The Fairy-Faith in Celtic Countries Part 13

(Cap for the head, alas! poor head, Coat for the back, alas! poor back, Breeches for the breech, alas! poor breech, But if big Gordon [farm] is thine, Thine is not the merry Glen of Rushen.)[44]

And off he went to Glen Rushen for good.'

TESTIMONY FROM THE KEEPER OF PEEL CASTLE

From Mrs. Moore's house I walked on to Peel, where I was fortunate in meeting, in his own home, Mr. William Cashen, the well-known keeper of the famous old Peel Castle, within whose yet solid battlements stands the one true round tower outside of Ireland. I heard first of all about the fairy dog--the _Moddey Doo_ (Manx for Black Dog)--which haunts the castle; and then Mr. Cashen related to me the following anecdotes and tales about Manx fairies:--

_Prayer against the Fairies._--'My father's and grandfather's idea was that the fairies tumbled out of the battlements of Heaven, falling earthward for three days and three nights as thick as hail; and that one third of them fell into the sea, one third on the land, and one third remained in the air, in which places they will remain till the Day of Judgement. The old Manx people always believed that this fall of the fairies was due to the first sin, pride; and here is their prayer against the fairies:--"_Jee saue mee voish cloan ny moyrn_" (G.o.d preserve me from the children of pride [or ambition]).'

_A Man's Two Wives._--'A Ballaleece woman was captured by the fairies; and, soon afterwards, her husband took a new wife, thinking the first one gone for ever. But not long after the marriage, one night the first wife appeared to her former husband and said to him, and the second wife overheard her: "You'll sweep the barn clean, and mind there is not one straw left on the floor. Then stand by the door, and at a certain hour a company of people on horseback will ride in, and you lay hold of that bridle of the horse I am on, and don't let it go." He followed the directions carefully, but was unable to hold the horse: the second wife had put some straw on the barn floor under a bushel.'

_Sounds of Infinity._--'On Dalby Mountain, this side of Cronk-yn-Irree-Laa the old Manx people used to put their ears to the earth to hear the Sounds of Infinity (_Sheean-ny-Feaynid_), which were sounds like murmurs. They thought these sounds came from beings in s.p.a.ce; for in their belief all s.p.a.ce is filled with invisible beings.'[45]

TO THE MEMORY OF A MANX SCHOLAR

Since the following testimony was written down, its author, the late Mr.

John Nelson, of Ramsey, has pa.s.sed out of our realm of life into the realm invisible. He was one of the few Manxmen who knew the Manx language really well, and the ancient traditions which it has preserved both orally and in books. In his kindly manner and with fervent loyalty toward all things Celtic, he gave me leave, during December 1909, to publish for the first time the interesting matter which follows; and, with reverence, we here place it on record to his memory:--

_A Blinding by Fairies._--'My grandfather, William Nelson, was coming home from the herring fishing late at night, on the road near Jurby, when he saw in a pea-field, across a hedge, a great crowd of _little fellows_ in red coats dancing and making music. And as he looked, an old woman from among them came up to him and spat in his eyes, saying: "You'll never see us again"; and I am told that he was blind afterwards till the day of his death. He was certainly blind for fourteen years before his death, for I often had to lead him around; but, of course, I am unable to say of my own knowledge that he became blind immediately after his strange experience, or if not until later in life; but as a young man he certainly had good sight, and it was believed that the fairies destroyed it.'

_The Fairy Tune._--'William Cain, of Glen Helen (formerly Rhena.s.s), was going home in the evening across the mountains near Brook's Park, when he heard music down below in a glen, and saw there a great gla.s.s house like a palace, all lit up. He stopped to listen, and when he had the new tune he went home to practise it on his fiddle; and recently he played the same fairy tune at Miss Sophia Morrison's Manx entertainment in Peel.'

_Manannan the Magician._--Mr. Nelson told a story about a _Buggane_ or _Fenodyree_, such as we already have, and explained the _Glashtin_ as a water-bull, supposed to be a goblin half cow and half horse, and then offered this tradition about Manannan:--'It is said that Manannan was a great magician, and that he used to place on the sea pea-sh.e.l.ls, held open with sticks and with sticks for masts standing up in them, and then so magnify them that enemies beheld them as a strong fleet, and would not approach the island. Another tradition is that Manannan on his three legs (the Manx coat of arms) could travel from one end to the other of his isle with wonderful swiftness, moving like a wheel.'[46]

TESTIMONY OF A FARMER AND FISHERMAN

From the north of the island I returned to Peel, where I had arranged to meet new witnesses, and the first one of these is James Caugherty, a farmer and fisherman, born in Kirk Patrick fifty-eight years ago, who testified (in part) as follows:--

_Churn Worked by Fairies._--'Close by Glen Cam (Winding Glen), when I was a boy, our family often used to hear the empty churn working in the churn-house, when no person was near it, and they would say, "Oh, it's the _little fellows_."'

_A Remarkable Changeling Story._--'Forty to fifty years ago, between St.

John's and Foxdale, a boy, with whom I often played, came to our house at nightfall to borrow some candles, and while he was on his way home across the hills he suddenly saw a little boy and a little woman coming after him. If he ran, they ran, and all the time they gained on him.

Upon reaching home he was speechless, his hands were altered (turned awry), and his feet also, and his fingernails had grown long in a minute. He remained that way a week. My father went to the boy's mother and told her it wasn't Robby at all that she saw; and when my father was for taking the tongs and burning the boy with a piece of glowing turf [as a changeling test], the boy screamed awfully. Then my father persuaded the mother to send a messenger to a doctor in the north near Ramsey "doing charms", to see if she couldn't get Robby back. As the messenger was returning, the mother stepped out of the house to relieve him, and when she went into the house again her own Robby was there. As soon as Robby came to himself all right, he said a little woman and a little boy had followed him, and that just as he got home he was conscious of being taken away by them, but he didn't know where they came from nor where they took him. He was unable to tell more than this.

Robby is alive yet, so far as I know; he is Robert Christian, of Douglas.'

EVIDENCE FROM A MEMBER OF THE HOUSE OF KEYS

Mr. T. C. Kermode, of Peel, member of the House of Keys, the Lower House of the Manx Parliament, very kindly dictated for my use the following statement concerning fairies which he himself has seen:--

_Reality of Fairies._--'There is much belief here in the island that there actually are fairies; and I consider such belief based on an actual fact in nature, because of my own strange experience. About forty years ago, one October night, I and another young man were going to a kind of Manx harvest-home at Cronk-a-Voddy. On the Glen Helen road, just at the Beary Farm, as we walked along talking, my friend happened to look across the river (a small brook), and said: "Oh look, there are the fairies. Did you ever see them?" I looked across the river and saw a circle of supernatural light, which I have now come to regard as the "astral light" or the light of Nature, as it is called by mystics, and in which spirits become visible. The spot where the light appeared was a flat s.p.a.ce surrounded on the sides away from the river by banks formed by low hills; and into this s.p.a.ce and the circle of light, from the surrounding sides apparently, I saw come in twos and threes a great crowd of little beings smaller than Tom Thumb and his wife. All of them, who appeared like soldiers, were dressed in red. They moved back and forth amid the circle of light, as they formed into order like troops drilling. I advised getting nearer to them, but my friend said, "No, I'm going to the party." Then after we had looked at them a few minutes my friend struck the roadside wall with a stick and shouted, and we lost the vision and the light vanished.'

_The Manx Fairy-Faith._--'I have much evidence from old Manx people, who are entirely reliable and G.o.d-fearing, that they have seen the fairies hunting with hounds and horses, and on the sea in ships, and under other conditions, and that they have heard their music. They consider the fairies a complete nation or world in themselves, distinct from our world, but having habits and instincts like ours. Social organization among them is said to be similar to that among men, and they have their soldiers and commanders. Where the fairies actually exist the old people cannot tell, but they certainly believe that they can be seen here on earth.'

TESTIMONY FROM A PAST PROVINCIAL GRAND MASTER

Mr. J. H. Kelly, Past Provincial Grand Master of the Isle of Man District of Oddfellows, a resident of Douglas, offers the following account of a curious psychical experience of his own, and attributes it to fairies:--

_A Strange Experience with Fairies._--'Twelve to thirteen years ago, on a clear moonlight night, about twelve o'clock, I left Laxey; and when about five miles from Douglas, at Ballagawne School, I heard talking, and was suddenly conscious of being in the midst of an invisible throng.

As this strange feeling came over me, I saw coming up the road four figures as real to look upon as human beings, and of medium size, though I am certain they were not human. When these four, who seemed to be connected with the invisible throng, came out of the Garwick road into the main road, I pa.s.sed into a by-road leading down to a very peaceful glen called Garwick Glen; and I still had the same feeling that invisible beings were with me, and this continued for a mile. There was no fear or emotion or excitement, but perfect calm on my part. I followed the by-road; and when I began to mount a hill there was a sudden and strange quietness, and a sense of isolation came over me, as though the joy and peace of my life had departed with the invisible throng. From different personal experiences like this one, I am firmly of the opinion and belief that the fairies exist. One cannot say that they are wholly physical or wholly spiritual, but the impression left upon my mind is that they are an absolutely real order of beings not human.'

Invoking Little Manannan, son of Leirr, to give us safe pa.s.sage across his watery domain, we now go southward to the nearest Brythonic country, the Land of Arthur, WALES.

V. IN WALES

Introduction by The Right Hon. SIR JOHN RHYS, M.A., D.Litt., F.B.A., Hon. LL.D. of the University of Edinburgh; Professor of Celtic in the University of Oxford; Princ.i.p.al of Jesus College; author of _Celtic Folklore, Welsh and Manx_, &c.

The folk-lore of Wales in as far as it concerns the Fairies consists of a very few typical tales, such as:--

(1) The Fairy Dance and the usual entrapping of a youth, who dances with the Little People for a long time, while he supposes it only a few minutes, and who if not rescued is taken by them.

(2) There are other ways in which recruits may be led into Fairyland and induced to marry fairy maidens, and any one so led away is practically lost to his kith and kin, for even if he be allowed to visit them, the visit is mostly cut short in one way or another.

(3) A man catches a fairy woman and marries her. She proves to be an excellent housewife, but usually she has had put into the marriage-contract certain conditions which, if broken, inevitably release her from the union, and when so released she hurries away instantly, never to return, unless it be now and then to visit her children. One of the conditions, especially in North Wales, is that the husband should never touch her with iron. But in the story of the Lady of Llyn y Fan Fach, in Carmarthenshire, the condition is that he must not strike the wife without a cause three times, the striking being interpreted to include any slight tapping, say, on the shoulder. This story is one of the most remarkable on record in Wales, and it recalls the famous tale of Undine, published in German many years ago by De La Motte Fouque. It is not known where he found it, or whether the people among whom it was current were pure Germans or of Celtic extraction.

(4) The Fairies were fond of stealing nice healthy babies and of leaving in their place their own sallow offspring. The stories of how the right child might be recovered take numerous forms; and some of these stories suggest how weak and sickly children became the objects of systematic cruelty at the hands of even their own parents. The changeling was usually an old man, and many were the efforts made to get him to betray his ident.i.ty.

(5) There is a widespread story of the fairy husband procuring for his wife the attendance of a human midwife. The latter was given a certain ointment to apply to the baby's eyes when she dressed it. She was not to touch either of her own eyes with it, but owing to an unfailing accident she does, and with the eye so touched she is enabled to see the fairies in their proper shape and form. This has consequences: The fairy husband pays the midwife well, and discharges her. She goes to a fair or market one day and observes her old master stealing goods from a stall, and makes herself known to him. He asks her with which eye she sees him. She tells him, and the eye to which he objects he instantly blinds.

(6) Many are the stories about the fairies coming into houses at night to wash and dress their children after everybody is gone to bed. A servant-maid who knows her business leaves a vessel full of water for them, and takes care that the house is neat and tidy, and she then probably finds in the morning some fairy gift left her, whereas if the house be untidy and the water dirty, they will pinch her in her sleep, and leave her black and blue.

(7) The fairies were not strong in their household arrangements, so it was not at all unusual for them to come to the farm-houses to borrow what was wanting to them.

In the neighbourhood of Snowdon the fairies were believed to live beneath the lakes, from which they sometimes came forth, especially on misty days, and children used to be warned not to stray away from their homes in that sort of weather, lest they should be kidnapped by them.

These fairies were not Christians, and they were great thieves. They were fond of bright colours. They were sharp of hearing, and no word that reached the wind would escape them. If a fairy's proper name was discovered, the fairy to whom it belonged felt baffled.[47]

Some characteristics of the fairies seem to argue an ancient race, while other characteristics betray their origin in the workshop of the imagination; but generally speaking, the fairies are heterogeneous, consisting partly of the divinities of glens and forests and mountains, and partly of an early race of men more or less caricatured and equipped by fable with impossible attributes.[48]

JESUS COLLEGE, OXFORD, _October_ 1910.

Our field of research in the Land of Arthur includes all the coast counties save Cardiganshire, from Anglesey on the north to Glamorganshire on the south. At the very beginning of our investigation of the belief in the _Tylwyth Teg_, or 'Fair Folk' in the Isle of Anglesey or Mona, the ancient stronghold of the Druids, we shall see clearly that the testimony offered by thoroughly reliable and prominent native witnesses is surprisingly uniform, and essentially animistic in its nature; and in pa.s.sing southward to the end of Wales we shall find the Welsh Fairy-Faith with this same uniformity and exhibiting the same animistic background everywhere we go.

TESTIMONY OF AN ANGLESEY BARD

Mr. John Louis Jones, of Gaerwen, Anglesey, a native bard who has taken prizes in various Eisteddfods, testifies as follows:--

_Tylwyth Teg's Visits._--'When I was a boy here on the island, the _Tylwyth Teg_ were described as a race of little beings no larger than children six or seven years old, who visited farm-houses at night after all the family were abed. No matter how securely closed a house might be, the _Tylwyth Teg_ had no trouble to get in. I remember how the old folk used to make the house comfortable and put fresh coals on the fire, saying, "Perhaps the _Tylwyth Teg_ will come to-night." Then the _Tylwyth Teg_, when they did come, would look round the room and say, "What a clean beautiful place this is!" And all the while the old folk in bed were listening. Before departing from such a clean house the _Tylwyth Teg_ always left a valuable present for the family.'

_Fairy Wife and Iron Taboo._--'A young man once caught one of the _Tylwyth Teg_ women, and she agreed to live with him on condition that he should never touch her with iron. One day she went to a field with him to catch a horse, but in catching the horse he threw the bridle in such a way that the bit touched the _Tylwyth Teg_ woman, and all at once she was gone. As this story indicates, the _Tylwyth Teg_ could make themselves invisible. I think they could be seen by some people and not by other people. The old folk thought them a kind of spirit race from a spirit world.'

EVIDENCE FROM CENTRAL ANGLESEY