Welsh Folk Tales

by Peter Stevenson

  That evening, an ellyll appeared. It told them to light a candle before they went to bed and all would be well. Then it kicked up its heels and vanished, as they always do. That night Catti placed a candle by the bed and left it alight. In the morning, she woke up to the smell of fresh bread and a blazing fire, the tools were cleaned and sharpened, and the clothes and sheets were washed and starched. Catti left the candle alight every night and soon their crops were blooming, the cattle were content and the pigs fat. Even their noses stopped dripping.

  This went on for three years until one night, while Rowli snored, Catti took it in her head to thank the ellyll. She stayed awake and, when he appeared, she watched him dancing around the candle. He looked funny, with his long pipe-cleaner arms and legs. Catti giggled, almost imperceptibly, just to herself, but he heard her and vanished. From that day, Rowli and Catti had to do their own baking and washing and cleaning, but they managed the farm well. They brewed their own beer and opened a fine alehouse at Peterston-super-Ely, so there was no need to discover America after all, and wouldn’t that have saved a whole lot of trouble?

  The Pwca of the Trwyn

  One Christmas in the early 1700s, there was a knock on the door of the Trwyn Farm near Abercarn. The farmer, Job John Harry, opened the door and looked around but there was no one there. This went on each night for a month, until Job’s frightened family became convinced it was a pwca. A neighbour offered to shoot it, and sat by the hearth with his gun in his lap and waited.

  That evening, Job was walking home when the pwca jumped out in front of him, pointed its finger and said it knew about the man and he was a fool to think he could shoot something he couldn’t see. It added that it had decided upon the one thing that pwcas do best, ‘the tormenting’. When Job arrived home, he opened his door to find the neighbour being pelted by stones. The man dropped his gun and ran home to bathe his bruises. The pwca was nowhere to be seen.

  The pwca moved in and lived in the oven, from where it could be heard scratching away on Job’s fiddle in the middle of the night. If anyone complained it threw crockery around the kitchen, pelted them with stones and thumped them on their noses. One night it trod on Job’s toes, ever so gently, and explained that while it was unsurpassed at ‘the tormenting’, it meant no harm. It said that Job was a good man, but he was surrounded by fools. So Job decided to learn to live with the pwca and all was well until an old man who lacked brains boasted that he could get rid of it, and threatened to stick it with a knife. The old man sat by the oven and waited, until he heard a voice calling him a fool for thinking he could stab a pwca, and he was pelted with stones until he dropped the knife and ran home.

  The pwca grew quite fond of the girl who looked after the cattle, and resolved to help her out with the milking. She had never seen the pwca, until one evening it spoke to her from the oven. It asked why she never offered it food in return for its work. So each day, she left fresh milk and a slice of white bread by the oven as a thank you, until one day, feeling a little mischievous, she ate the bread and milk herself and left a stale crust and some water. The pwca was livid. It picked her up beneath the armpits with its fleshy hands, pinched her, bit her, tickled her and chased her all over the farm till she was blue bruised.

  On Ash Wednesday, the pwca left as suddenly as it came. And we wouldn’t have known it, but for Reverend Edmund Jones, who was born on the small farm of Penllwyn, Nantyglo, in 1702. He became fascinated with the Otherworld after discovering his teacher had taken part in a fairy funeral. So he sold his beloved books for £15 to raise money to build a chapel, gave his greatcoat and shirt to the poor, and set off with his beloved donkey, ‘Shoned,’ in search of tales of apparitions and devilry, preaching twice a day every day, well into his eighties. For his ability to see into the future, they called him ‘Prophet Jones’.

  Jones asked Job John Harry’s son David why the pwca had come to the Trwyn. It was said to have arrived in a jug of barm carried by a servant, or it had rolled there in a ball of yarn, but David explained it was because his brother Harry, a scholar and clergyman, had been messing around with ‘the conjuring’.

  Red Cap Otter

  Two daft lads were following otter tracks along the banks of the Dysynni near Llanfihangel y Pennant, when a small red creature dashed across the field in front of them and vanished down a hole beneath the riverbank. It wasn’t a stoat or a weasel, so they reasoned it must be an otter, a small red otter. That would be worth a penny or two. So one lad held a sack over the hole while his mate poked a stick down another hole and wiggled it about. The creature ran into the sack, the lad tied a knot, threw it over his shoulder and off they went towards home, dreaming of fame and money. They heard a voice, ‘Let me out, you dimwits!’ They dropped the sack on the ground, and out jumped a little red man, who shook his fist at them, turned the air as red as his whiskers, cursed them to be dimwits for the rest of their lives, and ran away.

  Sigl-di-gwt

  Long ago in the Pant Teg farmhouse above New Quay, there lived a woman and her pretty babi. The woman worked till her fingers were red raw from washing, her back ached from lifting, and her breasts were sore from feeding. At the end of each day she walked the fields to collect the wool that the sheep had rubbed onto brambles and fences. She teased and carded and spun it into warm clothes for her pretty one.

  One evening, the woman was spinning yarn by the light of a candle, singing a lullaby, ‘Suo-Gan Gwraig Pant Teg’, while her baby dozed in the cradle by the hearth. She was feeling drowsy when in walked a little old lady, dressed in a red and white-striped frock, a red cloak and black shoes with silver buckles. She peered through bottle-bottom glasses, squinted and spoke, without any how d’ye do, ‘What would you give me if I were to spin all that wool for you, dearie? It’ll take me but a few minutes, and you look so tired.’

  The woman heard herself saying, ‘Anything I possess would I give’, thinking she had little of value.

  ‘The deal is done,’ said the little old lady, and she licked her thumb with a raspberry tongue and placed the top joint against the woman’s thumb.

  The little old lady set to spinning and within a beat of the babi’s heart, all the wool was spun. The woman was delighted, for this would have taken her hours and her back would have ached. She thanked the little old lady and said, ‘What can I offer you in return? Te? Bara caws?’

  And in the blink of a crow’s eye, the little old lady pointed her finger and snapped, ‘Your babi’.

  The woman was awake now. ‘My babi? No, do not tease me, he is my life, my soul. I could never part with him. Undo your work, I would rather strain my sight.’

  ‘A bargain is a bargain and is sealed by the tylwyth teg. It cannot be broken. For three days I will come, and on each day you will have three chances to guess my name. If you fail, as you will, your babi will be mine.’

  The woman blurted out, ‘Mari, Megan, Meinir?’, but the little old lady danced away cackling, as little old ladies do in fairy tales. The woman thought it was all a dream, but next evening the little old lady returned and asked for her name. The woman said, ‘Ceri, Caryl, Cerys?’ and the little old lady danced away.

  The woman tossed and turned in her sleep that night, and the following day she walked around clutching her babi to her breast and muttering names to herself, as if her senses were scrambled. She ran down the path from Pant Teg, wet ferns soaking her bare legs, took a drink from the well at Pistyll-y-Rhiw, and ran till she came to the bridge at Llanina. She sang her lullaby to the rattling stream and pleaded with the waters for help. In that moment, she heard singing coming from the other bank.

  In a clearing in the trees she could see the little old lady, dancing around her spinning wheel, surrounded by wagtails, grey and pied, flicking their tails, chanting, ‘Little she knows that Sigl-di-gwt is my name’, over and over again. The woman could not believe her ears. She ran home and slammed the door just before the moon rose.

  The little old lady came. ‘Well, what’s my name?�
�� And she held out her arms.

  ‘Siani?’

  ‘No.’ She began to claw at the babi.

  ‘Siriol?’

  ‘No.’ She grabbed the babi.

  ‘Perhaps it is Sigl-di-gwt?’ said the woman firmly.

  The little old fairy lady turned green, then red, and then steam poured from her ears, spittle from her mouth, green goo from her nose, and she leapt up and down in a towering rage, turned the air blue, stamped her foot three times, broke the floorboards and disappeared through the hole, never to be seen again.

  9

  BIRTHS, CHANGELINGS AND EGGSHELLS

  Taliesin

  There was a woman, an enchantress, a gwiddanes, a woman of the Otherworld. Her name was Ceridwen, and she lived by Llyn Tegid. She knew all the plants and roots and herbs in the forests; she brewed tinctures and potions and kept them in misty bottles on sagging shelves; she could set bones and draw out fevers. She gifted her giant husband Tegid Foel with enchanted armour so his flesh could never be cut in battle.

  They had two children, Creirfyw, with her mother’s ebony skin and father’s strength, and Morfran, with his mother’s dark soul and father’s brains, and eyes so black the crows thought him their brother, though even the crows left him alone. He lived in the room at the top of the castle. They kept the door locked, just in case.

  Ceridwen watched Morfran as he sat, breathing deeply, dark eyes staring, moving only to snatch a fly out of the air with those huge hands. How could a woman so otherworldly produce a grotesque like this? Yet, even a crow thinks its children are beautiful, so she decided to gift him with the powers of prophecy and inspiration. With that, he would be a dyn hysbys, a conjurer.

  She gathered herbs, leaves, bark, fungi, slime moulds, breath and odours, using instruments carefully crafted by the light of the waning moon. She mixed powders and tinctures, built a great fire from peat and boiled the ingredients in a pitch-black iron cauldron, conjured from her own mind. The potion had to simmer for a year and a day, so she found an old blind beggar to sit and stir it, for he would never see what was in front of his eyes, and a guttersnipe named Gwion, a boy without a single thought in his head, who would not question why he pumped the bellows that kept the fire alight and the cauldron boiling.

  A year passed and Ceridwen fetched Morfran from his loft and sat him by the cauldron. She told Gwion to pump the bellows one last time. There was a flame and a crack and the fire spat. Alarmed, Gwion stood up in front of Morfran, tried to protect his face, and three drops of the potion sizzled onto the back of his hand. It burned, he licked it, and swallowed the three drops.

  Gwion had a thought. He had never had a thought before. It was inspiring. He knew what had been and what was to come. He knew Ceridwen was angry, and he was right. She roared with fury as the potion soured and turned to poison. Swirling with inspiration and prophecy, Gwion ran out of the door, as fast as a hare. Ceridwen screamed and gave chase as fast as a greyhound.

  As her tongue touched the hare’s back leg, Gwion dived into a river and swam as a salmon. Ceridwen shrieked and gave chase as an otter.

  As her sharp teeth were about to bite into the salmon’s flesh, Gwion leapt out of the river and flew as a bird. Ceridwen squawked and gave chase as a hawk.

  As her claws tore into his back, he swooped into a barn, and hid as a grain of wheat. Ceridwen would never find him here.

  Ceridwen clucked like a jet black hen with a red comb, spotted the grain that was Gwion, and swallowed him whole.

  Ceridwen’s belly grew, nine months passed, and she bore a baby boy. The child had a noble brow and bright eyes, and sang a song. She knew this was Gwion, and she resolved to be rid of him. She wrapped him in swaddling, dropped him in a leather bag, placed the bag inside a coracle, covered it with skins and set it free on the water. She watched it drift on the tide. Gulls pecked at it, gannets dived around it, fulmars spat at it, until it washed up on the shore south of the Dyfi estuary.

  A young fisherman named Elffyn saw the bag, waded into the waters and pulled it ashore, hoping it might contain gold, for with gold he could be the poet he had always dreamed of. He found, not gold, but a baby. Elffyn sighed, but the baby sang a poem to him, prophesying that one day he would be worth more than gold. Elffyn showed it to his father. ‘What have you caught, boy?’

  Elffyn replied, ‘A Bard.’

  His father laughed, ‘And what is the use of a Bard?’

  The baby sang a poem so inspiring it charmed the birds from the trees and melted the old man’s heart. ‘Maybe there is a use for poets after all.’

  They raised him and he became the finest poet in the Welsh language, and repaid their trust many times over. His name was Taliesin.

  Bum das yg kawat.

  Bum cledyf yn aghat.

  Bum yscwyt yg kat.

  Bum tant yn telyn,

  Lletrithawdc naw blwydyn.

  Yn dwfyr yn ewyn.

  I have been a drop in a shower.

  I have been a sword in the fist.

  I have been a shield in battle.

  I have been a string in a harp,

  Disguised for nine years.

  In water, in foam.

  The Llanfabon Changeling

  In a crumbling farmhouse called Berth Gron in Llanfabon lived a young mother and her baby boy and, oh, how she fussed over him. She drowned him in kisses, wrapped him in quilts by the fireside, and never opened the curtains for fear the sun would shine on him.

  One day, she heard her cows bellowing and ran outside to investigate, only to find they were contentedly chewing the cud. She scurried back to the cradle, and found her baby looking plump and pink. Yet he stared through ancient eyes, grew wrinkled and wizened, grumbled and grizzled, and spat into the fire just to hear the sizzle.

  The woman asked the advice of the old man from Caer Nos, a house built with stones stolen by night from Llanfabon Church. The old man rattled his teeth, sucked on his raven-head pipe, and told her, ‘This may not be your babi. It may be an anwadalyn, a child left by the Otherworld.’ The woman’s heart missed a beat.

  The old man took a hen’s egg, blew out the contents, filled it with beer and gave it to the woman. He told her, ‘Lay your kitchen table with seven glasses, break open the egg, pour out the beer, and say out loud so your babi hears, that you are brewing beer for the men who will bring in your harvest. Say nothing, do nothing, come and tell me what you hear.’

  The woman could scarcely catch her breath, but did as she was told. As she stared at the flames of the fire, she heard a voice:

  I was old before my time, I lived before my birth,

  I remember the ancient oak, an acorn in the earth,

  But I never saw egg of hen, brewing beer for harvestmen.

  She went to the old man and told him what she had heard. He chewed his pipe, rattled his teeth and said, ‘This is not your babi.’ The woman was hag-ridden. He told her, ‘On the next full moon, hide in the brambles at the crossroads by the Ford of the Bell, wait till midnight, say nothing, do nothing, come and tell me what you see.’

  So on the full moon, she hid herself in the brambles at the crossroads. As the clouds passed over, the moon turned red and she heard the sound of a solitary fiddle. Out of the night came a procession of strange people, dressed in pale crinolines and bonnets, waistcoats and bowler hats, and as they passed by there was her own baby, white as a wraith. She wished with all her heart to scoop him up, clutch him to her breast and run, but she didn’t.

  She went to the old man and told him what she had seen. He rattled his teeth, bit his pipe in two, and said, ‘We must get your babi back.’ He opened his battered old Bible box, took out a skin-bound book, blew away the dust, licked his fingers with a grey tongue, leafed through the pages and read out a charm. He told her, ‘Take a black hen with no white feathers, build a fire of peat, not wood, close every door, window and mousehole, bake the hen on a spit, and watch the fire until every feather burns from the hen.’

  The woman was
near hysterical, but she took a black hen with no white feathers. She built a fire of peat, locked her doors and windows, stuffed rags in the mouseholes, wrung the hen’s neck, skewered it and turned the handle of the spit. She waited and watched. She heard the fiddle tune from the crossroads, and in the flames of the fire she saw the procession of strange people. She held her breath. A child was crying, she could smell cooking meat, there was smoke, she was choking, suffocating, when the last feather fell from the hen.

  Silence. The fire dampened. The air cleared. A voice gurgled. She could hear her breath. She turned, and there was her beautiful baby, just as he had always been.

  The Eggshell Dinner

  David Tomos Bowen’s mother told a story about the woman who lived next door to her in Glynneath, whose farmhouse was infested with fairies. It was one of those old longhouses where one half was the living room and the other half the cowshed, with a half-door connecting them. Whenever the woman was milking in the cowshed, she could see the little folk dancing in the kitchen, and whenever she was cooking, they were milking her cows.

  One day, she was making supper for the reapers who brought in the harvest, when she heard singing and dancing upstairs, and a shower of dust fell from the ceiling into the pudding, spoiling it entirely. So she asked David Tomos Bowen’s mother how to get rid of the troublesome fairies. ‘Make only enough puddin’ to fit in an eggshell, and boil it. Invite six reapers to dinner, and the fairies will see there won’t be puddin’ enough to fill six hungry bellies. They’ll think there’s no food in the house, turn up their noses and leave.’