British Goblins: Welsh Folk-lore, Fairy Mythology, Legends and TraditionsSikes, Wirt
History
British Goblins: Welsh Folk-lore, Fairy Mythology, Legends and Traditions
Sikes, Wirt
Folklore -- Wales; Goblins -- Wales; Mythology, Celtic -- Wales; Mythology, Welsh; Wales -- Social life and customs
Once more this legend appears, this time with a feature I have nowhere
else encountered in fairy land, to wit, the father of a fairy damsel.
The son of a farmer on Drws Coed farm was one foggy day looking after
his father's sheep, when crossing a marshy meadow he beheld a little
lady behind some rising ground. She had yellow hair, blue eyes and
rosy cheeks. He approached her, and asked permission to converse;
whereupon she smiled sweetly and said to him, 'Idol of my hopes, you
have come at last!' They there and then began to 'keep company,' and
met each other daily here and there along the farm meadows. His
intentions were honourable; he desired her to marry him. He was
sometimes absent for days together, no one knew where, and his friends
whispered about that he had been witched. Around the Turf Lake (Llyn
y Dywarchen) was a grove of trees, and under one of these one day the
fairy promised to be his. The consent of her father was now necessary.
One moonlight night an appointment was made to meet in this wood. The
father and daughter did not appear till the moon had disappeared
behind the hill. Then they both came. The fairy father immediately
gave his consent to the marriage, on one condition, namely, that her
future husband should never hit her with iron. 'If ever thou dost
touch her flesh with iron she shall be no more thine, but she shall
return to her own.' They were married--a good-looking pair. Large sums
of money were brought by her, the night before the wedding, to Drws
Coed. The shepherd lad became wealthy, had several handsome children,
and they were very happy. After some years, they were one day out
riding, when her horse sank in a deep mire, and by the assistance of
her husband, in her hurry to remount, she was struck on her knee by
the stirrup of the saddle. Immediately voices were heard singing on
the brow of the hill, and she disappeared, leaving all her children
behind. She and her mother devised a plan by which she could see her
beloved, but as she was not allowed to walk the earth with man, they
floated a large turf on the lake, and on this turf she stood for hours
at a time holding converse with her husband. This continued until his
death.[28]
FOOTNOTE:
[28] 'Cymru Fu,' 476.
VII.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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