Sir John Rhys

“ No wonder our bold but superstitious progenitors, awe-struck by the solitude of the spot—the dark sepial tint of its waters, unrelieved by the flitting apparition of a single fish, and seldom visited by the tenants of the air—should have established it as a canon in their creed of terror that the lake formed one of the many communications between this outward world of ours and the inner or lower one of Annwn—the unknown world19—the dominion of Gwyn ap Nuđ, the mythic king of the fabled realm, peopled by those children of mystery, Plant Annwn ”

“ But I have never heard of any man or boy of any such family turning himself into a hare, whereas in the Isle of Man the hare witches may belong, if I may say so, to either sex. I am not sure, however, that a man who turns himself into a hare would be called a wizard or witch; and I recollect hearing in the neighbourhood of Ramsey of a man nicknamed the gaaue mwaagh, that is to say, ‘the hare smith,’ the reason being that this particular smith now and then assumed the form of a hare. ”

“ The old farmer looked upon the preparations in self-pleased importance—the butcher felt he was about no common feat of his craft, and, baring his arms, he struck the blow—not now fatal, for before even a hair had been injured, his arm was paralysed—the knife dropped from his hand, and the whole company was electrified by a piercing cry that awakened echo in a dozen hills, and made the welkin ring again ”

“ That maidens pined away, wasting inwardly as their waxen images consumed before a fire—that corn was lodged, and cattle lamed—that whirlwinds uptore in diabolic revelry the oaks of the forest—or that spits and kettles only danced a fearful-innocent vagary about some rustic’s kitchen when no wind was stirring—were all equally probable where no law of agency was understood .... There is no law to judge of the lawless, or canon by which a dream may be criticised. ”

“ They are, in fact, green even as compared with the greenness around them—these are the rings in which Bendith y Mamau used to meet to sing and dance all night. If a man happened to get inside one of these circles when the fairies were there, he could not be got out in a hurry, as they would charm him and lead him into some of their caves, where they would keep him for ages, unawares to him, listening to their music. ”

“ So on the poor youth went, as reluctantly as a dog to be hanged. But presently a fine, wooded, fertile country spread itself out before them, with well arranged mansions dotting it all over, while every kind of apparent magnificence met the eye and seemed to smile in the landscape ”

“ One of the best Manx scholars in the island related to me how some fishermen once insisted on his doing the charmer for them because of his being of such and such a family, and how he made fools of them. It is my impression that the charming families are comparatively few in number, and this looks as if they descended from the family physicians or druids of one or two chieftains in ancient times. It is very likely a question which could be cleared up by a local man familiar with the island and all that tradition has to say on the subject of Manx pedigrees. ”

“ Off she went into the lake. A grandson of this fairy many years afterwards married one of the girls of Corwrion. They had a large piece of land, but no means of stocking it, so that they felt rather distressed in their minds. But lo and behold! one day a white-headed bull came out of the lake, bringing with him six black cows to their land. There never were the like of those cows for milk, and great was the prosperity of their owners, as well as the envy it kindled in their neighbours’ breasts. ”

“ A pin that has pricked my wart ... has by its contact, by the wound it has inflicted, acquired a peculiar bond with the wart; the rag that has rubbed the wart has by that friction acquired a similar bond; so that whatever is done to the pin or the rag, whatever influences the pin or the rag may undergo, the same influences are by that very act brought to bear, upon the wart. If, instead of using a rag, or making a pilgrimage to a sacred well, I rub my warts with raw meat and then bury the meat, the wart will decay and disappear with the decay and dissolution of the meat .... ”

“ Now witches shift their form, and I have heard of one old witch changing herself into a pigeon; but that I am bound to regard as exceptional, the regular form into which Manx witches pass at their pleasure being that of the hare, and such a swift and thick skinned hare that no greyhound, except a black one without a single white hair, can catch it, and no shot, except a silver coin, penetrate its body. Both these peculiarities are also well known in Wales. ”

“ Last summer I went myself to the village of Myđfai, to see if I could pick up any variants of the legend, but I was hardly successful; for though several of the farmers I questioned could repeat bits of the legend, including the Lake Lady’s call to her cattle as she went away, I got nothing new, except that one of them said that the youth, when he first saw the Lake Lady at a distance, thought she was a goose—he did not even rise to the conception of a swan—but that by degrees he approached her, and discovered that she was a lady in white, and that in due time they were married, and so on. ”

“ A shrewd old hill farmer (Thomas Abergraes by name) , well skilled in the folk-lore of the district, informed me that, in years gone by, though when, exactly, he was too young to remember, those dames were wont to make their appearance, arrayed in green, in the neighbourhood of Ỻyn Barfog, chiefly at eventide, accompanied by their kine and hounds, and that on quiet summer nights in particular, these ban-hounds were often to be heard in full cry pursuing their prey—the souls of doomed men dying without baptism and penance—along the upland township of Cefnrhosucha. ”

“ David Evan Davies, of Treflys, Bethesda, better known by his bardic name of Dewi Glan Ffrydlas. Both these gentlemen have also heard the tradition that there was a church at Corwrion, where there used to be every Sunday a single service, after which the people went to a spot not far off to amuse themselves, and at night to watch the fairies dancing, or to mix with them while they danced in a ring around a glow-worm. ”

“ Full of days, and ripe for the grave, death put an end to all her hopes and all her expectations. Her mortal remains were buried in the graveyard of the old Chapel of the Fan39.
‘Years passed away like smoke, and generations like the shadows of the morning, and there was no longer anybody alive who remembered Rhyđerch, but the tale of his sudden missing was frequently in people’s mouths. And we ought to have said that after the event no one of the fairies was seen about the neighbourhood, and the sound of their music ceased from that night. ”

“ The time assigned to the sheep sacrifice, namely May-day, leads me to make some remarks on the importance of that day among the Celts. The day meant is, as I have already said, Old May-day, in Manx Shenn Laa Boaldyn, the belltaine of Cormac’s Glossary, Scotch Gaelic bealtuinn. This was a day when systematic efforts were made to protect man and beast against elves and witches; for it was then that people carried crosses of rowan in their hats and placed May flowers over the tops of their doors and elsewhere as preservatives against all malignant influences. ”

“ I come next to a competition on the folklore of North Wales at the London Eisteđfod in 1887, in which, as one of the adjudicators, I observed that several of the competitors mentioned the prevalent belief, that every well with healing properties must have its outlet towards the south (i’r dê) . According to one of them, if you wished to get rid of warts, you should, on your way to the well, look for wool which the sheep had lost. When you had found enough wool you should prick each wart with a pin, and then rub the wart well with the wool. ”

“ The parish was then crammed full of Bendith y Mamau, and when the moon was bright and full they were wont to keep people awake with their music till the break of day. The fairies of Ỻanfabon were remarkable on account of their ugliness, and they were equally remarkable on account of the tricks they played. Stealing children from their cradles during the absence of their mothers, and luring men by means of their music into some pestilential and desolate bog, were things that seemed to afford them considerable amusement. ”

“ A similar question of psychology presents itself in a practice intended as a preservative against the evil eye rather than as a cure. I allude to what I have heard about two maiden ladies living in a Manx village which I know very well: they are natives of a neighbouring parish, and I am assured that whenever a stranger enters their house they proceed, as soon as he goes away, to strew a little dust or sand over the spot where he stood. ”

“ At present New Year’s Day is the time when the qualtagh is of general interest, and in this case he is, outside the members of one’s own household, practically the first person one sees on the morning of that day, whether that person meets one out of doors or comes to one’s house. The following is what I have learnt by inquiry as to the qualtagh: all are agreed that he must not be a woman or girl, and that he must not be spaagagh or splay footed, while a woman from the parish of Marown told me that he must not have red hair. ”

“ They are the abode of the Tylwyth Teg, or the fair family, the souls of the virtuous Druids, who, not having been Christians, cannot enter the Christian heaven, but enjoy this heaven of their own. They however discover a love of mischief, neither becoming happy spirits, nor consistent with their original character; for they love to visit the earth, and, seizing a man, inquire whether he will travel above wind, mid wind, or below wind; above wind is a giddy and terrible passage, below wind is through bush and brake, the middle is a safe course. ”

“ The sea there was as smooth as glass, and as bright as the clearest light, while beneath it, and not far from them, they saw a most splendid country with fertile fields and dales covered with pastures, with flowery hedges, groves clad in their green foliage, and forests gently waving their leafy luxuriance, with rivers lazily contemplating their own tortuous courses, and with mansions here and there of the most beautiful and ingenious description ”

“ But on the whole the later idea has more usually been, that the devil is the huntsman, that his dogs give chase in the air, that their quarry consists of the souls of the departed, and that their bark forebodes a death, since they watch for the souls of men about to die. This, however, might be objected to as pagan; so I have heard the finishing touch given to it in the neighbourhood of Ystrad Meurig, by one who, like Mr. Pughe, explained that it is the souls only of notoriously wicked men and well-known evil livers. ”

“ Now that it has been indicated what sort of a qualtagh it is unlucky to have, I may as well proceed to mention the other things which I have heard treated as unlucky in the island. Some of them scarcely require to be noticed, as there is nothing specially Manx about them, such as the belief that it is unlucky to have the first glimpse of the new moon through glass. That is a superstition which is, I believe, widely spread, and, among other countries, it is quite familiar in Wales, where it is also unlucky to see the moon for the first time through a hedge or over a house. ”

“ When the wife went to the brink of the water to ask for him back, the reply she had was, that he was there, and that there he should be.
‘The fairies when engaged in dancing allowed themselves to be gazed at, a sight which was wont greatly to attract the young men of the neighbourhood, and once on a time the son and heir of the owner of Corwrion fell deeply in love with one of the graceful maidens who danced in the fairy ring, for she was wondrously beautiful and pretty beyond compare. ”

“ Jones told me in a letter, dated April, 1881, that it used to be called Rhaffau’r Tylwyth Teg, that is to say, the Ropes of the Fair Family, which were associated with the diminutive, mischievous, and wanton kind of fairies who dwelt in marshy and rushy places, or among the fern and the heather. It used to be said that, if a man should lie down and fall asleep in any such a spot, the fairies would come and bind him with their ropes so that he could not move, and that they would then cover him with a sheet made of their ropes, which would make him invisible. ”

“ The fairy Werđon, in the radical form Gwerđon, not only recalls to my mind the Green Isles called Gwerđonau Ỻïon, but also the saying, common in North Wales, that a person in great anxiety ‘sees Y Werđon.’ Thus, for instance, a man who fails to return to his family at the hour expected, and believes his people to be in great anxiety about him, expresses himself by saying that they will have ‘seen the Werđon on my account’ (mi fyđan’ wedi gwel’d y Werđon am dana’i) . Is that Ireland, or is it the land of the fairies, the other world, in fact? ”

“ Adjoining the field containing the well is a larger field, which also slopes down to the lake and extends in another direction to the grounds belonging to the house. This larger field is called Cae’r Ladi, ‘the Lady’s Field,’ and it is remarkable for having in its centre an ancient standing stone, which, as seen from the windows of the house, presents the appearance of a female figure hurrying along, with the wind slightly swelling out her veil and the skirt of her dress. ”