Welsh Fairy Tales

WILLIAM ELLIOT GRIFFIS

1921

A PREFACE-LETTER TO MY GRANDFATHER

DEAR CAPTAIN JOHN GRIFFIS:

Although I never saw you, since you died in 1804, I am glad you were one of those Welshmen who opposed the policy of King George III and that you, after coming to America in 1783, were among the first sea captains to carry the American flag around the world. That you knew many of the Free Quakers and other patriots of the Revolution and that they buried you among them, near Benjamin Franklin, is a matter of pride to your descendants. That you were born in Wales and spoke Welsh, as did also those three great prophets of spiritual liberty, Roger Williams, William Penn, and Thomas Jefferson, is still further ground for pride in one's ancestry. Now, in the perspective of history we see that our Washington and his compeers and Wilkes, Barre, Burke and the friends of America in Parliament were fighting the same battle of Freedom. Though our debt to Wales for many things is great, we count not least those inheritances from the world of imagination, for which the Cymric Land was famous, even before the days of either Anglo-Saxon or Norman.

W. E. G.
Saint David's and the day of the Daffodil, March 1, 1921.

CONTENTS

I. [WELSH RABBIT AND HUNTED HARES]
II. [THE MIGHTY MONSTER AFANG]
III. [THE TWO CAT WITCHES]
IV. [HOW THE CYMRY LAND BECAME INHABITED]
V. [THE BOY THAT WAS NAMED TROUBLE]
VI. [THE GOLDEN HARP]
VII. [THE GREAT RED DRAGON OF WALES]
VIII. [THE TOUCH OF CLAY]
IX. [THE TOUCH OF IRON]
X. [THE MAIDEN OF THE GREEN FOREST]
XI. [THE TREASURE STONE OF THE FAIRIES]
XII. [GIANT TOM AND GIANT BLUBB]
XIII. [A BOY THAT VISITED FAIRYLAND]
XIV. [THE WELSHERY AND THE NORMANS]
XV. [THE WELSH FAIRIES HOLD A MEETING]
XVI. [KING ARTHUR'S CAVE]
XVII. [THE LADY OF THE LAKE]
XVIII. [THE KING'S FOOT HOLDER]
XIX. [POWELL, PRINCE OF DYFED]
XX. [POWELL AND HIS BRIDE]
XXI. [WHY THE BACK DOOR WAS FRONT]
XXII. [THE RED BANDITS OF MONTGOMERY]
XXIII. [THE FAIRY CONGRESS]
XXIV. [THE SWORD OF AVALON]