Welsh Folk Lore

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The tale in English reads thus:--"Once the people who lived in the
neighbourhood of Snowdon went badger-hunting. They failed the first day
to get sight of one. But they laid a trap for one by the next day. This
they did by placing a sack's open mouth with a noose through it at the
entrance to the badger's den. The vermin was in the habit of entering
his abode by one passage and leaving it by another. The one by which he
entered was too precipitous and slippery to be used as an exit, and the
trappers placed the sack in this hole, well knowing that the running
noose in the mouth of the sack would close if anything entered. The next
morning the hunters returned to the snare, and at once observed that the
mouth of the sack was tightly drawn up, a sign that there was something
in it. The bag was taken up and thrown on the shoulders of one of the
men to be carried home. But when they were near Bryn y Fedw they saw a
lump of a little fellow, standing on the top of a rock close by and
shouting, 'Meirig, are you there, say?' 'I am,' was the answer in a
strange but nervous voice. Upon this, the hunters, throwing down the
bag, began to run away, and they were glad to do so, although they had to
leave their sack behind them, believing, as they did, that they had
captured one of the spirits of the bottomless pit. But afterwards they
understood that it was one of the Fairy Tribe that was in the sack."

There was at one time a tale much like this current in the parish of
Gyffylliog, near Ruthin, but in this latter case the voice in the bag
said, "My father is calling me," though no one was heard to do so. The
bag, however, was cast away, and the trapper reported that he had
captured a Fairy!

4. _The Llanfair Dyffryn Clwyd Version_.

Mr. Evan Davies, carpenter, Bryn Llan, Efenechtyd, told the writer that
Robert Jones, innkeeper, in the same parish, told him the following tale,
mentioning at the same time the man who figures in the narrative, whose
name, however, I have forgotten. The story runs thus:--

A man, wishing to catch a fox, laid a bag with its mouth open, but well
secured, at the entrance to a fox's den in Coed Cochion, Llanfair Dyffryn
Clwyd parish, and hid himself to await the result. He had seen the fox
enter its lair, and he calculated that it would ere long emerge
therefrom. By and by, he observed that something had entered the bag,
and going up to it, he immediately secured its mouth, and, throwing the
bag over his shoulder, proceeded homewards, but he had not gone far on
his way before he heard someone say, "Where is my son John?" The man,
however, though it was dark, was not frightened, for he thought that
possibly some one was in search of a lad who had wandered from home. He
was rather troubled to find that the question was repeated time after
time by some one who apparently was following him. But what was his
terror when, ere long, he heard a small voice issue from the bag he was
carrying, saying "There is dear father calling me." The man in a
terrible fright threw the bag down, and ran away as fast as his feet
could carry him, and never stopped until he reached his home, and when he
came to himself he related the story of his adventure in the wood to his
wife.

FAIRIES IN MARKETS AND FAIRS.

It was once firmly believed by the Welsh that the Fairy Tribe visited
markets and fairs, and that their presence made business brisk. If there
was a buzz in the market place, it was thought that the sound was made by
the Fairies, and on such occasions the farmers' wives disposed quickly of
their commodities; if, however, on the other hand, there was no buzz, the
Fairies were absent, and there was then no business transacted.

Mr. Richard Jones, Ty'n-y-Wern, Bryneglwys, who, when a youth, lived in
Llanbedr parish, near Ruthin, informed the writer that his mother, after
attending a market at Ruthin, would return home occasionally with the sad
news that "They were not there," meaning that the Fairies were not
present in the market, and this implied a bad market and no sweets for
Richard. On the other hand, should the market have been a good one, she
would tell them that "They filled the whole place," and the children
always had the benefit of their presence.

This belief that the Fairies sharpened the market was, I think, general.
I find in _Y Gordofigion_, p. 97, the following words:--

"Byddai y Tylwyth Teg yn arfer myned i farchnadoedd y Bala, ac yn gwneud
twrw mawr heb i neb eu gweled, ac yr oedd hyny yn arwydd fod y farchnad
ar godi," which is:--

The Fairies were in the habit of frequenting Bala markets, and they made
a great noise, without any one seeing them, and this was a sign that the
market was sharpening.

NAMES OF THINGS ATTRIBUTED TO THE FAIRIES.

Many small stone utensils found in the ground, the use, or the origin, of
which was unknown to the finders, were formerly attributed to the
Fairies. Thus, flint arrow-heads were called elf shots, from the belief
that they once belonged to Elves or Fairies. And celts, and other stone
implements, were, by the peasants of Wales and other places, ascribed to
the same small folk. Very small clay pipes were also attributed to the
same people. All this is curious evidence of a pre-existing race, which
the Celts supplanted, and from whom, in many respects, they differed.
Although we cannot derive much positive knowledge from an enumeration of
the articles popularly associated with the Fairies, still, such a list,
though an imperfect one, will not be void of interest. I will,
therefore, describe certain pre-historic remains, which have been
attributed to the aboriginal people of Britain.

_Fairy Pipes_.

_Cetyn y Tylwyth Teg_, or Fairy Pipes, are small clay pipes, with bowls
that will barely admit the tip of the little finger. They are found in
many places, generally with the stem broken off, though usually the bowl
is perfect.

A short time ago I stayed awhile to talk with some workmen who were
engaged in carting away the remains of a small farm house, once called _Y
Bwlch_, in the parish of Efenechtyd, Denbighshire, and they told me that
they had just found a Fairy Pipe, or, as they called it, _Cetyn y Tylwyth
Teg_, which they gave me. A similar pipe was also picked up by Lewis
Jones, Brynffynon, on Coed Marchan, in the same parish, when he was
enclosing a part of the mountain allotted to his farm. In March, 1887,
the workmen employed in taking down what were at one time buildings
belonging to a bettermost kind of residence, opposite Llanfwrog Church,
near Ruthin, also discovered one of these wee pipes. Pipes, identical in
shape and size, have been found in all parts of Wales, and they are
always known by the name of _Cetyn y Tylwyth Teg_, or Fairy Pipes.

In Shropshire they have also been discovered in the Fens, and the late
Rev. Canon Lee, Hanmer, had one in his possession, which had been found
in those parts, and, it was called a Fairy Pipe.

_Fairy Whetstone_.

The small spindle whorls which belong to the stone age, and which have
been discovered in the circular huts, called _Cyttiau'r Gwyddelod_, which
are the earliest remains of human abodes in Wales, are by the people
called Fairy Whetstones, but, undoubtedly, this name was given them from
their resemblance to the large circular whetstone at present in common
use, the finders being ignorant of the original use of these whorls.

_Fairy Hammer and Fairy or Elf Stones_.

Stone hammers of small size have been ascribed to the Fairies, and an
intelligent Welsh miner once told the writer that he had himself seen, in
a very ancient diminutive mine level, stone hammers which, he said, had
once belonged to the Fairies.

Other pre-historic implements, as celts, have been denominated Fairy
remains. Under this head will come flint, or stone arrow-heads. These
in Scotland are known by the name Elf Shots or Fairy Stones.

Pennant's _Tour in Scotland_, 1769, p. 115, has the following reference
to these arrow-heads:--

"_Elf Shots_, i.e., the stone arrow-heads of the old inhabitants of this
island, are supposed to be weapons shot by Fairies at cattle, to which
are attributed any disorders they have."

Jamieson states in his Dictionary, under the heading Elf Shot:--"The _Elf
Shot_ or _Elfin Arrow_ is still used in the Highlands as an amulet."

Tradition, in thus connecting stone implements with the Fairies, throws a
dim light on the elfin community. But evidence is not wanting that the
Celts themselves used stone utensils.

The things which shall now be mentioned, as being connected with the
Fairies, owe their names to no foundation in fact, but are the offspring
of a fanciful imagination, and are attributed to the Fairies in agreement
with the more modern and grotesque notions concerning those beings and
their doings. This will be seen when it is stated that the Fox Glove
becomes a Fairy Glove, and the Mushroom, Fairy Food.

_Ymenyn y Tylwyth Teg, or Fairy Butter_.

I cannot do better than quote Pennant on this matter. His words are:--

"Petroleum, rock oil, or what the Welsh call it, _Ymenin tylwyth
teg_, or Fairies' butter, has been found in the lime stone strata in
our mineral country. It is a greasy substance, of an agreeable
smell, and, I suppose, ascribed to the benign part of those imaginary
beings. It is esteemed serviceable in rheumatic cases, rubbed on the
parts affected. It retains a place in our dispensary."

Pennant's _Whiteford_, p. 131.

_Bwyd Ellyllon_, _or Goblins' Food_.

This was a kind of fungus or mushroom. The word is given in Dr. Owen
Pughe's dictionary under the head _Ellyll_.

_Menyg y Tylwyth Teg_, _Or Fairy Gloves_.

The Fox Glove is so called, but in Dr. Owen Pughe's dictionary, under the
head _Ellyll_, the Fox Glove is called _Menyg Ellyllon_.

_Yr Ellyll Dan_, _or Goblin Fire_.

The Rev. T. H. Evans, in his _History of the Parish of Llanwddyn_, states
that in that parish "Will of the Wisp" is called "_Yr Ellyll Dan_." This
is indeed the common name for the _Ignis fatuus_ in most, if not in all
parts of Wales, but in some places where English is spoken it is better
known by the English term, "Jack o' Lantern," or "Jack y Lantern."

_Rhaffau'r Tylwyth Teg_, _or the Ropes of the Fairies_.

Professor Rhys, in his Welsh Fairy Tales--_Y Cymmrodor_ vol. v., p.
75--says, that gossamer, which is generally called in North Wales
_edafedd gwawn_, or _gwawn_ yarn, used to be called, according to an
informant, _Rhaffau'r Tylwyth Teg_, that is to say, the Ropes of the Fair
Family, thus associating the Fairies with marshy, or rushy, places, or
with ferns and heather as their dwelling places. It was supposed that if
a man lay down to sleep in such places the Fairies would come and bind
him with their ropes, and cover him with a gossamer sheet, which would
make him invisible, and incapable of moving.

FAIRY KNOCKERS, OR COBLYNAU.

The _Coblynau_ or _Knockers_ were supposed to be a species of Fairies who
had their abode in the rocks, and whose province it was to indicate by
knocks, and other sounds, the presence of ore in mines.

It would seem that many people had dim traditions of a small race who had
their dwellings in the rocks. This wide-spread belief in the existence
of cave men has, in our days, been shown to have had a foundation in
fact, and many vestiges of this people have been revealed by intelligent
cave hunters. But the age in which the cave men lived cannot even
approximately be ascertained. In various parts of Wales, in the lime
rock, their abodes have been brought to light. It is not improbable that
the people who occupied the caves of ancient days were, in reality, the
original Fairy Knockers. These people were invested, in after ages, by
the wonder-loving mind of man, with supernatural powers.

AEschylus, the Greek tragic poet, who died in the 69th year of his age,
B.C. 456, in _Prometheus Vinctus_, refers to cave dwellers in a way that
indicates that even then they belonged to a dateless antiquity.

In Prometheus's speech to the chorus--[Greek]--lines 458-461, is a
reference to this ancient tradition. His words, put into English, are
these:--"And neither knew the warm brick-built houses exposed to the sun,
nor working in wood, _but they dwelt underground_, like as little ants,
_in the sunless recesses of caves_."

The above quotation proves that the Greeks had a tradition that men in a
low, or the lowest state of civilization, had their abodes in caves, and
possibly the reference to ants would convey the idea that the cave
dwellers were small people. Be this as it may, it is very remarkable
that the word applied to a _dwarf_ in the dialects of the northern
countries of Europe signifies also a _Fairy_, and the dwarfs, or Fairies,
are there said to inhabit the rocks. The following quotation from
Jamieson's _Scottish Dictionary_ under the word _Droich_, a dwarf, a
pigmy, shows this to have been the case:--

"In the northern dialects, _dwerg_ does not merely signify a dwarf, but
also a _Fairy_! The ancient Northern nations, it is said, prostrated
themselves before rocks, believing that they were inhabited by these
pigmies, and that they thence gave forth oracles. Hence they called the
echo _dwergamal_, as believing it to be their voice or speech. . . They
were accounted excellent artificers, especially as smiths, from which
circumstance some suppose that they have received their name . . . Other
Isl. writers assert that their ancestors did not worship the pigmies as
they did the _genii_ or spirits, also supposed to reside in the rocks."

Bishop Percy, in a letter to the Rev. Evan Evans (_Ieuan Prydydd Hir_),
writes:--

"Nay, I make no doubt but Fairies are derived from the _Duergar_, or
Dwarfs, whose existence was so generally believed among all the
northern nations."

_The Cambro-Briton_, vol. i., p. 331.

And again in Percy's _Reliques of Ancient Poetry_, vol. iii., p. 171, are
these remarks:--

"It is well known that our Saxon ancestors, long before they left their
German forests, believed in the existence of a kind of diminutive demons,
or middle species between men and spirits, whom they called _Duergar_, or
Dwarfs, and to whom they attributed wonderful performances, far exceeding
human art."

Pennant, in his _Tour in Scotland_, 1772, pp. 55-56, when describing the
collieries of Newcastle, describes the Knockers thus:--

"The immense caverns that lay between the pillars exhibited a most gloomy
appearance. I could not help enquiring here after the imaginary
inhabitant, the creation of the labourer's fancy,

The swart Fairy of the mine;

and was seriously answered by a black fellow at my elbow that he really
had never met with any, but that his grandfather had found the little
implements and tools belonging to this diminutive race of subterraneous
spirits. The Germans believed in two species; one fierce and malevolent,
the other a gentle race, appearing like little old men, dressed like the
miners, and not much above two feet high; these wander about the drifts
and chambers of the works, seem perpetually employed, yet do nothing.
Some seem to cut the ore, or fling what is cut into vessels, or turn the
windlass, but never do any harm to the miners, except provoked; as the
sensible Agricola, in this point credulous, relates in his book, _de
Animantibus Subterraneis_."

Jamieson, under the word _Farefolkis_, writes:--"Besides the Fairies,
which are more commonly the subject of popular tradition, it appears that
our forefathers believed in the existence of a class of spirits under
this name that wrought in the mines;" and again, quoting from a work
dated 1658, the author of which says:--

"In northerne kingdomes there are great armies of devils that have their
services which they perform with the inhabitants of these countries, but
they are most frequent in rocks and _mines_, where they break, cleave,
and make them hollow; which also thrust in pitchers and buckets, and
carefully fit wheels and screws, whereby they are drawn upwards; and they
show themselves to the labourers, when they list, like phantoms and
ghosts."

The preceding quotations from Pennant and Jamieson correspond with the
Welsh miners' ideas of the _Coblynau_, or Knockers. There is a
difficulty in tracing to their origin these opinions, but, on the whole,
I am strongly inclined to say that they have come down to modern times
from that remote period when cave-men existed as a distinct people.

But now let us hear what our Welsh miners have to say about the
_Coblynau_. I have spoken to several miners on this subject, and,
although they confessed that they had not themselves heard these good
little people at work, still they believed in their existence, and could
name mines in which they had been heard. I was told that they are
generally heard at work in new mines, and that they lead the men to the
ore by knocking in its direction, and when the lode is reached the
knocking ceases.

But the following extracts from two letters written by Lewis Morris, a
well-known and learned Welshman, fully express the current opinion of
miners in Wales respecting Knockers. The first letter was written Oct.
14, 1754, and the latter is dated Dec. 4, 1754. They appear in Bingley's
_North Wales_, vol. ii., pp. 269-272. Lewis Morris writes:--

"People who know very little of arts or sciences, or the powers of nature
(which, in other words, are the powers of the author of nature), will
laugh at us Cardiganshire miners, who maintain the existence of
_Knockers_ in mines, a kind of good natured impalpable people not to be
seen, but heard, and who seem to us to work in the mines; that is to say,
they are the types or forerunners of working in mines, as dreams are of
some accidents, which happen to us. The barometer falls before rain, or
storms. If we do not know the construction of it, we should call it a
kind of dream that foretells rain; but we know it is natural, and
produced by natural means, comprehended by us. Now, how are we sure, or
anybody sure, but that our dreams are produced by the same natural means?
There is some faint resemblance of this in the sense of hearing; the bird
is killed before we hear the report of the gun. However this is, I must
speak well of the _Knockers_, for they have actually stood my good
friends, whether they are aerial beings called spirits, or whether they
are a people made of matter, not to be felt by our gross bodies, as air
and fire and the like.

"Before the discovery of the _Esgair y Mwyn_ mine, these little people,
as we call them here, worked hard there day and night; and there are
abundance of honest, sober people, who have heard them, and some persons
who have no notion of them or of mines either; but after the discovery of
the great ore they were heard no more.

"When I began to work at Llwyn Llwyd, they worked so fresh there for a
considerable time that they frightened some young workmen out of the
work. This was when we were driving levels, and before we had got any
ore; but when we came to the ore, they then gave over, and I heard no
more talk of them.

"Our old miners are no more concerned at hearing them _blasting_, boring
holes, landing _deads_, etc., than if they were some of their own people;
and a single miner will stay in the work, in the dead of the night,
without any man near him, and never think of any fear or of any harm they
will do him. The miners have a notion that the _Knockers_ are of their
own tribe and profession, and are a harmless people who mean well. Three
or four miners together shall hear them sometimes, but if the miners stop
to take notice of them, the _Knockers_ will also stop; but, let the
miners go on at their work, suppose it is _boring_, the _Knockers_ will
at the same time go on as brisk as can be in landing, _blasting_, or
beating down the _loose_, and they are always heard a little distance
from them before they come to the ore.

"These are odd assertions, but they are certainly facts, though we
cannot, and do not pretend to account for them. We have now very good
ore at _Llwyn Llwyd_, where the _Knockers_ were heard to work, but have
now yielded up the place, and are no more heard. Let who will laugh, we
have the greatest reason to rejoice, and thank the _Knockers_, or rather
God, who sends us these notices."

The second letter is as follows:--

"I have no time to answer your objection against _Knockers_; I have a
large treatise collected on that head, and what Mr. Derham says is
nothing to the purpose. If sounds of voices, whispers, blasts, working,
or pumping, can be carried on a mile underground, they should always be
heard in the same place, and under the same advantages, and not once in a
month, a year, or two years. Just before the discovery of ore last week,
three men together in our work at _Llwyn Llwyd_ were ear-witnesses of
_Knockers_ pumping, driving a wheelbarrow, etc.; but there is no pump in
the work, nor any mine within less than a mile of it, in which there are
pumps constantly going. If they were these pumps that they had heard,
why were they never heard but that once in the space of a year? And why
are they not now heard? But the pumps make so little noise that they
cannot be heard in the other end of _Esgair y Mwyn_ mine when they are at
work.

"We have a dumb and deaf tailor in this neighbourhood who has a
particular language of his own by signs, and by practice I can understand
him, and make him understand me pretty well, and I am sure I could make
him learn to write, and be understood by letters very soon, for he can
distinguish men already by the letters of their names. Now letters are
marks to convey ideas, just after the same manner as the motion of
fingers, hands, eyes, etc. If this man had really seen ore in the bottom
of a sink of water in a mine, and wanted to tell me how to come at it, he
would take two sticks like a pump, and would make the motions of a pumper
at the very sink where he knew the ore was, and would make the motions of
driving a wheelbarrow. And what I should infer from thence would be that
I ought to take out the water and sink or drive in the place, and wheel
the stuff out. By parity of reasoning, the language of _Knockers_, by
imitating the sound of pumping, wheeling, etc., signifies that we should
take out the water and drive there. This is the opinion of all old
miners, who pretend to understand the language of the _Knockers_. Our
agent and manager, upon the strength of this notice, goes on and expects
great things. You, and everybody that is not convinced of the being of
_Knockers_, will laugh at these things, for they sound like dreams; so
does every dark science. Can you make any illiterate man believe that it
is possible to know the distance of two places by looking at them? Human
knowledge is but of small extent, its bounds are within our view, we see
nothing beyond these; the great universal creation contains powers, etc.,
that we cannot so much as guess at. May there not exist beings, and vast
powers infinitely smaller than the particles of air, to whom air is as
hard a body as the diamond is to us? Why not? There is neither great
nor small, but by comparison. Our _Knockers_ are some of these powers,
the guardians of mines.

"You remember the story in Selden's Table-Talk of Sir Robert Cotton and
others disputing about Moses's shoe. Lady Cotton came in and asked,
'Gentlemen, are you sure it _is_ a shoe?' So the first thing is to
convince mankind that there is a set of creatures, a degree or so finer
than we are, to whom we have given the name of _Knockers_ from the sounds
we hear in our mines. This is to be done by a collection of their
actions well attested, and that is what I have begun to do, and then let
everyone judge for himself."

The preceding remarks, made by an intelligent and reliable person,
conversant with mines, and apparently uninfluenced by superstition, are
at least worthy of consideration. The writer of these interesting
letters states positively that sounds were heard; whether his attempt to
solve the cause of these noises is satisfactory, and conclusive, is open
to doubt. We must believe the facts asserted, although disagreeing with
the solution of the difficulty connected with the sounds. Miners in all
parts of England, Scotland, Wales, Germany, and other parts, believe in
the existence of _Knockers_, whatever these may be, and here, as far as I
am concerned, I leave the subject, with one remark only, which is, that I
have never heard it said that anyone in Wales ever _saw_ one of these
_Knockers_. In this they differ from Fairies, who, according to popular
notions, have, time and again, been seen by mortal eyes; but this must
have been when time was young.

The writer is aware that Mr. Sikes, in his _British Goblins_, p. 28,
gives an account of _Coblynau_ or _Knockers_ which he affirms had been
seen by some children who were playing in a field in the parish of
Bodfari, near Denbigh, and that they were dancing like mad, and terribly
frightened the children. But in the autobiography of Dr. Edward
Williams, already referred to, p. 98, whence Mr. Sikes derived his
information of the Dwarfs of Cae Caled, they are called "_Beings_," and
not _Coblynau_.

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