The population of the Llanmadoc region of Gower are generally English by
ancestry and speech; and not until reaching Llanmorlais, beyond
Llanridian, did I find anything like an original Celtic and
Welsh-speaking people, and these may have come into that part within
comparatively recent times; and yet, as the above place-names tend to
prove, in early days all these regions must have been Welsh. It may be
argued, however, that this English-speaking population may be more
Celtic than Saxon, even though emigrants from England. In any case, we
can see with interest how this so-called English population now echo
Brythonic beliefs which they appear to have adopted in Gower, possibly
sympathetically through race kinship; and the following testimony
offered by Miss Sarah Jenkins, postmistress of Llanmadoc, will enable us
to do so:--
_Dancing with Fairies._--'A man, whose Christian name was William, was
enticed by the fairy folk to enter their dance, as he was on his way to
the Swansea market in the early morning. They kept him dancing some
time, and then said to him before they let him go, "Will dance well; the
last going to market and the first that shall sell." And though he
arrived at the market very late, he was the first to sell anything.'
_Fairy Money._--'An old woman, whom I knew, used to find money left by
the fairies every time they visited her house. For a long time she
observed their request, and told no one about the money; but at last she
told, and so never found money afterwards.'
_Nature of Fairies._--'The fairies (_verry volk_) were believed to have
plenty of music and dancing. Sometimes they appeared dressed in bright
red. They could appear and disappear suddenly, and no one could tell how
or where.'
CONCLUSION
Much more might easily be said about Welsh goblins, about Welsh fairies
who live in caves, or about Welsh fairy women who come out of lakes and
rivers, or who are the presiding spirits of sacred wells and
fountains,[62] but these will have some consideration later, in Section
III. For the purposes of the present inquiry enough evidence has been
offered to show the fundamental character of Brythonic fairy-folk as we
have found them. And we can very appropriately close this inquiry by
allowing our Welsh-speaking witness from the Pentre Evan country,
Pembrokeshire, to tell us one of the prettiest and most interesting
fairy-tales in all Wales. The name of Taliessin appearing in it leads us
to suspect that it may be the remnant of an ancient bardic tale which
has been handed down orally for centuries. It will serve to illustrate
the marked difference between the short conversational stories of the
living Fairy-Faith and the longer, more polished ones of the traditional
Fairy-Faith; and we shall see in it how a literary effect is gained at
the expense of the real character of the fairies themselves, for it
transforms them into mortals:--
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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