Illustrated Welsh Folk Tales for Young and Old, page 1
First published 2023
The History Press
97 St George’s Place, Cheltenham,
Gloucestershire, GL50 3QB
www.thehistorypress.co.uk
© Peter Stevenson, 2023
The right of Peter Stevenson to be identified as the Author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without the permission in writing from the Publishers.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data.
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
ISBN 978 1 80399 400 0
Typesetting and origination by The History Press.
Printed in Turkey by Imak.
eBook converted by Geethik Technologies
To Valériane Leblond,
for all the breakfasts
at Medina
Storytelling
The Land Beneath the Sea
Mermaids
Afanc
The Fairy Cow
Cofiwch Dryweryn
The Red Lady
The Little Red Man
The House with the Front Door at the Back
Siani Chickens
Beti’s Love Potions
Sgilti the Fiddler
Shemi the Fibber
Jemima Fawr
The Boy Who Wore a Frock
The Old Toad
Jac-y-do
Swan Girl
The Green Man
The Horse That Pooped Gold
Wild Pony
Ceffyl Dŵr
Donkey’s Ears
Mari Lwyd
The Red Bandits
Arthur
The Faithful Hound
The Girl and the Hare
The Lady of Ogmore
The Corpse Bride
Bag o’ Bones
The Coal Giant
The Ferny Man
Moon Girl
Cadwaladr and the Goats
Devil’s Bridge
The Elephant of Tregaron
The Tale of Taliesin
Red Dragon
Make a Crankie
Folk Tales
Soryteller is storïwr in Welsh. The old word is cyfarwydd. And the stories in this book are the folk tales I love to tell. It’s a sneaky peek into a storyteller’s repertoire in the 2020s. You’ll meet the rowdy mermaids of Cardigan Bay, the hidden lands below the sea, an ancient tree with a door into the otherworld, an old woman who makes love potions and mischief, the wise old toad who lives in a bog and knows everything, a clever girl who transforms into a swan, a green man who lives in no one’s land, the enchantress who swallows a poet, a herd of fairy cattle who live beneath a lake, a boy who wears a frock to stop a castle being built, and an elephant who may or may not have died in Tregaron.
Many of these stories are old. Much older than me or your granny. Some are ancient. They were told by storytellers long ago, mostly in Welsh, some in Welsh Romany, others in English, and maybe in Polish, Somali, Swahili, Māori and Norwegian, for people have migrated to Wales from all over the world and brought their stories with them.
Folk tales are memories of real events mixed with dreams, then transformed by the imaginations of storytellers in a moment of telling. Siani Chickens, the woman in the illustration on the previous page, lived on the beach at Cei Bach over 100 years ago (see page 47). Beti Grwca is a character from a story, who may or may not have once been real (see page 51). That’s why asking, ‘Are folk tales true?’ is not the right question.
The stories of Siani and Beti were told by Myra Evans, who heard them from her family and the old sea captains of Cei Newydd. Myra filled sketchbooks with drawings of the characters in the stories and the people who told them. She was a visual storyteller.
I began painting the illustrations in this book on Ynys Enlli, Bardsey Island, in May 2022, though I had already sketched many of the characters. The two sketches of Siani and Beti on this page were painted long before I first told their stories, because I like to describe pictures rather than remember words. This is visual storytelling.
And sometimes I show the sketches while I’m telling the stories, as if the pictures have leapt off the page of a book. I also make crankies – long, painted scrolls that move inside a big wooden box when you turn a handle, like a storyboard for an animated film. Turn to page 171 to make your own mini-crankie.
To tell one of these stories, first read it out loud. Then close your eyes and try to repeat it. There’s no need to memorise it unless you want to. Think of a story as a fence where the posts are the main events in the narrative that never change. The rest of the words are like the chicken wire in between that wobbles in the wind. Then all you need is a friend to tell your story to.
You may be holding a book in your hands, but these stories only come alive for a moment when a storïwr tells them. They are about transformation in ourselves and our weird world, our friendships and hopes, fears of rising sea levels and scary sounds at night. Just ask those Welsh mountains. They have lived longer than we have. They have listened to birdsong and the sound of rivers and sea. They have heard these tales before.
Next time you’re sitting on the beach looking across Cardigan Bay and trying to stop the gulls eating your chips, think about this. All that sea between Wales and Ireland was once rivers, lakes, forests and swamps where herds of deer and mammoth roamed. When the weather warmed, the ice in the mountains melted, the valleys flooded and dolphins and mermaids moved in.
The land was Maes Gwyddno, named after a mighty warrior, Gwyddno Garanhir. Though perhaps it should have been called Mererid, after his clever daughter who kept the floodwater at bay by opening and closing the sluice gates to control the amount of seawater flowing onto the land. She was the lady of the sea defences.
One evening, Mererid was gazing at the night sky and wondering whether the stars were exploding planets or the eyes of gods, while her father and another mighty warrior, Seithenyn, were partying in celebration of their latest victory in battle over their many enemies.
Seithenyn invited Mererid to join the party.
‘No thanks, I prefer dolphins to hairy men with swords.’
A storm gathered out to sea. Mererid hurried to close the sluice gates, but the sea rushed in and Gwyddno’s land was taken by a great flood, just as he had taken it in battle. In time, the land beneath the sea became a memory of rising sea levels and melting ice and was named Cantre’r Gwaelod.
There was another fabled land in Cardigan Bay, where the people cared for the forests, rivers and animals, and if they felled a tree or caught a fish, they always left an offering of food in exchange.
This was the land of Plant Rhys Ddwfn, the Children of Rhys the Deep. Not deep as in below the water. Rhys was a thinker, a philosopher, and he planted a hedge of herbs to hide his land from our ancestors’ eyes. Only if someone stood on the one patch of herbs that grew on the coast would they see Rhys’s world, but no one knew where that patch of herbs was, so all they ever saw was rain.
Rhys’s children had children of their own and their children had children too. Their numbers grew, they felled more trees to build wooden homes and soon there wasn’t enough land to grow food, so they cleared more forests. They made quilts and iron cauldrons, and built boats so they could visit the market in Aberteifi to sell their crafts and raise money to buy corn to make flour to bake bread. They traded with a man called Gruffydd ap Einion, a kind man who dreamed of a better world, and whose corn was fresh and prices fair.
One day, Rhys’s children took Gruffydd to the patch of herbs on the coast, where he saw a land rich beyond his dreams, with all the wisdom of the world kept safely in forests and books. In his excitement, he stepped away from the herbs and never saw Rhys’s land again, though he never forgot his dreams of a better world, and traded with his friends all his life.
Rhys’s dreamworld is still there, hidden behind the mist and the stories of Gwyddno’s land and Mererid’s sea defences. And if you look hard enough, you might see it. Next time you’re on the little train on the Cambrian Line as it trundles along the coast, look through the window, beyond your reflection and out to sea, and you may see Rhys’s beautiful land in your mind, like Gruffydd did many years ago. For the sea keeps no secrets.
Oh, and Plant Rhys Ddwfn, in west Wales, is a colloquial name for those who lived here before.
The hidden people.
Y tylwyth teg.
The fairies.
Môrferch and her sisters have lived in Cardigan Bay ever since the mammoths left. They’ve been spotted near Aberteifi, Abergwaun, Aberystwyth, Aberbach and lots from Llanina alone. Yet most people don’t think they’ve seen one, perhaps because the environmental services mistake them for dolphins and seals – and recently, a walrus.
Back in the Old Welsh Dreamtime, three brothers lived in a yellow, lime-washed farmhouse at the end of the Old Welsh Tramping Road on the shores of Cardigan Bay. Eldest Brother farmed the land and had honey on his bread, Middle Brother sailed the sea and had sugar in his porridge, while Little Brother wandered the Tramping Road playing tunes on his fiddle in exchange for beans on toast.
The two elder brothers were tired of doing all the work while Little Brother dreamed the days away, so they gave him a small, enchanted pig and told him to sell it to raise money to buy salt and beer. ‘And don’t swap it for magic beans or anything that makes wishes come true. Remember what happened last time.’
So Little Brother set off along the Old Welsh Tramping Road with a tune on his lips, fiddle on his back and an enchanted pig on a rope. He walked until he came to a deep, dark wood and a crooked house with a red door, and there stood a woman with a thousand wrinkles round her eyes.
‘Would you like to buy an enchanted pig?’ asked Little Brother.
The woman pulled on the one grey hair in the middle of her chin, ‘Mmm! I’d like a little roast pork! I’ll swap my enchanted handmill for your pig. It will make your wildest wishes come true.’
The pig hid behind Little Brother’s legs.
Little Brother remembered what Eldest Brother had said: ‘Don’t swap it for anything that makes wishes come true,’ but he couldn’t resist a magic handmill, and the last thing he heard as the red door closed behind him was the squealing of a pig.
Oh, don’t worry.
This is a fairy tale.
You can be the storyteller – maybe the pig ran up the chimney, slid down the roof, built a house of bricks, chased off a big, bad wolf and lived happily ever after?
Little Brother walked back along the Old Welsh Tramping Road, tune on his lips, fiddle on his back and an enchanted handmill under his arm. As he came to the shores of Cardigan Bay, he decided he’d like a home of his own.
‘Little mill, little mill, grind me a handsome house,
Little mill, little mill, grind it without a mouse.’
The handmill began to grind and, in the blink of an eye, there stood a pink-washed longhouse filled with honey, beans and porridge.
Eldest Brother knocked on the door, ‘Little Brother, where did this house come from? Last time I saw you, you were as poor as a church mouse. Did you sell the pig?’
‘Sort of. I swapped it for an enchanted handmill.’
Eldest Brother took the handmill to his lime-washed farmhouse, placed it on the table, and made a wish.
‘Little mill, little mill, grind me beer and women.
Oh, and a little fish for my tea.’ (Eldest Brother was a rubbish poet.)
The handmill began to grind, and the kitchen filled with beer and women with fish tails, the door burst open and a river of beer poured down into Cardigan Bay, where Eldest Brother drowned with a mermaid on either arm.
At that moment, Middle Brother returned to Cardigan Bay in his red-masted ship laden with a cargo of salt, and he found himself surrounded by mermaids singing rowdy sea shanties, inviting his crew to remove their trousers and leap into the beery water. Most of them did, but Middle Brother anchored the ship, went ashore and knocked on the door of the pink-washed longhouse.
‘Little Brother, when I last saw you, you were as poor as a cabin boy. And where have all these mermaids come from?’
Little brother told him about the handmill, which was still grinding out beer and mermaids. Middle Brother took the handmill to his ship.
‘Little mill, little mill, grind me salty salt.
Little mill, little mill, grind it without a fault.’
The handmill began to grind and the deck filled with salt, until the ship creaked under the weight, broke in two and sank to the bottom of the beery, salty sea, where Middle Brother, too, drowned with a mermaid on either arm.
And the handmill is still grinding on the deck of the sunken ship, and that’s why swimming in Cardigan Bay is like frolicking with beery, salty mermaids.
When Wales was wilder than it is now, a monstrous Afanc crawled out of a pool on the Conwy River, tore down trees, built dams, destroyed crops and flooded the land. It was a wild and hairy creature with a scaly tail and huge yellow teeth, and the people wanted rid of it. They needed a Hero.
Enter Huw Gadarn, Huw the Mighty, who arrived in Conwy riding his plough pulled by two long-horned oxen, the Ychen Bannog, the children of the Spotted Cow. Huw could tame wild and hairy creatures. He had turned wild boar into pigs, red jungle fowl into chickens and longhorn cattle into Welsh Blacks. He was the first Welsh Farmer. And he wore wellies.
Huw spoke, ‘Ffrindiau! Friends! I need a volunteer to be the bait to trap the Afanc.’
The people pulled their hoods over their heads and mumbled something about it being past their bedtime or having to wash their hair.
‘You!’ said Huw, pointing at a girl who sat quietly reading a book beneath a crack willow that overhung the river.
‘Why do I have to be bait?’ she asked.
‘The Afanc will be attracted to you,’ said Huw the Mighty, ‘Then I will leap out, slay the wild and hairy monster, and save the day. It’s what I do.’
‘The Afanc isn’t a monster. Leave it alone. It’s cute,’ and the girl went back to her book while Huw kept watch.
At twilight, the pool began bubbling and out crawled the Afanc, dripping with pondweed, thrashing its scaly tail and gnashing its yellow teeth. It stared into the girl’s eyes, she held out her arm, it sniffed her hand, she stroked its fur and it laid its head on the book in her lap.
‘Don’t worry,’ she said, ‘No one’s going to hurt you.’
In that moment of tenderness, mighty Huw leapt out from behind a tree and posed like a teapot.
Huw chained the Afanc, tied it to his plough and ordered the Ychen Bannog to drag it away. The Afanc whimpered and tried to hold on to the girl, but the horned cattle hauled it down the Conwy Valley and through Bwlch Rhiw’r Ychen, the Pass of the Oxen. The strain was so great on one of the oxen that its eyeball popped out at Llyn-y-Foel, which became Pwll Llygad Ych, Pool of the Ox’s Eye.
At Llyn Glaslyn, Huw looked into the Afanc’s watery eyes. The girl was right. It wasn’t monstrous. It was cute. So, he released it into the lake and resolved not to tell anyone that he hadn’t slain it.
Huw the Mighty was greeted in Conwy as a Hero, while the girl sat quietly beneath the willow tree reading her book, The Natural History of Beavers.
In Welsh, Afanc means Beaver. They used to build dams in the shape of willow bowers at Cilgerran on the Teifi, until they became extinct eight hundred years ago. Now, they’re being reintroduced and the Afanc will swim in Welsh rivers once more, thanks to people like the clever girl of Conwy.
It was Calan Mai, the first day of summer. Green Girl stood up to her waist in Llyn Barfog, the Bearded Lake, dripping with pondweed, twisting her red hair into plaits and decorating them with ivy and holly, while her herd of milk-white fairy cattle grazed on the meadowsweet that grew round the banks. She watched as a young farmer ran down the hill from Cwm Dyffryn Gwyn like an eager puppy. He was a poet, a bardd gwlad, so it was no surprise when he fumbled in his pocket and gave her a stale cheese sandwich. She laughed like a donkey, called her cattle and vanished into the water.
This went on for days, months, years. She didn’t know how long because time passed slowly in her world beneath the water where there were no clocks, no time, no night or day. A moment down there was a lifetime above.
When Calan Mai came round again, Green Girl stood up to her waist in the lake as if time had stood still. One of her fairy cows followed the scent of fresh hay to Cwm Dyffryn Gwyn, where the old farmer led her to the cowshed thinking she was a wild cow. He fed her on the finest hay and she gave him the foamiest, frothiest milk, cream and cheese. She fell in love with one of his Welsh Blacks and soon she was mother to a herd of sturdy cattle. The farmer became rich beyond his dreams.
Time passed quickly above the water and, in the blink of an eye, the fairy cow grew old. Instead of putting her out to pasture to thank her for all she had given, the farmer called the butcher, who raised his knife. Green Girl’s shriek pierced the air and the butcher’s arm froze above his head. The fairy cow mooed and ran to Llyn Barfog, and where she dived into the water, a white waterlily flowered.
The children of the fairy cow, Welsh Blacks and Milk-Whites, followed their mother and Green Girl counted them into the lake in the old way, ‘Un dau tri pedwar pump’, move a stone from one hand to the other, ‘Un dau tri pedwar pump’, another stone, until the lake turned white with waterlilies.
