Welsh Folk-Lore | Page 5

351 Squirrel hunting 351-2 Swallow
forsaking its nest 330 Breaking nest of 331 Swan, hatching eggs of 381
Swift, flying, Weather Sign 331 Swyno'r 'Ryri 254 262 263-4
Taboo Stories 6 8-24 Tegid 306 Tit-Major, Weather Sign 331 Tolaeth
303 Tobit, Spirit tale 182 210 Torrent Spectre 141 Transformation 227
234-237 Transmigration 276-279 Tylwyth Teg, see Fairies
Van Lake Fairy tale 16-24 Voice calling a Doctor 294
Water Horse 138-141 Water Worship 161 Welsh Airs 84 88 Aden
Ddu'r Fran 84 Toriad y Dydd 88 Williams, Dr. Edward, and Fairies 97
Witches 216-251 Llanddona 222-3 transforming themselves into cats

224-226 transforming themselves into hares 227-235 hunted in form of
hare 230-233 killed in form of hare 228 in churn in form of hare 229
cursing Horse 242 cursing Milk 238-9 cursing Pig 238 how tested
250-1 Spells, how broken 244-250 Punishment of 243 Laws against
218 Wife snatching 29 Woodpecker, Weather Sign 336 Woodpigeon
333-336 Wraith 292 294 308 Wren, unlucky to harm 331-2 Hunting the
332 Curse on breaker of nest 333 Wyn Melangell 345
Ystrad Legend 12 Yarn Sickness 275-6 Test 283-4 Yspryd Cynon 212
Ystrad Fawr 197-8

THE FAIRIES.
ORIGIN OF THE FAIRIES. (Y TYLWYTH TEG.)
The Fairy tales that abound in the Principality have much in common
with like legends in other countries. This points to a common origin of
all such tales. There is a real and unreal, a mythical and a material
aspect to Fairy Folk-Lore. The prevalence, the obscurity, and the
different versions of the same Fairy tale show that their origin dates
from remote antiquity. The supernatural and the natural are strangely
blended together in these legends, and this also points to their great age,
and intimates that these wild and imaginative Fairy narratives had some
historical foundation. If carefully sifted, these legends will yield a
fruitful harvest of ancient thoughts and facts connected with the history
of a people, which, as a race, is, perhaps, now extinct, but which has, to
a certain extent, been merged into a stronger and more robust race, by
whom they were conquered, and dispossessed of much of their land.
The conquerors of the Fair Tribe have transmitted to us tales of their
timid, unwarlike, but truthful predecessors of the soil, and these tales
shew that for a time both races were co-inhabitants of the land, and to a
certain extent, by stealth, intermarried.
Fairy tales, much alike in character, are to be heard in many countries,
peopled by branches of the Aryan race, and consequently these stories
in outline, were most probably in existence before the separation of the

families belonging to that race. It is not improbable that the emigrants
would carry with them, into all countries whithersoever they went, their
ancestral legends, and they would find no difficulty in supplying these
interesting stories with a home in their new country. If this supposition
be correct, we must look for the origin of Fairy Mythology in the cradle
of the Aryan people, and not in any part of the world inhabited by
descendants of that great race.
But it is not improbable that incidents in the process of colonization
would repeat themselves, or under special circumstances vary, and thus
we should have similar and different versions of the same historical
event in all countries once inhabited by a diminutive race, which was
overcome by a more powerful people.
In Wales Fairy legends have such peculiarities that they seem to be
historical fragments of by-gone days. And apparently they refer to a
race which immediately preceded the Celt in the occupation of the
country, and with which the Celt to a limited degree amalgamated.

NAMES GIVEN TO THE FAIRIES.
The Fairies have, in Wales, at least three common and distinctive
names, as well as others that are not nowadays used.
The first and most general name given to the Fairies is "Y Tylwyth
Teg," or, the Fair Tribe, an expressive and descriptive term. They are
spoken of as a people, and not as myths or goblins, and they are said to
be a fair or handsome race.
Another common name for the Fairies, is, "Bendith y Mamau," or, "The
Mothers' Blessing." In Doctor Owen Pughe's Dictionary they are called
"Bendith eu Mamau," or, "Their Mothers' Blessing." The first is the
most common expression, at least in North Wales. It is a singularly
strange expression, and difficult to explain. Perhaps it hints at a Fairy
origin on the mother's side of certain fortunate people.
The third name given to Fairies is "Ellyll," an elf, a demon, a goblin.

This name conveys these beings to the land of spirits, and makes them
resemble the oriental Genii, and Shakespeare's sportive elves. It agrees,
likewise, with the modern popular creed respecting goblins and their
doings.
Davydd ab Gwilym, in a