in boats made of the bark of the rowan-tree 1, or else birch, and they came into the house to pay their rent for trampling the ground around the place. They always placed a piece of money under a pitcher, and the result was that the family living there became remarkably rich. But somehow, after the lapse of many years, the owner of the place offended them, by showing disrespect for their diminutive family: soon the world began to go against him, and it was not long before he got low in life. Everything turned against him, and in times past everybody believed that he incurred all this because he had earned the displeasure of the fair family.'

In the Brython for the year 1862, p. 456, in the course of an essay on the history of the Lordship of Mawdwy in Merioneth, considered the best in a competition at an Eistedfod held at Dinas Mawdwy, August 2, 1855, Glasynys gives the following bit about the fairies of that neighbourhood:-'The side of Aran Fawdwy is a great place for the fair family: they are ever at it playing their games on the hillsides about this spot. It is said that they are numberless likewise about Bwlch y Groes. Once a boy crossed over near the approach of night, one summer eve, from the Gadfa to Mawdwy, and on his return he saw near Aber Rhiwlech a swarm of the little family dancing away full pelt. The boy began to run, with two of the maidens in pursuit of him, entreating him to stay; but Robin, for that was his name, kept running, and the two elves failed altogether to catch him, otherwise he would have been taken a prisoner of love. There are plenty of their dancing-rings to be seen on the hillsides between Aber Rhiwlech and Bwlch y Groes.'

1 This, I should say, must be a mistake, as it contradicts all the folklore which makes the rowan an object of dread to the fairies.

Here I would introduce two other Merionethshire tales, which I have received from Mr. E. S. Roberts, master of the ILandysilio School, near ILangotten. He has learnt them from one Abel Evans, who lives at present in the parish of ILandysilio: he is a native of the parish of ILandriffo on the slopes of the Berwyn, and of a glen in the same, known as Cwm Pennant, so called from its being drained by the Pennant on its way to join the Dee. Now Cwm Pennant was the resort of fairies, or of a certain family of them, and the occurrence, related in the following tale, must have taken place no less than seventy years ago: it was well known to the late Mrs. Ellen Edwards of ILandritto:

Ryw diwrnod aeth dau gyfaitt i hela dwfrgwn ar hyd lannau afon Pennant, a thra yn cyfeirio eu camrau tuagat yr afon gwelsant ryw greadur bychan tiwgoch yn rhedeg yn gyflym iawn ar draws un o'r dolyd yn nghyfeiriad yr afon. Ymaeth a nhw ar ei ol. Gwelsant ei fod wedi myned oditan wraid coeden yn ochr yr afon i ymgudio. Yr oed y dau dyn yn meddwl mae dwfrgi ydoed, ond ar yr un pryd yn methu a dealt paham yr ymdanghosai i'w tygaid yn tiwgoch. Yr oedynt yn dymuno ei dal yn fyw, ac ymaith yr aeth un o honynt i ffarmdy gerttaw i ofyn am sach, yr hon a gafwyd, er mwyn rhoi y creadur yndi. Yr oed yno dau dwtt o tan wraid y pren, a thra daliai un y sach yn agored ar un twtt yr oed y ttatt yn hwthio ffon i'r twtt aratt, ac yn y man aeth y creadur i'r sach. Yr oed y đau đyn yn medwl eu bod wedi dal dwfrgi, yr hyn a ystyrient yn orchest nid bychan. Cychwynasant gartref yn llawen ond cyn eu myned hyd tted cae, tefarod tetywr y sach mewn ton drist gan dywedyd—'Y mae fy mam yn galw am danaf, O, mae fy mam yn galw am danaf, yr hyn a rođod fraw mawr i'r đau heliwr, ac yn y man taflasant

y sach i lawr, a mawr oed eu rhyfedod a'u dychryn pan welsant dyn bach mewn gwisg goch yn rhedeg o'r sach tuagat yr afon. Fe a diflannod o'i golwg yn mysg y drysni ar fin yr afon. Yr oed y dau wedi eu brawychu yn dirfawr ac yn teimlo mae doethach oed myned gartref yn hytrach nag ymyrraeth yn mhettach a'r Tylwyth Teg.

'One day, two friends went to hunt otters on the banks of the Pennant, and when they were directing their steps towards the river, they beheld some small creature of a red colour running fast across the meadows in the direction of the river. Off they ran after it, and saw that it went beneath the roots of a tree on the brink of the river to hide itself. The two men thought it was an otter, but, at the same time, they could not understand why it seemed to them to be of a red colour. They wished to take it alive, and off one of them went to a farm house that was not far away to ask for a sack, which he got, to put the creature into it. Now there were two holes under the roots of the tree, and while one held the sack with its mouth open over one of them, the other pushed his stick into the other hole, and presently the creature went into the sack. The two men thought they had caught an otter, which they looked upon as no small feat. They set out for home, but before they had proceeded the width of one field, the inmate of the sack spoke to them in a sad voice, and said, "My mother is calling for me; oh, my mother is calling for me!" This gave the two hunters a great fright, so that they at once threw down the sack; and great was their surprise to see a little man in a red dress running out of the sack towards the river. He disappeared from their sight in the bushes by the river. The two men were greatly terrified, and felt that it was more prudent to go home than meddle any further with the fair family.' So far as I know,

this story stands alone in Welsh folklore; but it has an exact parallel in Lancashire1.

The other story, which I now reproduce, was obtained by Mr. Roberts from the same Abel Evans. He learnt it from Mrs. Ellen Edwards, and it refers to a point in her lifetime, which Abel Evans fixes at ninety years ago. Mr. Roberts has not succeeded in recovering the name of the cottager of whom it speaks; but he lived on the side of the Berwyn, above Cwm Pennant, where till lately a cottage used to stand, near which the fairies had one of their resorts :

Yr oed perchen y bwthyn wedi amaethu rhyw ran fychan o'r mynyd ger tlaw y ty er mwyn plannu pytatws yndo. Fetty y gwnaeth. Mewn coeden yn agos i'r fan canfydod nyth bran. Fe fedyliod mae doeth fuasai ido· dryttio y nyth cyn amlhau o'r brain. Fe a esgynnođ y goeden ac a dryttiod y nyth, ac wedi disgyn i lawr canfydod gylch glas (fairy ring) odiamgylch y pren, ac ar y cylch fe welod hanner coron er ei fawr lawenyd. Wrth fyned heibio yr un fan y boreu canlynol fe gafod hanner coron yn yr un man ag y cafod y dydd o'r blaen. Hynna fu am amryw dydiau. Un diwrnod dywedod wrth gyfaill am ei hap da a dangosod y fan a'r te y cawsai yr hanner coron bob boreu. Wel y boreu canlynol nid oed yno na hanner coron na dim aratt ido, oherwyd yr oed wedi torri rheolau y Tylwythion trwy wneud eu haelioni yn hysbys. Y mae y Tylwythion o'r farn na dylai y tlaw aswy wybod yr hyn a wna y tlaw dehau.

'The occupier of the cottage had tilled a small portion of the mountain side near his home in order to plant potatoes, which he did. He observed that there was a rook's nest on a tree which was not far from this spot, and it struck him that it would be prudent to break 1 See Choice Notes from Notes and Queries' (London, 1859), p. 147.

the nest before the rooks multiplied. So he climbed the tree and broke the nest, and, after coming down, he noticed a green circle (a fairy ring) round the tree, and on this circle he espied, to his great joy, half a crown. As he went by the same spot the following morning, he found another half a crown in the same place as before. So it happened for several days; but one day he told a friend of his good luck, and showed him the spot where he found half a crown every morning. Now the next morning there was for him neither half a crown nor anything else, because he had broken the rule of the fair folks by making their liberality known, they being of opinion that the left hand should not know what the right hand does.'

So runs this short tale, which the old lady, Mrs. Edwards, and the people of the neighbourhood explained as an instance of the gratitude of the fairies to a man who had rendered them a service, which in this case was supposed to have consisted in ridding them of the rooks, that disturbed their merry-makings in the green ring beneath the branches of the tree.

VII.

It would be unpardonable to pass away from Merioneth without alluding to the stray cow of ILyn Barfog. The story appears in Welsh in the Brython for 1860, pp. 1834, but the contributor, who closely imitates Glasynys' style, says that he got his materials from a paper by the late Mr. Pughe of Aberdovey, by which he seems to have meant an article contributed by the latter to the Archæologia Cambrensis, and published in the volume. for 1853, pp. 201-5. Mr. Pughe dwells in that article a good deal on the scenery of the corner of Merioneth in the rear of Aberdovey; but the chief thing in his