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
Polly Williams, a good dame who was born in Trefethin parish, and
lived at the Ship Inn, at Pontypool, Monmouthshire, was wont to relate
that, when a child, she danced with the Tylwyth Teg. The first time
was one day while coming home from school. She saw the fairies
dancing in a pleasant, dry place, under a crab-tree, and, thinking
they were children like herself, went to them, when they induced her
to dance with them. She brought them into an empty barn and they
danced there together. After that, during three or four years, she
often met and danced with them, when going to or coming from school.
She never could hear the sound of their feet, and having come to know
that they were fairies, took off her ffollachau (clogs), so that she,
too, might make no noise, fearful that the clattering of her
clog-shodden feet was displeasing to them. They were all dressed in
blue and green aprons, and, though they were so small, she could see
by their mature faces that they were no children. Once when she came
home barefoot, after dancing with the fairies, she was chided for
going to school in that condition; but she held her tongue about the
fairies, for fear of trouble, and never told of them till after she
grew up. She gave over going with them to dance, however, after three
or four years, and this displeased them. They tried to coax her back
to them, and, as she would not come, hurt her by dislocating 'one of
her walking members,'[43] which, as a euphemism for legs, surpasses
anything charged against American prudery.
FOOTNOTE:
[43] Jones, 'Apparitions.'
X.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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