British Goblins - Welsh Folk-Lore, Fairy Mythology, Legends and Traditions. Sikes Wirt
Чтение книги онлайн.
Читать онлайн книгу British Goblins - Welsh Folk-Lore, Fairy Mythology, Legends and Traditions - Sikes Wirt страница 13
Название: British Goblins - Welsh Folk-Lore, Fairy Mythology, Legends and Traditions
Автор: Sikes Wirt
Издательство: Ingram
Жанр: Эзотерика
isbn: 9781473371033
isbn:
Gwelais fesen cyn gweled derwen; Gwelais wy cyn gweled iâr; Erioed ni welais ferwi bwyd i fedel Mewn plisgyn wy iâr!
Acorns before oak I knew; An egg before a hen; Never one hen’s egg-shell stew Enough for harvest men!
‘On this the mother returned to her house and took the two children and threw them into the Llyn; and suddenly the goblins in their blue trousers came to save their dwarfs, and the mother had her own children back again; and thus the strife between her and her husband ended.’[35]
FOOTNOTE:
[35] ‘Cambrian Quarterly,’ ii., 86.
IV.
This class of story is not always confined to the case of the plentyn-newid, as I have said. It is applied to the household fairy, when the latter, as in the following instance, appears to have brought a number of extremely noisy friends and acquaintances to share his shelter. Dewi Dal was a farmer, whose house was over-run with fairies, so that he could not sleep of nights for the noise they made. Dewi consulted a wise man of Taiar, who entrusted Dewi’s wife to do certain things, which she did carefully, as follows: ‘It was the commencement of oat harvest, when Cae Mawr, or the big field, which it took fifteen men to mow in a day, was ripe for the harvesters. “I will prepare food for the fifteen men who are going to mow Cae Mawr to-morrow,” said Eurwallt, the wife, aloud. “Yes, do,” replied Dewi, also aloud, so that the fairies might hear, “and see that the food is substantial and sufficient for the hard work before them.” Said Eurwallt, “The fifteen men shall have no reason to complain upon that score. They shall be fed according to our means.” Then when evening was come Eurwallt prepared food for the harvesters’ sustenance upon the following day. Having procured a sparrow, she trussed it like a fowl, and roasted it by the kitchen fire. She then placed some salt in a nut-shell, and set the sparrow and the salt, with a small piece of bread, upon the table, ready for the fifteen men’s support while mowing Cae Mawr. So when the fairies beheld the scanty provision made for so many men, they said “Let us quickly depart from this place, for alas! the means of our hosts are exhausted. Who before this was ever so reduced in circumstances as to serve up a sparrow for the day’s food of fifteen men?” So they departed upon that very night. And Dewi Dal and his family lived, ever afterwards, in comfort and peace.’[36]
FOOTNOTE:
[36] Rev. T. R. Lloyd (Estyn), in ‘The Principality.’
V.
The Welsh fairies have several times been detected in the act of carrying off a child; and in these cases, if the mother has been sufficiently energetic in her objections, they have been forced to abandon their purpose. Dazzy Walter, the wife of Abel Walter, of Ebwy Fawr, one night in her husband’s absence awoke in her bed and found her baby was not at her side. In great fright she sought for it, and caught it with her hand upon the boards above the bed, which was as far as the fairies had succeeded in carrying it. And Jennet Francis, of that same valley of Ebwy Fawr, one night in bed felt her infant son being taken from her arms; whereupon she screamed and hung on, and, as she phrased it, ‘God and me were too hard for them.’ This son subsequently grew up and became a famous preacher of the gospel.
JENNET FRANCIS STRUGGLES WITH THE FAIRIES FOR HER BABY.
There are special exorcisms and preventive measures to interfere with the fairies in their quest of infants. The most significant of these, throughout Cambria, is a general habit of piety. Any pious exclamation has value as an exorcism; but it will not serve as a preventive. To this end you must put a knife in the child’s cradle when you leave it alone, or you must lay a pair of tongs across the cradle. But the best preventive is baptism; it is usually the unbaptised infant that is stolen. So in Friesland, Germany, it is considered a protection against the fairies who deal in changelings, to lay a Bible under the child’s pillow. In Thuringia it is deemed an infallible preventive to hang the father’s breeches against the wall. Anything more trivial than this, as a matter for the consideration of grave and scholarly men, one could hardly imagine; but it is in precisely these trivial or seemingly trivial details that the student of comparative folk-lore finds his most extraordinary indices. Such a superstition in isolation would suggest nothing; but it is found again in Scotland,[37] and other countries, including China, where ‘a pair of the trousers of the child’s father are put on the frame of the bedstead in such a way that the waist shall hang downward or be lower than the legs. On the trousers is stuck a piece of red paper, having four words written upon it intimating that all unfavourable influences are to go into the trousers instead of afflicting the babe.’[38]
FOOTNOTES:
[37] Henderson, ‘Notes on the Folk-Lore of the Northern Counties,’ 6.
[38] See Doolittle’s ‘Social Life of the Chinese.’
CHAPTER VI.
Living with the Tylwyth Teg—The Tale of Elidurus—Shuï Rhys and the Fairies—St. Dogmell’s Parish, Pembrokeshire—Dancing with the Ellyllon—The Legend of Rhys and Llewellyn—Death from joining in the Fairy Reel—Legend of the Bush of Heaven—The Forest of the Magic Yew—The Tale of Twm and Iago—Taffy ap Sion, a Legend of Pencader—The Traditions of Pant Shon Shenkin—Tudur of Llangollen; the Legend of Nant yr Ellyllon—Polly Williams and the Trefethin Elves—The Fairies of Frennifawr—Curiosity Tales—The Fiend Master—Iago ap Dewi—The Original of Rip van Winkle.
I.
Closely akin to the subject of changelings is that of adults or well-grown children being led away to live with the Tylwyth Teg. In this field the Welsh traditions are innumerable, and deal not only with the last century or two, but distinctly with the middle ages. Famed among British goblins are those fairies which are immortalised in the Tale of Elidurus. This tale was written in Latin by Giraldus Cambrensis (as he called himself, after the pedantic fashion of his day), a Welshman, born at Pembroke Castle, and a hearty admirer of everything Welsh, himself included. He was beyond doubt a man of genius, and of profound learning. In 1188 he made a tour through Wales, in the interest of the crusade then in contemplation, and afterwards wrote his book—a fascinating picture of manners and customs in Wales in the twelfth century.
The scene of the tale is that Vale of Neath, already named as a famous centre of fairyland. Elidurus, when a youth of twelve years, ‘in order to avoid the severity of his preceptor,’ ran away from school, ‘and concealed himself under the hollow bank of a river.’ After he had fasted in that situation for two days, ‘two little men of pigmy stature appeared to him,’ and said, ‘If you will go with us, we will lead you into a country full of delights and sports.’ Assenting, Elidurus rose up and ‘followed his guides through a path at first subterraneous and dark, into a most beautiful country, but obscure and not illuminated with the full light of the sun.’ All the days in that country ‘were cloudy, and the nights extremely dark.’ The boy was brought before the king of the strange little people, and introduced to him in the presence of his Court. Having examined Elidurus for a long time, the king delivered him to his son, that prince being then a boy. The men of this country, though СКАЧАТЬ