VI.

[Illustration: THE FAIRY FROLIC AT THE CROMLECH.]

Venerable in their hoary antiquity stand those monuments of a long-vanished humanity, the cromlechs which are so numerous in Wales, sharing with the logan and the inscribed stone the peasant's superstitious interest. Even more than the others, these solemn rocks are surrounded with legends of enchantment. They figure in many fairy-tales like that of the shepherd of Frennifawr, who stood watching their mad revelry about the old cromlech, where they were dancing, making music on the harp, and chasing their companions in hilarious sort. That the fairies protect the cromlechs with special care, as they also do the logans and others, is a belief the Welsh peasant shares with the superstitious in many lands. There is a remarkable cromlech near the hamlet of St. Nicholas, Glamorganshire, on the estate of the family whose house has the honour of being haunted by the ghost of an admiral. This cromlech is called, by children in that neighbourhood, 'Castle Correg.' A Cardiff gentleman who asked some children who were playing round the cromlech, what they termed it, was struck by the name, which recalled to him the Breton fairies thus designated.[179] The korreds and korregs of Brittany closely resemble the Welsh fairies in numberless details. The korreds are supposed to live in the cromlechs, of which they are believed to have been the builders. They dance around them at night, and woe betide the unhappy peasant who joins them in their roundels.[180] Like beliefs attach to cromlechs in the Haute Auvergne, and other parts of France. A cromlech at Pirols, said to have been built by a fee, is composed of seven massive stones, the largest being twelve feet long by eight and a half feet wide. The fee carried these stones hither from a great distance, and set them up; and the largest and heaviest one she carried on the top of her spindle, and so little was she incommoded by it that she continued to spin all the way.[181]

FOOTNOTES:

[179] Mr. J. W. Lukis, in an address before the Cardiff Nat. Soc. in July, 1874.

[180] Keightley, 'Fairy Mythology,' 432.

[181] Cambry, 'Monuments Celtiques,' 232.