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.  These 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.  Read More