The legends of which we will now proceed to give a specimen, were collected and published in the latter half of the eighteenth century, by a Welsh clergyman, who seems to have entertained no doubt whatever of the truth of the adventures contained in them.[465]
The two daughters of a respectable farmer in the parish of Bedwellty were one day out hay-making with their man and maid servant and a couple of their neighbours, when on a hill, about quarter of a mile distant, they saw a large flock of sheep. Soon after, they saw them going up to a place half a mile off, and then going out of their sight as if they vanished in the air. About half-an-hour before sunset, they saw them again, but not all alike; for some saw them like sheep, some like greyhounds, some like swine, and some like naked infants. They appeared in the shade of the mountain between them and the sun, and the first sight was as if they rose out of the earth. "This was a notable appearance of the fairies, seen by credible witnesses. The sons of infidelity are very unreasonable not to believe the testimonies of so many witnesses of the being of spirits."
E. T. going home by night over Bedwellty Mountains, saw the fairies on each side of him. Some of them were dancing. He also heard the sound of a bugle-horn, as if people were hunting. He began to grow afraid, but recollecting to have heard that if, on seeing the fairies, you draw out your knife, they will vanish, he did so, and saw them no more. "This the old gentleman sincerely related to me. He was a sober man, and of the strictest veracity."
A young man having gone early one morning to a barn to feed oxen, when he had done, lay down on the hay to rest. As he lay he heard the sound of music approaching the barn, and presently came in a large company, wearing striped clothes (some more gay than others), and commenced dancing to their music. He lay quite still, thinking to escape their notice; but a woman, better dressed than the others, came up to him with a striped cushion, with a tassel at each corner, and put it under his head. Some time after, a cock was heard to crow, which seemed either to surprise or displease them, and they hastily drew the cushion from under his head, and went away.
P. W., "an honest virtuous woman," related that one time, when she was a little girl on her way to school, she saw the fairies dancing under a crab-tree. As they appeared to be children of her own size, and had small pleasant music, she went and joined in their exercise, and then took them to dance in an empty barn. This she continued to do for three or four years. As she never could hear the sound of their feet, she always took off her shoes, supposing noise to be displeasing to them. They were of small stature, looked rather old, and wore blue and green aprons. Her grandfather, who kept school in the parish-church, used, when going home from it late in the evening, to see the fairies dancing under an oak, within two or three fields of the church.
The learned writer gives finally a letter to himself, from a "pious young gentleman" of Denbighshire, dated March 24, 1772, in which he informs him, that about fifteen years before, as himself, his sister, and two other little girls were playing at noon of a summer's day in a field, they saw a company of dancers, about seventy yards from them. Owing to the rapidity of their whirling motions, they could not count them, but guessed them at fifteen or sixteen. They were in red, like soldiers, with red handkerchiefs spotted with yellow, on their heads. As they were gazing and wondering at them, one of the dancers came running towards them. The children, in a fright, made for an adjacent stile. The girls got over, but the boy was near being caught, and on looking back when over, he saw the red man stretching his arms after him over the stile, which it would seem he had not the power to cross. When they came to the house, which was close at hand, they gave the alarm, and people went out to search the fields, but could see nothing. The little man was very grim-looking, with a copper-coloured face. His running-pace was rather slow, but he took great strides for one of his size.
The following legends were collected in 1827, in the Vale of Neath, in Glamorganshire, by a lady with whom we became acquainted when travelling through North Wales, in the preceding autumn.[466]
An old woman assured our fair friend, that she one time, many years before, saw the fairies to the number of some hundreds. They were very small, were mounted on little white horses, not bigger than dogs, and rode four a-breast. It was almost dusk at the time, and they were not a quarter of a mile from her. Another old woman said that her father had often seen the fairies riding in the air on little white horses, but he never saw them come down on the ground. He also used to hear their music in the air. She had heard, too, of a man who had been five-and-twenty years with the fairies, and thought he had been away only five minutes.