FAIRY LADIES MARRYING MORTALS

In the mythology of the Greeks, and other nations, gods and goddesses are spoken of as falling in love with human beings, and many an ancient genealogy began with a celestial ancestor.  Much the same thing is said of the Fairies.  Tradition speaks of them as being enamoured of the inhabitants of this earth, and content, for a while, to be wedded to mortals.  And there are families in Wales who are said to have Fairy blood coursing through their veins, but they are, or were, not so highly esteemed as were the offspring of the gods among the Greeks.  The famous physicians of Myddfai, who owed their talent and supposed supernatural knowledge to their Fairy origin, are, however, an exception; for their renown, notwithstanding their parentage, was always great, and increased in greatness, as the rolling years removed them from their traditionary parent, the Fairy lady of the Van Pool.

The “Pellings” are said to have sprung from a Fairy Mother, and the author of “Observations on the Snowdon Mountains” states that the best blood in his veins is fairy blood.  There are in some parts of Wales reputed descendants on the female side of the “Gwylliaid Cochion” race; and there are other families among us whom the aged of fifty years ago, with an ominous shake of the head, would say were of Fairy extraction. We are not, therefore, in Wales void of families of doubtful parentage or origin. Read more

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