Folk-Lore of West and Mid-Wales

by Jonathan Ceredig Davies

Of which the Bretons speken gret honour,

All was this lond fulfilled of Faerie;

The elf-quene with hire joly compagnie

Danced ful oft in many a grene mede.

This was the old opinion as I rede,

I speke of many hundred yeres ago;

But now can no man see non elves mo.”

—Chaucer.

A book dealing with Superstitions and popular beliefs would be incomplete without assigning a prominent place to the Fairies, or “Tylwyth Teg,” as they are called in Welsh. It is true that in Wales, as in other places, the Fairies have become things of the past; but even in the present day many old people, and perhaps others, still believe that such beings did once exist, and that the reason why they are not now to be seen is that they have been exorcised.

Many of the Welsh Fairy Tales date from remote antiquity and are, in common with like legends of other countries, relics of the ancient mythology, in which the natural and the supernatural are blended together.