From Thomas Crofton Croker's 'Fairy Legends of Wales', included in his third volume of Fairy Legends and Traditions of the South of Ireland, first published in 1828. These stories wwere collected by a female correspondent in Glamorganshire, who heard the tales from the former landlord of the then deceased Morgan Rhys Harris...
The last time the fairies were seen among the hills in the vicinity of Neath was about ten years since, by Morgan Rhys Harris, an old man, who related the following account of it to his landlord, a very respectable farmer, who lives about seven miles from Aberpergwm, and who has now repeated it exactly as it was told to him. He says, the old man told it with such an appearance of truth, and that he was always so correct in every thing he said, that for his part he does not doubt the truth of his narration:
"Morgan Rhys Harris rented two farms; the one he lived at, and the other he held inland, and farmed himself. In old times the farmers had kilns close by their houses, to bake their oats and their barley; and the house I am speaking of had this appendage. Morgan Rhys Harris was going down a hill, which led to the farm, when he heard the most delightful music. He stopped, and still he heard this music; he advanced, and he heard it plainer still.
At a little distance before him, in the direct path which he had to cross, and near the kiln, he saw numberless little beings all dancing. Various were the figures and changes of the dance; some advancing, others retreating, and others as if they were dancing reels. The old man paused, and hesitated whether he should return, or what course he should pursue; he feared to pass them, lest he should put his foot on fairy ground, and lose possession of himself; so he made a circuit, and reached the barn near the kiln. There he sheltered himself inside the door, and from this place he watched their movements for an hour.
He distinctly saw them; and he learned the tune which they played, and would have taught it to me, if I had had an ear for music. This old man only died two years ago. I wish you had seen him, for he really was one who spoke the truth, and you might have relied on every word he said."
An old woman in the neighbourhood of Aberpergwm also states, that her father often saw the fairies on horseback in the air, on little white horses; but that he never saw them descend; that he heard their music in the air; and that she heard of a man who had been twenty-five years with the fairies, and who, when he returned, thought he had only been five minutes away.
She added, that those who have once been with the fairies never looked afterwards like other people; and that her own son, when a baby, looked so sadly, that her neighbours all thought, and used to tell her, that he was exchanged by the fairies.
0 comments:
Post a Comment