To return to Mr. Sikes, the rest of his account of the Pembrokeshire fairies and their green islands, of their Milford butcher, and of the subterranean gallery leading into their home, comes, as already indicated, for the most part from Howells. But it does not appear on what authority Southey himself made departed druids of the fairies. One would be glad to be reassured on this last point, as such a hypothesis would fit in well enough with what we are told of the sacrosanct character of the inhabitants of the isles on the coast of Britain in ancient times. Take, for instance, the brief account given by Plutarch of one of the isles explored by a certain Demetrius in the service of the Emperor of Rome: see chapter viii.
XI.
Mr. Craigfryn Hughes, the author of a Welsh novelette[32] with its scene laid in Glamorgan, having induced me to take a copy, I read it and found it full of local colouring. Then I ventured to sound the author on the question of fairy tales, and the reader will be able to judge how hearty the response has been. Before reproducing the tale which Mr. Hughes has sent me, I will briefly put into English his account of himself and his authorities. Mr. Hughes lives at the Quakers’ Yard in the neighbourhood of Pontypriđ, in Glamorganshire. His father was not a believer[33] in tales about fairies or the like, and he learned all he knows of the traditions about them in his father’s absence, from his grandmother and other old people. The old lady’s name was Rachel Hughes. She was born at Pandy Pont y Cymmer, near Pontypool, or Pont ap Hywel as Mr. Hughes analyses the name, in the year 1773, and she had a vivid recollection of Edmund Jones of the Tranch, of whom more anon, coming from time to time to preach to the Independents there. She came, however, to live in the parish of Ỻanfabon, near the Quakers’ Yard, when she was only twelve years of age; and there she continued to live to the day of her death, which took place in 1864, so that she was about ninety-one years of age at the time. Mr. Hughes adds that he remembers many of the old inhabitants besides his grandmother, who were perfectly familiar with the story he has put on record; but only two of them were alive when he wrote to me in 1881, and these were both over ninety years old, with their minds overtaken by the childishness of age; but it was only a short time since the death of another, who was, as he says, a walking library of tales about corpse candles, ghosts, and Bendith y Mamau[34], or ‘The Mothers’ Blessing,’ as the fairies are usually called in Glamorgan. Mr. Hughes’ father tried to prevent his children being taught any tales about ghosts, corpse candles, or fairies; but the grandmother found opportunities of telling them plenty, and Mr. Hughes vividly describes the effect on his mind when he was a boy, how frightened he used to feel, how he pulled the clothes over his head in bed, and how he half suffocated himself thereby under the effects of the fear with which the tales used to fill him. Then, as to the locality, he makes the following remarks:—‘There are few people who have not heard something or other about the old graveyard of the Quakers, which was made by Lydia Phil, a lady who lived at a neighbouring farm house, called Cefn y Fforest. This old graveyard lies in the eastern corner of the parish of Merthyr Tydfil, on land called Pantannas, as to the meaning of which there is much controversy. Some will have it that it is properly Pant yr Aros, or the Hollow of the Staying, because travellers were sometimes stopped there overnight by the swelling of the neighbouring river; others treat it as Pant yr Hanes, the Hollow of the Legend, in allusion to the following story. But before the graveyard was made, the spot was called Rhyd y Grug, or the Ford of the Heather, which grows thereabouts in abundance. In front of the old graveyard towards the south the rivers Taff and Bargoed, which some would make into Byrgoed or Short-Wood, meet with each other, and thence rush in one over terrible cliffs of rock, in the recesses of which lie huge cerwyni or cauldron-like pools, called respectively the Gerwyn Fach, the Gerwyn Fawr, and the Gerwyn Ganol, where many a drowning has taken place. As one walks up over Tarren y Crynwyr, “the Quakers’ Rift,” until Pantannas is reached, and proceeds northwards for about a mile and a half, one arrives at a farm house called Pen Craig Daf[35], “the Top of the Taff Rock.” The path between the two houses leads through fertile fields, in which may be seen, if one has eyes to observe, small rings which are greener than the rest of the ground. They are, in fact, green even as compared with the greenness around them—these are the rings in which Bendith y Mamau used to meet to sing and dance all night. If a man happened to get inside one of these circles when the fairies were there, he could not be got out in a hurry, as they would charm him and lead him into some of their caves, where they would keep him for ages, unawares to him, listening to their music. The rings vary greatly in size, but in point of form they are all round or oval. I have heard my grandmother,’ says Mr. Hughes, ‘reciting and singing several of the songs which the fairies sang in these rings. One of them began thus:—
Canu, canu, drwy y nos,
Dawnsio, dawnsio, ar Waen y Rhos
Y’ ngoleuni’r ỻeuad dlos:
Hapus ydym ni!
Pawb ohonom syđ yn ỻon
Heb un gofid dan ei fron: