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Celtic Radio Community > Wales > Welsh Myths And Legends


Posted by: greenldydragon 10-Jul-2004, 01:52 PM
These were found at: http://www.welshdragon.net/index.php?cPath=74
Evan and the Fairy


There was a young man, Evan, of Caernarvonshire who, on long, still summer evenings when the moon shone white and cold in a starlit sky, had an unusual hobby. Better than reading a book in the house, or talking with his friends or walking in the country, he liked to go into the fields to watch the fairies dance, and to hear them sing.

Such gay dances they danced and such sweet songs they sang, this young man often thought he would like to watch and listen to them for ever and ever. Of course, they always danced in fairy rings and they did not always choose the same field, but usually it was some distance away from the house where Evan lived. You can imagine his pleasure, therefore, when one evening he found them dancing in a small green field very near his house, and on this particular evening not only were the dances gayer and the music sweeter than ever, but the fairies who were dancing and singing were the most beautiful Even had ever seen.

Very quietly, so that he should not be seen or heard, Evan crept close to the fairy ring. The fairies danced hand in hand, round and round in the ring, and some of them had hair as gold as buttercups, some of them hair as black as the raven's wing, some of them as brown as the hazel nut and some of them hair as red as the fire flame.

It was then that Evan fell in love; one of the fairies was so beautiful he could not take his eyes off her. Her skin was like cream, her cheeks were flushed like the petal of the wild rose, her hair, paler gold than the buttercup and nearer to the primrose, turned silver when the moon shone on it. Her voice, which Evan heard when she swung past him, was clear and sweet, the notes reaching high up to the sky like a nightingale's, while her small feet skimmed the green grass as gently as the breeze rustles the tall tree tops. Evan knew he would never love anyone else, and he determined to have her for his wife.

Suddenly, when the gaiety of the fairies was at its height, he rushed into the ring, seized the primrose-fairy in his strong arms, dragged her out of the magic circle and began to run as fast as his legs would carry him. Faintly, and very far away, he could hear the dismayed cries of the fairies who were left behind. he did not stop to look round, but ran on until he reached his house. then he carefully placed the fairy in a softly cushioned chair where she sat, curled up, looking at him out of frightened eyes that were as blue as a summer sky.

"Do not be frightened,"said Evan. " I love you, and want you for my wife. Won't you speak to me?"
The fairy shook her head.
"Do you not think you could grow to love me?" went on Evan.
Still the fairy gazed at him without speaking.
"I would do anything to win your love," said Evan. "Won't you please stay here with me?"
Then the fairy spoke, and her voice filled the room with such sweetness that Evan felt quite dizzy.
"No," she said, " I cannot love you for you are a human, and I do not want to stay. I want to return to my own people. Please let me go."
But Evan refused to listen to her pleading; he had never wanted anything as much in his life as he wanted to marry this fairy.

After much argument, she at last agreed to stay as she could see Evan would not let her return to her own people.
"If I stay," she said, " I will not stay as your wife but only as your serving-maid."

Evan was disappointed to hear this, but to have her near him would be better than not having her at all; and perhaps later on he could persuade her to become his wife. He was further disappointed when he heard what the fairy said next.
"And I sahll only stay as your serving maid if you can find out my name," she added.
"Do fairies have special names? asked Evan, "or names like Welsh girls?"
"Find out," said the fairy.
"Dilys, Morfydd, Sian, Blodwen?" guessed Evan.
The fairy chuckled, and shook her head.
"Gywneth, Olwen, Mari, Eluned, Mai?" he guessed, but still the fairy shook her head.
Evan spent the whole evening trying to guess her name, and started again the next morning.
"Ceridwen, Rhiannon, Myfanwy, Ceinwen, Branwen...?"
At every name he suggested the fairy shook her head so that he began to think he was never going to find out what it was. He had to go to market that day so, after a few more tries, he gave up and told the fairy he would guess again when he returned that night.

On his way back from market he happened to see, huddled together on a mossy bank, a group of fairies deep in conversation. he thought he recognised among them one or two of the dancers of the night before.

"Now I wonder," said Evan to himself, "if they are discussing some way of rescuing their sister. Perhaps they will mention her name and then my worries will be over."

There was a ditch running alongside the bank, and into this Evan dropped, creeping along in it until he was under the group of fairies. Without being seen, he managed to overhear their conversation.
" It is a terrible thing that has happened," moaned one of the fairies.
"Terrible, indeed!" said another, whose long black hair streamed down her back almost to her feet.
" Oh, Penelope, Penelope!" sighed a third, "Why did you run away with a mortal man?"
"Penelope," murmured Evan to himself; "so that's her name.
He couldn't get back to the house quickly enough, and when he reached it he flung open the door and saw his fairy still sitting in the chair where he had left her. She smiled at him as he came in.
"Hello Evan," she said, "and do you know my name yet?"
"Yes, Penelope, indeed I do," said Evan triumphantly.
The fairy began to cry, rocking herself to and fro in her unhappiness. When she had finished weeping she dried her eyes and, clasping her hands together, she said:
"Oh, Evan, who revealed my name to you, Who revealed my name?"

Evan told her how he had overheard her sisters talking, and when Penelope heard this she knew she must keep her bargain. In spite of Evan's persuasions, she still refused to marry him. However, there was no woman for miles around who kept a house so clean, bought food so economically and cared for a small farm so well. Everything she did, she did well, and Evan never knew whether or not she wove a fairy spell over the animals, but the cows gave more milk, the hens laid more eggs and the pigs provided better bacon than ever before.

The young man ought to have been the happiest - for he was the fast becoming the wealthiest - man in the neighbourhood. But he knew he would not really be happy until Penelope consented to be his wife.

The months went by until one day, perhaps because she was weary of Evan's pleas or perhaps because she had by now become truly fond of him, Penelope agreed to marry him.

" I shall marry you on one condition," she said, "and that is, should you ever strike me with iron, I shall be allowed to go free and return to the fairy folk."

Evan thought this a strange request, but he agreed readily; he was delighted that Penelope was at last going to marry him.

They were married, and they lived happily together for many years. One summer's day Evan decided to go to Caernarvon Fair. He went into one of his fields to catch a young filly he wanted to sell at the Fair, but this filly was high-spirited and, in spite of his efforts, Evan could not manage to get near enough to her to put on the bridle.

" Penelope, my dear," called out, "will you please come and help me with this filly. I cannot put the bridle on her."

"Coming, Evan," replied Penelope, and she left her children (she and Evan now had a large family) playing in the kitchen. She ran across to the field where the filly was causing Evan so much trouble. With her help, Evan managed to get the horse into a corner and, making carefully towards her, he was about to bridle her when she turned and broke loose again.

Evan, tired now and thoroughly bad tempered, lifted the bridle high in the air and threw it with all his might at the naughty filly. Alas and alack, his aim was bad and, instead of hitting the filly, the bridle hit his wife, the iron part of it striking her on the face. Immediately Penelope vanished. One moment she was there, standing in the field and laughing to see her husband so cross, and the next moment she had gone completely. Poor Evan looked everywhere for her but he could find no trace. He had struck Penelope with iron quite accidentally, and she had returned to her own people as she had said she would do.

Evan never saw her again, but sometimes he would hear her sweet voice outside his window at night, asking him if the children were well, warm and cared for. They always were; Evan loved them dearly as each one of them looked like the lovely fairy wife he had adored. And these children and their children's children were ever afterwards called Pellings after their fairy ancestress Penelope.


Posted by: greenldydragon 10-Jul-2004, 01:53 PM
Merlin

"Your shock, my friend, puzzles me deeply. Were you expecting someone else?"


The girl speaks to you with her feet dangling in a small stream of water cascading along the side of the cave. She seems genuinely friendly, if not a little out of place in her dress of simple, long white
linen and short, plaid cloak. What startles you is the feeling of having met the girl before, though by no solid memories do you recall having ever before trading a few words with the maiden.


"I thought I heard a harp around here, and --"


"-- you were blindly following after it. Don't you know it's unsafe to chase after something you're not familiar with? Especially if it's only a trick of the wind."
There is playful laughter in her silver gray eyes, and you can plainly tell she knows what the source of the eerie music is. She gets up onto her bare feet, stretching towards the sun with a private smile of contentment.

"It wasn't a trick of the wind," you state firmly. "I heard someone playing a harp, and you know the source of it." She laughs then. "My friend, though you have plundered into Dinas Emrys uninvited & unexpected, I have reason to
believe you will be well accepted here. Let me be the first to welcome you, though I'm afraid I lack a traditional welcome cup for you. I am Gwendydd, Ganieda, keeper of the keys to this particular brugh,"


"Brugh?" You ask, puzzled.

"Hollow Hill, dear. Opening to Realms beyond our own. You seem pale, is something ailing you?"


You shake your head. "I had a lapse of...rememberance. I feel as if I've been here before. What is this place, really?" "If you will -- the forgotten place once tread by Myrddin Emrys, the renowned Merlin of Ynys Prydein. We were twins, he and I, though I was shadowed by his greatness. No matter, I'm not
one for much attention...this place was where he came to when times troubled his mind, when Caer Myrddin was not enough to settle his stirring spirit."


"Merlin is a character out of legend -- nothing more," you say.

Gwendydd smiles. "Legends bear truths....believe. There is a world out there awaiting you, hidden by silly, mundane thoughts. See not that cave? Some call it the Crystal Cave, where Myrddin was imprisoned by Nimue."


"Was Nimue not his love?"


"Not the first, no. There was Gwendolyn before. They were to marry, but she...she left Myrddin during the Battle of Arfderydd. Her brother, Lord Gwenddolau, lord of Myrddin, was killed in battle, along with my three younger brothers. Oh, they were glorious sons, and my mother, Aldan, was proud....she passed away when Myrddin and I passed our ninth winter. Gwendolyn shared Gwenddolau's battle secrets with Rhydderch. I will not say the lord isn't generous and good, but in the end, he was the one who left the battlefield with victory in his hand. And my brothers were dead, save Myrddin.
Have I rambled too much?"


You shake your head. "No, I am intrigued. Please, go on."


"Very well, though I'm afraid once I start I will not cease...... thus Myrddin went mad after the battle. He fled into the Celyddon Forest where he abided in the woods, accompanied by a small pig. The Scots called him the Madman of the Woods, and it was only upon hearing him called Lailoken the Prophet, did I know it was my own twin. For Lailoken means twin." "And you sought him out? Was he mad still?"

She alughs easily. "Quite mad he was, and yet more seeing than others. I pleaded and bargained with him to return to civilized life, but he was rather firm in staying in his woods forever. Whereupon my companions, soldiers under Rhydderch who had pitied me, tried to cease the mad prophet by force. They succeeded
only in loosing him accidently into the river, much to my distress and anger. But what do you know....they say water cleanses illness and when he emerged from the blue, Lailoken seem free of madness. He most courteously agreed to return to Caer Myrddin of Gwynedd."


"And everything turned out fine?"


"Not exactly...a few incidents hindered our progress. Why, we were passing through the market and should Myrddin but laugh at the sight of a youth buying shoes! Embarassing, and when we
inquired him about it, he clearly stated that the boy would die the next day and would never where the shoes he had spent his money on. Another I remember took place under the very roof of Rhydderch. Rhydderch was convinced that Myrddin was insane and no prophet. Thus he garbed himself in a different costume for three days ina row, and each day asked Myrddin this question: 'How will the son of Rhydderch die?' And Myrddin answered: 'He shall die falling. He shall be hanged.
He shall drown.' So Rhydderch declared that Myrddin was truly no prophet, for no man can die three times. And one day...his son fell from his horse while hunting, fell down a hill and was hanged
on the trees, and when the branches broke tumbled unto a river and finally died. Myrddin had been right."

"That was fascinating. Tell me more....I have heard Merlin was the son of the devil."

"If you may call Morfryn Lord of Dyved the devil, then I suppose you speak truth. But he was not much of a father, it was Bleise the Arch Druid who cared for Aldan's children when their father was not there. Bleise was kind to us, and it was he who taught Myrddin to become a Druid<, and second to Taliesin as the greatest bard." "A bard?.....Then was it Merlin's music that I heard?"


She shrugs, a twinkle in her eye. "Perhaps so. But I'll not tell. Myrddin Wylt, Merlin the Wild, later retreated to the Cymru hills,
his land of birth. The place is dear to his heart. King Vortigern though, required a sacrifice, after his false druids proclaimed only the blood of a man with no mortal father could satisfy the unrestful
spirits whivh kept knocking down a tower the King was trying to erect.
Myrddin was taken to the site, where he announced it was not spirits, but dragons. A white and red, symbolizing the fighting between Vortigern and the brothers Uther and Aurelius."


"That was a mouthful. But I have a question. Would he not be somewhat old by the time this all passes?"


"Ah, Myrddin ap Morfryn and I.....we are blessed with a youth. Our mother was a Gwragedd Annwn, daughters of the Lady of the Lake. Why do you think the Lady smiled upon Myrddin so? Nimue was also a Gwragedd Annwn."

"And then what became of him?"


"Myrddin, now known as Emrys, became friends with Aurelius. When he died, he befriended Uther. He aided Uther in bedding with the Duke of Cornwall's wife, Ygerna. And Arthur was begotten."


"What does this 'brugh' have anything to do with Merlin?"


"This was where Vortigern attempted to build his tower. This was where Merlin taught Arthur to become a benevolent king. This was where Nimue left him."



"Yes, tell me of Nimue."

"Nimue was a sweet girl. She did love Merlin. It was to set him free from the pains of his life that she built for him a 'crystal cave' beneath the Hollow Hill, meant to be a retreat. But he took with him the Thirteen Treasures of Britain, and it was this act that sealed the cave away from the mortal world, in protection of the Treasures. When the time is right, the doorway will open once again."


You shake your head in confusement. This is all too much to consume. I came here to find the source of harp music, nothing more, and I am lectured on Merlin." Gwendydd laughs, and suddenly takes off into the cave yelling:
"I did not mention that Nimue bore the two twins, children of Merlin: Inogen a girl, and Bran a boy."


"What does this have to do with me?"


"Why else would Merlin call you here with his song?
Believe, dear.....believe and return.....again......"

Posted by: greenldydragon 10-Jul-2004, 01:54 PM
The Changeling of Llanfabon


In the parish of Llanfabon there was a farmhouse called ?Berth Gron? in which there lived a widow woman and her three year old son, Pryderi. Pryderi was all the woman had and she loved and cherished him dearly. The parish was well known as a favourite haunt of fairies and the widow woman had heard many a tale of babies having been snatched, never to be heard of again. Mindful of these stories, she kept her son very close to her as she could not imagine a life without him. One morning, while preparing the boy?s breakfast, the widow heard a commotion in the farmyard. The cattle were lowing in the byre and the widow rushed out of the house to see what could be the matter. When she reached the byre she saw nothing but the cattle contentedly chewing the cud. Immediately, the widow woman grew afraid for Pryderi and ran back to the house as fast as she could. Throwing open the door, she ran to where the child was sleeping and looked into his crib. ? My son,? she cried ?you look like my dear, sweet Pryderi but yet you are somehow different. I fear it is not really you I see before me?. Awakened, the child replied ?of course it is I mother, who else could it be?? Unconvinced, the widow decided to seek counsel from the wise man who lived at Castell-y-Nos and was renowned as being a sage and knowledgeable of ?other-world? matters. The widow told the sage of her concerns to which he replied ? Fear not widow, heed my advice to the letter and all will be well. At midday tomorrow take an eggshell and prepare to brew ale within it to give to the harvestmen. When the child questions your actions, as he is bound to do, make note of his exact words. Come to me in two days and relay his words to me?. The widow returned home and set about doing as she was bid by the sage. She went to the barn and took a freshly laid egg, broke it and commenced to brew beer in it?s shell, whereupon the child enquired as to her actions. ?Why I am brewing beer in this eggshell for the harvestmen? she replied, whereupon she heard the child say: I am very old this day, I was living before my birth, I remember yonder oak, An acorn in the earth, but never saw the egg of a hen, brewing beer for harvestmen. The widow noted the child?s exact words and reported them to the sage at the time specified. The sage told the woman, ?four eves from tonight the moon will be full. At the nights high noon you must go to where the four roads meet at the ford of the bell. Hide yourself there and do not reveal your presence, no matter what occurs. Then return to me and report what you witnessed?. The widow did as she was instructed and hid within the bushes. Before long she spied a train of fairies and there in their midst, her own dear son. Though she was tempted to call out to Pryderi, she recalled the sages instructions not to reveal herself. The next morning the widow sought the counsel of the sage once more. ?It is as I anticipated? he told her. ?Find a hen, black as night and with not one single white feather. Close and secure every window and door of your cottage blocking every aperture except the chimney which you are to leave open. Make a fire within the hearth and over it you must bake the hen. Watch her closely until the last of her feathers fall but do not cast your eyes upon the boy?. The widow went home, puzzled by the strange instructions but as the sage had given her good counsel until now, she did as she was instructed. Watching the hen, the widow heard the child cry out to her time and time again and yet she never diverted her eyes from the hen. All of a sudden, she fell into a swoon and when she recovered she could see the hen?s feathers strewn about the floor. Hearing her child calling ?mother? from outside the cottage. Rushing out she saw a child and at once knew that it was indeed Pryderi, returned to her. The widow showered the boy with hugs and kisses and loved him dearly and it was with love that they spent the rest of their days.

These are just some of my favorite myths.

Posted by: greenldydragon 21-Jul-2004, 11:00 AM
Hu Gardan and the Legend of the River Conwy Afanc


Hu Gardan and the Legend of the River Conwy Afanc
The Afanc is a gigantic monster that lives in Llyn-yr-Afanc (The Afanc Pool) in the River Conwy. He?s so strong that when he?s in a bad mood, he breaks the banks of the pool, causing floods that bring disaster to the people of the Vale of Conwy. Crops are ruined, cattle are drowned and houses swamped with water. Something must be done to stop the Afanc but he seems to be indestructible. The young men of the Vale attack the beast with every weapon available to them - spears, arrows and swords - but no man-made weapon can harm him.
The old men of the Vale hold a meeting and decide that if force won?t work, the Afanc must be enticed out of his pool somehow and taken to a lake far away beyond the mountains. They start preparations straight away: strong iron chains are forged, and they send for Hu Gardan and his two long-horned oxen - the strongest oxen in Wales - to come to Betws-y-coed. The Afanc is very partial to beautiful young women, and a brave girl volunteers to coax the monster out of the water. Finally, they choose the lake that?s to be the Afanc?s new home - Llyn Ffynon Las (Glaslyn) in the shadow of Snowdon - and their plan is complete.

Hu Gardan, his oxen and a band of men with the chains hide themselves in the trees near the Afanc?s pool. The girl sits by the water?s edge and calls to the monster. He comes out of the water and, laying his head on the girl?s lap, goes to sleep with one clawed hand on her breast. The Afanc is bound with the chains while he sleeps and the chains are attached to the oxen. When he wakes, furious because he?s been tricked, he tears off the girl?s breast with his claw and dives back into the water.

Slowly, the Afanc is dragged out of the water, but it takes the strength of Hu Gardan?s oxen and every man there to pull him onto the bank. They drag him up the Lledr valley to Dolwyddelan, then north-west over Moel Siabod to the head of the Gwynant valley. On the way one of the oxen loses an eye ? it pops out with the strain of pulling and the tears it sheds form Pwll Llygad yr Ych, (Pool of the Ox?s Eye). But the hardest bit is yet to come - finally, the oxen pull the Afanc up to into Cwm Dyli, past Llyn Llydaw to Llyn Ffynnon Las, (Lake of the Blue Fountain).

There the men loosen the Afanc?s chains and he plunges straight into the deep blue water. Unable to break its rocky banks he can never escape.



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