Welsh Folk Tales

by Peter Stevenson

  16

  SAINTS, WISHES AND CURSING WELLS

  The Shee Well that Ran Away

  A water ogre lived on the Ewenny River, where three springs met at a spot known as the Shee Well. It stole the heart of any girl who washed her clothes in the river, and imprisoned them in the well. Only one girl escaped, and she never spoke of what had happened to her. In time, the Shee Well grew tired of the ogre’s unpleasant behaviour. It wept and wailed, and ran away to live in a cave in the hills, taking the river and all the fish with it.

  The ogre had no water to drink, no fish to eat and the dry riverbed became infested with toads and snakes. It pleaded with the Shee Well to return. The well agreed, on condition that the ogre set the girls free and then looked after the meadows and the forest. The ogre agreed, the well returned, the forest flourished and fresh, sweet water flowed through the valley once again, which is now a place of peace and tranquility.

  It is said that if a girl washes her underwear in the river, carries it home between her teeth and places it by the fire to dry, then she will see her future husband in the flames. And if she doesn’t like him, she can turn her underwear round and he will disappear.

  St Dwynwen

  Dwynwen grew up on Ynys Môn some thousand and a half years ago, one of twenty-four daughters of King Brychan. History does not record whether they all had the same mother. He was an early Christian, who filled his daughter with compassion and piety. She was a little cold, but she was changing. She was bleeding.

  She visited the wishing well at the top of the hill, no more than a hole in the ground filled with muddy water and three brown fish. She wished for a man – just to see him naked, you understand. Then she flushed, embarrassed at her boldness. She ran down to the river, threw off her clothes and was about to dive in the cooling waters when she sensed someone behind her. She turned, and there was a man with shaggy black hair and a thin red mouth full of shark’s teeth, staring through dark furrowed eyebrows.

  ‘I know you, Dwynwen.’

  ‘And I know you, Maelon.’

  Then her wish came true. Maelon removed his clothes. She didn’t know where to look, she closed her eyes, touched her fingertips together to pray for guidance from the angels, but her eyes kept opening. The heat inside Maelon passed into Dwynwen. She was on fire, about to combust, yet her eyes stared coldly at him and she wept frozen tears. Her stare penetrated the back of Maelon’s neck and travelled down his spine. His heart slowed, the blood in his veins froze and he was turned into a block of ice.

  She walked for three days, then returned to the well at the top of the hill. She asked the three brown fish for three wishes.

  Wish one, compassion. Defrost Maelon. She watched from the hillside, as life returned to his body. Would he run to her, scoop her up in his arms and kiss her gently? No. He ran.

  Wish two, redemption. No man would come closer than an arm’s length and a palm’s width of her for the rest of her life.

  Wish three, consideration. Let others find true love. They may not recognise it when it bites them, but they must have the chance.

  She left home and lived her life on Ynys Llanddwyn, in celibacy and solitude. Women were inspired by her, visited her, a commune grew and then a convent. The Church recognised her piety and proclaimed her a saint of true, albeit doomed, love. A shrine was built to her on the island, pilgrims left offerings and money and a Dean of Bangor Cathedral built a fine house for himself on the gratuity of visitors. Dafydd ap Gwilym wrote odes to her, and asked her help to win a lady’s heart.

  Then she was forgotten until the 1960s, when young lovers in Wales began to celebrate 25 January, St Dwynwen’s Day, with cards and flowers. She is not forgotten, just strangely remembered.

  Dwynwen’s Well

  Gwen, a fisherman’s daughter from Ynys Llanddwyn, was being courted by Gwilym, a woodcutter from Cerrig Mawr. He was a good-looking lad, and he knew it. Stories of his philandering preceded him.

  One evening they were walking along the sands to St Dwynwen’s Well and Gwil told Gwen that if she called the name of her lover into the well at midnight on midsummer’s eve, she would hear the name of her one true love repeated back to her three times. A shiver passed down her spine, while a twinkle flashed through Gwil’s eye.

  June came, and on midsummer’s eve Gwen crept to the well. She held a lantern over the low stone wall and shyly called out, ‘Gwilym’. From the depths of the well she heard, ‘Gwilym, Gwilym, Gwilym’. Her heart thumped, she peered down into the darkness and saw two bright shining eyes staring back at her. Terrified, she dropped the lantern into the well, and ran.

  Gwilym stared upwards as the lantern fell towards him and hit him on the head. He lost his grip on the vertical stone wall that he was clinging to, fell through the darkness and landed in the cold dank water at the bottom of the well. He called out Gwen’s name, three times, and begged her to throw him a rope, but she had already run home. He tried to climb the walls, but lost his grip on the moss and fell back into the slimy waters, time and again. No one knows how long he was there or how he got out, but young Gwilym never went philandering again.

  St Melangell

  Brochfael, Lord of Powys, was hunting a hare through the steep oak woods of the Tanat Valley, hounds whirling around his feet and his goshawk swirling about his head, when he saw a woman sitting amongst the wild garlic. The hare ran towards her and hid beneath her skirt. Brochfael called his hounds and they formed a circle around her, but none would touch her. She stared the dogs in their eyes. A few whimpered.

  Brochfael demanded she hand over the hare. She lifted her head and stared into his soul. He shivered, and asked who she was, and she said, ‘I am Melangell, daughter of Ireland’. He told her he was the Lord of Powys and he owned this forest and everything in it, including that hare, and he ordered her to hand over what was beneath her skirt. She held the hare tightly, and said, ‘You do not own this forest. This forest owns you, and it will own another like you long after you are dead.’

  He asked what brought her to Powys and she said she had fled an arranged marriage in Ireland. Brochfael took her by the shoulders and told her he would marry her, if only she would give him that hare. She told him she was already married, to the trees.

  He launched his goshawk into the air and it circled above her head. Melangell closed her eyes, placed her hands together and moved her lips in silent prayer. Brochfael was so overcome with the quiet dignity that confronted him that he rode away, leaving her unmolested.

  She lived in hollow yews in the forest and cared for the trees and hares for the remainder of her days. In AD 604 she founded a monastery on the spot where she had hidden the hare. She is buried beneath the floor of the little church at Pennant Melangell and, she was right, the forest was not owned by Brochfael. It now owns another wealthy family, the Rothschilds.

  St Eilian’s Cursing Well

  St Eilian never knew of the devilry he inadvertently released one day while walking near Llandrillo-yn-Rhos. He was feeling thirsty when a spring bubbled up at his feet, so he drank and blessed the water. By the early 1700s a well was built over the spring and soon the waters developed a reputation for curative powers. Thomas Pennant described the well as a sixteen-foot square enclosure with a bread-stone at each corner, and a locked gate in the middle that led to the spring. To gain access, people were expected to pay the well-keeper and undergo a ritual.

  An old farmer with a bad temper and the smell of the cowshed lived at Llaneilian-yn-Rhos. One morning his favourite cow fell sick and he blamed it on the fiery tongue and sour temper of his neighbour, Megan Cilgwyn Mawr. They had a storming argument which caused the sheep to tremble on the Great Orme. Megan went to the cursing well at Ffynnon Eilian, paid the well-keeper and cursed the old farmer. Later that day, the farmer went to the well, paid a few coins, threw some old nails into the water and cursed the old hag. They wished misery and unhappiness on each other for the rest of their days, and their wishes came true, for a few years later th
ey were married.

  A woman suspected her husband was unfaithful, so she made a figure of him out of marl and stuck pins through its heart. She paid the well-keeper at Ffynnon Eilian, wrote her husband’s name in the book, and lowered the figure on a piece of string into the well. Her husband began to have heart pains. A week later she raised the figure from the well and stuck the pins in its head and her husband had headaches. This went on until he admitted his philandering and begged forgiveness. And that’s when his pain really started.

  One well-keeper was Margaret Holland, the estranged wife of the local vicar, who lived in the cottage adjoining the well. She charged admittance, wrote the names of the cursed in a book, then wrote their initials on a small piece of parchment, rolled it up, placed it inside a piece of lead and dangled it from a string over the well while she recited a prayer. Meanwhile, the conjurer John Edwards of Northop sold cures and charms to those who had been cursed. He took groups to the well, where they paid Mrs Holland to recite a prayer to lift the curses that she had previously been paid to cast. Edwards ended up in court accused of deception and was sentenced to a year’s hard labour for obtaining money under false pretences.

  In 1829, following a campaign by the Methodists, the well was demolished and filled in. However, if they thought this was the end of the old cursing well, they were mistaken. John Evans had built a Tŷ Unnos, a one-night house, on common land close to the well. One day, a man was rooting around in the ruins and he asked John if he was the well-keeper. John thought he ought to say ‘yes’ and, to his surprise, the man offered him money in exchange for a drink of water. This gave him an idea. He piped water from the well into his garden, where he built several wells joined by attractive cobbled walks and pretty flowerbeds. He charged admittance, and became known as Jac Ffynnon Eilian.

  Jac learned the art of charming and cursing from conjurers like Dic Aberdaron, and the tricks of sorcery from Doctor Bennion of Oswestry, who showed him how to raise the Devil with enough authority to persuade people to believe him. In 1831, Jac was charged at Denbigh Assizes with fraudulently using sorcery and conjuration to demand money. His defence was that he never advertised the properties of the water, and if anyone came to the house and offered him money, it would be rude to refuse them. He was sentenced to six months, and on his release he carried on pretty much as before.

  Twenty-five years later, Jac repented, and gave a series of interviews to the bookseller and minister, William Aubrey of Llanerch-y-medd, acknowledging that he was a fraud. His cottage was knocked down, and to this day there is no sign of him at Llandrillo-yn-Rhos, except in our memories.

  17

  GIANTS, BEARDS AND CANNIBALS

  Cynog and the Cewri

  A poor widow with a flock of small children lived on the edge of a wood in Merthyr Cynog. One night, her neighbours were attacked and their houses destroyed, and fingers were pointed at the giants who lived in the woods. The Cewri were indigenous people who lived there long before anyone could remember, and they were feared as robbers and cannibals. The woman was afraid the Cewri would eat her children, so she called on the one man who could help: St Cynog, who had a reputation for fighting cannibal giants, having skewered one in Caerwedros, after it bit a piece from his thigh.

  That night Cynog sat outside her front door and prayed. The giants emerged from the woods and surrounded him. They were big, with shaggy red hair and braided moustaches, armed with clubs and axes. He realised prayer was of little use, then remembered he was a pacifist – with emphasis on the fist. He threw his torch at the biggest giant and hit him such a blow that his bowels that had devoured so much innocent blood burst open. The Cewri had never seen their own guts. They gagged at the sight of the offal, held their stomachs and ran away. From that day the children of Merthyr Cynog were never eaten again, all thanks to St Cynog the Pacifist.

  The Man with Green Weeds in His Hair

  Idris was a giant, a poet and an astronomer, who stargazed from a stone observatory on the top of the mountain in Meirionnydd that was named after him, Cadair Idris. He may have been the source of the belief that if you spend a night on Cadair, you will wake up in the morning either mad, dead or a poet. Some locals add the extra option of ‘an Englishman’.

  One evening two farmers were walking home to Llanegryn from Dolgellau Fair, passing Llyn Gwernan at the foot of Cadair Idris, when they saw a giant man with green water weeds twined in his hair. He was wailing, in Welsh, ‘The hour is come but the man is not, from ten at night to five in the morning’.

  Next day the body of an Englishman was found bloated in the lake. It transpired he had spent the night in Idris’ observatory, causing much discussion amongst the locals, who concluded he must have been a mad English poet before he spent the night on the mountain, so death was his only option.

  The King of the Beards

  There were two kings, Nynio and Peibio, who agreed on nothing. Nynio said the sky was his meadow, Peibio claimed the stars were his sheep and the moon his shepherdess. One evening, Nynio accused Peibio’s sheep of grazing in his meadow, so they declared war on each other, raised armies and there was a most terrible slaughter.

  Now, Rhita the Giant King of Wales heard about these two madmen fighting over sheep and stars, so he too raised an army, defeated Nynio and Peibio, and shaved off their beards, which he wore on a belt round his waist. When the other twenty-eight Kings of Brython heard about this, they declared war on Rhita and marched to Gwynedd, but Rhita defeated them all and shaved off their beards. Now he had enough beards to make into a cloak, which he wore around his shoulders.

  However, Rhita was not satisfied. There was one king whose beard he didn’t have. One king who had never challenged him. A powerful king. Arthur, King of all the Brythons. Out of respect, Rhita wrote politely to Arthur inviting him to shave off his own beard and send it to him, to avoid unnecessary bloodshed, other than nicking himself with a razor. Arthur refused, leaving Rhita with little choice other than to declare war, the winner to own the cloak of beards.

  He knew this was a war he was doomed to lose, and he was right. Arthur marched into Gwynedd, a great battle was fought on Bwlch y Groes, and the giant Rhita was split in two. Arthur buried him on top of the highest mountain, Gwyddfa Rhita, now known as Snowdon. Though another story says he was buried in a trench on Rhiw y Barfau, Beard Hill, near Tywyn. Or maybe Arthur threw him into Afon Twrch. Well, all this happened a long time ago and memory fades, and there we are.

  The One-Eyed Giant of Rhymney

  In Llancaeach, next to the Pandy, was a mill owned by a giant who had one eye in the middle of his forehead, through which he could see into the Otherworld. He ground his flour from children’s bones, for they made such sweet bread. And he could control the wind and rain, which caused floods. And in case anyone thought he was nice deep down, he liked to tear up trees by their roots for fun. He was best avoided.

  The giant employed a boy called Siôn to clean the mill and oil the mill wheel, in exchange for not being eaten. One day, the fair came to town and Siôn wanted to go, for there might be girls there, and he liked girls, although he’d never met one because he never left the mill. On the one occasion a girl came to the mill, the giant ate her.

  Siôn had an idea. He made a mountainous roast dinner and placed it in front of the giant who stuffed his belly until he was grunting and snoring. Siôn climbed onto the table, took a knife and plunged it into the giant’s eye. The giant awoke, looked bemused, plucked the knife out of his eye and threw it at Siôn, but missed. Now blind, he spread himself across the doorway to stop Siôn escaping, so the boy picked up the giant’s dog, wrapped it around his shoulders and walked towards the door. When the giant reached down, his hand stroked the dog, who whimpered. The giant thought the dog needed to go outside, so he opened the door and Siôn ran.

  When Siôn reached the fair he told everyone what had happened but no one was brave enough to go to the mill to see for themselves. So it was, the blind one-eyed giant of Rhymney carried
on grinding bones and making bread until he ran out of children and starved to death.

  18

  MINERS, COAL AND A RAT

  The Coal Giant

  There was a giant in Gilfach Bargoed who carried a huge cudgel with a snake coiled around it, with which he clubbed and ate anyone who came near him. One lad, whose mother and father had been eaten by the giant, decided something had to be done. He was a wild boy who spoke the language of the birds, so he asked the advice of a wise old owl who lived in an oak at Pencoed Fawr, Bedwellty. The owl hatched a cunning plan.

  The owl knew that the giant courted a witch beneath an apple tree, so she called on all the birds of Rhymney to build a bow and arrow. Then they hid in the apple tree and waited. That night, the giant came looking for his lover the witch. The birds took aim and fired the arrow and shot the giant stone dead. When the witch found the giant with an arrow through his heart, she cursed the apple tree for helping the birds, and the fruit of all wild apples has been sour ever since. She buried the giant beneath the tree, and as time passed his body turned to black crystal and spread through the ground. The people dug it up, took it home, discovered it burned well, and they called it ‘coal’.