British Goblins: Welsh Folk Lore, Fairy Mythology, Legends and Traditions

by Wirt Sikes

III.

The exorcism by knife appears to be a Welsh notion; though there is an old superstition of wide prevalence in Europe that to give to or receive from a friend a knife or a pair of scissors cuts friendship.

China, too, special charms are associated with knives, and a knife which has slain a fellow-being is an invaluable possession.

In Wales, according to Jones, the Gwyllion often came into the houses of the people at

Aberys...

especially in stormy weather, and the inmates made...

through fear of the hurts the Gwyllion might inflict if offended—by providing clean water for them, and taking especial care that no knife, or other cutting tool, should be in the corne...

While it was desirable to exorcise them when in the open air, it was not deemed prudent to display an inhospitable spirit tow...

Bedwellty

Ebwy Fawr,

Goats are in Wales held in peculiar esteem for their supposed occult intellectual powers.

They are believed to be on very good terms with the Tylwyth Teg, and possessed of more knowledge than their appearance indicates. It is one of the peculiarities of the Tylwyth Teg that every Friday night they comb the goats’ beards to make them decent for Sunday.

Cadwa...

diawl

The Tylwyth Teg have a fatal admiration for lovely children. Hence the abundant folk-lore concerning infants who have been stolen from their cradles, and a

plentyn-newid

(change-child—the equivalent of our changeling) left in its place by the Tylwyth Teg. The plentyn-newid has the exact appearance of the stolen infant, at first; but its aspect speedily alters. It grows ugly of face, shrivelled of form, ill-tempered, wailing, and generally ...

Anhalt,

Armorica.

There are special exorcisms and preventive measures to interfere with the fairies in their quest of infants. The most significant of these, throughout Cambria, is a general habit of piety. Any pious exclamation has value as an exorcism; but it will not serve as a preventive. To this end you must put a knife in the child’s cradle when you leave it alone, or you must lay a pair of tongs across the cradle. But the best preventive is baptism; it is usually the unbaptised infant that is stolen.

Thuringia

I.

Closely akin to the subject of changelings is that of adults or well-grown children being led away to live with the Tylwyth Teg.

Elidurus.

Giraldus Cambrensis

The scene of the tale is that Vale of Neath, already named as a famous centre of fairyland. Elidurus, when a youth of twelve years, ‘in order to avoid the severity of his

preceptor,’

ran away from school, ‘and concealed himself under the hollow bank of a river.’ After he had fasted in that situation for two days, ‘two little men of pigmy stature appeared to him,’ and said, ‘If you will go with us, we will lead you into a country full of delights and sports.’ Assenting, Elidurus rose up and ‘followed his guides through a path at first subterraneous and dark, into a most beautiful country, but obscure and not illuminated with the full light of the sun.’ All the days in that country ‘were cloudy, and the nigh...

conformable

Teir-nos Ysprydion,

III.

In one case, a man who was led astray chanced to have with him a number of hoop-rods, and as he wandered about under the influence of the deluding phantom, he was clever enough to drop the rods one by one, so that next day he might trace his journeyings. When daylight came, and the search for the hoop-rods was entered on, it was found they were scattered over miles upon miles of country.

Specific details in this instance are wanting; but it was no doubt the Ellyllon who led all these folk astray, and put a cap of oblivion on their heads, which prevented them from ever telling their adventures clearly.

V.

In the great majority of these stories the hero dies immediately after his release from the thraldom of the fairies—in some cases with a suddenness and a completeness of obliteration as appalling as dramatic.

Then he stepped from the fairy circle and instantly crumbled away and mingled his dust with the earth.

Clynog,

In Clynog lived a monk of most devout life, who longed to be taken to heaven. One evening, whilst walking without the monastery by the riverside, he sat down under a green tree and fell into a deep reverie, which ended in sleep; and he slept for thousands of years. At last he heard a voice calling unto him, ‘Sleeper, awake and be up.’ He awoke. All was strange to him except the old monastery, which still looked down upon the river. He went to the monastery, and was made much of. He asked for a bed to rest himself on and got it. Next morning when the brethren sought him, they found nothing in the bed but a handful of ashes. [40] So in the monkish tale of the five saints, who sleep in the cave of Caio, reappears the legend of Arthur’s sleeping warriors under Craig-y-Ddinas.

VI.

A tradition is current

Matha...

Llan...

Ca...

Cyfei...

concerning a certain wood called Ffridd yr Ywen, (the Forest of the Yew,) that it is so called on account of a magical yew-tree which grows exactly in the middle of the forest. Under that tree there is a fairy circle called The Dancing Place of the Goblin. There are several fairy circles in the Forest of the Ye...

gwr cyfarwydd (or conjuror),

Pencarreg

Caio

Sion and Shon are the same word, just as are our Smith and Smyth. Where there are so few personal names as in Wales, while I would not myself change a single letter in order to render the actors in a tale more distinct, it is perhaps as well to encourage any eccentricities of spelling which we are so lucky as to find on the spot.

Tudur