Welsh Folk Tales

by Peter Stevenson

  Then, one night a shepherd saw him dancing in the mouth of the cave, playing his fiddle like a man possessed, face white, eyes staring, head hanging loosely from his shoulders. He vanished into the cave like smoke up a chimney.

  Late one cold December evening, the choir were in church singing plygain when they were drowned out by the sound of a solitary fiddle. The shepherd recognised the tune as the one Ned was playing that night in the cave. The parson quickly transcribed it, and they called it ‘Ffarwel Ned Puw’.

  And they say if you stand in the mouth of that cave on 29 February you’ll see Ned playing his tune, cavorting in a courtly dance of death with other lost musical souls, like Dic y Pibydd and Twm Bach y Corner, who vanished into the Black Cave at Criccieth, yet whose tunes live on.

  Dic the Fiddler

  Dic lived at Llwybr Scriw Riw near Llanidloes. He was very poor and had a hungry family to feed, and only his fiddle to earn him a penny or two. He busked in the streets, collected money in his cap, and then spent it all at Big Betty Brunt’s Public House. When he rolled home in the evening, he told his long-suffering wife he had been dancing with the fairies, and oh how they quarrelled!

  One evening after playing at Darowen Fair, Dic was walking along the Green Lane above Cefn y Cloddiau when he had a feeling he was being watched. Thinking it could only be the fairies, he played a weird tune, ‘Aden Ddu’r Fran [The Crow’s Black Wing]’, hoping it would scare them away. When he finished, he heard something rattling inside his fiddle.

  He fell asleep on the hill till dawn and when he arrived home he told his wife he had been playing music with the fairies. Well, she played music of a different kind. She called him a fool, a drunkard, an idler, and she was about to break his fiddle in two when she heard a rattling, and out of the sound holes fell some coins. She kissed her husband, placed most of the money in her purse for food, kept a little for a new hat, and gave some to Dic for being a clever boy and told him to go to Richard Evans’ drapers shop in Llanidloes, buy a few yards of flannel, and she would make him some new shirts to keep him warm while he was busking.

  Dic bought the flannel and found he had enough money left over for a pint of cwrw at Big Betty’s. It was here that Evans Draper found him. With a face like thunder, Evans grabbed hold of Dic’s lapels and demanded to know where that crown had come from. Dic told him he had found it in his fiddle. Evans said, ‘It’s fairy money, it’s not real’, and produced a dried cow pat from his pocket and flung it on the table in front of Dic. ‘There’s your money.’ Evans was a conjurer and knew the ways of the Otherworld. He picked up the flannel, stared Dic in the eye and said, ‘The fairies only give money to those who have not long left to live.’ Dic said he knew very well he was about to die, because if Evans didn’t kill him, his wife would, and he ran out of the inn before Big Betty Brunt realised he’d paid her in cow shit.

  Morgan the Harper

  Morgan sat in his stick chair in the chimbley corner of his crumbling cottage near Castell y Bere, comforting himself in the warmth of the fire with a cwrw da. The beer had softened his soul, he was singing loudly, something about Myfanwy, when there was a knock on the door. Too tipsy to stand up, he shouted, ‘Dewch i mewn. Come in, and mind you wipe your feet!’

  Three weary travellers, dressed in red, entered and asked for a bite to eat. Morgan, feeling unusually warm and benevolent, told them to help themselves to the bread and cheese on the table. The travellers filled their bellies, and in return for his kindness they offered Morgan a wish. He thought they were having a joke, so he told them he had always wanted a harp that would play lively tunes and make people dance, no misery or melancholy for him, oh no. Morgan took another drink, and noticed the travellers had vanished, the bread and cheese were still on the table, and there stood a handsome triple-harp.

  Morgan started to play, and felt a fine tune beneath his fingers. His wife came home and immediately began to dance. The music attracted the neighbours and they joined in the dance, even the lame and the crippled found a use for their limbs. Soon the house was full of dancers, and after a while they asked Morgan to slow down. But his fingers wouldn’t stop, and the more he played the more the dancers danced, round and round the flagstone floor until their legs buckled and they collapsed in a tangled heap on the flagstone floor. Morgan fell back in his chair, snoring loudly.

  Whenever old Morgan played his harp, people were forced to dance till their bones broke, and soon he was the most unpopular man in Meirionnydd. And there’s an end to it.

  The Harpers of Bala

  The giant Tegid Foel lived by the walled spring at Bala, with his wife, the enchantress Ceridwen, mother of Taliesin. Tegid thought of himself as a mighty warrior, a roaring lion and a raging bear, although everyone else saw him as a bit thick in the head and a cruel man who persecuted his own people.

  On the birth of his first grandson, he prepared a feast. He ordered all the harpers in Meirionnydd to play for him, though most of them ran away or said they were washing their hair. The only one left was an old blind harper who lived in a hut in the mountains, who cared little for money and had no fear of the indulgences of Tegid’s rich friends.

  During the celebrations, he played all the tunes he knew, then sat on the steps outside and took solace in a sip from his hip-flask, for medicinal purposes only. Midnight came and went, and a bit worse for wear he found himself listening to a little bird singing, over and over, ‘Dial a ddaw [Vengeance is coming]’. The bird flew towards the woods and the harper was entranced, so he followed until the bird landed in a tree and stopped singing. The harper lay down beneath the tree and fell asleep, and the last thought he had was that he had left his harp in the castle.

  That night the rain fell and the storms raged, yet the harper slept on, dry beneath the tree. In the morning he shook the last drops from his hip-flask, and walked back towards Tegid’s castle to retrieve his harp. But the castle had vanished. The walled spring had burst overnight and a great lake had flooded the whole valley, and his harp was floating serenely across the water towards him. He played a tune to thank the little bird who had saved his life, and all the while Ceridwen smiled.

  Many years later, a young harper was wandering home to Yspyty Ifan after playing for a dance, and he was near the Big Bog of Bala when he walked into a mist, tripped over and fell through the moss into the mire. He was sucked down into the peat and was about to give up the struggle when a hand reached out towards him. He grabbed hold of it, and it pulled him out of the oozing slime. The hand was attached to an arm which belonged to a small sparrow-of-a-girl, with black hair pulled back in a bun. She gave him the kiss of life, his body lit up like a candle, and he fell head over heels in love, as harpers often do. She took him to Tŷ Hafod where her mother and father lived, and he played his harp and there was singing and dancing and he was so happy he would have married the little bird-girl there and then. At the end of the evening he held her round the waist, stared into her eyes, puckered up his lips, moved closer, and found himself lying in the moss by the Big Bog, clothes and hair caked with mud, harp half-sunk in the peat with the sheepdog from Plas Drain licking his lips to wake him up.

  And Ceridwen smiled.

  22

  ROMANI, DANCERS AND CINDER-GIRL

  I hailed the birds in Gypsy speech, the birds in Gypsy speech replied.

  Black Ellen

  ‘Chioya!’ (‘Boots!’) the Welsh Gypsy storyteller Ellen Wood of Gogerddan shouted at her audience while puffing on her clay pipe, pointing it in the air for emphasis. She expected the reply, ‘xolova’ (socks), ‘boots and socks’, vital to the traveller’s life. If the audience didn’t reply quickly enough, she asked them what she had just said, and if they couldn’t answer, she stormed out and told them to come back the following evening to hear the rest of the tale. She knew three hundred stories, many of such a length they could not be told in one night.

  Ellen was the granddaughter of Abram Wood, King of the Gypsies. A small handsome woman, with jet black hai
r and a mouth full of pearly white teeth, she had lured many a man away from his wife. She was said to be a witch who was paid to curse enemies, bewitch animals, tell fortunes and make love potions. She passed on her tales to her grandson, Matthew Wood, fiddler and storyteller, who told them at the family gatherings in the foothills of his beloved Craig yr Aderyn near Abergynolwyn. Matthew cut a romantic figure with mystical deep-set eyes, aquiline nose, sensitive mouth and long black curls reaching to his shoulders, often so carried away by the drama and emotion of the story, he identified himself as the hero as the words tumbled from his lips.

  John Sampson, librarian at Liverpool University, met Matthew in 1896 and began to transcribe Ellen’s fairy tales from Romani to English for the Gypsy Lore Society. Matthew considered Sampson a ‘rai’, a gent, and at his funeral in 1931, harpers and fiddlers from all the Romani tribes played while Augustus John delivered the oration.

  This is the tale of Cinderella as told to John Sampson. ‘Chioya!’ …

  Cinder-Girl

  A small house, three sisters. The two older sisters thought themselves grand ladies, but they were ashamed of their grimy youngest sister, so they hid her amongst the cinders in the coal-hole where no one could see her. If anyone came to call they said, ‘Hide yourself, little slut’.

  One Sunday, the two sisters came home from church all a-flutter about a handsome prince they had seen. Cinder-girl asked if she might be allowed to go to church and see the prince? ‘No, grimy little pig,’ they said, ‘go and hide with the coal.’

  Next Sunday, the two sisters went to church, leaving Cinder-girl alone. An old beggar-woman came to the door. Cinder-girl invited her in and gave her tea and cake. The old woman took the grimy girl by the hand and led her outside. She gave her a white pebble and said, ‘Throw it against that rock, you will see a door, go inside, there will be a bedchamber, take off your grimy clothes, put on a fine dress and a pair of golden slippers, go outside, you will see a pony, ride to the church, sit by the door, the prince will see you, then hurry home, put on your grimy clothes, and say nothing.’ And the old beggar-woman disappeared, as they do in fairy tales.

  Cinder-girl did as she was told, and everything happened the way the old woman said. Later that morning a fine lady in golden slippers entered the church, the prince asked who she was, but no one knew her. This went on for three weeks. On the third Sunday, the beggar-woman came again and told Cinder-girl, ‘This day, leave early, the prince will follow, a slipper will fall from your foot, and he will find it.’

  Cinder-girl did as she was told and as she ran home a slipper fell from her foot. The prince followed and found the golden slipper. He held a banquet and invited every maiden in the land to attend. They came, rich and poor, fair and dark, scrubbed and grimy. Each lady tried on the slipper, in they came, out they went, and it fitted none. Eldest sister chopped a piece off her foot and it still didn’t fit, and, oh, there was blood and mess. The prince called for the serving maids, until there was only one girl left. Cinder-girl held out her foot. The slipper fitted, the prince wiped away the grime and recognised her. Eldest sister cursed her.

  Well, there was a wedding and a feast and they went to bed, and within a year Cinder-girl gave birth to a beautiful baby girl. Eldest sister was so green with envy she stole the newborn baby and left an ugly dog in the bed. When the prince saw his child, he was so embarrassed that he had fathered a dog, he said nothing.

  Another year, another child, this time a son. Eldest sister stole the child, left an even uglier dog in the bed, and told the prince that Cinder-girl had given birth again. The prince felt disgraced. Cinder-girl implored him for another chance.

  Another year, another son, another ugly dog, and the prince convinced himself he had married a witch. He ordered the servants to drag her out of bed, tie her to a stake and burn her. The beggar-woman appeared, enchanted the servants, freed Cinder-girl, turned her into a grimy pig, and told her to hide in the forest, or else her husband’s huntsmen would cut out her liver and hang it by the castle gate.

  So Cinder-pig hid in the forest for many years while her three children were raised by her eldest sister. One day, she saw her children playing by the river. She approached them and told them not to cry. She explained that she wasn’t a pig, she was their mother, and she was about to be slain by their father’s huntsmen, who would hang her liver by the castle gate. She told them not to be squeamish, to go to the castle, take a piece of her liver, make a wish and all would be well. Being children, they were quite happy to follow the advice of a talking pig.

  The day dawned when Cinder-pig was chased and slain by the prince’s huntsmen, and her liver was hung by the castle gate. Firstborn girl was the bravest. She remembered what her Cinder-pig-mother had told her, and she went alone to the castle gate, reached up on her tiptoes, picked a piece off the slimy red liver and took it to her brothers who were waiting by the river. They made a wish, to live happily together by the river, and in the blink of an eye there stood a cottage full of gold.

  The children ran away from eldest sister, and lived in the cottage by the river. One day, a stranger passed by and stopped to light his pipe. He saw three children wearing golden belts, so he knocked on the cottage door and asked for a light for his pipe. The boys invited him in, but the girl said no. He ordered the boys to give him their belts, and as they did, they turned into swans and swam on the lake. Firstborn girl ran into the forest and hid. She remembered what the talking pig had told her.

  She crept back to the castle gate, picked a piece of the red liver, returned to the cottage and wished for her family to be together again. The swans turned back into her brothers, the pig liver became her Cinder-girl-mother, and the prince walked in as if he had woken from a dream.

  Cinder-girl’s family lived a simple life in the cottage by the river, and the brave firstborn girl, when she was old enough, travelled the world and became rich with wisdom.

  Well, those are the adventures, there’s no more to tell.

  ‘Xolova.’

  The Dancing Girl from Prestatyn

  Esmeralda was born in 1854, black-haired and dark-eyed, one of fourteen children to Noah and Delia Lock, travellers from North Wales who played fiddles, sold wicker baskets and traded at horse fairs. When Esmeralda was sixteen, she was married to Hubert Smith, a wealthy and persistent fifty-two-year-old solicitor and town clerk from Bridgnorth, who allowed the Locks to camp on his land by the Severn. However, Esmeralda Lock was not a girl to be pinned down. She was a butterfly.

  Esmeralda flew away, time after time, only to be chased and returned by her father. Once she escaped by hitting Hubert over the head with a silver candlestick. Then she told him she had been enchanted and had to obtain a charm from a ‘gozvalo gajo’, a conjurer. In fact, the gajo was her lover, a romantic young scholar, Francis Hindes Groomes, who was writing a book of Gypsy folk tales and was married to another traveller, Britannia Lee. One evening, Esmeralda told Hubert that she had dreamed that Francis was about to kill himself, and she must go to him to say a final farewell. Hubert made her promise to return within two hours. She never did.

  The young lovers fled to Germany, where they lived a bohemian life and Esmeralda earned a living as a dancer and singer. Her divorce from Hubert was both public and scandalous. Francis, too, divorced, much to the disapproval of his father, the Archdeacon of Suffolk, who thought his son was of a temperament unsuitable to holding down a ‘proper’ job in order to finance himself, and that writing a book of folk tales and running away with a gypsy dancer was the behaviour of a wastrel.

  In 1876 the lovers married, and went to live in Edinburgh, where Francis took a job working as an editor on Chamber’s Encyclopaedia. Esmeralda’s uncle, the gypsy harper, John Roberts of Frolic Street in Newtown, wrote to Francis, ‘I beg to say that I have read all about what happened and felt sorry for you and Esmeralda; it is to be hoped that you are both happy now.’ The old harper remembered Esmeralda’s kindness when as a girl she served him plenty of cake and t
obacco, and invited him to dance.

  Esmeralda’s relationship with Francis was rarely less than steamy and stormy, and soon she tired of his bookish ways. She danced and sang her way through London’s theatres, where her light shone like the North Star. Dante Gabriel Rossetti painted her as one of his idealised erotic pre-Raphaelite dream-women, and she inspired Victor Hugo to create the gypsy dancer in the Hunchback of Notre Dame.

  Francis, exhausted, told her, ‘We must never meet again on this side of the grave.’ He died in 1902, aged fifty, though not till he had published his masterful book of Gypsy Folk Tales.

  Esmeralda took to the road in her green and yellow caravan, finally settling in 1918 at Pendre Farm on Gronant Road in Prestatyn. She caused the occasional scandal and kept the town on its toes, before she was run over by a bus near the Cross Foxes in 1939. She is buried in Rhyl, an unlikely resting place for Quasimodo’s wild gypsy dancer.

  ‘Chioya!’

  Fallen Snow

  An old couple lived in a thatched cottage by a river. One day the old man saw an empty boat on the water. He hauled it ashore, looked inside and found a little baby. He carried the baby home and showed his wife. They decided to raise the girl as their own, and they named her Fallen Snow. She was so fragile, they were loathe to let the wind blow on her.

  Fallen Snow lived with the old couple till a cold winter took them and she was left an orphan again. She decided to seek work, anything but remain in the old cottage with its memories. On the day she left, there was a heavy snowstorm. She walked on through the snow until she came to a deep dark wood. She wound her way through the trees until she saw footsteps in the snow. She followed the footsteps until she came to a hollow tree with a red door. She went inside and found herself in a sweet little room full of murderous weapons and walls spattered with blood.