As I see no reason to make any profound distinction between lake maidens and sea maidens, I now give Gwynionyđ’s account of the mermaid who was found by a fisherman from Ỻandydoch or St. Dogmael’s[28], near Cardigan: see the Brython, i. 82:—
‘One fine afternoon in September, in the beginning of the last century, a fisherman, whose name was Pergrin[29], went to a recess in the rock near Pen Cemmes, where he found a sea maiden doing her hair, and he took the water lady prisoner to his boat …. We know not what language is used by sea maidens … but this one, this time at any rate, talked, it is said, very good Welsh; for when she was in despair in Pergrin’s custody, weeping copiously, and with her tresses all dishevelled, she called out: ‘Pergrin, if thou wilt let me go, I will give thee three shouts in the time of thy greatest need.’ So, in wonder and fear, he let her go to walk the streets of the deep, and visit her sweethearts there. Days and weeks passed without Pergrin seeing her after this; but one hot afternoon, when the sea was pretty calm, and the fishermen had no thought of danger, behold his old acquaintance showing her head and locks, and shouting out in a loud voice: ‘Pergrin! Pergrin! Pergrin! take up thy nets, take up thy nets, take up thy nets!’ Pergrin and his companion instantly obeyed the message, and drew their nets in with great haste. In they went, past the bar, and by the time they had reached the Pwll Cam the most terrible storm had overspread the sea, while he and his companion were safe on land. Twice nine others had gone out with them, but they were all drowned without having the chance of obeying the warning of the water lady.’ Perhaps it is not quite irrelevant to mention here the armorial bearings which Drayton ascribes to the neighbouring county of Cardigan in the following couplet in his Battaile of Agincourt (London, 1631), p. 23:—
As Cardigan the next to them that went,
Came with a Mermayd sitting on a Rock.
A writer in the Brython, iv. 194, states that the people of Nefyn in Ỻeyn claim the story of the fisher and the mermaid as belonging to them, which proves that a similar legend has been current there: add to this the fact mentioned in the Brython, iii. 133, that a red mermaid with yellow hair, on a white field, figures in the coat of arms of the family resident at Glasfryn in the parish of Ỻangybi, in Eifionyđ or the southern portion of Carnarvonshire; and we have already suggested that Glasynys’ story (pp. 117–25) was made up, to a certain extent, of materials found on the coasts of Carnarvonshire. A small batch of stories about South Wales mermaids is given by a writer who calls himself Ab Nadol[30], in the Brython, iv. 310, as follows:—
‘A few rockmen are said to have been working, about eighty years ago, in a quarry near Porth y Rhaw, when the day was calm and clear, with nature, as it were, feasting, the flowers shedding sweet scent around, and the hot sunshine beaming into the jagged rocks. Though an occasional wave rose to strike the romantic cliffs, the sea was like a placid lake, with its light coverlet of blue attractive enough to entice one of the ladies of Rhys Đwfn forth from the town seen by Daniel Huws off Trefin as he was journeying between Fishguard and St. David’s in the year 1858, to make her way to the top of a stone and to sit on it to disentangle her flowing silvery hair. Whilst she was cleaning herself, the rockmen went down, and when they got near her they perceived that, from her waist upwards, she was like the lasses of Wales, but that, from her waist downwards, she had the body of a fish. And, when they began to talk to her, they found she spoke Welsh, though she only uttered the following few words to them: “Reaping in Pembrokeshire and weeding in Carmarthenshire.” Off she then went to walk in the depth of the sea towards her home. Another tale is repeated about a mermaid, said to have been caught by men below the land of Ỻanwnda, near the spot, if not on the spot, where the French made their landing afterwards, and three miles to the west of Fishguard. It then goes on to say that they carried her to their home, and kept her in a secure place for some time; before long, she begged to be allowed to return to the brine land, and gave the people of the house three bits of advice; but I only remember one of them,’ he writes, ‘and this is it: “Skim the surface of the pottage before adding sweet milk to it: it will be whiter and sweeter, and less of it will do.” I was told that this family follow the three advices to this day.’ A somewhat similar advice to that about the pottage is said to have been given by a mermaid, under similar circumstances, to a Manxman.
After putting the foregoing bits together, I was favoured by Mr. Benjamin Williams with notes on the tales and on the persons from whom he heard them: they form the contents of two or three letters, mostly answers to queries of mine, and the following is the substance of them:—Mr. Williams is a native of the valley of Troed yr Aur[31], in the Cardiganshire parish of that name. He spent a part of his youth at Verwig, in the angle between the northern bank of the Teifi and Cardigan Bay. He heard of Rhys Đwfn’s Children first from a distant relative of his father’s, a Catherine Thomas, who came to visit her daughter, who lived not far from his father’s house: that would now be from forty-eight to fifty years ago. He was very young at the time, and of Rhys Đwfn’s progeny he formed a wonderful idea, which was partly due also to the talk of one James Davies or Siàms Mocyn, who was very well up in folklore, and was one of his father’s next-door neighbours. He was an old man, and nephew to the musician, David Jenkin Morgan. The only spot near Mr. Williams’ home, that used to be frequented by the fairies, was Cefn y Ceirw, ‘the Stag’s Ridge,’ a large farm, so called from having been kept as a park for their deer by the Lewises of Aber Nant Bychan. He adds that the late Mr. Philipps, of Aberglasney, was very fond of talking of things in his native neighbourhood, and of mentioning the fairies at Cefn y Ceirw. It was after moving to Verwig that Mr. Williams began to put the tales he heard on paper: then he came in contact with three brothers, whose names were John, Owen, and Thomas Evans. They were well-to-do and respectable bachelors, living together on the large farm of Hafod Ruffyđ. Thomas was a man of very strong common sense, and worth consulting on any subject: he was a good arithmetician, and a constant reader of the Baptist periodical, Seren Gomer, from its first appearance. He thoroughly understood the bardic metres, and had a fair knowledge of music. He was well versed in Scripture, and filled the office of deacon at the Baptist Chapel. His death took place in the year 1864. Now, the eldest of the three brothers, the one named John, or Siôn, was then about seventy-five years of age, and he thoroughly believed in the tales about the fairies, as will be seen from the following short dialogue:—
Siôn: Williams bach, ma’n rhaid i bod nhw’i gâl: yr w i’n cofio yn amser Bone fod marchnad Aberteifi yn ỻawn o lafir yn y bore—digon yno am fis—ond cin pen hanner awr yr ôđ y cwbwl wedi darfod. Nid ôđ possib i gweld nhwi: mâ gida nhwi faint a fynnon nhwi o arian.
Williams: Siwt na fyse dynion yn i gweld nhwi ynte, Siôn?
Siôn: O mâ gida nhwi đynion fel ninne yn pryni drostyn nhwi; ag y mâ nhwi fel yr hen siówmin yna yn geỻi gneid pob tric.