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
Two farm servants named Rhys and Llewellyn were one evening at
twilight returning home from their work, when Rhys cried out that he
heard the fairy music. Llewellyn could hear nothing, but Rhys said it
was a tune to which he had danced a hundred times, and would again,
and at once. 'Go on,' says he, 'and I'll soon catch you up again.'
Llewellyn objected, but Rhys stopped to hear no more; he bounded away
and left Llewellyn to go home alone, which he did, believing Rhys had
merely gone off on a spree, and would come home drunk before morning.
But the morning came, and no Rhys. In vain search was made, still no
Rhys. Time passed on; days grew into months; and at last suspicion
fell on Llewellyn, that he had murdered Rhys. He was put in prison. A
farmer learned in fairy-lore, suspecting how it was, proposed that he
and a company of neighbours should go with poor Llewellyn to the spot
where he had last seen Rhys. Agreed. Arrived at the spot, 'Hush,'
cried Llewellyn, 'I hear music! I hear the sweet music of the harps!'
They all listened, but could hear nothing. 'Put your foot on mine,
David,' says Llewellyn to one of the company; his own foot was on the
outward edge of a fairy ring as he spoke. David put his foot on
Llewellyn's, and so did they all, one after another; and then they
heard the sound of many harps, and saw within a circle about twenty
feet across, great numbers of little people dancing round and round.
And there was Rhys, dancing away like a madman! As he came whirling
by, Llewellyn caught him by his smock-frock and pulled him out of the
circle. 'Where are the horses? where are the horses?' cried Rhys in an
excited manner. 'Horses, indeed!' sneered Llewellyn, in great disgust;
'wfft! go home. Horses!' But Rhys was for dancing longer, declaring he
had not been there five minutes. 'You've been there,' says Llewellyn,
'long enough to come near getting me hanged, anyhow.' They got him
home finally, but he was never the same man again, and soon after he
died.
V.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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