Wirt Sikes

“ The most prodigious fact in connection with this wonderful fountain, when its legendary origin is contemplated, is its size, its abounding life, the great volume of its waters. A well which discharges twenty-one tons of water per minute, which feeds an artificial lake and runs a mill, and has cured unnumbered thousands of human beings of their ills for hundreds of years, is surely one of the wonders of the world, to which even mystic legend can only add one marvel more. ”

“ Men sometimes become as fondly attached to a dog as they could to any human being, and, where the creed of piety is not too severe, the possibility of a dog’s surviving after death in a better world is admitted. ‘It is hard to look in that dog’s eyes and believe,’ said a Welshman to me, ‘that he has not a bit of a soul to be saved.’ The almost human companionship of the dog for man is a familiar fact. It is not strange, therefore, that the dog should be the animal whose spirit, in popular belief, shares the nature of man’s after death. ”

“ Absolute freedom from superstition can come only with a degree of scientific culture not yet reached by mortal man.
It can hardly be cause for wonder that the miner should be superstitious. His life is passed in a dark and gloomy region, fathoms below the earth’s green surface, surrounded by walls on which dim lamps shed a fitful light. It is not surprising that imagination (and the Welsh imagination is peculiarly vivid) should conjure up the faces and forms of gnomes and coblynau, of phantoms and fairy men. ”

“ And then she appeared to him in size a hideous and monstrous witch, a thousand times more repulsive of aspect than the most frightful things seen upon earth. And Einion uttered a cry of terror; and the man in white cast his cloak over Einion, and in less than a twinkling Einion alighted as he wished on the hill of Treveilir, by his own house, where he knew scarcely any one, nor did any one know him.’ The goblin meantime had gone to Einion’s wife, in the disguise of a richly apparelled knight, and made love to her, pretending that her husband was dead. ”

“ It was the strangest crew that ever surrounded a human being. The dance became at last so furious that Tudur could not distinctly make out the forms of the dancers. They reeled around him with such rapidity that they almost resembled a wheel of fire. Still Tudur danced on. He could not stop, the devil’s fiddle was too much for him, as the figure with the goat’s horns kept pouring it out with unceasing vigour, and Tudur kept reeling around in spite of himself. Next day Tudur’s master ascended the mountain in search of the lost shepherd and his sheep. ”

“ The spectre is a hideous being with dishevelled hair, long black teeth, long, lank, withered arms, leathern wings, and a cadaverous appearance. In the stillness of night it comes and flaps its wings against the window, uttering at the same time a blood-curdling howl, and calling by name on the person who is to die, in a lengthened dying tone, as thus: ‘Da-a-a-vy!’ ‘De-i-i-o-o-o ba-a-a-ch!’ The effect of its shriek or howl is indescribably terrific, and its sight blasting to the eyes of the beholder. It is always an omen of death, though its warning cry is heard under varying circumstances ”

“ Aside from their scientific interest, there is a charm about many of the quaint customs of the Welsh, which speaks eloquently to most hearts. They are the offspring of ignorance, true, but they touch the ‘good old times’ of the poet and the romancer, when the conditions of life were less harsh than now. So we love to think. As a matter of scientific truth, this idea is itself, alas! but a superstition. This world has probably never been so fair a place to live in, life never so free from harsh conditions, as now; and as time goes on, there can be no doubt the improving process will continue. ”

“ There is a Glamorganshire goblin called the Green Lady of Caerphilly, the colour of whose dress is indicated by her title. She haunts the ruin of Caerphilly Castle at night, wearing a green robe, and has the power of turning herself into ivy and mingling with the ivy growing on the wall. A more ingenious mode of getting rid of a goblin was perhaps never invented. The fairies of Frennifawr, in Pembrokeshire, were on the contrary gorgeous in scarlet, with red caps, and feathers waving in the wind as they danced. ”

“ The beloved tales of old are ‘not true’—but at least they are not mere idle nonsense, and they have a good and sufficient reason for being in the world; we may continue to respect them. The wit who observed that the final cause of fairy legends is ‘to afford sport for people who ruthlessly track them to their origin,’ [1] expressed a grave truth in jocular form. Since one can no longer rest in peace with one’s ignorance, it is a comfort to the lover of fairy legends to find that he need not sweep them into the grate as so much rubbish ”

“ But as Job John Harry was coming home that night from a journey, the familiar spirit met him in the lane and said, ‘There is a man come to your house to shoot me, but thou shalt see how I will beat him.’ So Job went on to the house, and immediately stones were thrown at the unbelieving Thomas who had brought the gun, stones from which he received severe blows. ”

“ She then goes off to bed, and listens for her future husband, whose apparition is confidently expected to come and eat the supper. In case she hears him, she is allowed to peep into the room, should there be a convenient crack or key-hole for that purpose; and it is said there be unhappy maids who have believed themselves doomed to marry a monster, from having seen through a cranny the horrible spectacle of a black-furred creature with fiery eyes, its tail lashing its sides, its whiskers dripping gravy, gorging itself with the supper. ”

“ The gorse-blossom cap vanished from the minstrel’s head, and a pair of goat’s horns branched out instead. His face turned as black as soot; a long tail grew out of his leafy coat, while cloven feet replaced the beetle-wing pumps. Tudur’s heart was heavy, but his heels were light. Horror was in his bosom, but the impetus of motion was in his feet. The fairies changed into a variety of forms. Some became goats, and some became dogs, some assumed the shape of foxes, and others that of cats. ”

“ At Tenby, when the High Sheriff’s son was married to the Rector of Tenby’s daughter, in 1877, garlands of flowers were hung across the High Street, bearing pleasant mottoes, while flags and banners fluttered from house-tops in all directions. Children strewed flowers in the bride’s path as she came out of church, while the bells in the steeple chimed a merry peal, and a park of miniature artillery boomed from the pier-head. This custom of children strewing flowers in the path of the new-made bride is common ”

“ The peasant of to-day who sets out in quest of hidden treasures evokes the avenging storm in like manner. Sometimes the treasure is in the ground, under a cromlech or a carn; he digs, and the thunder shakes the air, the lightnings flash, torrents descend, and he is frustrated in his search. Again, the treasure is in a cavern, guarded by a dragon, which belches forth fire upon him and scorches his eyeballs. Welsh folk-lore is full of legends of this character ”

“ When the earth is decked in mourning, and the birds are silent, the muse of Wales, with its harp, is heard in the gorsedd of the holy hill. On the stone ark, within the circle of the caldron of Ceridwen, are throned the sons of Awen; though through their hair the frozen mist is wafted, their bosoms are sympathetic and they rejoice. ”

“ I refer to the planting of graves with significant flowers in token of the virtues of the dead. Thus where the red rose is planted on a grave, its tenant is indicated as having been in life a person of peculiar benevolence of character. The flower specially planted on the grave of a young virgin is the white rose. There is also an old custom, at the funeral of a young unmarried person, of strewing the way to the grave with evergreens and sweet-scented flowers, and the common saying in connection therewith is that the dead one is going to his or her marriage-bed. ”

“ Dogmell’s, Pembrokeshire, was formerly used as a bridge over a brook not far from where it at present stands—luckily with its inscribed face downwards, so that the sculpture remained unharmed while generations were tramping over it. During its use as a bridge it bore the reputation of being haunted by a white lady, who was constantly seen gliding over it at the witching hour of midnight. No man or woman could be induced to touch the strange stone after dark, and its supernatural reputation no doubt helped materially in its preservation unharmed till the present time. ”

“ She comes ashore every ninth night, sheds her skin, leaves it on the shore, and dances with her fairy companions. A mortal steals her sealskin dress, and when day breaks, and her companions return to their abode in the sea, compels her to remain and be his wife. ”

“ Perhaps the most picturesque of the several death-omens popular in Wales is the Canwyll Corph, or Corpse Candle. It is also, according to my observation, the most extensively believed in at the present day. Its details are varied and extremely interesting. The idea of a goblin in the form of a lighted tallow candle is ludicrous enough, at first sight; and indeed I know several learned Welsh gentlemen who venture to laugh at it; but the superstition grows more and more grim and less risible the better one becomes acquainted with it. ”

“ The severest mistress of her lord I ever knew was a feeble little woman with hands like a baby’s, and a face of wax, with no more will-power apparently than a week-old kitten, but whose lightest whim lay on her lord like iron, and was obeyed as faithfully as if it were backed by a cat-o’-nine-tails and a six-shooter. ”

“ Dogmell’s parish, Pembrokeshire, there is a tump which bears the name of ‘Cnwc y Celwydd,’ videlicet, the Tump of Lies. Here were men and women formerly in the habit of gathering together on the Lord’s day in great crowds, and entertaining each other with the inventing and telling of the most lying and wonderful yarns they could conjure up with the aid of an imagination spurred to exercise by rivalry and applause. The custom is discontinued; but there is still hardly a neighbourhood in Wales so rich in tales of fairies and other goblins. ”

“ I have mentioned that ghosts sometimes employ the services of the fairy Boobach in thus carrying mortals from place to place. The fairies of Wales are indeed frequently found to be on the best of terms with the ghosts. Their races have much in common, and so many of their practices are alike that one is not always absolutely sure whether he is dealing with a fairy or a spectre, until some test-point crops up. However, in transporting a mortal through the air, ghost and fairy work together. ”

“ The music is almost invariably good, and the effect of the soft strains of melodiously-warbled Welsh coming dreamily to one’s ears through the darkness and distance on a winter morning is sweet and soothing to most ears. Sometimes small boys will pipe their carols through the key-holes. ”

“ In Wales many well-known old customs are retained which in some other parts of Great Britain have disappeared, such as the mummers, the waits, carols, bell-ringings, etc. Not only do the bell-ringers of the several churches throughout the principality do their handsomest on their own particular bells, but there are grand gatherings, at special points, of all the bell-ringers for leagues around, who vie with each other in showing what feats they can perform, how they can astonish you with their majors, bob-majors, and triple bob-majors, on the brazen clangers of the steeples. ”

“ Midsummer Eve, in 1878, fell on a Sunday. Upon that day the ‘Druids and bards’ at Pontypridd held the usual feast of the summer solstice in the face of the sun. There is a breezy common on the top of a high hill overlooking the town, where stand a logan stone and a circle of upright stones constituting the ‘temple of the Druids.’ Here it is the custom of the present-day adherents of that ancient religion, beside which Christianity is an infant, to celebrate their rites ‘within the folds of the serpent,’ a circle marked with the signs of the zodiac. ”

“ One day an old farmer, who lived near Dyssyrnant, had the good luck to catch one of these mystic cows, which had fallen in love with the cattle of his herd. From that day the farmer’s fortune was made. Such calves, such milk, such butter and cheese, as came from the milk-white cow never had been seen in Wales before, nor ever will be seen again. The fame of the Fuwch Gyfeiliorn (which was what they called the cow) spread through the country round. The farmer, who had been poor, became rich; the owner of vast herds, like the patriarchs of old. ”

“ Valentine’s Day, there is no Welsh custom which demands notice here; but it is perhaps worthy of mention that nowhere in the world is the day more abundantly productive of its orthodox crop—love-letters. The post-offices in the Principality are simply deluged with these missives on the eve and morning of St. Valentine’s. In Cardiff the postmaster thinks himself lucky if he gets off with fifteen thousand letters in excess of the ordinary mail. ”

“ The knowledge which introduced scepticism is infinitely more [Pg 2] valuable than the faith it displaced; but, in spite of that, there be few among us who have not felt evanescent regrets for the displacement by the foi scientifique of the old faith in fairies. There was something so peculiarly fascinating in that old belief, that ‘once upon a time’ the world was less practical in its facts than now, less commonplace and humdrum, less subject to the inexorable laws of gravitation, optics, and the like. ”

“ When we encounter, in wandering among the picturesque ghosts of the Welsh spirit-world, last-century stories displaying details exactly similar to those of modern spiritualism, our interest is strongly aroused. The student of folk-lore finds his materials in stories and beliefs which appear to be of a widespread family, rather than in stories and beliefs which are unique; and the spirit of inquiry is constantly on the alert, in following the details of a good old ghost story, however fascinating it may be in a poetic sense. The phantoms of the Welsh spirit-world are always picturesque ”

“ Now they are Owen Lawgoch and his men, who lie in their enchanted sleep in a cavern on the northern side of Mynydd Mawr, in Carmarthenshire; again they are Arthur and his warriors, asleep in a secret ogof under Craig-y-Ddinas, waiting for a day when the Briton and the Saxon shall go to war, when the noise of the struggle will awaken them, and they will reconquer the island, reduce London to dust, and re-establish their king at Caerleon, in Monmouthshire. ”

“ Here we have the traditional belief of the Welsh peasantry in a nut-shell. Fairy money is as good as any, so long as its source is kept a profound secret; if the finder relate the particulars of his good fortune, it will vanish. Sometimes—especially in cases where the money has been spent—the evil result of tattling consists in there being no further favours of the sort. The same law governs fairy gifts of all kinds. A Breconshire legend tells of the generosity of the Tylwyth Teg in presenting the peasantry with loaves of bread, which turned to toadstools next morning ”