“Of these Islands, or Green Spots of the Floods, there are some singular superstitions. They are the abode of the Tylwyth Teg, or the fair family, the souls of the virtuous Druids, who not having been Christians, cannot enter the Christian Heaven, but enjoy this heaven of their own. They, however, discover a love of mischief, neither becoming happy spirits, nor consistent with their original character; for they love to visit the earth, and seizing a man, inquire whether he will travel above wind, mid-wind, or below wind; above wind is a giddy and terrible passage, below wind is through bush and brake, the middle is a safe course. But the spell of security is, to catch hold of the grass. In their better moods they come over and carry the Welsh in their boats. He who visits these islands imagines on his return that he has been absent only a few hours, when, in truth, whole centuries have past away. If you take a turf from St. David’s Churchyard, and stand upon it on the sea shore, you behold these Islands. A man once who thus obtained sight of them, immediately put to sea to find them; but his search was in vain. He returned, looked at them again from the enchanted turf, again set sail, and failed again. The third time he took the turf into his vessel, and stood upon it till he reached them.” Wirt Sikes, in his “British Goblins,” page 8, says that there are sailors on the romantic coasts of Pembrokeshire, and southern Carmarthenshire who still talk of the green meadows of enchantment, which are visible sometimes to the eyes of mortals, but only for a brief space, and they suddenly vanish. He also adds that there are traditions of sailors who, in the early part of the 19th century, actually went ashore on the fairy islands—not knowing that they were such, until they returned to their boats, when they were filled with awe at seeing the islands disappear from their sight, neither sinking in the sea, nor floating away upon the waters, but simply vanishing suddenly. In the account I have just given, a turf from St. David’s Churchyard to stand upon enabled one to behold the enchanted lands of the Fairies; but according to traditions in other parts of the country, it seems that a certain spot in Cemmes was the requisite platform, to see these mythical beings who were known in some parts as Plant Rhys Ddwfn (Children of Rhys the Deep).
In the Brython, Vol. I., page 130, Gwynionydd says as follows:—
“There is a tale current in Dyfed, that there is, or rather that there has been a country between Cemmes, the Northern Hundred of Pembrokeshire, and Aberdaron in Lleyn. The chief patriarch of the inhabitants was Rhys Ddwfn, and his descendants used to be called after him the Children of Rhys Ddwfn.
“They were, it is said, a handsome race enough, but remarkably small in size. It is stated that certain herbs of a strange nature grew in their land, so that they were able to keep their country from being seen by even the most sharp-sighted invaders.
“There is no account that these remarkable herbs grew in any other part of the world, excepting on a small spot, a square yard in area in a certain part of Cemmes. If it chanced that a man stood alone on it, he beheld the whole of the territory of Plant Rhys Ddwfn; but the moment he moved he would lose sight of it altogether, and it would have been nearly vain to look for his footprints.”
FAIRIES MARRYING MORTALS.
In some of the stories about Fairies, we find Fairy Ladies marrying mortals, but always conditionally, and in the end the husband does some prohibited thing which breaks the marriage contract, and his Fairy wife vanishes away. The most beautiful Fairy Legend of this kind is undoubtedly the