‘I will leave these tales aside whilst I go as far as the Ogo Đu, “the Black Cave,” which is in the immediate vicinity of Crigcieth[3], and into which the musicians entered so far that they lost their way back. One of them was heard to play on his pipe, and another on his horn, about two miles from where they went in; and the place where the piper was heard is called Braich y Bib, and where the man with the horn was heard is called Braich y Cornor. I do not believe that even a single man doubts but that this is all true, and I know not how the airs called Ffarwel Dic y Pibyđ, “Dick the Piper’s Farewell,” and Ffarwel Dwm Bach, “Little Tom’s Farewell,” had those names, unless it was from the musicians above mentioned. Nor do I know that Ned Puw may not have been the third, and that the air called Ffarwel Ned Puw, “Ned Pugh’s Farewell,” may not have been the last he played before going into the cave. I cannot warrant this to be true, as I have only heard it said by one man, and he merely held it as a supposition, which had been suggested by this air of Ffarwel Dic y Pibyđ.’
A story, however, mentioned by Cynđelw in the Brython for 1860, p. 57, makes Ned Pugh enter the cave of Tal y Clegyr, which the writer in his article identifies with Ness Cliff, near Shrewsbury. In that cave, which was regarded as a wonderful one, he says the musician disappeared, while the air he was playing, Ffarwel Ned Puw, “Ned Pugh’s Farewell,” was retained in memory of him. Some account of the departure of Ned Pugh and of the interminable cave into which he entered, will be found given in a rambling fashion in the Cambrian Quarterly Magazine (London, 1829), vol. i, pp. 40–5, where the minstrel’s Welsh name is given as Iolo ap Huw. There we are told that he was last seen in the twilight of a misty Halloween, and the notes of the tune he was last heard to play are duly given. One of the surmises as to Iolo’s ultimate fate is also recorded, namely, that in the other world he has exchanged his fiddle for a bugle, and become huntsman-in-chief to Gwyn ab Nûđ, so that every Halloween he may be found cheering Cwn Annwn, ‘the Hounds of the Other World,’ over Cader Idris[4].
The same summer I fell in with Mr. Morris Evans, of Cerrig Mân, near Amlwch. He is a mining agent on the Gwydir Estate in the Vale of Conwy, but he is a native of the neighbourhood of Parys Mountain, in Anglesey, where he acquired his knowledge of mining. He had heard fairy tales from his grandmother, Grace Jones, of Ỻwyn Ysgaw near Mynyđ Mecheỻ, between Amlwch and Holyhead. She died, nearly ninety years of age, over twenty years ago. She used to relate how she and others of her own age were wont in their youth to go out on bright moonlight nights to a spot near Ỻyn y Bwch. They seldom had to wait there long before they would hear exquisite music and behold a grand palace standing on the ground. The diminutive folks of fairyland would then come forth to dance and frolic. The next morning the palace would be found gone, but the grandmother used to pick up fairy money on the spot, and this went on regularly so long as she did not tell others of her luck. My informant, who is himself a man somewhat over fifty-two, tells me that at a place not far from Ỻyn y Bwch there were plenty of fairy rings to be seen in the grass; and it is in them the fairies were supposed to dance[5].
From Ỻanrwst I went up to see the bard and antiquary, Mr. Gethin Jones. His house was prettily situated on the hillside on the left of the road as you approach the village of Penmachno. I was sorry to find that his memory had been considerably impaired by a paralytic stroke from which he had suffered not long before. However, from his room he pointed out to me a spot on the other side of the Machno, called Y Werđon, which means ‘The Green Land,’ or more literally, ‘The Greenery,’ so to say. It was well known for its green, grassy fairy rings, formerly frequented by the Tylwyth Teg; and he said he could distinguish some of the rings even then from where he stood. The Werđon is on the Bennar, and the Bennar is the high ground between Penmachno and Dolwyđelan. The spot in question is on the part nearest to the Conwy Falls. This name, Y Werđon, is liable to be confounded with Iwerđon, ‘Ireland,’ which is commonly treated as if it began with the definite article, so that it is made into Y Werđon and Werđon. The fairy Werđon, in the radical form Gwerđon, not only recalls to my mind the Green Isles called Gwerđonau Ỻïon, but also the saying, common in North Wales, that a person in great anxiety ‘sees Y Werđon.’ Thus, for instance, a man who fails to return to his family at the hour expected, and believes his people to be in great anxiety about him, expresses himself by saying that they will have ‘seen the Werđon on my account’ (mi fyđan’ wedi gwel’d y Werđon am dana’i). Is that Ireland, or is it the land of the fairies, the other world, in fact? If the latter, it might simply mean they will have died of anxiety; but I confess I have not so far been able to decide. I am not aware that the term occurs in any other form of expression than the one I have given; if it had, and if the Werđon were spoken of in some other way, that might possibly clear up the difficulty. If it refers to Ireland, it must imply that sighting Ireland is equivalent to going astray at sea, meaning in this sort of instance, getting out of one’s senses; but the Welsh are not very much given to nautical expressions. It reminds me somewhat of Gerald Griffin’s allusion to the Phantom City, and the penalty paid by those who catch a glimpse of its turrets as the dividing waves expose them for a moment to view on the western coast of Ireland:—
Soon close the white waters to screen it,
And the bodement, they say, of the wonderful sight,
Is death to the eyes that have seen it.
The Fairy Glen above Bettws y Coed is called in Welsh Ffos ‘Nođyn, ‘the Sink of the Abyss’; but Mr. Gethin Jones told me that it was also called Glyn y Tylwyth Teg, which is very probable, as some such a designation is required to account for the English name, ‘the Fairy Glen.’ People on the Capel Garmon side used to see the Tylwyth playing there, and descending into the Ffos or Glen gently and lightly without occasioning themselves the least harm. The Fairy Glen was, doubtless, supposed to contain an entrance to the world below. This reminds one of the name of the pretty hollow running inland from the railway station at Bangor. Why should it be called Nant Uffern, or ‘The Hollow of Hell’? Can it be that there was a supposed entrance to the fairy world somewhere there? In any case, I am quite certain that Welsh place-names involve allusions to the fairies much oftener than has been hitherto supposed; and I should be inclined to cite, as a further example, Moel Eilio[6] or Moel Eilian, from the personal name Eilian, to be mentioned presently. Moel Eilian is a mountain under which the fairies were supposed to have great stores of treasure. But to return to Mr. Gethin Jones, I had almost forgotten that I have another instance of his in point. He showed me a passage in a paper which he wrote in Welsh some time ago on the antiquities of Yspyty Ifan. He says that where the Serw joins the Conwy there is a cave, to which tradition asserts that a harpist was once allured by the Tylwyth Teg. He was, of course, not seen afterwards, but the echo of the music made by him and them on their harps is still to be heard a little lower down, under the field called to this day Gweirglođ y Telynorion, ‘The Harpers’ Meadow’: compare the extract from Edward Ỻwyd’s correspondence at p. 202 above.
Mr. Gethin Jones also spoke to me of the lake called Ỻyn Pencraig, which was drained in hopes of finding lead underneath it, an expectation not altogether doomed to disappointment, and he informed me that its old name was Ỻyn Ỻifon; so the moor around it was called Gwaen Ỻifon. It appears to have been a large lake, but only in wet weather, and to have no deep bed. The names connected with the spot are now Nant Gwaen Ỻifon and the Gwaith (or Mine) of Gwaen Ỻifon: they are, I understand, within the township of Trefriw. The name Ỻyn Ỻifon is of great interest when taken in connexion with the Triadic account of the cataclysm called the Bursting of Ỻyn Ỻiƒon. Mr. Gethin Jones, however, believed himself that Ỻyn Ỻïon was no other than Bala Lake, through which the Dee makes her way.