by Alan Garner
They are a stocky people, with broad, flat faces, and heavy brows. They are unruly, bad workers, good poachers and cattlemen, quick-tempered, and usually looked down on as being “common”. You will find a lot of them in the hills around Biddulph in Staffordshire, and in the Plynlymon district of Wales. And there is a family in the village where I grew up. My grandfather was once going home across the fields at night, and he found himself caught between two feuding sections of the family, who opened up on each other with shotguns. And I can remember not being allowed to play with one of their boys because he was supposed to be dirty and sly. He probably was. But he could run like a dog, and climb impossible trees, and make wild birds pick breadcrumbs out of his hair.
It is this blend of history and fantasy that makes the traditions so haunting. Fairies were never harmless eaters of jelly and cream buns in toadstool houses. They were called the Good Neighbours, or the People of Peace. And they were called by these names because they were the opposite – for the same reason that we say “Good dog” when we’re going to be bitten.
Our present ideas of fairies as winged and dainty are the result of a fashion that spread among writers in the seventeenth century. It suited the writers’ purpose to use tiny creatures, and although these minute fairies did exist in legends, they were not the only ones. Fairies came in all sizes from the super-human Children of Danu, who were more like gods, to the Cornish Muryans, as small as ants. (They had once been bigger, but they had done some evil, and were condemned to grow smaller with each generation until they disappeared.) But, generally speaking, the fairies were man-size, or a bit less.
Someone who knew the fairies, and described them as real, and not as folk-lore, was the Reverend Robert Kirk. He was the minister of Aberfoyle, in Scotland, and in 1691 he wrote a textbook on fairies, called The Secret Commonwealth. Here is what he says about their weapons.
“Their weapons are most what solid, earthly Bodies, nothing of Iron, but much of Stone, like yellow, soft Flint Spa, shaped like a barbed Arrow-head, but flung like a Dairt, with great Force.
“These Armes (cut by Airt and Tools it seems beyond human) have something of the Nature of Thunderbolt subtilty, and mortally wounding the vital Parts without breaking the Skin; of which Wounds I have observed in Beasts, and felt them with my Hands.”
This is an exact description of the prehistoric flint arrowheads that are often preserved as charms in Scotland, and called elf-shot. You will find some in any museum.
Apparently the danger from fairies was so great on certain days of the year that people flocked to church for protection. Mr Kirk says:
“The Fairies remove to other Lodgings at the Beginning of each Quarter of the Year, and at such revolution of Time, Men have very terrifying Encounters with them, even on High Ways; who therefoir usually shune to travel at these four Seasons of the Year, and thereby have made it a Custom to this Day among the Scottish-Irish to keep Church duely evry first Sunday of the Quarter, to hallow themselves, their Corns and Cattell, from the Shots and Stealth of these wandring Tribes. And many of these superstitious People will not be seen in Church againe till the nixt Quarter begin, as if no Duty were to be learned or done by them, but all the Use of Worship and Sermons were to save them from these Arrows that fly in the Dark.”
But there were counter-charms against the fairies besides the power of religion. “For they are terrified by nothing earthly so much as by cold Iron.” Yet a charm is no good unless it is used properly, and in the fate of Robert Kirk this is well shown.
An account of what happened is given by his successor in the parish, Doctor Graeme, and also by Sir Walter Scott. Here some of the very best of fairy lore is set down as fact.
“As Mr Kirk was walking in a fairy hill in his neighbourhood, he sunk down in a swoon, which was taken for death. After the ceremony of a seeming funeral, the form of Mr Kirk appeared to a relation, and commanded him to go to Grahame of Duchray. ‘Say to Grahame, who is my cousin as well as your own,’ said Mr Kirk, ‘that I am not dead, but a captive in Fairyland; and only one chance remains for my liberation.
“‘At the baptism of my child, I shall appear in the room, when, if Grahame shall throw over my head the knife which he holds in his hand, I may be restored to the world; but if not, I am lost for ever.’
“True to his word, Mr Kirk did appear at the christening, and was visibly seen; but Grahame was so astonished that he did not throw his knife over the head of the figure, and so to the world Mr Kirk has not yet been restored.”
But a captive of the Good Neighbours seldom returns, or if he returns, years have passed, although they may have seemed like minutes to him.
This happened to John Jenkinson. He sat down one morning to listen to a bird singing in a tree by a fairy hill. When the bird had finished its song, John got up, and he was very puzzled to find that the tree, which had been a sapling at the beginning of the song, was now a hollow stump. He turned back to his house, but his footsteps grew slower and slower, his shadow bent and trembling, and when he reached his doorstep, John Jenkinson crumbled into a thimbleful of black dust.
It was even worse for Iolo ap Hugh.
In North Wales there is a cave that is said to reach from its entrance on the hillside, “under the Morda, the Ceiriog, and a thousand other streams, under many a league of mountain, marsh and moor” all the way to Chirk castle. And it is also said that whoever goes within five paces of its mouth will be drawn into it by the fairies, and lost. All around, the grass grows thick and rank. Even animals fear the spot. “A fox, with a pack of hounds in full cry at his tail, once turned short round on approaching it, his hair all bristled and fretted like frostwork with terror, and ran into the middle of the pack; as if anything earthly – even an earthly death – was an escape from what was waiting in the cave. And the hounds in pursuit of this fox would not touch him, on account of the smell and gleam that stuck to his coat.”
Elias ap Evan, who happened one night to stagger just upon the rim of the cave, was so frightened at what he saw and heard that he arrived home perfectly sober; “the only interval of sobriety, morning, noon, or night, that Elias had been afflicted with for upwards of twenty years. Nor ever after that experience could he get tipsy, drink he never so faithfully to that end.”
But one misty Halloween, Iolo ap Hugh, the fiddler, decided to solve the mysteries of the cave. He provided himself with “an immense quantity of bread and cheese, and seven pounds of candles”, and ventured in.
He never returned.
Long, long afterwards, at the twilight of another Halloween, an old shepherd was passing close to the place, when he heard a faint burst of melody dancing up and down the rocks above the cave. As he listened:
“The music gradually moulded itself in something like a tune, though it was a tune I had never heard before. And then there appeared at the mouth of the cave a figure well known to me by remembrance. It was dimly visible; but it was Iolo ap Hugh – I could see that at once.
“He was capering madly to the music of his own fiddle, with a lantern dangling at his breast.
“Suddenly the moon cleared through the mist, and I saw poor Iolo for a single moment – oh, but it was clearly! His face was pale as marble, and his eyes stared deathfully. His head dangled loose and unjointed on his shoulders. His arms seemed to keep his fiddle stick in motion without his will.
“I saw him for that instant at the mouth of the cave, and then, still capering and fiddling, he vanished like a shadow from my sight. But he slipped into the cave in a manner quite different from the step of a living and a willing man. He was dragged inwards like the smoke up the chimney, or the mist at sunrise.
“Poor Iolo. Years passed: all hopes and sorrows for him had not only lost their hurt, but were nearly forgotten. I had gone to live in a village far away across the hills. Then one cold December night, we were all shivering in church as the clerk was beginning to light the candles, when music started suddenly from beneath the aisle. Then it passed faintl
y along to the end of the church, and died away until I could not tell it from the wind that was careering and wailing all about us. But I knew the tune. I knew it!”
The parson took down the tune from the shepherd’s whistling:
And to this day, if you go to the cave on Halloween, you may hear this tune as distinctly as you may hear the waves roar in a sea-shell. And it is said that on certain nights in a leap year a star stands opposite the farther end of the cave, and by its rays you can see Iolo, and his – companions.
The piper of Shacklow,
The fiddler of Finn;
The old woman of Demonsdale
Calls them all in.
Anon
This Irish story is not only full of the ghostly traditions of fairy lore, but it is also a description of the fairies as real people at war with their neighbours.
ne Halloween Ailill and Mebd were in Rath Cruachan with their household. They set about cooking food. Two captives had been hanged by them the day before that.
Then Ailill said: “He who would now put a withe round the foot of either of the two captives that are on the gallows, shall have a prize for it from me, as he may choose.”
Great was the darkness of that night and its horror, and demons would appear on that night always. Each man of them went out in turn to try that night, and quickly would he come back into the house.
“I will have the prize from you,” said Nera, “and I shall go out.”
“Truly you shall have this my gold-hilted sword here,” said Ailill.
Then Nera went out towards the captives, and put good armour on him. He put a withe round the foot of one of the two captives. Thrice it sprang off again. Then the captive said to him, unless he put a proper peg on it, though he be at it till the morrow, he would not fix his own peg on it. Then Nera put a proper peg on it.
Said the captive from the gallows to Nera: “That is manly, O Nera!”
“Manly indeed!” said Nera.
“By the truth of your valour, take me on your neck, that I may get a drink with you. I was very thirsty when I was hanged.”
“Come on my neck, then,” said Nera.
So he went on his neck.
“Where shall I carry you?” said Nera.
“To the house that is nearest to us,” said the captive.
So they went to that house. Then they saw something. A lake of fire round that house.
“There is no drink for us in this house,” said the captive. “There is no fire without sparing in it ever, for the fire is well covered at night. Let us therefore go to the other house, which is nearest us.”
They went to it then, and saw a lake of water around it.
“Do not go to that house,” said the captive. “There is never a washing-tub, nor a bathing-tub, nor a slop-pail in it at night after sleeping. Let us still go to the other house.”
“Now here is my drink,” said the captive.
Nera let him down on the floor. He went into the house. There were tubs for washing and bathing in it, and a drink in either of them. Also a slop-pail on the floor of the house. The captive drank a draught from each of them, and scattered the last sip from his lips at the faces of the people that were in the house, so that they all died. Henceforth it is not good to have either a tub for washing or bathing, or a fire without sparing, or a slop-pail in a house after sleeping.
Thereupon Nera carried him back to his torture, and Nera returned to Cruachan. Then he saw something.
The hall of Ailill and Mebd was burnt before him, and he beheld a heap of heads of its people cut off by the warriors who had come raiding from the elfin Mound of Cruachan.
He went after the warriors then into the Mound of Cruachan. The heads were displayed to the king in the Mound.
“What shall be done to the man that came with you?” said one of the chieftains.
“Let him come here to me, that I may speak with him,” said the elf king.
Then Nera came to them, and the king said to him: “What brought you with the warriors into the Mound?”
“I came in the company of your host,” said Nera.
“Go now to yonder house,” said the king. “There is a single woman there, who will make you welcome. Tell her it is from me you are sent to her, and come every day to this house with a burden of firewood.”
Then Nera did as he was told. The woman bade him welcome, and said: “Welcome to you, if it is the king that sent you here.”
“It is truly,” said Nera.
Every day Nera used to go with a burden of firewood to the hall. He saw every day a blind man and a lame man on his neck coming out of the hall before him. They would go until they were at the brink of the well by the hall.
“Is it there?” said the blind man.
“It is indeed,” said the lame one.
“Let us go away.”
Nera then asked the woman about this. “Why do the blind and the lame man visit the well?”
“They visit the crown, which is in the well,” said the woman. “A diadem of gold, which the king wears on his head. It is there it is kept.”
“Why do those two go?”
“Not hard to tell,” said she. “It is they that are trusted by the king to visit the crown. One of them was blinded, the other lamed.”
“Come here a little,” said Nera to her, “that you may tell me of my adventures now.”
“What has appeared to you?” said she.
“Not hard to tell,” said Nera. “When I was going into the Mound, it seemed to me that the Rath of Cruachan was destroyed, and Ailill and Mebd, with their whole household, had fallen with it.”
“That is not true indeed,” said the woman. “It was all a magic and an enchantment. It was not real, the thing that you saw happen. But it will be real, and it will come true, unless you warn your friends.”
“How shall I give warning to my people?” said Nera.
“Rise and go back to them,” said she. “They are all still round the same cauldron.” (Yet it seemed to him three days and three nights since he had come into the Mound.) “Tell them to be on their guard at Halloween next, for the destruction that you saw will be theirs, unless they turn to destroy the Mound. For I will promise them this: the elf Mound to be destroyed by Ailill and Mebd, and the crown of Briun to be carried off by them.”
“How will it be believed of me, that I have gone into the Mound?” said Nera.
“Take fruits of Summer with you,” said the woman.
Then he took wild garlic with him to his Winter, and primrose and golden fern.
“And I shall bear you a son,” said the woman. “And you must send a message to me here when your people will come to destroy the Mound, so that you may save us, your family and cattle.”
Thereupon Nera went back to his people, and found them round the same cauldron; and he related his adventures to them. And then his sword was given to him, and he was with Ailill and Mebd to the end of another year.
That was the very year in which Fergus mac Roich came from exile from the land of Ulster to Cruachan.
“The time has come, O Nera,” said Ailill when Halloween next approached. “Arise and bring your family and cattle from the Mound, that we may go to destroy the Mound.”
Then Nera went to his wife in the Mound, and she made him welcome.
“Go now,” she said to him, “and take a burden of firewood with you to the hall. I have gone there for a whole year in your stead, and I said you were in sickness. And there is also your son yonder.”
Then Nera went out, and carried a burden of firewood on his neck.
“Welcome alive from your sickness,” said the king of the Mound. “And tend your cattle today.”
So Nera went with his cattle that day.
He went back to the house in the evening. “Rise up,” said the woman to him, “lest your warriors come. They must come this night at Halloween: for the elf Mounds of Ireland are opened then.”
And it was so. Ailill, with the men of Connaught an
d the black host of exile, went into the Mound, and destroyed the Mound, and took out what there was in it. And then they took away the crown of Briun. That is the Third Wonderful Gift of Ireland.
Nera was left with his wife in the Mound, and has not come out until now, nor will he come till doom.
Go to the green mound.
Enter the warm cave.
Drink of the wine there.
In fairyland is no remembrance.
The dead man screams
In the new child.
Give him the breast
Of forgetfulness.
Alan Garner
This is a letter sent to a clergyman, the Reverend Edmund Jones. It is incomplete, but worth printing for its clear details.
March 24th, 1772.
Rev. Sir,
Concerning the apparition I saw, I shall relate it as well as I can in all its particulars.
As far as I can remember, it was in the year 1757, in a summer’s day about noon, I, with three others, one of which was a sister of mine, and the other two were sisters. We were playing in a field called Kaekaled, in the parish of Bodvary, in the county of Denbigh, near the stile which is next Lanelwyd House, where we perceived a company of dancers in the middle of the field, about seventy yards from us. We could not tell their numbers because of the swiftness of their motions, which seemed to be after the manner of Morris-dancers (something uncommonly wild in their motions); but after looking some time we came to guess that their number might be about fifteen or sixteen.
They were clothed in red, like soldiers, with red handkerchiefs spotted with yellow about their heads. They seemed to be a little bigger than we, but of a dwarfish appearance.
Upon this we reasoned together what they might be, whence they came, and what they were about. Presently we saw one of them coming away from the company in a running pace. Upon seeing this we began to be afraid and ran to the stile. Barbara Jones went over the stile first, next her sister, next to that my sister, and last of all myself.