CHAPTER VII
WELSH FAIRIES
"Heaven defend me from that Welsh fairy."
Readers must not turn up their noses when they read the title of this short chapter. Of course nobody believes in fairies nowadays, but in the olden time most Welsh people did, and in other things more remarkable even than "y Tylwyth Teg,"[14] such as giants and dragons. I could relate a most interesting story of a giant who once lived (rather long ago!) only about three miles from my own home; and there is a respectable tradition of a terrible dragon having been seen—history omits the date—flying over the town of Newcastle Emlyn. And I feel this volume would be incomplete without a passing reference to one of the most picturesque and romantic of the ancient Welsh beliefs. Sir John Rhys, the great Celtic scholar, has said almost the last word on the subject of Welsh fairy-lore, and there are indeed few crumbs of information that he neglected to gather about the Fair Folk. But I do not think he gleaned the two or three genuine fairy-tales which I found in Mr. Lledrod Davies' little pamphlet, and which I have translated, and will repeat here. For as folk-lore it is material far too valuable to be lost in a publication already out of print, and in any case inaccessible to people not conversant with the Welsh language. Personally I have only come across two people who had anything to say about the Tylwyth Teg, and they were not of the peasantry, but persons of antiquarian tastes, who had noted the instances they referred to as curiosities of local belief. So, though I have heard numbers of tales relating to superstitions such as corpse-candles, the Toili, &c., yet I have never myself heard a single first-hand story about fairies, and I fancy their disappearance from their old haunts dates very nearly from the time that Board Schools were established in Wales. Education then became—and very properly so—a practical and rather material business; children were told that fairies were "silly," in fact, non-existent, and so they learnt to despise the wonderful tales their parents and grandparents knew, and would listen no more to them. So the old stories, handed down by word of mouth through centuries, and always greedily heard, and willingly remembered, were gradually forgotten; and as the elder folk died out, were nearly all lost. A pity, for trivial and even childish as they would sound to us who live in a world of scientific wonders that those old people could never dream of, and no longer require to feed our imagination with the marvellous and supernatural, still all those ancient beliefs, legends and superstitions always seem to me like the romance of life crystallised, and, as such, a very precious thing. For Romance and Glamour grow rare as the world grows older, though most of us have had a glimpse—even though a momentary one—of what those two names mean. And the power to express them grows less; I think most people will agree about that. But these old fairy beliefs and curious traditions seem to transmit the true, romantic atmosphere throughout the ages, bringing to our knowledge what our forefathers thought and felt in that set of ideas not immediately affected by their material necessities and circumstances. So that is why I think almost any of these old tales are interesting and worth preserving.
W. Howells, who wrote that entertaining old book, "Cambrian Superstitions," to which I have often referred, has a great deal to say about Fair Folk, or Ellyllyn, or Bendith eu Mammau, for by these different names were the fairies known in different districts. This is what he tells us of their origin: "The following is the account related in Wales of the origin of the fairies, and was told me by an individual from Anglesey. In our Saviour's time there lived a woman whose fortune it was to be possessed of near a score of children ... and as she saw our blessed Lord approach her dwelling, being ashamed of being so prolific, and that He might not see them all, she concealed about half of them closely, and after His departure, when she went in search of them, to her surprise found they were all gone. They never afterwards could be discovered, for it was supposed that as a punishment from heaven, for hiding what God had given her, she was deprived of them; and, it is said, these her offspring have generated the race of beings called fairies."
Howells also mentions the interesting belief formerly prevailing in Pembrokeshire and Carmarthenshire concerning mysterious islands, inhabited by fairies, who "attended regularly the markets at Milford Haven and Laugharne, bought in silence their meat and other necessaries, and leaving the money (generally silver pennies) departed, as if knowing what they would have been charged. They were sometimes visible and at other times invisible. The islands, which appeared to be beautifully and tastefully arranged, were seen at a distance from land, and supposed to be numerously peopled by an unknown race of beings. It was also imagined that they had a subterraneous passage from these islands to the towns."
Our author tells us that both Cardiganshire and Carmarthenshire were specially favoured by the Tylwyth Teg; he heard of them on the banks of the Gwili (a tributary of the Towy), where "they made excursions to the neighbouring farms to inspect the dairies, hearths, barn-floors, and the 'ystafell,'[15] to reward the meritorious housemaid, and to punish the slut and sluggard. It is said they were not partial at all to the Gospel, and that they left Monmouthshire on account of there being so much preaching, praying to, and praising God, which were averse to their dispositions."
It seems that there was a well-known tradition in Carmarthenshire about one Iago ap Dewi, a man, Howells tells us, of considerable talent, who translated the "Pilgrim's Progress" into Welsh. He lived in the parish of Llanllawddog, and "was considered a wonderful man and of great learning, as he spent the whole of his time in study and meditation; that he was absent from the neighbourhood for a long period, and the universal belief among the peasantry was, that Iago got out of bed one night to gaze on the starry sky, as he was accustomed (astrology being one of his favourite studies), and whilst thus occupied the fairies, who were accustomed to resort to the neighbouring wood, passing by, carried him away, and he dwelt with them seven years. Upon his return he was questioned by many as to where he had been, but he always avoided giving them a reply." Howells afterwards goes on to say that others with whom he conversed related that "their parents credited the above story, and that they had no question of the existence of fairies and their wonderful exploits; but one Mary Shon Crydd said that when a child she knew the daughter of Iago ap Dewi, and that she thought it very probable that he had been from home with some learned characters, but the superstition of the people led them to attribute his learning, &c., to the interference of the fairies." Although it disposes of the fairy idea, "Mary Shon Crydd's" explanation of Iago's absence, though prosaic, was, I should think, the true one! But it is interesting to read of such a tradition being extant in days so comparatively near our own.
All dwellers in the country are familiar with the appearance of "fairy rings," those curious and inexplicable circles that occur in the grass of meadows and lawns. No amount of mowing obliterates them, and probably nothing short of digging up or ploughing would get rid of them. In Wales these odd patches seem to have ever been regarded with a mixture of fear and interest, as the undoubted haunts of the Tylwyth Teg, and were carefully shunned in consequence, especially after nightfall. Howells says, regarding these rings, that "no beasts will eat of them, although some persons suppose that sheep will greedily devour the grass." He adds that he had a friend who told him that when he was a child he was always warned by his mother never to approach, much less enter, the rings, for they were enchanted ground, and anybody going near them was liable to be carried off by the Fair Folk. In connection with the fairies' practice of kidnapping human beings, there are many stories in "Cambrian Superstitions," most of which have one feature in common, namely, that when the people thus carried off returned to this upper world—in the cases where they did return, but that did not always happen—they always supposed they had been but a few moments absent, though the period had often run into years, as in Iago ap Dewi's case.