to have been a large lake, but only in wet weather, and to have no deep bed. The names connected with the spot are now Nant Gwaen Llifon and the Gwaith (or Mine) of Gwaen Llifon: they are, I understand, within the township of Trefriw. The name Llyn Llifon is of great interest when taken in connexion with the Triadic account of the cataclysm called the Bursting of Llyn Llifon. Mr. Gethin Jones, however, believed himself that Llyn Llïon was no other than Bala Lake, through which the Dee makes her way.

II.

One day in August of the same year, I arrived at Dinas Station, and walked down to Llandwrog in order to see Dinas Dinlle, and to ascertain what traditions still existed there respecting Caer Arianrhod, Llew Llawgyffes, Dylan Eilton, and other names that figure in the Mabinogi of Math ab Mathonwy. I called first on the schoolmaster, and he kindly took me to the clerk, Hugh Evans, a native of the neighbourhood of Llangefni, in Anglesey. He had often heard people talk of some women having once on a time come from Tregar Anthreg to Cae'r 'Loda', a place near the shore, to fetch food or water, and that when they looked back they beheld the town overflowed by the sea: the walls can still be seen at low water. Gwennan was the name of one of the women, and she was buried at the place now called Bed Gwennan, or Gwennan's Grave. He had also heard the fairy tales of Waen Fawr and Nant y Bettws, narrated by the antiquary, Owen Williams of the former place. For instance, he had related to him the tale of the man who slept on a clump of rushes, and thought he was all the while in a magnificent mansion; see p. 100, above. Now I should explain that Tregar Anthreg is to be seen at low water from Dinas Dinlle as a rock not far from the shore. The Caranthreg which it implies is one of the modern forms to which Caer Arianrhod has been reduced; and to this has been prefixed a synonym of caer, namely, tref, reduced to tre', just as Carmarthen is frequently called Tre' Gaerfyrdin. Cae'r 'Loda' is explained as Cae'r Aelodau', 'The Field of the Limbs'; but I am sorry to say that I forgot to note the story explanatory of the name. It is given, I think, to a farm, and so is Bed Gwennan likewise the name of a farm house. The tenant of the latter, William Roberts, was at home when I visited the spot. He told me the same story, but with a variation: three sisters had come from Tregan Anrheg to fetch provisions, when their city was overflowed. Gwen fled to the spot now called Bed Gwennan, Elan to Tydyn Elan, or Elan's Holding, and Maelan to Rhos Maelan, or Maelan's Moor; all three are names of places in the immediate neighbourhood.

From Dinas Dinlle I was directed across Lord Newborough's grounds at Glynllifon to Pen y Groes Station; but on my way I had an opportunity of questioning several of the men employed at Glynllifon. One of these was called William Thomas Solomon, an intelligent middle-aged man, who works in the garden there. He said that the three women who escaped from the submerged city were sisters, and that he had learned in his infancy to call them Gwennan bi Dôn, Elan bi Dôn, and Maelan bi Dôn. Lastly, the name of the city, according to him, was Tregan Anthrod. I had the following forms of the name that day:--Tregar Anrheg, Tregar Anthreg, Tregan Anrheg, Tregan Anthreg, and Tregan Anthrod. All these are attempts to reproduce what might be written Tre'-Gaer-Arianrhod. The modification of nrh into nthr is very common in North Wales, and Tregar Anrheg seems to have been fashioned on the supposition that the name had something to do with anrheg, 'a gift.' Tregan Anthrod is undoubtedly the Caer Arianrhod, or 'fortress of Arianrhod,' in the Mabinogi, and it is duly marked as such in a map of Speede's at the spot where it should be. Now the Arianrhod of the Mabinogi of Math could hardly be called a lady of rude virtue, and it is the idea in the neighbourhood that the place was inundated on account of the wickedness of the inhabitants. So it would appear that Gwennan, Elan, and Maelan, Arianrhod's sisters, were the just ones allowed to escape. Arianrhod was probably drowned as the principal sinner in possession; but I did not find, as I expected, that the crime which called for such an expiation was in this instance that of playing cards on Sunday. In fact, this part of the legend does not seem to have been duly elaborated as yet.

I must now come back to Solomon's bi Dôn, which puzzles me not a little. Arianrhod was daughter of Dôn, and so several other characters in the same Mabinogi were children of Dôn. But what is bi Dôn? I have noticed that all the Welsh antiquaries who take Don out of books invariably call that personage Dòn or Donn with a short o, which is wrong, and this has saved me from being deceived once or twice: so I take it that bi Dôn is, as Solomon asserted, a local expression of which he did not know the meaning. I can only add, in default of a better explanation, that bi Dôn recalled to my mind what I had shortly before heard on my trip from Aberdaron to Bardsey Island. My wife and I, together with two friends, engaged, after much eloquent haggling, a boat at the former place, but one of the men who were to row us insinuated a boy of his, aged four, into the boat, an addition which did not exactly add to the pleasures of that somewhat perilous trip amidst incomprehensible currents. But the Aberdaron boatmen always called that child bi Donn, which I took to have been a sort of imitation of an infantile pronunciation of 'baby John,' for his name was John, which Welsh infants as a rule first pronounce Donn: I can well remember the time when I did. This, applied to Gwennan bi Dôn, would imply that Solomon heard it as a piece of nursery lore when he was a child, and that it meant simply--Gwennan, baby or child of Dôn. Lastly, the only trace of Dylan I could find was in the name of a small promontory, called variously by the Glynllifon men Pwynt Maen Tylen, which was Solomon's pronunciation, and Pwynt Maen Dulan. It is also known, as I was given to understand, as Pwynt y Wig: I believe I have seen it given in maps as Maen Dylan Point.

Solomon told me the following fairy tale, and he was afterwards kind enough to have it written out for me. I give it in his own words, as it is peculiar in some respects:--

Mi'r oed gwr a gwraig yn byw yn y Garth Dorwen [78] ryw gyfnod maith yn ol, ag aethant i Gaer'narfon i gyflogi morwyn ar dyd ffair G'langaeaf, ag yr oed yn arferiad gan feibion a merched y pryd hynny i'r rhai oed yn sefyll allan am lefyd aros yn top y maes presennol wrth boncan las oed yn y fan y lle saif y Post-office presennol; aeth yr hen wr a'r hen wraig at y fan yma a gwelent eneth lan a gwallt melyn yn sefyll 'chydig o'r neilldu i bawb arall; aeth yr hen wraig ati a gofynnod i'r eneth oed arni eisiau lle. Atebod fod, ag felly cyflogwyd yr eneth yn dioed a daeth i'w lle i'r amser penodedig. Mi fydai yn arferiad yr adeg hynny o nydu ar ol swper yn hirnos y gauaf, ag fe fydai y forwyn yn myn'd i'r weirglod i nydu wrth oleu y lloer; ag fe fydai tylwyth teg yn dwad ati hi i'r weirglod i ganu a dawnsio. A ryw bryd yn y gwanwyn pan esdynnod y dyd diangod Eilian gyd a'r tylwythion teg i ffwrd, ag ni welwyd 'mo'ni mwyach. Mae y cae y gwelwyd hi diwethaf yn cael ei alw hyd y dyd hedyw yn Gae Eilian a'r weirglod yn Weirglod y Forwyn. Mi'r oed hen wraig y Garth Dorwen yn arfer rhoi gwraged yn eu gwlâu, a bydai pawb yn cyrchu am dani o bob cyfeiriad; a rhyw bryd dyma wr bonedig ar ei geffyl at y drws ar noswaith loergan lleuad, a hithau yn glawio 'chydig ag yn niwl braid, i 'nol yr hen wreigan at ei wraig; ag felly aeth yn sgil y gwr dïarth ar gefn y march i Ros y Cowrt. Ar ganol y Rhos pryd hynny 'r oed poncan lled uchel yn debyg i hen amdiffynfa a llawer o gerrig mawrion ar ei phen a charned fawr o gerrig yn yr ochor ogledol idi, ag mae hi i'w gwel'd hyd y dyd hedyw dan yr enw Bryn y Pibion. Pan gyrhaedasan' y lle aethan' i ogo' fawr ag aethan' i 'stafell lle'r oed y wraig yn ei gwely, a'r lle crandia' a welod yr hen wraig yrioed. Ag fe roth y wraig yn ei gwely ag aeth at y tan i drin y babi; ag ar ol idi orphen dyna y gwr yn dod a photel i'r hen wraig i hiro llygaid y babi ag erfyn arni beidio a'i gyffwr' a'i llygaid ei hun. Ond ryw fod ar ol rhoi y botel heibio fe daeth cosfa ar lygaid yr hen wraig a rhwbiod ei llygaid â'r un bys ag oed wedi bod yn rhwbio llygaid y baban a gwelod hefo 'r llygad hwnnw y wraig yn gorfed ar docyn o frwyn a rhedyn crinion mewn ogo' fawr o gerrig mawr o bob tu idi a 'chydig bach o dan mewn rhiw gornel, a gwelod mai Eilian oed hi, ei hen forwyn, ag hefo'r llygad arall yn gwel'd y lle crandia' a welod yrioed. Ag yn mhen ychydig ar ol hynny aeth i'r farchnad i Gaer'narfon a gwelod y gwr a gofynnod ido--'Pa sud mae Eilian?' 'O y mae hi yn bur da,' medai wrth yr hen wraig: 'a pha lygad yr ydych yn fy ngwel'd?' 'Hefo hwn,' medai hithau. Cymerod babwyren ag a'i tynod allan ar unwaith.

'An old man and his wife lived at the Garth Dorwen in some period a long while ago. They went to Carnarvon to hire a servant maid at the Allhallows' [79] fair; and it was the custom then for young men and women who stood out for places to station themselves at the top of the present Maes, by a little green eminence which was where the present Post-office stands. The old man and his wife went to that spot, and saw there a lass with yellow hair, standing a little apart from all the others; the old woman went to her and asked her if she wanted a place. She replied that she did, and so she hired herself at once and came to her place at the time fixed. In those times it was customary during the long winter nights that spinning should be done after supper. Now the maid servant would go to the meadow to spin by the light of the moon, and the Tylwyth Teg used to come to her to sing and dance. But some time in the spring, when the days had grown longer, Eilian escaped with the Tylwyth Teg, so that she was seen no more. The field where she was last seen is to this day called Eilian's Field, and the meadow is known as the Maid's Meadow. The old woman of Garth Dorwen was in the habit of putting women to bed, and she was in great request far and wide. Some time after Eilian's escape there came a gentleman on horseback to the door one night when the moon was full, while there was a slight rain and just a little mist, to fetch the old woman to his wife. So she rode off behind the stranger on his horse, and came to Rhos y Cowrt. Now there was at that time, in the centre of the rhos, somewhat of a rising ground that looked like an old fortification, with many big stones on the top, and a large cairn of stones on the northern side: it is to be seen there to this day, and it goes by the name of Bryn y Pibion, but I have never visited the spot. When they reached the spot, they entered a large cave, and they went into a room where the wife lay in her bed; it was the finest place the old woman had seen in her life. When she had successfully brought the wife to bed, she went near the fire to dress the baby; and when she had done, the husband came to the old woman with a bottle of ointment [80] that she might anoint the baby's eyes; but he entreated her not to touch her own eyes with it. Somehow after putting the bottle by, one of the old woman's eyes happened to itch, and she rubbed it with the same finger that she had used to rub the baby's eyes. Then she saw with that eye how the wife lay on a bundle of rushes and withered ferns in a large cave, with big stones all round her, and with a little fire in one corner; and she saw also that the lady was only Eilian, her former servant girl, whilst, with the other eye, she beheld the finest place she had ever seen. Not long afterwards the old midwife went to Carnarvon to market, when she saw the husband, and said to him, "How is Eilian?" "She is pretty well," said he to the old woman, "but with what eye do you see me?" "With this one," was the reply; and he took a bulrush and put her eye out at once.'

That is exactly the tale, my informant tells me, as he heard it from his mother, who heard it from an old woman who lived at Garth Dorwen when his mother was a girl, about eighty-four years ago, as he guessed it to have been; but in his written version he has omitted one thing which he told me at Glynllifon, namely, that, when the servant girl went out to the fairies to spin, an enormous amount of spinning used to be done. I mention this as it reminds me of the tales of other nations, where the girl who cannot spin straw into gold is assisted by a fairy, on certain conditions which are afterwards found very inconvenient. It may be guessed that in the case of Eilian the conditions involved her becoming a fairy's wife, and that she kept to them. Lastly, I should like the archæologists of Carnarvonshire to direct their attention to Bryn y Pibion; for they might be expected to come across the remains there of a barrow or of a fort.

III.

The same summer I happened to meet the Rev. Robert Hughes, of Uwchlaw'r Ffynnon, near Llanaelhaearn, a village on which Tre'r Ceiri, or the Town of the Keiri, looks down in its primitive grimness from the top of one of the three heights of the Eifl, or Rivals as English people call them. The district is remarkable for the longevity of its inhabitants, and Mr. Hughes counted fifteen farmers in his immediate neighbourhood whose average age was eighty-three; and four years previously the average age of eighteen of them was no less than eighty-five. He himself was, when I met him, seventy-one years of age, and he considered that he represented the traditions of more than a century and a half, as he was a boy of twelve when one of his grandfathers died at the age of ninety-two: the age reached by one of his grandmothers was all but equal, while his father died only a few years ago, after nearly reaching his ninety-fifth birthday.

Story-telling was kept alive in the parish of Llanaelhaearn by the institution known there as the pilnos, or peeling night, when the neighbours met in one another's houses to spend the long winter evenings dressing hemp and carding wool, though I guess that a pilnos was originally the night when people met to peel rushes for rushlights. When they left these merry meetings they were ready, as Mr. Hughes says, to see anything. In fact, he gives an instance of some people coming from a pilnos across the mountain from Nant Gwrtheyrn to Llithfaen, and finding the fairies singing and dancing with all their might: they were drawn in among them and found themselves left alone in the morning on the heather. Indeed, Mr. Hughes has seen the fairies himself: it was on the Pwllheli road, as he was returning in the grey of the morning from the house of his fiancée when he was twenty-seven. The fairies he saw came along riding on wee horses: his recollection is that he now and then mastered his eyes and found the road quite clear, but the next moment the vision would return, and he thought he saw the diminutive cavalcade as plainly as possible. Similarly, a man of the name of Solomon Evans, when, thirty years ago, making his way home late at night through Glynllifon Park, found himself followed by quite a crowd of little creatures, which he described as being of the size of guinea pigs and covered with red and white spots. He was an ignorant man, who knew no better than to believe to the day of his death, some eight or nine years ago, that they were demons. This is probably a blurred version of a story concerning Cwn Annwn, 'Hell hounds,' such as the following, published by Mr. O. M. Edwards in his Cymru for 1897, p. 190, from Mr. J. H. Roberts' essay mentioned above at p. 148:--'Ages ago as a man who had been engaged on business, not the most creditable in the world, was returning in the depth of night across Cefn Creini, and thinking in a downcast frame of mind over what he had been doing, he heard in the distance a low and fear-inspiring bark; then another bark, and another, and then half a dozen and more. Ere long he became aware that he was being pursued by dogs, and that they were Cwn Annwn. He beheld them coming: he tried to flee, but he felt quite powerless and could not escape. Nearer and nearer they came, and he saw the shepherd with them: his face was black and he had horns on his head. They had come round him and stood in a semicircle ready to rush upon him, when he had a remarkable deliverance: he remembered that he had in his pocket a small cross, which he showed them. They fled in the greatest terror in all directions, and this accounts for the proverb, Mwy na'r cythraul at y groes (Any more than the devil to the cross).' That is Mr. Roberts' story; but several allusions have already been made to Cwn Annwn. It would be right probably to identify them in the first instance with the pack with which Arawn, king of Annwn, is found hunting by Pwyll, king of Dyfed, when the latter happens to meet him in Glyn Cuch in his own realm. Then in a poem in the Black Book of Carmarthen we find Gwyn ab Nûd with a pack led by Dormarth, a hound with a red snout which he kept close to the ground when engaged in the chase; similarly in the story of Iolo ab Huw the dogs are treated as belonging to Gwyn. But on the whole the later idea has more usually been, that the devil is the huntsman, that his dogs give chase in the air, that their quarry consists of the souls of the departed, and that their bark forebodes a death, since they watch for the souls of men about to die. This, however, might be objected to as pagan; so I have heard the finishing touch given to it in the neighbourhood of Ystrad Meurig, by one who, like Mr. Pughe, explained that it is the souls only of notoriously wicked men and well-known evil livers. With this limitation the pack [81] seems in no immediate danger of being regarded as poaching.

To return to Llanaelhaearn, it is right to say that good spirits too, who attend on good Calvinists, are there believed in. Morris Hughes, of Cwm Corryn, was the first Calvinistic Methodist at Llanaelhaearn; he was great-grandfather to Robert Hughes' wife; and he used to be followed by two pretty little yellow birds. He would call to them, 'Wryd, Wryd!' and they would come and feed out of his hand, and when he was dying they came and flapped their wings against his window. This was testified to by John Thomas, of Moelfre Bach, who was present at the time. Thomas died some twenty-five years ago, at the age of eighty-seven. I have heard this story from other people, but I do not know what to make of it, though I may add that the little birds are believed to have been angels. In Mr. Rees' Welsh Saints, pp. 305-6, Gwryd is given as the name of a friar who lived about the end of the twelfth century, and has been commemorated on November 1; and the author adds a note referring to the Cambrian Register for 1800, vol. iii. p. 221, where it is said that Gwryd relieved the bard Einion ab Gwalchmai of some oppression, probably mental, which had afflicted him for seven years. Is one to suppose that Gwryd sent two angels in the form of little birds to protect the first Llanaelhaearn Methodist? The call 'Wryd, Wryd,' would seem to indicate that the name was not originally Gwryd, but Wryd, to be identified possibly with the Pictish name Uoret in an inscription at St. Vigean's, near Arbroath, and to be distinguished from the Welsh word gwryd, 'valour,' and from the Welsh name Gwriad, representing what in its Gaulish form was Viriatus. We possibly have the name Wryd in Hafod Wryd, a place in the Machno Valley above Bettws y Coed; otherwise one would have expected Hafod y Gwryd, making colloquially, Hafod Gwryd.

Mr. Hughes told me a variety of things about Nant Gwrtheyrn, one of the spots where the Vortigern story is localized. The Nant is a sort of a cul de sac hollow opening to the sea at the foot of the Eifl. There is a rock there called Y Farches, and the angle of the sea next to the old castle, which seems to be merely a mound, is called Y Llynclyn, or 'The Whirlpool'; and this is perhaps an important item in the localizing of Vortigern's city there. I was informed by Mr. Hughes that the grave of Olfyn is in this Nant, with a razed church close by: both are otherwise quite unknown to me. Coming away from this weird spot to the neighbourhood of Celynnog, one finds that the Pennard of the Mabinogi of Math is now called Pennarth, and has on it a well-known cromlech. Of course, I did not leave Mr. Hughes without asking him about Caer Arianrhod, and I found that he called it Tre' Gaer Anrheg: he described it as a stony patch in the sea, and it can, he says, be reached on foot when the ebb is at its lowest in spring and autumn. The story he had heard about it when he was a boy at school with David Thomas, better known by his bardic name of Dafyd Du Eryri, was the following:--

'Tregaer Anrheg was inhabited by a family of robbers, and among other things they killed and robbed a man at Glyn Iwrch, near the further wall of Glynnllifon Park: this completed the measure of their lawlessness. There was one woman, however, living with them at Tregaer Anrheg, who was not related to them, and as she went out one evening with her pitcher to fetch water, she heard a voice crying out, Dos i ben y bryn i wel'd rhyfedod, that is, Go up the hill to see a wonder. She obeyed, and as soon as she got to the top of the hill, whereby was meant Dinas Dinlle, she beheld Tregaer Anrheg sinking in the sea.'

As I have wandered away from the fairies I may add the following curious bit of legend which Mr. Hughes gave me:--'When St. Beuno lived at Celynnog, he used to go regularly to preach at Llandwyn on the opposite side of the water, which he always crossed on foot. But one Sunday he accidentally dropped his book of sermons into the water, and when he had failed to recover it a gylfin-hir, or curlew, came by, picked it up, and placed it on a stone out of the reach of the tide. The saint prayed for the protection and favour of the Creator for the gylfin-hir: it was granted, and so nobody ever knows where that bird makes its nest.'

IV.

One day in August of the same summer I went to have another look at the old inscribed stone at Gesail Gyfarch [82], near Tremadoc, and, instead of returning the same way, I walked across to Criccieth Station; but on my way I was directed to call at a farm house called Llwyn y Mafon Uchaf, where I was to see Mr. Edward Llewelyn, a bachelor then seventy-six years of age. He is a native of the neighbourhood, and has always lived in it; moreover, he has now been for some time blind. He had heard a good many fairy tales. Among others he mentioned John Roberts, a slater from the Garn, that is Carn Dolbenmaen, as having one day, when there was a little mist and a drizzling rain, heard a crowd of fairies talking together in great confusion, near a sheepfold on Llwytmor Mountain; but he was too much afraid to look at them. He also told me of a man at Ystum Cegid, a farm not far off, having married a fairy wife on condition that he was not to touch her with any kind of iron on pain of her leaving him for ever. Then came the usual accident in catching a horse in order to go to a fair at Carnarvon, and the immediate disappearance of the wife. At this point Mr. Llewelyn's sister interposed to the effect that the wife did once return and address her husband in the rhyme, Os byd anwyd ar fy mab, &c.: see pp. 44, 55 above. Then Mr. Llewelyn enumerated several people who are of this family, among others a girl, who is, according to him, exactly like the fairies. This made me ask what the fairies are like, and he answered that they are small unprepossessing creatures, with yellow skin and black hair. Some of the men, however, whom he traced to a fairy origin are by no means of this description. The term there for men of fairy descent is Belsiaid, and they live mostly in the neighbouring parish of Pennant, where it would never do for me to go and collect fairy tales, as I am told; and Mr. Llewelyn remembers the fighting that used to take place at the fairs at Penmorfa if the term Belsiaid once began to be heard. Mr. Llewelyn was also acquainted with the tale of the midwife that went to a fairy family, and how the thieving husband had deprived her of the use of one eye. He also spoke of the fairies changing children, and how one of these changelings, supposed to be a baby, expressed himself to the effect that he had seen the acorn before the oak, and the egg before the chick, but never anybody who brewed ale in an egg-shell: see p. 62 above. As to modes of getting rid of the changelings, a friend of Mr. Llewelyn's mentioned the story that one was once dropped into the Glaslyn river, near Bedgelert. The sort of children the fairies liked were those that were unlike their own; that is, bairns whose hair was white, or inclined to yellow, and whose skin was fair. He had a great deal to say of a certain Elis Bach of Nant Gwrtheyrn, who used to be considered a changeling. With the exception of this changing of children the fairies seemed to have been on fairly good terms with the inhabitants, and to have been in the habit of borrowing from farm houses a padell and gradell for baking. The gradell is a sort of round flat iron, on which the dough is put, and the padell is the patella or pan put over it: they are still commonly used for baking in North Wales. Well, the fairies used to borrow these two articles, and by way of payment to leave money on the hob at night. All over Lleyn the Tylwyth are represented as borrowing padell a gradell. They seem to have never been very strong in household furniture, especially articles made of iron. Mr. Llewelyn had heard that the reason why people do not see fairies nowadays is that they have been exorcised (wedi eu hoffrymu) for hundreds of years to come.

About the same time I was advised to try the memory of Miss Jane Williams, who lives at the Graig, Tremadoc: she was then, as I was told, seventy-five, very quick-witted, but by no means communicative to idlers. The most important information she had for me was to the effect that the Tylwyth Teg had been exorcised away (wedi 'ffrymu) and would not be back in our day. When she was about twelve she served at the Gelli between Tremadoc and Pont Aberglaslyn. Her master's name was Siôn Ifan, and his wife was a native of the neighbourhood of Carnarvon; she had many tales to tell them about the Tylwyth, how they changed children, how they allured men to the fairy rings, and how their dupes returned after a time in a wretched state, with hardly any flesh on their bones. She heard her relate the tale of a man who married a fairy, and how she left him; but before going away from her husband and children she asked the latter by name which they would like to have, a dirty cow-yard (buches fudur) or a clean cow-yard (buches lân). Some gave the right answer, a dirty cow-yard, but some said a clean cow-yard: the lot of the latter was poverty, for they were to have no stock of cattle. The same question is asked in a story recorded by the late Rev. Elias Owen, in his Welsh Folk-lore, p. 82 [83]: his instance belongs to the neighbourhood of Pentrevoelas, in Denbighshire.

V.

When I was staying at Pwllheli the same summer, I went out to the neighbouring village of Four Crosses, and found a native of the place, who had heard a great many curious things from his mother. His name was Lewis Jones: he was at the time over eighty, and he had formerly been a saddler. Among other things, his mother often told him that her grandmother had frequently been with the fairies, when the latter was a child. She lived at Plâs Du, and once she happened to be up near Carn Bentyrch when she saw them. She found them resembling little children, and playing in a brook that she had to cross. She was so delighted with them, and stayed so long with them, that a search was made for her, when she was found in the company of the fairies. Another time, they met her as she was going on an errand across a large bog on a misty day, when there was a sort of a drizzle, which one might call either dew or rain, as it was not decidedly either, but something between the two, such as the Welsh would call gwlithlaw, 'dew-rain.' She loitered in their company until a search was made for her again. Lewis Jones related to me the story of the midwife--he pronounced it in Welsh 'midwaith'--who attended on a fairy. As in the other versions, she lost the sight of one eye in consequence of her discovering the gentleman fairy thieving; but the fair at which this happened was held in this instance at Nefyn. He related also how a farmer at Pennant had wedded a fairy called Bella. This tale proceeded like the other versions, and did not even omit the fighting at Penmorfa: see pp. 89, 93, 220. He had likewise the tale about the two youths who had gone out to fetch some cattle, and came, while returning about dusk, across a party of fairies dancing. The one was drawn into the circle, and the other was suspected at length of having murdered him, until, at the suggestion of a wizard, he went to the same place at the end of a year and a day: then he found him dancing, and managed to get him out. He had been reduced to a mere skeleton, but he inquired at once if the cattle he was driving were far ahead. Jones had heard of a child changed by the fairies when its mother had placed it in some hay while she worked at the harvest. She discovered he was not her own by brewing in an egg-shell, as usual. Then she refused to take any notice of him, and she soon found her own baby returned; but the latter looked much the worse for its sojourn in the land of the Tylwyth Teg.

My informant described to me Elis Bach of Nant Gwrtheyrn, already mentioned, p. 221, who died somewhat more than forty years ago. His father was a farmer there, and his children, both boys and girls, were like ordinary folks, excepting Elis, who was deformed, his legs being so short that his body seemed only a few inches from the ground when he walked. His voice was also small and squeaky. However, he was very sharp, and could find his way among the rocks pretty well when he went in quest of his father's sheep and goats, of which there used to be plenty there formerly. Everybody believed Elis to have been a changeling, and one saying of his is still remembered in that part of the country. When strangers visited Nant Gwrtheyrn, a thing which did not frequently happen, and when his parents asked them to their table, and pressed them to eat, he would squeak out drily, Buta 'nynna buta'r cwbwl, that is to say, 'Eating that means eating all we have.'

He told me further that the servant girls used formerly to take care to bring a supply of water indoors at the approach of night, that the fairies might find plenty in which to bathe their children, for fear that they might use the milk instead, if water was wanting. Moreover, when they had been baking, they took care to leave the fairies both padell and gradell, that they might do their baking in the night. The latter used to pay for this kindness by leaving behind them a cake of fairy bread and sometimes money on the hob. I have, however, not been able to learn anything about the quality or taste of this fairy food.