Produced by David Edwards, Lesley Halamek (who transcribed the music), Sam W. and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive) Transcriber's Note Bold text is indicated with equals signs, =like this=. Individual letters in curly brackets indicate superscripts, e.g. y{e}. A y with a circumflex above is shown as [^y]. Reverse asterisms are indicated with [*.*]. Illustration captions in {curly brackets} have been added by the transcriber for the convenience of the reader. BRITISH GOBLINS: _WELSH FOLK-LORE, FAIRY MYTHOLOGY, LEGENDS AND TRADITIONS._ BY WIRT SIKES, UNITED STATES CONSUL FOR WALES. WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY T. H. THOMAS. In olde dayes of the Kyng Arthour ... Al was this lond fulfilled of fayrie. CHAUCER. LONDON: SAMPSON LOW, MARSTON, SEARLE, & RIVINGTON, CROWN BUILDINGS, 188 FLEET STREET. 1880. [_All rights reserved._] LONDON: PRINTED BY WILLIAM CLOWES AND SONS, STAMFORD STREET AND CHARING CROSS. [Illustration: THE OLD WOMAN OF THE MOUNTAIN.] TO HIS ROYAL HIGHNESS, ALBERT EDWARD, PRINCE OF WALES, THIS ACCOUNT OF THE FAIRY MYTHOLOGY AND FOLK-LORE OF HIS PRINCIPALITY IS BY PERMISSION DEDICATED. PREFACE. In the ground it covers, while this volume deals especially with Wales, and still more especially with South Wales--where there appear to have been human dwellers long before North Wales was peopled--it also includes the border counties, notably Monmouthshire, which, though severed from Wales by Act of Parliament, is really very Welsh in all that relates to the past. In Monmouthshire is the decayed cathedral city of Caerleon, where, according to tradition, Arthur was crowned king in 508, and where he set up his most dazzling court, as told in the 'Morte d'Arthur.' In a certain sense Wales may be spoken of as the cradle of fairy legend. It is not now disputed that from the Welsh were borrowed many of the first subjects of composition in the literature of all the cultivated peoples of Europe.