SHON AP SHENKIN SEDUCED BY FAIRY MUSIC.
Another story very similar to the one I have just given is the legend of Shon ap Shenkin, which was related to Mr. Sikes by a farmer’s wife near the reputed scene of the tale, that is the locality of Pant Shon Shenkin, the famous centre of Carmarthenshire Fairies:—
“Shon ap Shenkin was a young man who lived hard by Pant Shon Shenkin. As he was going afield early one fine summer’s morning he heard a little bird singing, in a most enchanting strain, on a tree close by his path. Allured by the melody, he sat down under the tree until the music ceased, when he arose and looked about him. What was his surprise at observing that the tree, which was green and full of life when he sat down, was now withered and barkless! Filled with astonishment he returned to the farmhouse which he had left, as he supposed, a few minutes before; but it also was changed, grown older, and covered with ivy. In the doorway stood an old man whom he had never before seen; he at once asked the old man what he wanted there. ‘What do I want here?’ ejaculated the old man, reddening angrily; ‘that’s a pretty question! Who are you that dare to insult me in my own house?’ ‘In your own house? How is this? where’s my father and mother, whom I left here a few minutes since, whilst I have been listening to the charming music under yon tree, which, when I rose, was withered and leafless’ ‘Under the tree!—music!’ ‘What’s your name?’ ‘Shon ap Shenkin.’ ‘Alas, poor Shon, and this is indeed you!’ cried the old man. ‘I often heard my grandfather, your father, speak of you, and long did he bewail your absence. Fruitless inquiries were made for you; but old Catti Maddock of Brechfa said you were under the power of the Fairies, and would not be released until the last sap of that sycamore tree would be dried. Embrace me, my dear uncle, for you are my uncle ... embrace your nephew.’ With this the old man extended his arms, but before the two men could embrace, poor Shon ap Shenkin crumbled into dust on the door-step.”
It is very interesting to compare this story of Shon ap Shenkin, under the power of the Fairies, listening to the birds of enchantment, with the warriors at Harlech listening to the Birds of Rhiannon, in the Mabinogi of Branwen, daughter of Llyr.
Bran Fendigaid, a Welsh King in ancient times, had a palace at Harlech, and had a sister named Bronwen, or White Breast, whom Matholwch the King of Ireland married on account of her wonderful beauty. After a while, however, the foster brothers of Matholwch began to treat Bronwen very cruelly till at last she found means to send a message to her brother Bran, in Wales; and this she did by writing a letter of her woes, which she bound to a bird’s wing which she had reared. The bird reached Bronwen’s brother, Bran, who, when he read the letter sailed for Ireland immediately, and during a fearful warfare in that country he was poisoned with a dart in his foot. His men had been bidden by their dying chief to cut off his head and bear it to London and bury it with the face towards France. They did as they were bidden by Bran previous to his death, and various were the adventures they encountered while obeying this injunction. At Harlech they stopped to rest, and sat down to eat and drink.
While there, they heard three birds singing a sweet song, “at a great distance over the sea,” though it seemed to them as though they were quite near. These were the birds of Rhiannon. Their notes were so sweet that warriors were known to have remained spell-bound for 80 years listening to them. The birds sang so sweetly that the men rested for seven years, which appeared but a day. Then they pursued their way to Gwales in Pembrokeshire, and there remained for four score years, during which the head of Bran was uncorrupted. At last they went to London and buried it there.
The old Welsh poets often allude to the birds of Rhiannon, and they are also mentioned in the Triads; and the same enchanting fancy reappears in the local story of Shon ap Shenkin, which I just gave.
Mr. Ernest Rhys in the present day sings:—
“O, the birds of Rhiannon they sing time away,—
Seven years in their singing are gone like a day.”
In the region of myth and romance Rhiannon, the songs of whose birds were so enchanting, was the daughter of Heveydd Hen, who by her magic arts foiled her powerful suitor, Gwawl ap Clud, and secured as her consort the man of her choice, Pwyll, Prince of Dyfed. In Welsh Mythology several members of the kingly families are represented as playing the role of magicians.
It may be added that it is interesting to compare both the story of Shion ap Shenkin, and that of the birds of Rhiannon, with Longfellow’s “Golden Legend,” originally written in the thirteenth century by Jacobus de Voragine, in which Monk Felix is represented as listening to the singing of a snow-white bird for a hundred years, which period passed as a single hour.
“One morning all alone,
Out of his covenant of gray stone,
Into the forest older, darker, grayer
His lips moving as if in prayer,
His head sunken upon his breast
As in a dream of rest,
Walked the Monk Felix. All about
The broad, sweet sunshine lay without,
Filling the summer air;
And within the woodlands as he trod,
The twilight was like the Truce of God
With worldly woe and care.
Under him lay the golden moss;
And above him the boughs of hemlock-trees
Waved, and made the sign of the cross,
And whispered their benedicites,
And from the ground
Rose an odour sweet and fragrant
Of the wild-flowers and the vagrant
Vines that wandered,
Seeking the sunshine, round and round.
“Those he heeded not, but pondered
On the volume in his hand,
A volume of Saint Augustine,
Wherein he read of the unseen
Splendours of God’s great town
In the unknown land,
And, with his eyes cast down
In humility he said:
‘I believe, O God,
What herein I have read,
But alas! I do not understand’?
“And lo! he heard
The sudden singing of a bird,
A snow-white bird, that from a cloud
Dropped down,
And among the branches brown
Sat singing
So sweet, and clear, and loud,
It seemed a thousand harp-strings ringing;
And the Monk Felix closed his book,
And long, long,
With rapturous look,
He listened to the song.
And hardly breathed or stirred,
Until he saw, as in a vision,
The land Elysian,
And in the heavenly city heard
Angelic feet
Fall on the golden flagging of the street,
And he would fain
Have caught the wondrous bird,
But strove in vain;
For it flew away, away,
Far over hill and dell,
And instead of its sweet singing,
He heard the convent bell
Suddenly in the silence ringing,
For the service of noonday.
And he retraced
His pathway homeward sadly and in haste.
“In the convent there was a change!
He looked for each well-known face,
But the faces were new and strange;
New figures sat in the oaken stalls.
New voices chanted in the choir;
Yet the place was the same place,
The same dusky walls
Of cold, gray stone,
The same cloisters and belfry and spire.
“A stranger and alone
Among that brotherhood
The monk Felix stood.
‘Forty years,’ said a Friar,
‘Have I been Prior
Of this convent in the wood,
But for that space
Never have I beheld thy face!’
The heart of Monk Felix fell:
And he answered with submissive tone,
‘This morning, after the horn of Prime,
I left my cell
And wandered forth alone.
Listening all the time
To the melodious singing
Of a beautiful white bird,
Until I heard
The bells of the convent ring
Noon from their noisy towers.
It was as if I dreamed;
For what to me had seemed
Moments only, had been hours!’
”‘Years!’ said a voice close by,
It was an aged monk who spoke,
From a bench of oak
Fastened against the wall;—
He was the oldest monk of all.
For a whole century
He had been there,
Serving God in prayer,
The meekest and humblest of his creatures,
He remembered well the features
Of Felix, and he said,
‘One hundred years ago,
When I was a novice in this place
There was here a monk, full of God’s grace,
Who bore the name
Of Felix, and this man must be the same.’
“And straightway
They brought forth to the light of day
A volume old and brown,
A huge tome bound
In brass and wild-boar’s hide.
Wherein were written down
The names of all who had died
In the convent, since it was edified.
And there they found,
Just as the old Monk said,
That on a certain day and date,
One hundred years before,
Had gone forth from the convent gate
The monk Felix, and never more
Had he entered that sacred door
He had been counted among the dead!
And they knew, at last,
That such had been the power
Of that celestial and immortal song,
A hundred years had passed,
And had not seemed so long
As a single hour!”
In the stories I have already given those who fell into the hands of the Fairies were rescued or returned from them after a certain period of time; but I have heard some stories in which the victim never returned. A woman at Pontshan, Llandyssul, in Cardiganshire, related to me a story of a servant girl in that neighbourhood who was captured by the Fairies and never returned home again. A few months ago another tale of this kind was related to me at Llanrhystyd: