Chapter III: Fairy Ways and Words (3)

Fe fu gynt hen fenyw yn byw mewn ty bychan gerllaw i Ynys Geinon, ac yr oed hi yn gallu rheibo, mede nhw, ac yr oed sôn ei bod yn treulio saith diwrnod, saith awr, a saith mynyd gyda y Tylwyth Teg bob blwydyn yn Ogof y Castell. Yr oed y gred yn lled gyffredinol ei bod hi yn cael hyn a hyn o aur am bob plentyn a allai hi ladrata idynt hwy, a dodi un o'i hen grithod hwy yn ei le: 'doed hwnnw byth yn cynydu. Y fford y bydai hi yn gwneyd oed myned i'r ty dan yr esgus o ofyn cardod, a hen glogyn llwyd-du mawr ar ei chefn, ac o dan hwn, un o blant Bendith y Mamau; a bob amser os bydai plentyn bach gwraig y ty yn y cawell, hi gymerai y swyd o siglo y cawell, a dim ond i'r fam droi ei chefn am fynyd neu dwy, hi daflai y lledrith i'r cawell, ai ymaith a'r plentyn yn gyntaf byth y gallai hi. Fe fu plentyn gan dyn o'r gym'dogaeth yn lingran am flynydau heb gynydu dim, a barn pawb oed mai wedi cael ei newid gan yr hen wraig yr oed; fe aeth tad y plentyn i fygwth y gwr hysbys arni: fe daeth yr hen wraig yno am saith niwrnod i esgus bado y bachgen bach mewn dwfr oer, a'r seithfed bore cyn ei bod yn oleu, hi a gas genad i fyned ag ef dan rhyw bistyll, mede hi, ond medai'r cym'dogion, myned ag ef i newid a wnaeth. Ond, beth bynag, fe wellod y plentyn fel cyw yr wyd o hynny i maes. Ond gorfu i fam e' wneyd cystal a llw wrth yr hen wraig, y gwnai ei dwco mewn dwfr oer bob bore dros gwarter blwydyn, ac yn mhen y chwarter hynny 'doed dim brafach plentyn yn y Cwm.

'That is a wonderful thing, that old castle there, he would say, pointing to the Ynys Geinon Rock. I remember a time when people would be terrified to go near it, especially at night. There was considerable danger that one might be taken to Bendith eu Mamau. It is said that there are a great many of them there, though I know not where they abide. The old folks used to say that there was a pit somewhere about the middle of the Castle, about a yard wide and some five or six yards deep, with a stone about three tons in weight over the mouth of it, and that they had a passage underground from that pit all the way to the cave of Tan yr Ogof, near the top of the Cwm, that is, near Adelina Patti's residence at Craig y Nos Castle: there, it was said, they spent their time during the day, while they came down here to play their tricks at night. They have, they say, a gold ladder of one or two and twenty rungs, and it is along that they pass up and down. They have a little word; and it suffices if the foremost on the ladder merely utters that word, for the stone to rise of itself; while there is another word, which it suffices the hindmost in going down to utter so that the stone shuts behind him. It is said that a servant from one of the neighbouring farms, when looking for rabbits in the rock, happened to say the word as he stood near the stone, that it opened for him, and that he went down the ladder; but that because he was ignorant of the word to make it shut behind him, the fairies discovered by the draught putting out their candles that there was something wrong. So they found him out and took him with them. He remained living with them for seven years, but at the end of the seven years he escaped with his hat full of guineas. He had by this time learnt the two words, and got to know a good deal about the hiding places of their treasures. He told everything to a farmer in the neighbourhood, so the latter likewise went down, and some used to say that he brought thence thrice the fill of a salt-chest of guineas, half-guineas, and seven-and-sixpenny pieces in one day. But he got too greedy, and like many a greedy one before him his crime proved his death; for he went down the fourth time in the dusk of the evening, when the fairies came upon him, and he was never seen any more. It is said that his four quarters hang in a room under the Castle; but who has been there to see them I know not. It is true enough that the above-mentioned farmer got lost, and that nothing was heard respecting him; and it is equally true that his family became very well to do almost at once at that time. You know as well as I do that they say, that the fairies have underground passages to the caves of Ystradfellte, near Penderyn. There is the Garn Goch also on the Drum (now called Onllwyn); they say there are hundreds of tons of gold accumulated by them there, and you have heard the story about one of the Gethings going thither to dig in the Garn, and how he [sic] was transformed by the fairies into a wheel of fire, and that he could get no quiet from them until he sent them to manufacture a rope of sand!'--A more intelligible version of this story has been given at pp. 19-20 above.

'There was formerly an old woman living in a small house near Ynys Geinon; and she had the power of bewitching, people used to say: there was a rumour that she spent seven days, seven hours, and seven minutes with the fairies every year in the cave at the Castle. It was a pretty general belief that she got such and such a quantity of gold for every child she could steal for them, and that she put one of those old urchins of theirs in its place: the latter never grew at all. The way she used to do it was to enter people's houses with the excuse of asking for alms, having a large dark-grey old cloak on her back, and the cloak concealed one of the children of Bendith eu Mamau. Whenever she found the little child of the good woman of the house in its cradle, she would take upon herself to rock the cradle, so that if the mother only turned her back for a minute or two, she would throw the sham child into the cradle and hurry away as fast as she could with the baby. A man in the neighbourhood had a child lingering for years without growing at all, and it was the opinion of all that it had been changed by the old woman. The father at length threatened to call in the aid of "the wise man," when the old woman came there for seven days, pretending that it was in order to bathe the little boy in cold water; and on the seventh day she got permission to take him, before it was light, under a certain spout of water: so she said, but the neighbours said it was to change him. However that was, the boy from that time forth got on as fast as a gosling. But the mother had all but to take an oath to the old woman, that she would duck him in cold water every morning for three months, and by the end of that time there was no finer infant in the Cwm.'

Mr. Davies has given me some account also of the annual pilgrimage to the Fan mountains to see the Lake Lady: these are his words on the subject--they recall pp. 15-16 above:--

'It has been the yearly custom (for generations, as far as I can find) for young as well as many people further advanced in years to make a general excursion in carts, gambos, and all kinds of vehicles, to Llyn y Fan, in order to see the water nymph (who appeared on one day only, viz. the first Sunday in August). This nymph was said to have the lower part of her body resembling that of a dolphin, while the upper part was that of a beautiful lady: this anomalous form appeared on the first Sunday in August (if the lake should be without a ripple) and combed her tresses on the reflecting surface of the lake. The yearly peregrination to the abode of the Fan deity is still kept up in this valley--Cwmtawë; but not to the extent that it used to formerly.'

XIII.

Mr. Craigfryn Hughes has sent me another tale about the fairies: it has to do with the parish of Llanfabon, near the eastern border of Glamorganshire. Many traditions cluster round the church of Llanfabon, beginning with its supposed building by Saint Mabon, but which of the Mabons of Welsh legend he was, is not very certain. Not very far is a place called Pant y Dawns, or the Dance Hollow, in allusion to the visits paid to the spot by Bendith y Mamau, as the fairies are there called. In the same neighbourhood stand also the ruins of Castell y Nos, or the Castle of the Night [93], which tradition represents as uninhabitable because it had been built of stones from Llanfabon Church, and on account of the ghosts that used to haunt it. However, one small portion of it was usually tenanted formerly by a 'wise man' or by a witch. In fact, the whole country round Llanfabon Church teemed with fairies, ghosts, and all kinds of uncanny creatures:--

Mewn amaethdy ag syd yn aros yn y plwyf a elwir y Berth Gron, trigiannai gwedw ieuanc a'i phlentyn bychan. Yr oed wedi colli ei gwr, a'i hunig gysur yn ei hamdifadrwyd a'i hunigrwyd oed Gruff, ei mab. Yr oed ef yr amser hwn odeutu tair blwyd oed, ac yn blentyn braf ar ei oedran. Yr oed y plwyf, ar y pryd, yn orlawn o 'Fendith y Mamau'; ac, ar amser llawn lloer, bydent yn cadw dynion yn effro a'u cerdoriaeth hyd doriad gwawr. Rhai hynod ar gyfrif eu hagrwch oed 'Bendith' Llanfabon, ac yr un mor hynod ar gyfrif eu castiau. Lladrata plant o'r cawellau yn absenoldeb eu mamau, a denu dynion trwy eu swyno a cherdoriaeth i ryw gors afiach a diffaith, a ymdangosai yn gryn difyrrwch idynt. Nid rhyfed fod y mamau beunyd ar eu gwyliadwriaeth rhag ofn colli eu plant. Yr oed y wedw o dan sylw yn hynod ofalus am ei mab, gymaint nes tynnu rhai o'r cymydogion i dywedyd wrthi ei bod yn rhy orofalus, ac y bydai i ryw anlwc ordiwes ei mab. Ond ni thalai unrhyw sylw i'w dywediadau. Ymdangosai fod ei holl hyfrydwch a'i chysur ynghyd a'i gobeithion yn cydgyfarfod yn ei mab. Mod bynnag, un diwrnod, clywod ryw lais cwynfannus yn codi o gymydogaeth y beudy; a rhag bod rhywbeth wedi digwyd i un o'r gwartheg rhedod yn orwyllt tuag yno, gan adael y drws heb ei gau, a'i mab bychan yn y ty. Ond pwy a fedr desgrifio ei gofid ar ei gwaith yn dyfod i'r ty wrth weled eisiau ei mab? Chwiliod bob man am dano, ond yn aflwydiannus. Odeutu machlud haul, wele lencyn bychan yn gwneuthur ei ymdangosiad o'i blaen, ac yn dywedyd, yn groyw, 'Mam!' Edrychod y fam yn fanwl arno, a dywedod o'r diwed, 'Nid fy mhlentyn i wyt ti!' 'Ië, yn sicr,' atebai y bychan.

Nid ymdangosai y fam yn fodlon, na'i bod yn credu mai ei phlentyn hi ydoed. Yr oed rhywbeth yn sisial yn barhaus wrthi mai nid ei mab hi ydoed. Ond beth bynnag, bu gyda hi am flwydyn gyfan, ac nid ymdangosai ei fod yn cynydu dim, tra yr oed Gruff, ei mab hi, yn blentyn cynydfawr iawn. Yr oed gwr bychan yn myned yn fwy hagr bob dyd hefyd. O'r diwed penderfynod fyned at y 'dyn hysbys,' er cael rhyw wybodaeth a goleuni ar y mater. Yr oed yn digwyd bod ar y pryd yn trigfannu yn Nghastell y Nos, wr ag oed yn hynod ar gyfrif ei ymwybydiaeth drwyadl o 'gyfrinion y fall.' Ar ol idi osod ei hachos ger ei fron, ac yntau ei holi, sylwod, 'Crimbil ydyw, ac y mae dy blentyn di gyd a'r hen Fendith yn rhywle; ond i ti dilyn fy nghyfarwydiadau i yn ffydlon a manwl, fe adferir dy blentyn i ti yn fuan. Yn awr, odeutu canol dyd y foru, tor wy yn y canol, a thafl un hanner ymaith odiwrthyt, a chadw y llall yn dy law, a dechreu gymysg ei gynwysiad yn ol a blaen. Cofia fod y gwr bychan gerllaw yn gwneuthur sylw o'r hyn ag a fydi yn ei wneuthur. Ond cofia di a pheidio galw ei sylw--rhaid ennill ei sylw at y weithred heb ei alw: ac odid fawr na ofynna i ti beth fydi yn ei wneuthur. A dywed wrtho mai cymysg pastai'r fedel yr wyt. A rho wybod i mi beth fyd ei ateb.'

Dychwelod y wraig, a thrannoeth dilynod gyfarwydyd y 'dyn cynnil' i'r llythyren. Yr oed y gwr bychan yn sefyll yn ei hymyl, ac yn sylwi arni yn fanwl. Ym mhen ychydig, gofynnod, 'Mam, beth 'i ch'i 'neuthur?' 'Cymysg pastai'r fedel, machgen i.' 'O felly. Mi glywais gan fy nhad, fe glywod hwnnw gan ei dad, a hwnnw gan ei dad yntau, fod mesen cyn derwen, a derwen mewn dâr [94]; ond ni chlywais i na gweled neb yn un man yn cymysg pastai'r fedel mewn masgal wy iar.' Sylwod y wraig ei fod yn edrych yn hynod o sarug arni pan yn siarad, ac yr oed hynny yn ychwanegu at ei hagrwch, nes ei wneuthur yn wrthun i'r pen.

Y prydnawn hwnnw aeth y wraig at y 'dyn cynnil' er ei hysbysu o'r hyn a lefarwyd gan y còr. 'O,' ebai hwnnw, 'un o'r hen frid ydyw!' 'Yn awr, byd y llawn lloer nesaf ym mhen pedwar diwrnod; mae yn rhaid i ti fyned i ben y pedair heol syd yn cydgyfarfod wrth ben Rhyd y Gloch; am deudeg o'r gloch y nos y byd y lleuad yn llawn. Cofia gudio dy hun mewn man ag y cei lawn olwg ar bennau y croesffyrd, ac os gweli rywbeth a bair i ti gynhyrfu, cofia fod yn llonyd, ac ymatal rhag rhodi ffrwyn i'th deimladau, neu fe distrywir y cynllun, ac ni chei dy fab yn ol byth.'

Nis gwydai y fam anffodus beth oed i'w deall wrth ystori ryfed y 'dyn cynnil.' Yr oed mewn cymaint o dywyllwch ag erioed. O'r diwed daeth yr amser i ben; ac ar yr awr apwyntiedig yr oed yn ymgudio yn ofalus tu cefn i lwyn mawr yn ymyl, o ba le y caffai olwg ar bob peth o gylch. Bu am hir amser yno yn gwylio heb dim i'w glywed na'i weled--dim ond distawrwyd dwfn a phrudglwyfus yr hanner nos yn teyrnasu. O'r diwed clywai sain cerdoriaeth yn dynesu ati o hirbell. Nês, nês yr oed y sain felusber yn dyfod o hyd; a gwrandawai hithai gyda dydordeb arni. Cyn hir yr oed yn ei hymyl, a deallod mai gorymdaith o 'Fendith y Mamau' oedynt yn myned i rywle. Yr oedynt yn gannoed mewn rhif. Tua chanol yr orymdaith canfydod olygfa ag a drywanod ei chalon, ac a berod i'w gwaed sefyll yn ei rhedwelïau. Yn cerded rhwng pedwar o'r 'Bendith' yr oed ei phlentyn bychan anwyl ei hun. Bu bron a llwyr anghofio ei hun, a llamu tuag ato er ei gipio ymaith odiarnynt trwy drais os gallai. Ond pan ar neidio allan o'i hymgudfan i'r diben hwnnw medyliod am gynghor y 'dyn cynnil,' sef y bydai i unrhyw gynhyrfiad o'i heido distrywio y cwbl, ac na bydai idi gael ei phlentyn yn ol byth.

Ar ol i'r orymdaith dirwyn i'r pen, ac i sain eu cerdoriaeth distewi yn y pellder, daeth allan o'i hymgudfan, gan gyfeirio ei chamrau tua 'i chartref. Os oed yn hiraethol o'r blaen ar ol ei mab, yr oed yn llawer mwy erbyn hyn; a'i hadgasrwyd at y còr bychan oed yn hawlio ei fod yn fab idi wedi cynydu yn fawr iawn, waith yr oed yn sicr yn awr yn ei medwl mai un o'r hen frid ydoed. Nis gwydai pa fod i'w odef am fynud yn hwy yn yr un ty a hi, chwaithach godef ido alw 'mam' arni hi. Ond beth bynnag, cafod digon o ras ataliol i ymdwyn yn wedaid at y gwr bychan hagr oed gyda hi yn y ty. Drannoeth aeth ar ei hunion at y 'dyn cynnil' i adrod yr hyn yr oed wedi bod yn llygad dyst o hono y noson gynt, ac i ofyn am gyfarwydyd pellach. Yr oedd y 'gwr cynnil' yn ei disgwyl, ac ar ei gwaith yn dyfod i'r ty adnabydod wrthi ei bod wedi gweled rhywbeth oed wedi ei chyffroi. Adrodod wrtho yr hyn ag oed wedi ei ganfod ar ben y croesffyrd; ac wedi ido glywed hynny, agorod lyfr mawr ag oed gando, ac wedi hir syllu arno hysbysod hi 'fod yn angenrheidiol idi cyn cael ei phlentyn yn ol gael iâr du heb un plufyn gwyn nac o un lliw arall arni, a'i llad; ac ar ol ei lladd, ei gosod o flaen tan coed, pluf a chwbl, er ei phobi. Mor gynted ag y buasai yn ei gosod o flaen y tan, idi gau pob twll a mynedfa yn yr adeilad ond un, a pheidio a dal sylw manwl ar ol y 'crimbil,' hyd nes bydai y iâr yn digon, a'r pluf i syrthio ymaith oddiarni bob un, ac yna i edrych ym mha le yr oed ef.

Er mor rhyfed oed cyfarwydyd y 'gwr,' penderfynod ei gynnyg; a thrannoeth aeth i chwilio ym mhlith y ieir oed yno am un o'r desgrifiad angenrheidiol; ond er ei siomedigaeth method a chael yr un. Aeth o'r naill ffermdy i'r llall i chwilio, ond ymdangosai ffawd fel yn gwgu arni--waith method a chael yr un. Pan ym mron digaloni gan ei haflwydiant daeth ar draws un mewn amaethdy yng nghwr y plwyf a phrynod hi yn dioedi. Ar ol dychwelyd adref gosodod y tan mewn trefn, a lladod yr iâr, gan ei gosod o flaen y tan disglaer a losgai ar yr alch. Pan yn edrych arni yn pobi, anghofiod y 'crimbil' yn hollol, ac yr oed wedi syrthio i rywfath o brudlewyg, pryd y synnwyd hi gan sain cerdoriaeth y tu allan i'r ty, yn debyg i'r hyn a glywod ychydig nosweithiau cyn hynny ar ben y croesffyrd. Yr oed y pluf erbyn hyn wedi syrthio ymaith odiar y iâr, ac erbyn edrych yr oed y 'crimbil' wedi diflannu. Edrychai y fam yn wyllt o'i deutu, ac er ei llawenyd clywai lais ei mab colledig yn galw arni y tu allan. Rhedod i'w gyfarfod, gan ei gofleidio yn wresog; a phan ofynod ym mha le yr oed wedi bod cyhyd, nid oed gando gyfrif yn y byd i'w rodi ond mai yn gwrando ar ganu hyfryd yr oed wedi bod. Yr oed yn deneu a threuliedig iawn ei wed pan adferwyd ef. Dyna ystori 'Y Plentyn Colledig.'

'At a farm house still remaining in the parish of Llanfabon, which is called the Berth Gron, there lived once upon a time a young widow and her infant child. After losing her husband her only comfort in her bereavement and solitary state was young Griff, her son. He was about three years old and a fine child for his age. The parish was then crammed full of Bendith y Mamau, and when the moon was bright and full they were wont to keep people awake with their music till the break of day. The fairies of Llanfabon were remarkable on account of their ugliness, and they were equally remarkable on account of the tricks they played. Stealing children from their cradles during the absence of their mothers, and luring men by means of their music into some pestilential and desolate bog, were things that seemed to afford them considerable amusement. It was no wonder then that mothers used to be daily on the watch lest they should lose their children. The widow alluded to was remarkably careful about her son, so much so, that it made some of the neighbours say that she was too anxious about him and that some misfortune would overtake her child. But she paid no attention to their words, as all her joy, her comfort, and her hopes appeared to meet together in her child. However, one day she heard a moaning voice ascending from near the cow-house, and lest anything had happened to the cattle, she ran there in a fright, leaving the door of the house open and her little son in the cradle. Who can describe her grief on her coming in and seeing that her son was missing? She searched everywhere for him, but it was in vain. About sunset, behold a little lad made his appearance before her and said to her quite distinctly, "Mother." She looked minutely at him, and said at last, "Thou art not my child." "I am truly," said the little one. But the mother did not seem satisfied about it, nor did she believe it was her child. Something whispered to her constantly, as it were, that it was not her son. However, he remained with her a whole year, but he did not seem to grow at all, whereas Griff, her son, was a very growing child. Besides, the little fellow was getting uglier every day. At last she resolved to go to the "wise man," in order to have information and light on the matter. There happened then to be living at Castell y Nos, "Castle of the Night," a man who was remarkable for his thorough acquaintance with the secrets of the evil one. When she had laid her business before him and he had examined her, he addressed the following remark to her: "It is a crimbil [95], and thy own child is with those old Bendith somewhere or other: if thou wilt follow my directions faithfully and minutely thy child will be restored to thee soon. Now, about noon to-morrow cut an egg through the middle; throw the one half away from thee, but keep the other in thy hand, and proceed to mix it backwards and forwards. See that the little fellow be present paying attention to what thou art doing, but take care not to call his attention to it--his attention must be drawn to it without calling to him--and very probably he will ask what thou wouldst be doing. Thou art to say that it is mixing a pasty for the reapers that thou art. Let me know what he will then say." The woman returned, and on the next day she followed the cunning man's [96] advice to the letter: the little fellow stood by her and watched her minutely; presently he asked, "Mother, what are you doing?" "Mixing a pasty for the reapers, my boy." "Oh, that is it. I heard from my father--he had heard it from his father and that one from his father--that an acorn was before the oak, and that the oak was in the earth; but I have neither heard nor seen anybody mixing the pasty for the reapers in an egg-shell." The woman observed that he looked very cross as he spoke, and that it so added to his ugliness that it made him highly repulsive.

'That afternoon the woman went to the cunning man in order to inform him of what the dwarf had said. "Oh," said he, "he is of that old breed; now the next full moon will be in four days--thou must go where the four roads meet above Rhyd y Gloch [97], at twelve o'clock the night the moon is full. Take care to hide thyself at a spot where thou canst see the ends of the cross-roads; and shouldst thou see anything that would excite thee take care to be still and to restrain thyself from giving way to thy feelings, otherwise the scheme will be frustrated and thou wilt never have thy son back." The unfortunate mother knew not what to make of the strange story of the cunning man; she was in the dark as much as ever. At last the time came, and by the appointed hour she had concealed herself carefully behind a large bush close by, whence she could see everything around. She remained there a long time watching; but nothing was to be seen or heard, while the profound and melancholy silence of midnight dominated over all. At last she began to hear the sound of music approaching from afar; nearer and nearer the sweet sound continued to come, and she listened to it with rapt attention. Ere long it was close at hand, and she perceived that it was a procession of Bendith y Mamau going somewhere or other. They were hundreds in point of number, and about the middle of the procession she beheld a sight that pierced her heart and made the blood stop in her veins--walking between four of the Bendith she saw her own dear little child. She nearly forgot herself altogether, and was on the point of springing into the midst of them violently to snatch him from them if she could; but when she was on the point of leaping out of her hiding place for that purpose, she thought of the warning of the cunning man, that any disturbance on her part would frustrate all, so that she would never get her child back. When the procession had wound itself past, and the sound of the music had died away in the distance, she issued from her concealment and directed her steps homewards. Full of longing as she was for her son before, she was much more so now; and her disgust at the little dwarf who claimed to be her son had very considerably grown, for she was now certain in her mind that he was one of the old breed. She knew not how to endure him for a moment longer under the same roof with her, much less his addressing her as "mother." However, she had enough restraining grace to behave becomingly towards the ugly little fellow that was with her in the house. On the morrow she went without delay to the "wise man" to relate what she had witnessed the previous night, and to seek further advice. The cunning man expected her, and as she entered he perceived by her looks that she had seen something that had disturbed her. She told him what she had beheld at the cross-roads, and when he had heard it he opened a big book which he had; then, after he had long pored over it, he told her, that before she could get her child back, it was necessary for her to find a black hen without a single white feather, or one of any other colour than black: this she was to place to bake before a wood [98] fire with its feathers and all intact. Moreover, as soon as she placed it before the fire, she was to close every hole and passage in the walls except one, and not to look very intently after the crimbil until the hen was done enough and the feathers had fallen off it every one: then she might look where he was.

'Strange as the advice of the wise man sounded, she resolved to try it; so she went the next day to search among the hens for one of the requisite description; but to her disappointment she failed to find one. She then walked from one farm house to another in her search; but fortune appeared to scowl at her, as she seemed to fail in her object. When, however, she was nearly disheartened, she came across the kind of hen she wanted at a farm at the end of the parish. She bought it, and after returning home she arranged the fire and killed the hen, which she placed in front of the bright fire burning on the hearth. Whilst watching the hen baking she altogether forgot the crimbil; and she fell into a sort of swoon, when she was astonished by the sound of music outside the house, similar to the music she had heard a few nights before at the cross-roads. The feathers had by this time fallen off the hen, and when she came to look for the crimbil he had disappeared. The mother cast wild looks about the house, and to her joy she heard the voice of her lost son calling to her from outside. She ran to meet him, and embraced him fervently. But when she asked him where he had been so long, he had no account in the world to give but that he had been listening to pleasant music. He was very thin and worn in appearance when he was restored. Such is the story of the Lost Child.'

Let me remark as to the urchin's exclamation concerning the cooking done in the egg-shell, that Mr. Hughes, as the result of further inquiry, has given me what he considers a more correct version; but it is no less inconsequent, as will be seen:--

Mi glywais gan fy nhad ac yntau gan ei dad, a hwnnw gan ei
dad yntau,
Fod mesen cyn derwen a'i phlannu mwn dár:
Ni chlywais yn unman am gymysg y bastai yn masgal wy iâr.

I heard from my father and he from his father, and that one from
his father,
That the acorn exists before the oak and the planting of it in
the ground:
Never anywhere have I heard of mixing the pasty in the shell of
a hen's egg.

In Dewi Glan Ffrydlas' story from the Ogwen Valley, in Carnarvonshire, p. 62 above, it is not the cooking of a pasty but the brewing of beer in an egg-shell. However what is most remarkable is that the egg-shell is similarly used in stories from other lands. Mr. Hartland cites one from Mecklenburg and another from Scandinavia. He also mentions stories in which the imp measures his own age by the number of forests which he has seen growing successively on the same soil, the formula being of the following kind: 'I have seen the Forest of Ardennes burnt seven times,' 'Seven times have I seen the wood fall in Lessö Forest,' or 'I am so old, I was already in the world before the Kamschtschen Wood (in Lithuania) was planted, wherein great trees grew, and that is now laid waste again [99].' From these and the like instances it is clear that the Welsh versions here in question are partially blurred, as the fairy child's words should have been to the effect that he was old enough to remember the oak when it was yet but an acorn; and an instance of this explicit kind is given by Howells--it comes from Llandrygarn in Anglesey--see p. 139, where his words run thus: 'I can remember yon oak an acorn, but I never saw in my life people brewing in an egg-shell before.' I may add that I have been recently fortunate enough to obtain from Mr. Llywarch Reynolds another kind of estimate of the fairy urchin's age. He writes that his mother remembers a very old Merthyr woman who used to tell the story of the egg-shell cookery, but in words differing from all the other versions known to him, thus:--

Wy'n hén y dyd hedy,
Ag yn byw cyn 'y ngeni:
Eriôd ni welas i ferwi
Bwyd i'r fedal mwn cwcwll [100] wy iâr.

I call myself old this day,
And living before my birth:
Never have I seen food boiled
For the reapers in an egg-shell.

As to the urchin's statement that he was old and had lived before, it is part of a creed of which we may have something to say in a later chapter. At this point let it suffice to call attention to the same idea in the Book of Taliessin, poem ix:--

Hynaf uyd dyn pan anher
A ieu ieu pop amser.

A man is wont to be oldest when born,
And younger and younger all the time.

XIV.

Before closing this chapter, I wish to touch on the question of the language of the fairies, though fairy tales hardly ever raise it, as they usually assume the fairies to speak the same language as the mortals around them. There is, however, one well-known exception, namely, the story of Eliodorus, already mentioned, p. 117, as recorded by Giraldus Cambrensis, who relates how Eliodorus, preferring at the age of twelve to play the truant to undergoing a frequent beating by his teacher, fasted two days in hiding in the hollow of a river bank, and how he was then accosted by two little men who induced him to follow them to a land of sports and other delights. There he remained long enough to be able, years later, to give his diocesan, the second Menevian bishop named David [101], a comprehensive account of the people and realm of Faery. After Eliodorus had for some time visited and revisited that land of twilight, his mother desired him to bring her some of the gold of the fairies. So one day he tried to bring away the gold ball with which the fairy king's son used to play; but he was not only unsuccessful, but subjected to indignities also, and prevented from evermore finding his way back to fairyland. So he had to go again to school and to the studies which he so detested; but in the course of time he learned enough to become a priest; and when, stricken in years, he used to be entreated by Bishop David to relate this part of his early history, he never could be got to unfold his tale without shedding tears. Among other things which he said of the fairies' mode of living, he stated that they ate neither flesh nor fish, but lived for the most part on various kinds of milk food cooked after the fashion of stirabout, flavoured as it were with saffron [102]. But one of the most curious portions of Eliodorus' yarn was that relating to the language of the fairies; for he pretended to have learnt it and to have found it to resemble his own Britannica Lingua, 'Brythoneg, or Welsh.' In the words instanced Giraldus perceived a similarity to Greek [103], which he accounted for by means of the fabulous origin of the Welsh from the Trojans and the supposed sojourn made in Greece by those erring Trojans on their way to Britain. Giraldus displays quite a pretty interest in comparative philology, and talks glibly of the Lingua Britannica; but one never feels certain that he knew very much more about it than the author of the Germania, the first to refer to it under that name. Tacitus, however, had the excuse that he lived at a distance and some eleven centuries before the advent of Gerald the Welshman.

Giraldus' words prove, on close examination, to be of no help to us on the question of language; but on the other hand I have but recently begun looking out for stories bearing on it. It is my impression that such are not plentiful; but I proceed to subjoin an abstract of a phantom funeral tale in point from Ystên Sioned (Aberystwyth, 1882), pp. 8-16. Ystên Sioned, I ought to explain, consists of a number of stories collected and edited in Welsh by the Rev. Chancellor Silvan Evans, though he has not attached his name to it:--The harvest of 1816 was one of the wettest ever known in Wales, and a man and his wife who lived on a small farm in one of the largest parishes in the Hundred of Moedin (see p. 245 above) in the Demetian part of Cardiganshire went out in the evening of a day which had been comparatively dry to make some reaped corn into sheaves, as it had long been down. It was a beautiful night, with the harvest moon shining brightly, and the field in which they worked had the parish road passing along one of its sides, without a hedge or a ditch to separate it from the corn. When they had been busily at work binding sheaves for half an hour or more, they happened to hear the hum of voices, as if of a crowd of people coming along the road leading into the field. They stopped a moment, and looking in the direction whence the sounds came, they saw in the light of the moon a number of people coming into sight and advancing in their direction. They bent then again to their work without thinking much about what they had seen and heard; for they fancied it was some belated people making for the village, which was about a mile off. But the hum and confused sounds went on increasing, and when the two binders looked up again, they beheld a large crowd of people almost opposite and not far from them. As they continued looking on they beheld quite clearly a coffin on a bier carried on the shoulders of men, who were relieved by others in turns, as usual in funeral processions in the country. 'Here is a funeral,' said the binders to one another, forgetting for the moment that it was not usual for funerals to be seen at night. They continued looking on till the crowd was right opposite them, and some of them did not keep to the road, but walked over the corn alongside of the bulk of the procession. The two binders heard the talk and whispering, the noise and hum as if of so many real men and women passing by, but they did not understand a word that was said: not a syllable could they comprehend, not a face could they recognize. They kept looking at the procession till it went out of sight on the way leading towards the parish church. They saw no more of them, and now they began to feel uneasy and went home leaving the corn alone as it was; but further on the funeral was met by a tailor at a point in the road where it was narrow and bounded by a fence (clawd) on either side. The procession filled the road from hedge to hedge, and the tailor tried to force his way through it, but such was the pressure of the throng that he was obliged to get out of their way by crossing the hedge. He also failed to understand a word of the talk which he heard. In about three weeks after this sham funeral [104], there came a real one down that way from the upper end of the parish.

Such, in brief, is the story so charmingly told by Silvan Evans, which he got from the mouths of the farmer and his wife, whom he considered highly honest and truthful persons, as well as comparatively free from superstition. The last time they talked to him about the incident they were very advanced in years, and both died within a few weeks of one another early in the year 1852. Their remains, he adds, lie in the churchyard towards which they had seen the toeli slowly making its way. For toeli is the phonetic spelling in Ystên Sioned of the word which is teulu in North Cardiganshire and in North Wales, for Old Welsh toulu. The word now means 'family,' though literally it should mean 'house-army' or 'house-troops,' and it is practically a synonym for tylwyth, 'family or household,' literally 'house-tribe.' Now the toeli or toulu is such an important institution in Demetian Cardiganshire and some parts of Dyfed proper, that the word has been confined to the phantom, and for the word family in its ordinary significations one has there to have recourse to the non-dialect form teulu [105]. In North Cardiganshire and North Wales the toeli is called simply a cladedigaeth, 'burial,' or anglad, 'funeral'; in the latter also cynhebrwng is a funeral. I may add that when I was a child in the neighbourhood of Ponterwyd, on the upper course of the Rheidol, hardly a year used to pass without somebody or other meeting a phantom funeral. Sometimes one got entangled in the procession, and ran the risk of being carried off one's feet by the throng. There is, however, one serious difference between our phantom funerals and the Demetian toeli, namely, that we recognize our neighbours' ghosts as making up the processions, and we have no trouble in understanding their talk. At this point a question of some difficulty presents itself as to the toeli, namely, what family does it mean?--is it the family and friends of the departed on his way to the grave, or does it mean the family in the sense of Tylwyth Teg, 'Fair Family,' as applied to the fairies? I am inclined to the latter view, but I prefer thinking that the distinction itself does not penetrate very deeply, seeing that a certain species of the Tylwyth Teg, or fairies, may, in point of origin, be regarded as deceased friends and ancestors of the tylwyth, in the ordinary sense of the word. In fact all this kind of rehearsal of events seems to have been once looked at as friendly to the men and women whom it concerned. This will be seen, for instance, in the Demetian account of the canwyll gorff, or corpse candle, as granted through the intercession of St. David to the people of his special care, as a means of warning each to get ready in time for his death; that is to say, to prevent death finding him unprepared. It is hard to guess why it was assumed that the canwyll gorff was unknown in other parts of Wales. One or two instances in point occur in Owen's Welsh Folklore, pp. 298-301; and I have myself heard of them being seen in Anglesey, while they were quite well known to members of Mrs. Rhys' mother's family, who lived in the parish of Waen Fawr, in the neighbourhood of Carnarvon. Nor does it appear that phantom funerals were at all confined to South Wales. Proof to the contrary is supplied to some extent in Owen's Folklore, p. 301; but there is no doubt that in recent times the belief in them, as well as in the canwyll gorff, has been more general and more vivid in South Wales than in North Wales, especially Gwyned.

I have not been fortunate enough to come across anything systematic or comprehensive on the origin and meaning of ghostly rehearsals like the Welsh phantom funeral or coffin making. But the subject is an interesting one which deserves the attention of our leading folklore philosophers, as does also the cognate one of second sight, by which it is widely overlapped.

Quite recently--at the end of 1899 in fact--I received three brief stories, for which I am indebted to the further kindness of Alaw Lleyn (p. 228), who lives at Bynhadlog near Edern in Lleyn, and two out of the three touch on the question of language. But as the three belong to one and the same district, I give the substance of all in English as follows:--

(1) There were at a small harbour belonging to Nefyn some houses in which several families formerly lived; the houses are there still, but nobody lives in them now. There was one family there to which a little girl belonged: they used to lose her for hours every day; so her mother was very angry with her for being so much away. 'I must know,' said she, 'where you go for your play.' The girl answered that it was to Pin y Wig, 'The Wig Point,' which meant a place to the west of the Nefyn headland: it was there, she said, she played with many children. 'Whose children?' asked the mother. 'I don't know,' she replied; 'they are very nice children, much nicer than I am.' 'I must know whose children they are,' was the reply; and one day the mother went with her little girl to see the children: it was a distance of about a quarter of a mile to Pin y Wig, and after climbing the slope and walking a little along the top they came in sight of the Pin. It is from this Pin that the people of Pen yr Allt got water, and it is from there they get it still. Now after coming near the Pin the little girl raised her hands with joy at the sight of the children. 'O mother,' said she, 'their father is with them to-day: he is not with them always, it is only sometimes that he is.' The mother asked the child where she saw them. 'There they are, mother, running down to the Pin, with their father sitting down.' 'I see nobody, my child,' was the reply, and great fear came upon the mother: she took hold of the child's hand in terror, and it came to her mind at once that they were the Tylwyth Teg. Never afterwards was the little girl allowed to go to Pin y Wig: the mother had heard that the Tylwyth Teg exchanged people's children.

Such is the first story, and it is only remarkable, perhaps, for its allusion to the father of the fairy children.

(2) There used to be at Edern an old woman who occupied a small farm called Glan y Gors: the same family lives there still. One day this old woman had gone to a fair at Criccieth, whence she returned through Pwllheli. As she was getting above Gors Geirch, which was then a turbary and a pretty considerable bog, a noise reached her ears: she stopped and heard the sound of much talking. By-and-by she beheld a great crowd of men and women coming to meet her. She became afraid and stepped across the fence to let them go by. There she remained a while listening to their chatter, and when she thought that they had gone far enough she returned to the road and began to resume her way home. But before she had gone many steps she heard the same sort of noise again, and saw again the same sort of crowd coming; so she recrossed the fence in great fear, saying to herself, 'Here I shall be all night!' She remained there till they also had gone, and she wondered what they could be, and whether they were people who had been to visit Plas Madrun--afterwards, on inquiry, she found that no such people had been there that day. Now the old woman was near enough to the passers-by to hear them talking (clebran) and chattering (bregliach), but not a word could she understand of what they uttered: it was not Welsh and she did not think that it was English--it is, however, not supposed that she knew English. She related further that the last crowd shouted all together to the other crowd in advance of them Wi, and that the latter replied Wi Wei or something like that.

This account Alaw Lleyn has got, he says, from a great-granddaughter of the old woman, and she heard it all from her father, Bard Llechog, who always had faith in the fairies, and believed that they will come again to be seen of men and women. For he thought that they had their periods, a belief which I have come across elsewhere, and more especially in Carnarvonshire [106]. Now what are we to make of such a story? I recollect reading somewhere of a phantom wedding in Scotland, but in Wales we seem to have nothing more closely resembling this than a phantom funeral. Nevertheless what the old woman of Glan y Gors thought she saw looks by no means unlike a Welsh wedding marching on foot, especially when, as I have seen done, one party tried--seemingly in good earnest--to escape the other and to take the bride away from it. Moreover, that the figures making up the two crowds in her story are to be regarded as fairies is rendered probable by the next story, which describes the phantoms therein expressly as little men and little women.

(3) The small farm of Perth y Celyn in Edern used to be held by an old man named Griffith Griffiths. In his best days he stood six foot, and he has left behind him a double reputation for bodily strength and great piety. My informant can well remember him walking to chapel with the aid of his two sticks. The story goes that one day, when he was in his prime, he set out from Perth y Celyn at two in the morning to walk to Carnarvon to pay his rent: there was no talk in those days of a carriage for anybody. After passing through Nefyn and Pistyll, he came in due time to Bwlch Trwyn Swncwl [107]: he writes this name also Bwlch Drws Wncwl, with the suggestion that it ought to be Bwlch Drws Encil, and that the place must have been of importance in the wars of the ancient Kymry. The high-road, he goes on to say, runs through the Bwlch, and as Griffith was entering this gap what should he hear but a great deal of talking. He stopped and listened, when to his surprise he saw coming towards him, devoid of all fear, a crowd of little men and little women. They talked aloud, but he could not understand a single word they said: he thought that it was neither Welsh nor English. They passed by him on the road, but he moved aside to the ditch lest they should knock against him; but no feeling of fear came upon him. The old man believed them to have been the Tylwyth Teg.

In the story of the Moedin funeral the language of the toeli was not intelligible to the farmer and his wife, or to the tailor, and here in two stories from Lleyn we have it clearly stated that it was neither Welsh nor, probably, English. Since the fairies are always represented as old-fashioned in their ways, it is quite possible that they were once regarded as talking a more ancient language of the country. Which was it? An early version of these legends might perhaps have supplied the answer, and told us that it was Gwydelig or Goidelic, if not an earlier idiom, to wit that of the Aborigines before they learnt Goidelic from the Celts of the first wave of Aryan invasion, whether it was in the region of the Eifl or in the Demetian half of Keredigion. As to the former it is worthy of note that when Griffith had reached Bwlch Trwyn Swncwl he was in the outskirts of the Eifl Mountains, on one of whose heights, not very far off, is the extensive prehistoric fortress of Tre'r Ceiri, or the Town of the Keiri, a vocable which may be provisionally rendered by 'giants.' In any case it dissociates that stronghold from the Brythonic people of Wales. We shall find, however, that a Goidel, or Pict, buried in a cairn on Snowdon, is known as Rhita Gawr, 'Rhita the Giant'; and it is possible that in the Keiri of Tre'r Ceiri we have no other race than that of mixed Goidels and Picts whom the encroaching Brythons found in possession of the west of our island. Nay, one may say that this is rendered probable by the use made of the word ceiri in medieval Welsh: thus in some poetry composed by a certain Dafyd Offeiriad, and copied by Thomas Williams of Trefriw, we have a line alluding to Britain in the words:--

Coron ynys y Ceûri [108].

The Crown of the Giants' Island.

Here Ynys y Ceûri inevitably recalls the fact that Britain is called Ynys y Kedyrn, or Island of the Mighty, in the Mabinogion, and also, in effect, in the story of Kulhwch and Olwen. But such stories as these, which enabled Geoffrey to say, i. 16, when he introduced his banal brood of Trojans, that up to that time Britain had only been inhabited by a few giants, are the legends, as will be pointed out later, of the Brythonicized Goidels of Wales. So one may infer that their ancestors had given this country the name of the Island of the Mighty, unless it should prove more accurate to suppose them to have somehow derived the term from the Aborigines.