Folk-Lore of West and Mid-WalesDavies, Jonathan Ceredig
History
Folk-Lore of West and Mid-Wales
Davies, Jonathan Ceredig
Folklore -- Wales; Wales -- Social life and customs
no one of us would prove unfaithful to another, or become what you
call a traitor. The latter is a wholly imaginary character among us;
strange pictures are drawn of him with his feet like those of an ass,
with a nest of snakes in his bosom, with a head like the Devil's, with
hands somewhat like a man's while one of them holds a large knife and
the family dead around him Good-bye!" When Gruffydd looked about him
he lost sight of the country of Plant Rhys, and found himself near
his home. He became very wealthy after this, and continued to be a
great friend of Plant Rhys as long as he lived. After Gruffydd's death
they came to the market again, but such was the greed of the farmers,
like Gruffydd before them, for riches, and so unreasonable were the
prices they asked for their corn, that the Rhysians took offence and
came no more to Cardigan to market. The old people used to think that
they now went to Fishguard market, as very strange people were wont
to be seen there."
FAIRY CHANGELINGS.
Mr. B. Davies in the II. Vol. of the "Brython," page 182, gives the
following tale of a Fairy Changeling in the neighbourhood of Newcastle
Emlyn, in the Vale of Teifi, and on the borders of Carmarthenshire
and Cardiganshire:--
"One calm hot day, when the sun of heaven was brilliantly shining,
and the hay in the dales was being busily made by lads and lasses,
and by grown-up people of both sexes, a woman in the neighbourhood
of Emlyn placed her one-year-old infant in the "gader" or chair, as
the cradle is called in these parts, and out she went to the field
for a while, intending to return when her neighbour, an old woman
overtaken by the decrepitude of eighty summers, should call to her
that her Darling was crying. It was not long before she heard the old
woman calling to her; she ran hurriedly, and as soon as she set foot
on the kitchen floor, she took her little one in her arms as usual,
saying to him, "O my little one! thy mother's delight art thou! I
would not take the world for thee, etc." But to her surprise, he had
a very old look about him, and the more the tender-hearted mother
gazed at his face, the stranger it seemed to her, so that at last
she placed him in the cradle and told her sorrow to her relatives and
acquaintances. And after this one and the other had given his opinion,
it was agreed at last that it was one of Rhys Ddwfn's children that
was in the cradle, and not her dearly loved baby. In this distress
there was nothing to do but to fetch a wizard, or wise man, as fast
as the fastest horse could gallop. He said, when he saw the child
that he had seen his like before, and that it would be a hard job
to get rid of him, though not such a very hard job this time. The
shovel was made red hot in the fire by one of the Cefnarth (Cenarth)
boys, and held before the child's face; and in an instant the short
little old man took to his heels, and neither he nor his like was
seen afterwards from Abercuch to Aberbargod at any rate. The mother
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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