British Goblins Part 7

'Ho, ho!' said Morgan, 'is that the case? Ah, I see you are making sport of me. Wela, wela, the wish of my heart is to have a harp that will play under my fingers no matter how ill I strike it; a harp that will play lively tunes, look you; no melancholy music for me!' He had hardly spoken, when to his astonishment, there on the hearth before him stood a splendid harp, and he was alone. 'Waw!' cried Morgan, 'they're gone already.' Then looking behind him he saw they had not taken the bread and cheese they had cut off, after all. ''Twas the fairies, perhaps,' he muttered, but sat serenely quaffing his beer, and staring at the harp. There was a sound of footsteps behind him, and his wife came in from out doors with some friends. Morgan feeling very jolly, thought he would raise a little laughter among them by displaying his want of skill upon the harp. So he commenced to play--oh, what a mad and capering tune it was! 'Waw!' said Morgan, 'but this is a harp. Holo! what ails you all?' For as fast as he played his neighbours danced, every man, woman, and child of them all footing it like mad creatures. Some of them bounded up against the roof of the cottage till their heads cracked again; others spun round and round, knocking over the furniture; and, as Morgan went on thoughtlessly playing, they began to pray to him to stop before they should be jolted to pieces. But Morgan found the scene too amusing to want to stop; besides, he was enamoured of his own suddenly developed skill as a musician; and he tw.a.n.ged the strings and laughed till his sides ached and the tears rolled down his cheeks, at the antics of his friends. Tired out at last he stopped, and the dancers fell exhausted on the floor, the chairs, the tables, declaring the diawl himself was in the harp. 'I know a tune worth two of that,' quoth Morgan, picking up the harp again; but at sight of this motion all the company rushed from the house and escaped, leaving Morgan rolling merrily in his chair. Whenever Morgan got a little tipsy after that, he would get the harp and set everybody round him to dancing; and the consequence was he got a bad name, and no one would go near him. But all their precautions did not prevent the neighbours from being caught now and then, when Morgan took his revenge by making them dance till their legs were broken, or some other damage was done them. Even lame people and invalids were compelled to dance whenever they heard the music of this diabolical telyn. In short, Morgan so abused his fairy gift that one night the good people came and took it away from him, and he never saw it more. The consequence was he became morose, and drank himself to death--a warning to all who accept from the fairies favours they do not deserve.

III.

The music of the Tylwyth Teg has been variously described by people who claim to have heard it; but as a rule with much vagueness, as of a sweet intangible harmony, recalling the experience of Caliban:

The isle is full of noises; Sounds, and sweet airs, that give delight, and hurt not.

Sometimes a thousand tw.a.n.gling instruments Will hum about mine ears.[48]

One Morgan Gwilym, who saw the fairies by Cylepsta Waterfall, and heard their music dying away, was only able to recall the last strain, which he said sounded something like this:

[Music]

Edmund Daniel, of the Arail, 'an honest man and a constant speaker of truth,' told the Prophet Jones that he often saw the fairies after sunset crossing the Cefn Bach from the Valley of the Church towards Hafodafel, leaping and striking in the air, and making a serpentine path through the air, in this form:

[Ill.u.s.tration: {WAVY HORIZONTAL LINE.}]

The fairies were seen and heard by many persons in that neighbourhood, and sometimes by several persons together. They appeared more often by night than by day, and in the morning and evening more often than about noon. Many heard their music, and said of it that it was low and pleasant; but that it had this peculiarity: no one could ever learn the tune. In more favoured parts of the Princ.i.p.ality, the words of the song were distinctly heard, and under the name of the 'Can y Tylwyth Teg' are preserved as follows:

Dowch, dowch, gyfeillion man, O blith marwolion byd, Dowch, dowch, a dowch yn lan.

Partowch partowch eich pibau can, Gan ddawnsio dowch i gyd, Mae yn hyfryd heno i hwn.

One is reluctant to turn into bald English this goblin song, which in its native Welsh is almost as impressive as 'Fi Fo Fum.' Let it suffice that the song is an invitation to the little ones among the dead of earth to come with music and dancing to the delights of the night revel.

FOOTNOTE:

[48] 'Tempest,' Act III., Sc. 2.

IV.

In the legend of Iolo ap Hugh, than which no story is more widely known in Wales, the fairy origin of that famous tune 'Ffarwel Ned Pugh' is shown. It is a legend which suggests the Enchanted Flute fancy in another form, the instrument here being a fiddle, and the victim and player one under fairy control. In its introduction of bread and cheese and candles it smacks heartily of the soil. In North Wales there is a famous cave which is said to reach from its entrance on the hillside 'under the Morda, the Ceiriog, and a thousand other streams, under many a league of mountain, marsh and moor, under the almost unfathomable wells that, though now choked up, once supplied Sycharth, the fortress of Glyndwrdwy, all the way to Chirk Castle.'

Tradition said that whoever went within five paces of its mouth would be drawn into it and lost. That the peasants dwelling near it had a thorough respect for this tradition, was proved by the fact that all around the dangerous hole 'the gra.s.s grew as thick and as rank as in the wilds of America or some unapproached ledge of the Alps.' Both men and animals feared the spot: 'A fox, with a pack of hounds in full cry at his tail,' once turned short round on approaching it, 'with his hair all bristled and fretted like frostwork with terror,' and ran into the middle of the pack, 'as if anything earthly--even an earthly death--was a relief to his supernatural perturbations.' And the dogs in pursuit of this fox all declined to seize him, on account of the phosphoric smell and gleam of his coat. Moreover, 'Elias ap Evan, who happened one fair night to stagger just upon the rim of the forbidden s.p.a.ce,' was so frightened at what he saw and heard that he arrived at home perfectly sober, 'the only interval of sobriety, morning, noon, or night, Elias had been afflicted with for upwards of twenty years.'

Nor ever after that experience--concerning which he was wont to shake his head solemnly, as if he might tell wondrous tales an' he dared--could Elias get tipsy, drink he never so faithfully to that end. As he himself expressed it, 'His shadow walked steadily before him, that at one time wheeled around him like a pointer over bog and stone.' One misty Hallow E'en, Iolo ap Hugh, the fiddler, determined to solve the mysteries of the Ogof, or Cave, provided himself with 'an immense quant.i.ty of bread and cheese and seven pounds of candles,' and ventured in. He never returned; but long, long afterwards, at the twilight of another Hallow E'en, an old shepherd was pa.s.sing that--as he called it--'Land-Maelstrom of Diaboly,' when he heard a faint burst of melody dancing up and down the rocks above the cave. As he listened, the music gradually 'moulded itself in something like a tune, though it was a tune the shepherd had never heard before.' And it sounded as if it were being played by some jolting fiend, so rugged was its rhythm, so repeated its discordant groans. Now there appeared at the mouth of the Ogof a figure well-known to the shepherd by remembrance. It was dimly visible; but it was Iolo ap Hugh, one could see that at once. He was capering madly to the music of his own fiddle, with a lantern dangling at his breast. 'Suddenly the moon shone full on the cave's yellow mouth, and the shepherd saw poor Iolo for a single moment--but it was distinctly and horribly. His face was pale as marble, and his eyes stared fixedly and deathfully, whilst his head dangled loose and unjointed on his shoulders. His arms seemed to keep his fiddlestick in motion without the least sympathy from their master. The shepherd saw him a moment on the verge of the cave, and then, still capering and fiddling, vanish like a shadow from his sight;' but the old man was heard to say he seemed as if he slipped into the cave in a manner quite different from the step of a living and a willing man; 'he was dragged inwards like the smoke up the chimney, or the mist at sunrise.' Years elapsed; 'all hopes and sorrows connected with poor Iolo had not only pa.s.sed away, but were nearly forgotten; the old shepherd had long lived in a parish at a considerable distance amongst the hills. One cold December Sunday evening he and his fellow-paris.h.i.+oners were s.h.i.+vering in their seats as the clerk was beginning to light the church, when a strange burst of music, starting suddenly from beneath the aisle, threw the whole congregation into confusion, and then it pa.s.sed faintly along to the farther end of the church, and died gradually away till at last it was impossible to distinguish it from the wind that was careering and wailing through almost every pillar of the old church.' The shepherd immediately recognised this to be the tune Iolo had played at the mouth of the Ogof. The parson of the parish--a connoisseur in music--took it down from the old man's whistling; and to this day, if you go to the cave on Hallow eve and put your ear to the aperture, you may hear the tune 'Ffarwel Ned Pugh' as distinctly as you may hear the waves roar in a sea-sh.e.l.l. 'And it is said that in certain nights in leap-year a star stands opposite the farther end of the cave, and enables you to view all through it and to see Iolo and its other inmates.'[49]

[Music: FFARWEL NED PUGH.]

FOOTNOTE:

[49] 'Camb. Quarterly,' i., 45.

CHAPTER VIII.

Fairy Rings--The Prophet Jones and his Works--The Mysterious Language of the Tylwyth Teg--The Horse in Welsh Folk-Lore--Equestrian Fairies--Fairy Cattle, Sheep, Swine, etc.--The Flying Fairies of Bedwellty--The Fairy Sheepfold at Cae'r Cefn.

I.

The circles in the gra.s.s of green fields, which are commonly called fairy rings, are numerous in Wales, and it is deemed just as well to keep out of them, even in our day. The peasantry no longer believe that the fairies can be seen dancing there, nor that the cap of invisibility will fall on the head of one who enters the circle; but they do believe that the fairies, in a time not long gone, made these circles with the tread of their tripping feet, and that some misfortune will probably befall any person intruding upon this forbidden ground. An old man at Peterstone-super-Ely told me he well remembered in his childhood being warned by his mother to keep away from the fairy rings. The counsel thus given him made so deep an impression on his mind, that he had never in his life entered one. He remarked further, in answer to a question, that he had never walked under a ladder, because it was unlucky to walk under a ladder. This cla.s.s of superst.i.tions is a very large one, and is encountered the world over; and the fairy rings seem to fall into this cla.s.s, so far as present-day belief in Wales is concerned.

II.

Allusion has been made in the preceding pages to the Prophet Jones, and as some account of this personage is imperatively called for in a work treating of Welsh folk-lore, I will give it here, before citing his remarks respecting fairy circles. Edmund Jones, 'of the Tranch,'

was a dissenting minister, noted in Monmouths.h.i.+re in the first years of the present century for his fervent piety and his large credulity with regard to fairies and all other goblins. He was for many years pastor of the congregation of Protestant Dissenters at the Ebenezer Chapel, near Pontypool, and lived at a place called 'The Tranch,' near there. He wrote and published two books, one an 'Account of the Parish of Aberystruth,' printed at Trevecca; the other a 'Relation of Apparitions of Spirits in the County of Monmouth and the Princ.i.p.ality of Wales,' printed at Newport; and they have been referred to by most writers on folk-lore who have attempted any account of Welsh superst.i.tions during the past half-century; but the books are extremely rare, and writers who have quoted from them have generally been content to do so at second-hand. Keightley,[50] quoting from the 'Apparitions,' misprints the author's name 'Edward Jones of the Tiarch,' and accredits the publication to 'the latter half of the eighteenth century,' whereas it was published in 1813. Keightley's quotations are taken from Croker, who himself had never seen the book, but heard of it through a Welsh friend. It is not in the library of the British Museum, and I know of but a few copies in Wales; the one I saw is at Swansea. The author of these curious volumes was called the Prophet Jones, because of his gift of prophecy--so a Welshman in Monmouths.h.i.+re told me. In my informant's words, 'He was noted in his district for foretelling things. He would, for instance, be asked to preach at some anniversary, or quarterly meeting, and he would answer, "I cannot, on that day; the rain will descend in torrents, and there will be no congregation." He would give the last mite he possessed to the needy, and tell his wife, "G.o.d will send a messenger with food and raiment at nine o'clock to-morrow." And so it would be.' He was a thorough-going believer in Welsh fairies, and full of indignant scorn toward all who dared question their reality. To him these phantoms were part and parcel of the Christian faith, and those who disbelieved in them were denounced as Sadducees and infidels.

FOOTNOTE:

[50] 'Fairy Mythology,' 412.

III.

With regard to the fairy rings, Jones held that the Bible alludes to them, Matt. xii. 43: 'The fairies dance in circles in dry places; and the Scripture saith that the walk of evil spirits is in dry places.'

They favour the oak-tree, and the female oak especially, partly because of its more wide-spreading branches and deeper shade, partly because of the 'superst.i.tious use made of it beyond other trees' in the days of the Druids. Formerly, it was dangerous to cut down a female oak in a fair dry place. 'Some were said to lose their lives by it, by a strange aching pain which admitted of no remedy, as one of my ancestors did; but now that men have more knowledge and faith, this effect follows not.' William Jenkins was for a long time the schoolmaster at Trefethin church, in Monmouths.h.i.+re, and coming home late in the evening, as he usually did, he often saw the fairies under an oak within two or three fields from the church. He saw them more often on Friday evenings than any other. At one time he went to examine the ground about this oak, and there he found the reddish circle wherein the fairies danced, 'such as have often been seen under the female oak, called Brenhin-bren.' They appeared more often to an uneven number of persons, as one, three, five, &c.; and oftener to men than to women. Thomas William Edmund, of Hafodafel, 'an honest pious man, who often saw them,' declared that they appeared with one bigger than the rest going before them in the company. They were also heard talking together in a noisy, jabbering way; but no one could distinguish the words. They seemed, however, to be a very disputatious race; insomuch, indeed, that there was a proverb in some parts of Wales to this effect: 'Ni chytunant hwy mwy na Bendith eu Mamau,'

(They will no more agree than the fairies).

IV.

This observation respecting the mysterious language used by fairies recalls again the medieval story of Elidurus. The example of fairy words there given by Giraldus is thought by the learned rector of Llanarmon[51] to be 'a mixture of Irish and Welsh. The letter U, with which each of the words begins, is, probably, no more than the representative of an indistinct sound like the E mute of the French, and which those whose language and manners are vulgar often prefix to words indifferently. If, then, they be read dor dorum, and halgein dorum, dor and halgein are nearly dwr (or, as it is p.r.o.nounced, door) and halen, the Welsh words for water and salt respectively. Dorum therefore is equivalent to "give me," and the Irish expression for "give me" is thorum; the Welsh dyro i mi. The order of the words, however, is reversed. The order should be thorum dor, and thorum halen in Irish, and in Welsh dyro i mi ddwr, and dyro i mi halen, but was, perhaps, reversed intentionally by the narrator, to make his tale the more marvellous.'[52]

FOOTNOTES:

[51] Rev. Peter Roberts, 'Cambrian Popular Antiquities,' 195. (1815.)

[52] Supra, p. 67.

V.

The horse plays a very active part in Welsh fairy tales. Not only does his skeleton serve for Mary Lwyds[53] and the like, but his spirit flits. The Welsh fairies seem very fond of going horseback. An old woman in the Vale of Neath told Mrs. Williams, who told Thomas Keightley, that she had seen fairies to the number of hundreds, mounted on little white horses, not bigger than dogs, and riding four abreast. This was about dusk, and the fairy equestrians pa.s.sed quite close to her, in fact less than a quarter of a mile away. Another old woman a.s.serted that her father had often seen the fairies riding in the air on little white horses; but he never saw them come to the ground. He heard their music sounding in the air as they galloped by.

There is a tradition among the Glamorgan peasantry of a fairy battle fought on the mountain between Merthyr and Aberdare, in which the pigmy combatants were on horseback. There appeared to be two armies, one of which was mounted on milk-white steeds, and the other on horses of jet-black. They rode at each other with the utmost fury, and their swords could be seen flas.h.i.+ng in the air like so many penknife blades.

The army on the white horses won the day, and drove the black-mounted force from the field. The whole scene then disappeared in a light mist.

FOOTNOTE:

[53] See Index.

VI.

In the agricultural districts of Wales, the fairies are accredited with a very complete variety of useful animals; and Welsh folk-lore, both modern and medieval, abounds with tales regarding cattle, sheep, horses, poultry, goats, and other features of rural life. Such are the marvellous mare of Teirnyon, which foaled every first of May, but whose colt was always spirited away, no man knew whither; the Ychain Banog, or mighty oxen, which drew the water-monster out of the enchanted lake, and by their lowing split the rocks in twain; the lambs of St. Melangell, which at first were hares, and ran frightened under the fair saint's robes; the fairy cattle which belong to the Gwraig Annwn; the fairy sheep of Cefn Rhychdir, which rose up out of the earth and vanished into the sky; even fairy swine, which the haymakers of Bedwellty beheld flying through the air. To some of these traditions reference has already been made; others will be mentioned again. Welsh mountain sheep will run like stags, and bound from crag to crag like wild goats; and as for Welsh swine, they are more famed in Cambrian romantic story than almost any other animal that could be named. Therefore the tale told by Rev. Roger Rogers, of the parish of Bedwellty, sounds much less absurd in Wales than it might elsewhere.

It relates to a very remarkable and odd sight, seen by Lewis Thomas Jenkin's two daughters, described as virtuous and good young women, their father a substantial freeholder; and seen not only by them but by the man-servant and the maid-servant, and by two of the neighbours, viz., Elizabeth David, and Edmund Roger. All these six people were on a certain day making hay in a field called Y Weirglodd Fawr Dafolog, when they plainly beheld a company of fairies rise up out of the earth in the shape of a flock of sheep; the same being about a quarter of a mile distant, over a hill, called Cefn Rhychdir; and soon the fairy flock went out of sight, as if they vanished in the air. Later in the day they all saw this company of fairies again, but while to two of the haymakers the fairies appeared as sheep, to others they appeared as greyhounds, and to others as swine, and to others as naked infants.

Whereupon the Rev. Roger remarks: 'The sons of infidelity are very unreasonable not to believe the testimonies of so many witnesses.'[54]