Part 7

The Rev. Peter Roberts's theory was that the smaller race kidnapped the children of the stronger race, who occupied the country concurrently with themselves, for the purpose of adding to their own strength as a people.

Gay, in lines quoted in Brand's _Popular Antiquities_, vol. ii., p. 485, laughs at the idea of changelings. A Fairy's tongue ridicules the superstition:--

Whence sprung the vain conceited lye, That we the world with fools supply? What! Give our sprightly race away For the dull helpless sons of clay! Besides, by partial fondness shown, Like you, we dote upon our own. Where ever yet was found a mother Who'd give her booby for another? And should we change with human breed, Well might we pass for fools, indeed.

With the above fine satire I bring my remarks on Fairy Changelings to a close.

FAIRY MOTHERS AND HUMAN MIDWIVES.

Fairies are represented in Wales as possessing all the passions, appetites, and wants of human beings. There are many tales current of their soliciting help and favours in their need from men and women. Just as uncivilized nations acknowledge the superiority of Europeans in medicine, so did the Fairies resort in perplexing cases to man for aid. There is a class of tales which has reached our days in which the Fairy lady, who is about to become a mother, obtains from amongst men a midwife, whom she rewards with rich presents for her services. Variants of this story are found in many parts of Wales, and in many continental countries. I will relate a few of these legends.

1. _Denbighshire Version of a Fairy Mother and Human Midwife_.

The following story I received from the lips of David Roberts, whom I have previously mentioned, a native of Denbighshire, and he related the tale as one commonly known. As might be expected, he locates the event in Denbighshire, but I have no recollection that he gave names. His narrative was as follows:--

A well-known midwife, whose services were much sought after in consequence of her great skill, had one night retired to rest, when she was disturbed by a loud knocking at her door. She immediately got up and went to the door, and there saw a beautiful carriage, which she was urgently requested to enter at once to be conveyed to a house where her help was required. She did so, and after a long drive the carriage drew up before the entrance to a large mansion, which she had never seen before. She successfully performed her work, and stayed on in the place until her services were no longer required. Then she was conveyed home in the same manner as she had come, but with her went many valuable presents in grateful recognition of the services she had rendered.

The midwife somehow or other found out that she had been attending a Fairy mother. Some time after her return from Fairy land she went to a fair, and there she saw the lady whom she had put to bed nimbly going from stall to stall, and making many purchases. For awhile she watched the movements of the lady, and then presuming on her limited acquaintance, addressed her, and asked how she was. The lady seemed surprised and annoyed at the woman's speech, and instead of answering her, said, "And do you see me?" "Yes, I do," said the midwife. "With which eye?" enquired the Fairy. "With this," said the woman, placing her hand on the eye. No sooner had she spoken than the Fairy lady touched that eye, and the midwife could no longer see the Fairy.

Mrs. Lowri Wynn, Clocaenog, near Ruthin, who has reached her eightieth year, and is herself a midwife, gave me a version of the preceding which differed therefrom in one or two particulars. The Fairy gentleman who had driven the woman to and from the Hall was the one that was seen in the fair, said Mrs. Wynn, and he it was that put out the eye or blinded it, she was not sure which, of the inquisitive midwife, and Lowri thought it was the left eye.

2. _Merionethshire Version of the Fairy Mother and Human Midwife_.

A more complete version of this legend is given in the _Gordofigion_, pp. 97, 98. The writer says:--

"Yr oedd bydwraig yn Llanuwchllyn wedi cael ei galw i Goed y Garth, sef Siambra Duon--cartref y Tylwyth Teg--at un o honynt ar enedigaeth baban. Dywedasant wrthi am gymeryd gofal rhag, cyffwrdd y dwfr oedd ganddi yn trin y babi yn agos i'w llygaid; ond cyffyrddodd y wraig a'r llygad aswy yn ddigon difeddwl. Yn y Bala, ymhen ychydig, gwelai y fydwraig y gwr, sef tad y baban, a dechreuodd ei holi pa sut yr oeddynt yn Siambra Duon? pa fodd yr oedd y wraig? a sut 'roedd y teulu bach i gyd? Edrychai yntau arni yn graff, a gofynodd, 'A pha lygad yr ydych yn fy ngweled i?' 'A hwn,' ebe hithau, gan gyfeirio at ei llygad aswy. Tynodd yntau y llygad hwnw o'i phen, ac yna nis gallai'r wraig ei ganfod."

This in English is:--

There was a midwife who lived at Llanuwchllyn, who was called to Coed y Garth, that is, to Siambra Duon, the home of the Tylwyth Teg, to attend to one of them in child birth. They told her to be careful not to touch her eyes with the water used in washing the baby, but quite unintentionally the woman touched her left eye. Shortly afterwards the midwife saw the Fairy's husband at Bala, and she began enquiring how they all were at Siambra Duon, how the wife was, and how the little family was? He looked at her intently, and then asked, "With which eye do you see me?" "With this," she said, pointing to her left eye. He plucked that eye out of her head, and so the woman could not see him.

With regard to this tale, the woman's eye is said to have been plucked out; in the first tale she was only deprived of her supernatural power of sight; in other versions the woman becomes blind with one eye.

Professor Rhys in _Y Cymmrodor_, vol. iv., pp. 209, 210, gives a variant of the midwife story which differs in some particulars from that already related. I will call this the Corwrion version.

3. _The Corwrion Version_.

One of the Fairies came to a midwife who lived at Corwrion and asked her to come with him and attend on his wife. Off she went with him, and she was astonished to be taken into a splendid palace. There she continued to go night and morning to dress the baby for some time, until one day the husband asked her to rub her eyes with a certain ointment he offered her. She did so and found herself sitting on a tuft of rushes, and not in a palace. There was no baby, and all had disappeared. Some time afterwards she happened to go to the town, and whom should she see busily buying various wares but the Fairy on whose wife she had been attending. She addressed him with the question, "How are you, to-day?" Instead of answering her he asked, "How do you see me?" "With my eyes," was the prompt reply. "Which eye?" he asked. "This one," said she, pointing to it; and instantly he disappeared, never more to be seen by her.

There is yet one other variant of this story which I will give, and for the sake of reference I will call it the Nanhwynan version. It appears in the _Brython_, vol. ix., p. 251, and Professor Rhys has rendered it into English in _Y Cymmrodor_, vol. ix., p. 70. I will give the tale as related by the Professor.

4. _The Nanhwynan Version_.

"Once on a time, when a midwife from Nanhwynan had newly got to the Hafodydd Brithion to pursue her calling, a gentleman came to the door on a fine grey steed and bade her come with him at once. Such was the authority with which he spoke, that the poor midwife durst not refuse to go, however much it was her duty to stay where she was. So she mounted behind him, and off they went like the flight of a swallow, through Cwmllan, over the Bwlch, down Nant yr Aran, and over the Gadair to Cwm Hafod Ruffydd, before the poor woman had time to say 'Oh.' When they had got there she saw before her a magnificent mansion, splendidly lit up with such lamps as she had never before seen. They entered the court, and a crowd of servants in expensive liveries came to meet them, and she was at once led through the great hall into a bed-chamber, the like of which she had never seen. There the mistress of the house, to whom she had been fetched, was awaiting her. She got through her duties successfully, and stayed there until the lady had completely recovered; nor had she spent any part of her life so merrily. There was there nought but festivity day and night: dancing, singing, and endless rejoicing reigned there. But merry as it was, she found she must go, and the nobleman gave her a large purse, with the order not to open it until she had got into her own house; then he bade one of his servants escort her the same way she had come. When she reached home she opened the purse, and, to her great joy, it was full of money, and she lived happily on those earnings to the end of her life."

Such are these tales. Perhaps they are one and all fragments of the same story. Each contains a few shreds that are wanting in the others. All, however, agree in one leading idea, that Fairy mothers have, ere now, obtained the aid of human midwives, and this one fact is a connecting link between the people called Fairies and our own remote forefathers.

FAIRY VISITS TO HUMAN ABODES.

Old people often told their children and servant girls, that one condition of the Fairy visits to their houses was cleanliness. They were always instructed to keep the fire place tidy and the floor well swept, the pails filled with water, and to make everything bright and nice before going to bed, and that then, perhaps, the Fairies would come into the house to dance and sing until the morning, and leave on the hearth stone a piece of money as a reward behind them. But should the house be dirty, never would the Fairies enter it to hold their nightly revels, unless, forsooth, they came to punish the slatternly servant. Such was the popular opinion, and it must have acted as an incentive to order and cleanliness. These ideas have found expression in song.

A writer in _Yr Hynafion Cymreig_, p. 153, sings thus of the place loved by the Fairies:--

Ysgafn ddrws pren, llawr glan dan nen, A'r aelwyd wen yn wir, Tan golau draw, y dwr gerllaw, Yn siriaw'r cylchgrwn clir.

A light door, and clean white floor, And hearth-stone bright indeed, A burning fire, and water near, Supplies our every need.

In a ballad, entitled "The Fairy Queen," in Percy's _Reliques of Ancient English Poetry_, Nichols's edition, vol. iii., p. 172, are stanzas similar to the Welsh verse given above, which also partially embody the Welsh opinions of Fairy visits to their houses. Thus chants the "Fairy Queen":--

When mortals are at rest, And snoring in their nest, Unheard, and un-espy'd, Through key-holes we do glide; Over tables, stools, and shelves, We trip it with our Fairy elves. And, if the house be foul With platter, dish, or bowl, Upstairs we nimbly creep, And find the sluts asleep: There we pinch their arms and thighs; None escapes, nor none espies. But if the house be swept And from uncleanness kept, We praise the household maid, And duely she is paid: For we use before we goe To drop a tester in her shoe.

It was not for the sake of mirth only that the Fairies entered human abodes, but for the performance of more mundane duties, such as making oatmeal cakes. The Rev. R. Jones, Rector of Llanycil, told me a story, current in his native parish, Llanfrothen, Merionethshire, to the effect that a Fairy woman who had spent the night in baking cakes in a farm house forgot on leaving to take with her the wooden utensil used in turning the cakes on the bake stone; so she returned, and failing to discover the lost article bewailed her loss in these words, "Mi gollais fy mhig," "I have lost my shovel." The people got up and searched for the lost implement, and found it, and gave it to the Fairy, who departed with it in her possession.

Another reason why the Fairies frequented human abodes was to wash and tidy their children. In the Gors Goch legend, already given, is recorded this cause of their visits. Many like stories are extant. It is said that the nightly visitors expected water to be provided for them, and if this were not the case they resented the slight thus shown them and punished those who neglected paying attention to their wants. But tradition says the house-wives were ever careful of the Fairy wants; and, as it was believed that Fairy mothers preferred using the same water in which human children had been washed, the human mother left this water in the bowl for their special use.

In Scotland, also, Fairies were propitiated by attention being paid to their wants. Thus in Allan Cunningham's _Traditional Tales_, p. 11, it is said of Ezra Peden:--"He rebuked a venerable dame, during three successive Sundays for placing a cream bowl and new-baked cake in the paths of the nocturnal elves, who, she imagined, had plotted to steal her grandson from the mother's bosom."

But in the traditions of the Isle of Man we obtain the exact counterpart of Welsh legends respecting the Fairies visiting houses to wash themselves. I will give the following quotation from _Brand_, vol. ii., p. 494, on this point:--

"The Manks confidently assert that the first inhabitants of their island were Fairies, and that these little people have still their residence among them. They call them _the good people_, and say they live in wilds and forests, and on mountains, and shun great cities because of the wickedness acted therein. All the houses are blessed where they visit for they fly vice. A person would be thought impudently profane who should suffer his family to go to bed without having first set a tub, or pail full of clean water for the guests to bathe themselves in, which the natives aver they constantly do, as soon as the eyes of the family are closed, wherever they vouchsafe to come."

Several instances have already been given of the intercourse of Fairies with mortals. In some parts of Wales it is or was thought that they were even so familiar as to borrow from men. I will give one such tale, taken from the _North Wales Chronicle_ of March 19th, 1887.

_A Fairy Borrowing a Gridiron_.

"The following Fairy legend was told to Mr. W. W. Cobb, of Hilton House, Atherstone, by Mrs. Williams, wife of Thomas Williams, pilot, in whose house he lodged when staying in Anglesey:--Mary Roberts, of Newborough, used to receive visits once a week from a little woman who used to bring her a loaf of bread in return for the loan of her gridiron (gradell) for baking bread. The Fairy always told her not to look after her when she left the house, but one day she transgressed, and took a peep as the Fairy went away. The latter went straight to the lake--Lake Rhosddu--near the house at Newborough, and plunged into its waters, and disappeared. This took place about a century ago. The house where Mary Roberts lived is still standing about 100 yards north of the lake."

Compare the preceding with the following lines:--

If ye will with Mab finde grace, Set each platter in its place; Rake the fire up and set Water in ere sun be set, Wash your pales and cleanse your dairies, Sluts are loathsome to the Fairies; Sweep your house; who doth not so, Mab will pinch her by the toe.

_Herrick's Hesperides_, 1648. (See _Brand_, vol. ii., p. 484.)

_Fairy Riches and Gifts_.

The riches of the Fairies are often mentioned by the old people, and the source of their wealth is variously given. An old man, who has already been mentioned, John Williams, born about 1770, was of opinion that the Fairies stole the money from bad rich people to give it to good poor folk. This they were enabled to do, he stated, as they could make themselves invisible. In a conversation which we once had on this subject, my old friend posed me with this question, "Who do you think robbed . . . of his money without his knowledge?" "Who do you think took . . . money only twenty years ago?" "Why, the Fairies," added he, "for no one ever found out the thief."

Shakespeare, in _Midsummer Night's Dream_, A. iii., S. 1, gives a very different source to the Fairy riches:--

I will give thee Fairies to attend on thee, And they _shall fetch thee jewels from the deep_.

Without inquiring too curiously into the source of these riches, it shall now be shown how, and for what services, they were bestowed on mortals. Gratitude is a noble trait in the Fairy character, and favours received they ever repaid. But the following stories illustrate alike their commiseration, their caprice, and their grateful bounty.

_The Fairies Placing Money on the Ground for a Poor Man_.

The following tale was told me by Thomas Jones, a small mountain farmer, who occupies land near Pont Petrual, a place between Ruthin and Llanfihangel Glyn Myfyr. Jones informed me that he was acquainted with all the parties mentioned in the tale. His story was as follows:--

A shoemaker, whose health would not permit him to pursue his own trade, obtained work in a tanyard at Penybont, near Corwen. The shoemaker lived in a house called Ty'n-y-graig, belonging to Clegir isa farm. He walked daily to his employment, a distance of several miles, because he could not afford to pay for lodgings. One day, he noticed a round bit of green ground, close to one of the gates on Tan-y-Coed farm, and going up to it discovered a piece of silver lying on the sward. Day after day, from the same spot, he picked up a silver coin. By this means, as well as by the wage he received, he became a well-to-do man. His wife noticed the many new coins he brought home, and questioned him about them, but he kept the secret of their origin to himself. At last, however, in consequence of repeated inquiries, he told her all about the silver pieces, which daily he had picked up from the green plot. The next day he passed the place, but there was no silver, as in days gone by, and he never discovered another shilling, although he looked for it every day. The poor man did not live long after he had informed his wife whence he had obtained the bright silver coins.

_The Fairies and their Chest of Gold_.

The following tale I obtained from the Rev. Owen Jones, Vicar of Pentrevoelas. The scene lies amongst the wildest mountains of Merionethshire.

David, the weaver, lived in a house called Llurig, near Cerniogau Mawr, between Pentrevoelas and Cerrig-y-Drudion. One day David was going over the hill to Bala. On the top of the Garn two Fairies met him, and desired him to follow them, promising, if he would do so, that they would show him a chest filled with gold, and furthermore, they told him that the gold should be his. David was in want of money, and he was therefore quite willing to follow these good natured Fairies. He walked many miles with them across the bleak, bare mountain, and at last, descending from the summit, they reached a deep secluded glen, lying at the foot of the mountain, and there the Fairies exposed to his view a chest, which had never before been seen by mortal eye, and they informed him that it was his. David was delighted when he heard the good news, and mentally bade farewell to weaving. He knew, though, from tradition, that he must in some way or other, there and then, take possession of his treasure, or it would disappear. He could not carry the chest away, as it was too heavy, but to show his ownership thereto he thrust his walking stick into the middle of the gold, and there it stood erect. Then he started homewards, and often and again, as he left the glen, he turned round to see whether the Fairies had taken his stick away, and with it the chest; but no, there it remained. At last the ridge hid all from view, and, instead of going on to Bala, he hastened home to tell his good wife of his riches. Quickly did he travel to his cottage, and when there it was not long before his wife knew all about the chest of gold, and where it was, and how that David had taken possession of his riches by thrusting his walking stick into the middle of the gold. It was too late for them to set out to carry the chest home, but they arranged to start before the sun was up the next day. David, well acquainted with Fairy doings, cautioned his wife not to tell anyone of their good fortune, "For, if you do," said he, "we shall vex the Fairies, and the chest, after all, will not be ours." She promised to obey, but alas, what woman possesses a silent tongue! No sooner had the husband revealed the secret to his wife than she was impatient to step to her next door neighbour's house, just to let them know what a great woman she had all at once become. Now, this neighbour was a shrewd miller, called Samuel. David went out, to attend to some little business, leaving his wife alone, and she, spying her opportunity, rushed to the miller's house, and told him and his wife every whit, and how that she and David had arranged to go for the chest next morning before the sun was up. Then she hurried home, but never told David where she had been, nor what she had done. The good couple sat up late that night, talking over their good fortune and planning their future. It was consequently far after sunrise when they got up next day, and when they reached the secluded valley, where the chest had been, it had disappeared, and with it David's stick. They returned home sad and weary, but this time there was no visit made to the miller's house. Ere long it was quite clearly seen that Samuel the miller had come into a fortune, and David's wife knew that she had done all the mischief by foolishly boasting of the Fairy gift, designed for her husband, to her early rising and crafty neighbour, who had forestalled David and his wife, and had himself taken possession of the precious chest.

_The Fairy Shilling_.

The Rev. Owen Jones, Pentrevoelas, whom I have already mentioned as having supplied me with the Folk-lore of his parish, kindly gave me the following tale:--

There was a clean, tidy, hardworking woman, who was most particular about keeping her house in order. She had a place for everything, and kept everything in its place.