Tells how the drudging Goblin swet,
To earn his cream-bowl duly set,
When in one night, ere glimpse of morn,
His shadowy flail hath thresh’d the corn,
That ten day-labourers could not end.MILTON, L’Allegro, lines 105-9.
In Scotland the sprite, or Fairy, called Browny, haunted family abodes, and did all manner of work in the night for those who treated him kindly. In England, Robin Goodfellow was supposed to perform like functions. Thus sings Robin:—
Yet now and then, the maids to please,
At midnight I card up their wooll;
And while they sleepe, and take their ease,
With wheel to threads their flax I pull.
I grind at mill
Their malt up still;
I dress their hemp, I spin their tow.
If any ’wake.
And would me take,
I wend me, laughing, ho, ho, ho!Percy’s Reliques, vol. iii., p. 169.
Welsh Fairies are not described as ordinarily inclined to lessen men’s labours by themselves undertaking them; but there are a few tales current of their having assisted worthy persons in their manual works. Professor Rhys records one of these stories in Y Cymmrodor, vol. iv. 210. He writes thus:—
“One day Guto, the Farmer of Corwrion, complained to his wife that he was in need of men to mow his hay, and she answered, ‘Why fret about it? look yonder! there you have a field full of them at it, and stripped to their shirt sleeves.’ When he went to the spot the sham workmen of the Fairy family had disappeared. This same Guto, or somebody else, happened another time to be ploughing, when he heard some person he could not see calling out to him, ‘I have got the bins (that is the vice) of my plough broken.’ ‘Bring it to me,’ said the driver of Guto’s team, ‘that I may mend it.’ When they brought the furrow to an end, there they found the broken vice, and a barrel of beer placed near it. One of the men sat down and mended it. Then they made another furrow, and when they returned to the spot they found there a two-eared dish, filled to the brim with bara a chwrw, or bread and beer.”
FAIRY DANCES.
The one occupation of the Fairy folk celebrated in song and prose was dancing. Their green rings, circular or ovoidal in form, abounded in all parts of the country, and it was in these circles they were said to dance through the livelong night. In “Cân y Tylwyth Têg,” or the Fairies’ Song, thus they chant:—
O’r glaswellt glen a’r rhedyn mân,
Gyfeillion dyddan, dewch,
E ddarfu’r nawn—mae’r lloer yu llawn,
Y nos yn gyflawn gewch;
O’r chwarau sydd ar dwyn y dydd,
I’r Dolydd awn ar daith.
Nyni sydd lon, ni chaiff gerbron,
Farwolion ran o’n gwaith.Yr Hynafion Cymraeg, p. 153.
From grasses bright, and bracken light,
Come, sweet companions, come,
The full moon shines, the sun declines,
We’ll spend the night in fun;
With playful mirth, we’ll trip the earth,
To meadows green let’s go,
We’re full of joy, without alloy,
Which mortals may not know.
The spots where the Fairies held their nightly revels were preserved from intrusion by traditional superstitions. The farmer dared not plough the land where Fairy circles were, lest misfortune should overtake him. Thus were these mythical beings left in undisturbed possession of many fertile plots of ground, and here they were believed to dance merrily through many a summer night.
Canu, canu, drwy y nos,
Dawnsio, dawnsio, ar waen y rhos,
Yn ngoleuni’r lleuad dlos;
Hapus ydym ni!Pawb o honom sydd yn llon,
Heb un gofid dan ei fron:
Canu, dawnsio, ar y ton—
Dedwydd ydym ni!Singing, singing, through the night,
Dancing, dancing, with our might,
Where the moon the moor doth light:
Happy ever we!One and all of merry mien,
Without sorrow are we seen,
Singing, dancing on the green:
Gladsome ever we!Professor Rhys’s Fairy Tales.