David Powel, who edited this work in 1585, thinks that this legend is written in imitation of the relation of Eros the Armenian, in Plato, or taken from Polo's account of the garden of the Old Man of the Mountain.[460]
Again Giraldus writes,—"In these parts of Penbroch it has happed, in our times, that unclean spirits have conversed with mankind, not indeed visibly, but sensibly; for they manifested their presence at first in the house of one Stephen Wiriet, and some time after of William Not, by throwing dirt and such things as rather indicate an intention of mockery and injury. In the house of William, the spirit used to make rents and holes in both linen and woollen garments, to the frequent loss of both host and guest, from which injury no care and no bolts could protect them. In the house of Stephen, which was still more extraordinary, the spirit used to converse with people; and when they taunted him, which they frequently did out of sport, he used to charge them openly with those actions of theirs, from their birth, which they least wished to be heard or known by others. If you ask the cause and reason of this matter, I do not take on me to assign it; only this, that it, as is said, used to be the sign of a sudden change, either from poverty to riches, or rather from riches to desolation and poverty, as it was found to be a little after with both of these. But this I think worthy of remark, that places cannot be freed from illusions of this kind by the sprinkling of holy water, not merely of the ordinary, but even of the great kind; nor by the aid of any ecclesiastical sacrament. Nay, the priests themselves, when coming in with devotion, and fortified as well with the cross as with holy water, were forthwith among the first defiled by the dirt thrown at them. From which it would appear that both sacramentals and sacraments defend from hurtful, not harmless things, and from injury, not from illusion."[461]
The Tylwyth Teg.
In the mountains near Brecknock, says Davies,[462] there is a small lake, to which tradition assigns some of the properties of the fabled Avernus. I recollect a Mabinogi, or mythologic tale, respecting this piece of water, which runs thus:—
In ancient times a door in a rock near this lake was found open upon a certain day every year. I think it was May-day. Those who had the curiosity and resolution to enter were conducted by a secret passage, which terminated in a small island in the centre of the lake. Here the visitors were surprised with the prospect of a most enchanting garden stored with the choicest fruits and flowers, and inhabited by the Tylwyth Têg, or Fair Family, a kind of Fairies, whose beauty could be equalled only by the courtesy and affability which they exhibited to those who pleased them. They gathered fruit and flowers for each of their guests, entertained them with the most exquisite music, disclosed to them many secrets of futurity, and invited them to stay as long as they should find their situation agreeable. But the island was secret, and nothing of its produce must be carried away. The whole of this scene was invisible to those who stood without the margin of the lake. Only an indistinct mass was seen in the middle; and it was observed that no bird would fly over the water, and that a soft strain of music at times breathed with rapturous sweetness in the breeze of the morning.
It happened upon one of these annual visits that a sacrilegious wretch, when he was about to leave the garden, put a flower, with which he had been presented, in his pocket; but the theft boded him no good. As soon as he had touched unhallowed ground the flower vanished and he lost his senses. Of this injury the Fair Family took no notice at the time. They dismissed their guests with their accustomed courtesy, and the door was closed as usual. But their resentment ran high. For though, as the tale goes, the Tylwyth Têg and their garden undoubtedly occupy the spot to this day, though the birds still keep at a respectful distance from the lake, and some broken strains of music are still heard at times, yet the door which led to the island has never re-opened, and from the date of this sacrilegious act the Cymry have been unfortunate.
Some time after this, an adventurous person attempted to draw off the water, in order to discover its contents, when a terrific form arose from the midst of the lake, commanding him to desist, or otherwise he would drown the country.