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. The story was collected by a female correspondent in Glamorganshire, who heard the tale from Davidd Tomos Bowen...
My mother lived in the immediate neighbourhood of a farm-house that was positively infested with fairies. It was one of those old-fashioned houses among the hills, constructed after the manner of ancient days, when farmers considered the safety and comfort of their cattle as much as that of their children and domestics; and the kitchen and cow-house were on the same floor, adjoining each other, with a half door, over which the good man could see the animals from his own chimney-corner without moving.
My mother and the farmer's wife were intimate friends, and she used often to complain to her, that the fairies annoyed her and her family to that degree that they had no peace; that whenever the family dined, or supped, or ate any meal, or were sitting quietly together, these mischievous little beings would assemble in the next apartment. For instance, when they were sitting in the kitchen, they were at high gambols in the dairy; or when they were yoking the cows, they would see the fairies in the kitchen, dancing, and laughing, and provokingly merry.
One day as there were a great number of reapers partaking of a harvest-dinner, which was prepared with great care and nicety by the housewife, when they were all seated round the table, they heard music, and dancing, and laughing above; and a shower of dust fell down, and covered all the victuals which were upon the table. The pudding, in particular, was completely spoiled, and the keen appetites of the party were most provokingly disappointed. Just at this moment of trouble and despair, an old woman entered, who saw the confusion, and heard the whole affair explained.
"Well," said she, in a whisper to the farmer's wife, I'll tell you how to get rid of the fairies; tomorrow morning ask six of the reapers to dinner, and be sure that you let the fairies hear you ask them. Then make no more pudding than will go into an egg-shell, and put it down to boil. It may be a scanty meal for six hungry reapers, but it will be quite sufficient to banish the fairies; and if you follow the directions you will not be troubled with them any more."
She did accordingly, and when the fairies heard that a pudding for six reapers was boiling in an egg-shell, there was a great noise in the next apartment, and an angry voice called out:
"We have lived long in this world; we were born just after the earth was made, but before the acorn was planted, and yet we never saw a harvest-dinner prepared in an egg-shell. Something must be wrong in this house, and we will no longer stop under its roof."
From that time the rioting, and music, and dancing ceased; and the fairies never were seen or heard there any more.
(Croker used an asterisk to note: The absurd circumstance of boiling a supper for six hungry men in an egg-shell will doubtless recall to the reader's memory the tale of the Brewery of Egg-shells, in the first volume of this work ; where a changeling is betrayed into a similar exclamation of astonishment, and instantly disappears.)
Variations on this egg shell dinner story were to be found across Wales. In 1880 Wirt Sike wrote in British Goblins:
A story, told in various forms in Wales, preserves a tradition of an exceedingly frugal meal which was employed as a means of banishing a plentyn-newid. M. Villemarqué, when in Glamorganshire, heard this story, which he found to be precisely the same as a Breton legend, in which the changeling utters a rhymed triad as follows:
Gweliz vi ken guelet iar wenn,
Gweliz mez ken gwelet gwezen.
Gweliz mez ha gweliz gwial,
Gweliz derven e Koat Brezal,
Biskoaz na weliz kemend all.
In the Glamorgan story the changeling was heard muttering to himself in a cracked voice: I have seen the acorn before I saw the oak; I have seen the egg before I saw the white hen; I have never seen the like of this.
M. Villemarque found it remarkable that these words form in Welsh a rhymed triad nearly the same as in the Breton ballad, thus: Gweliz mez ken gwelet derven, Gweliz vi ken gwelet iar wenn, Erioez ne wiliz evelhenn. Whence he concluded that the story and the rhyme are older than the seventh century, the epoch of the separation of the Britons of Wales and Armorica. And this is the story:
A mother whose child had been stolen, and a changeling left in its place, was advised by the Virgin Mary to prepare a meal for ten farm-servants in an egg-shell, which would make the changeling speak. This she did, and the changeling asked what she was about. She told him. Whereupon he exclaimed, 'A meal for ten, dear mother, in one egg-shell?' Then he uttered the exclamation given above, ('I have seen the acorn,' etc.,) and the mother replied, 'You have seen too many things, my son, you shall have a beating.'
With this she fell to beating him, the child fell to bawling, and the fairy came and took him away, leaving the stolen child sleeping sweetly in the cradle. It awoke and said, Ah, mother, I have been a long time asleep!'
Later in Croker's book a second story from Bowen is recounted, this time concerning fairy money:
Davidd Tomos Bowen knew a farmer who was much annoyed by the fairies; they frequented the brook that ran by his house, and so mischievous were they, that their greatest amusement was to take the clay from the bottom of the brook, and make little round balls, the size of marbles, with which they played; but that he never could discover what game it was.
The water used to be so muddy in consequence of this, that the cattle could not drink of the stream; and when he would mutter a complaint against them for such conduct, they would always repeat his expressions with derision, and laugh, and frisk away. A girl in the neighbourhood used to assist them in making these clay-balls, for which, in return, she received quantities of money, and became a very rich woman, and went away to London, where she married a grand gentleman.
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