Category: Welsh Fairies

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When Witches Communed With Fairies

Our modern conventions tend to view the realms of fairies and witches separately. Witches have been viewed as evil, while fairies are seen as benevolent, cute, and kind. As scholars reevaluate witch trials and the confessions of those accused, we are coming to new conclusions on accused witches.

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The Undreamed Region: Barrows In Folklore & Archaeology

Hills, mounds and burial sites. Places which have a timeless allure. Such places can be seen and regarded as mythically liminal, a place that it is not a place. A place outside of time. A place where the living freely walk with the dead. Barrows are just such places.

Llyn Ebyr

Edwin Sidney Hartland gives the following tale about how a mother retrieved her twin children after they had been replaced by fairy changelings in his ‘The Science of Fairy Tales’ (1891)’ ‘Water’s antagonism to witches is notorious; and ample use was made of it in the old witch trials.

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Fairy Bride Of Beddgelert

In ‘The Science of Fairy Tales’ (1891), Edwin Sidney Hartland mentions the following story from Beddgelert where a stolen fairy lady ‘would only consent to be the servant of her ravisher if he could find out her name.

‘The Baby of Y Dolydd’

Y Dolydd is a long vacated, derelict cottage with an interesting Tylwyth Teg (Welsh Fairy) legend associated with it. Many years ago the cottage was the residence to a poor young widow, who one day encountered a charismatic Tylwyth Teg who asked her to bring up a child for him. The widow agreed to this, and several days later she found a beautiful baby boy on her doorstep.

Llyn Cowlyd

On the edge of the Carneddau range of mountains in Snowdonia lays the deepest lake in North Wales, Llyn Cowlyd. The lake has been dammed so it is unnaturally deep, but it has given soundings of 229 feet, and has a mean depth of 109 feet. The lake is almost 2 miles long, and a third of a mile wide, with the adjacent hills dropping steeply to the lakes edges.

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Changelings

Changelings are part of Western Folklore, a child of a fairy type (Elf, Troll etc) which has been secretly swapped for a human baby and left in its place. George Waldron gave the following description of one he saw in the Isle of Man and it was subsequently reprinted in ‘The Science of Fairy Tales’ (1891) by Edwin Sidney Hartland.

Wild Edric’s Wife

In ‘The Science of Fairy Tales’ (1891), Edwin Sidney Hartland recounts the following tale told by the medieval writer Walter Map (Born 1140- Died c. 1208–1210). ‘Wild Edric*, of whose historic reality as one of the English rebels against William the Conqueror there is ample proof.