Welsh Folk Tales

by Peter Stevenson

  Since then, I always carry a bucket.

  28

  ROGUES, TRICKSTERS AND FOLK HEROES

  Myra, Rebecca and the Mari Lwyd

  On 2 January 1886, Myra Evans and her mother had locked themselves in the front bedroom of their house on Park Street, New Quay. Myra, a talkative child, was ordered to be quiet or she would be put to bed in the back room where she would see nothing. Her green eyes peered out of the window from beneath a black fringe. She was waiting for the Mari Lwyd (Grey Mare).

  And there it was, outside Bristol House in the ice and snow, a horse’s skull decorated with ribbons and roses of yellow and red, carried by a man hidden beneath a white sheet with legs protruding. Mother whispered that inside the horse was William Evans, the cobbler. Following behind were men dressed in animal skins, boys in squirrel tail hats, ugly masks and chanting rhymes, asking people to put their hands in their pockets:

  Mae Mari Lwyd lawen yn dyfod i’ch trigfan,

  O, peidiwch â bod yn sych ac anniddan.

  O, peidiwch yn wir, mae’r amser yn wan,

  Rhowch law yn eich poced a gwnewch eich rhan.

  The Mari Lwyd is coming to your home,

  Don’t be mean or miserly.

  Truly don’t, for the times are hard,

  Put your hands in your pockets and give us a share.

  They turned into Tin Pan Alley and sang outside Manchester House, asking to be let in and warning the owner not to be stingy with the beer:

  Wel dyma ni’n dwad, gyfeillion diniwad,

  I mofyn am gennad i ganu.

  O tapwch y faril, gollyngwch y rhigil,

  Na fyddwch yn gynnil i’r Fari.

  Here we are, kind friends,

  To ask for permission to sing.

  Oh tap the barrel, release the bung,

  Don’t be stingy to the Mari.

  Then they were outside Myra’s house. Her mother sang sweetly to them, then she went downstairs, opened the door, invited them in and gave them cake, beer and plum and rhubarb wine:

  Rhowch glywed, wŷr doethion,

  Faint ydych o ddynion,

  A pheth yn wych union

  Yw’ch enwau!

  Give me a hearing, wise men,

  What sort of men are you,

  And what is more to the point

  Are your names?

  They ate and drank, wished her ‘Blwyddyn Newydd Dda’ (Happy New Year) and left.

  Once they went to the house of Tom Lloyd, the schoolmaster in Maenygroes, a miserly old soul who locked himself in the parlour with his money and refused to open the door. The Mari boys broke in, ate everything they could find, scraped the ashes from the hearth into the middle of the room and trashed the place. They didn’t get his cash, though.

  The Mari Lwyd was often seen around Twelfth Night in Wales a hundred years ago. In English-speaking South Gower, the custom was called Old Horse or the Horse’s Head. At Kimley Moor Farm near Rhossili, the farmer Mr Beynon took the horse round the pubs and farmhouses on Twelfth Night, and then buried the head in a field till the following year. The tradition only ended when he woke up one morning after and couldn’t remember where he’d buried the skull.

  The Mari is undergoing something of a revival, with at least twenty going out across Wales around Christmas. A festival of horses is held in Chepstow each January, and schoolchildren are learning about the tradition through flat-pack cardboard Maris.

  Myra also witnessed the Ceffyl Pren (Wooden Horse) – Welsh vigilante folk-law, designed to disgrace offenders in the community long before tabloid newspapers thought of the idea.

  A New Quay man went to sea leaving his three children with their stepmother. One night the children escaped from an upstairs window and ran to their grandmother’s house. Public opinion pointed the fickle finger at the stepmother, who was considered too harsh. Y Ceffyl Pren was built on Picton Terrace, a donkey-sized horse made of straw, perched on top of a pile of wooden boxes, with an effigy of the stepmother sat on its back. Men wearing ugly masks paraded to her house, swearing, firing guns, carrying oil lamps, banging on the windows, shouting ‘llysfam gas [wicked stepmother]!’ There they set fire to the Ceffyl. The stepmother was so terrified that she and her husband fled to sea, but their ship never arrived at its destination. Myra’s mother explained that the children and grandmother were at least as much to blame as the stepmother. Life is rarely pure and never simple.

  Myra told of her grandfather Rhys, a big strong man who looked like the Duke of Wellington. One evening, his son Thomas (Myra’s father), saw him standing in front of the hearth wearing his wife’s frock, which was far too small for him. This was too much for little Thomas, who began to giggle uncontrollably, but Rhys told him to hush for this was no laughing matter. It was the late 1840s, when men dressed in women’s clothes not to perform on the stage, but to carry out acts of insurrection and subversion. Each man called himself ‘Rebecca’ to avoid recognition by the authorities. Rhys was the ‘Beca Mawr’, about to lead an attack on the toll house in Aberaeron to protest at unfair road charges. Capture would mean certain jail, or even death. It was the world turned upside down.

  Twm Siôn Cati

  Robin Hood is renowned in Wales as the English Twm Siôn Cati. Twm was born to Cati Jones in Tregaron around 1530. He was an everyman, an outlaw, poet, thief, scholar, highwayman, trickster, robber and folk hero, whose adventures have been told in countless books, films, animations and, most importantly, by word of mouth.

  Twm was riding to Welshpool when he met a man who said, ‘That’s a fine horse you have there’. Twm told the man it was a magical flying horse that could perform tricks and illusions. The man was impressed, so he bought the horse and asked Twm to show him a trick. Twm told the man to close his eyes and the horse would magically disappear. The man closed his eyes, Twm climbed into the saddle and galloped away with both horse and money before the man appreciated the trick.

  A gentleman was watching a servant carrying a sheep along the road to market when Twm appeared and wagered that he could steal the sheep without the servant knowing. The gentleman took the bet. Twm took off his shoe, dropped it in the road and ran off. The servant found the shoe, but as there was no pair, he left it for the tramps. Further down the road he found the second shoe, so he tied his sheep to a tree and ran back to collect the first shoe. He picked it up but when he returned, the second shoe had gone, and so had the sheep. The servant threw the first shoe away in anger and stomped off. Twm picked up his shoes, showed the sheep to the gentleman, and won the wager. Later, Twm saw the servant carrying another sheep to market. The servant heard a bleating. Thinking it may be the sheep he lost earlier, he tied the second sheep to a tree and went looking for the bleating sheep. And Twm walked off with two sheep and a fat wager.

  Twm, disguised in a highwayman’s black cloak and a hawk mask, stopped a coach on the road from Llandovery to Llanwrtyd Wells. He robbed the occupants of the coach, a rich man and his daughter, but the girl was so beautiful he returned her necklace and ring, and rode away.

  The rich man was Sir John Price of Ystrad Ffin, and the girl was his daughter, Joan. When Sir John returned to Llandovery, he was so infuriated at the cheek of the highwayman that he set the law on him. Twm took refuge in a cave on Dinas Hill, where he thought of little else but Joan Price. When the heat died down, he turned up one evening outside her window. He called to her, kissed her hand, took his knife, drew blood from her wrist and threatened to sever her hand if she did not marry him. Despite his unusual courting technique, she agreed and they were secretly wed. On the death of old Sir John, the young couple inherited Ystrad Ffin, and Twm settled down to a reasonably respectable life as a poet and justice of the peace.

  Twm’s cave is at the RSPB Dinas Hill Reserve and can be visited on a walk with ‘Twm’s Treks’ while Dafydd Wyn Morgan tells the tales of the legendary Tregaron Trickster.

  The Red Bandits of Dinas Mawddwy

  In the mountains above Dinas Mawddwy lived the Gwylliaid Coch
ion, bandits and thieves with flowing red hair who stole cattle, robbed travellers and raided farmhouses, while the cottagers kept sharp scythes hidden up their chimneys to protect themselves. They were said to have been leftover soldiers from the Wars of the Roses.

  On Christmas Eve 1554, Lewis ap Owen, the Sheriff of Meirionnydd, captured around eighty of the bandits. Two of them were the young sons of Lowri ferch Gruffydd Llwyd, and she pleaded with Sheriff Lewis to have mercy on her boys. When he refused, she bared her neck and said, ‘These yellow breasts have given suck to those who shall wash their hands in your blood’. Nonetheless, eighty bandits were executed at Collfryn (the Hill of Loss), and buried at Rhos Goch near Mallwyd.

  In October the following year, Lowri’s curse came gruesomely true. Sheriff Lewis was found on the road near Dugoed Mawddwy with thirty arrows in his body, fired by John Goch ap Gruffydd. Every male between eight and eighty was rounded up and either hanged for murder or transported. Even Lowri was charged at the court in Bala, though she was saved from the gallows through being with child.

  In 1936, the locals acted the parts of the bandits in a film made by the Reverend H.E. Hughes, and two years later they participated in the first colour film shot in Wales, Gwylliaid Cochion Mawddwy. To this day, any child born with red hair is told they are descended from the bandits, and there are still said to be a few scythes hidden up chimneys, just in case.

  Murray the Hump

  In the 1890s, with work scarce and times hard, Bryan Humphreys and Ann Wigley left their farm in Carno and family in Llandinam, and found themselves on the streets of Chicago. Their older children were sent out to work to raise money to support their father’s drinking and gambling habits. The third child, Llewelyn Morris Humphreys, dropped out of school, sold newspapers on street corners, took to petty theft and jewel heists, and by sixteen was in jail. However, the judge was so impressed by the boy’s intelligence, he persuaded him to study the law.

  On his release, Llewelyn set up his own business enterprise in a room above a launderette offering legal advice to the criminal underworld, so inventing the term ‘money laundering’. He diversified into dealing in bootleg liquor and petty larceny, and so came to the attention of the Mob, where he became known as Murray the Hump. He carried out killings, though his preference was to use a gun only as a last resort. He specialised in the corruptibility of authority, particularly judges, a skill which came in useful when Al Capone was sent for trial. It was the Hump who used his legal expertise and contacts to reduce the charge to tax avoidance. He coined the phrase ‘Vote early and vote often’, organised the Mob takeover of the Chicago Labor Unions, and co-ordinated the St Valentine’s Day Massacre. On Capone’s death, the Hump inherited the title ‘Public Enemy Number One’.

  In 1963 the Hump came home. On a trip around Europe with his half-Cherokee ex-wife and daughter, he flew into Heathrow and took a black cab all the way to Carno. This amiable family man was welcomed, fed bara brith and taken for a cwrw at the Aleppo. He discovered his blood relatives had fallen on hard times, unable to pay their rents and fearful the sale of the Llandinam estate would mean their eviction. Not long after Uncle Llewellyn had returned to his other family in the States, his Welsh family discovered that the estate had been purchased by an unknown American benefactor and their rents had been paid off.

  The Hump died in 1965 of a heart attack, or ‘unnatural causes’. So passed the Welshman who helped create Las Vegas, controlled much of Hollywood, knew of the election and assassination of President Kennedy before they happened, was an inspiration for The Godfather, dined with kings the world over, had a plaque hanging over his fireplace saying, ‘Love thy crooked neighbour as you love thy crooked self’, frequently donated money and food to his ex-wife’s Cherokee tribe, and gave his name to the legendary Welsh indie band Murray the Hump, who at a record label gig were rated by Joe Strummer as being ‘better than Coldplay’, although it’s uncertain whether Joe meant that as a compliment.

  The Man Who Never Was

  In January 1943, a tramp was found dying near King’s Cross Station in London, having eaten rat poison. As he lay on a slab in Hackney Mortuary, no one knew he was to become an unlikely Welsh folk hero.

  The British Government, in the shape of corkscrew-minded Flight Lieutenant Charles Cholmondley and Lieutenant Ewen Montagu, had devised a cunning plan called Operation Mincemeat, designed to end the war with Germany by invading Italy. All they needed was a fresh corpse, so the tramp from Hackney Mortuary was volunteered. He was dressed in an ill-fitting Royal Marine uniform, given false papers and a new identity, ‘Major William Martin’, and launched from a torpedo tube on board HMS Seraph towards the coast of Spain. He was found by the Spanish authorities on the beach at Huelva carrying top secret plans for an Allied invasion of Sardinia and Greece. The plans found their way to Hitler, who ordered troops from Russia to protect Sardinia and Greece, thus allowing the Allies to land at Sicily unopposed and invade Italy. Churchill received a telegram saying, ‘Mincemeat swallowed, hook, line and sinker’, and ‘Major Martin’ was buried with full military honours in Huelva Churchyard.

  In 1955, under the guidance of Ewen Montagu, this very British story was told in the film The Man Who Never Was, although the tramp was not mentioned by name. ‘Major Martin’ was Glyndwr Michael from Aberbargoed, gardener and labourer, who only moved to London to live on the streets when his parents died and he was left alone. Like all true heroes, he was a hero by mistake.

  29

  SWANS, WOLVES AND TRANSFORMATIONS

  Cadwaladr and the Goat

  In the days before sheep, the farmers of the Snowdonia Mountains kept goats. Cadwaladr loved his goats, particularly one called Jenny, who he loved even more than his wife, for her beard was combed every Friday by the tylwyth teg.

  But his love was overpowering, and one day Jenny ran away up the mountain. He climbed up after her, implored her to come home and promised her flowers for her beard, but she looked at him with such an air of superiority, he saw red, threw a stone, knocked her off the mountainside and down she tumbled into the gorge.

  Cadwaladr saw what he had done and came to his senses. He clambered down the mountain, picked up Jenny’s broken body, cradled her head in his lap and she licked his hand. As the moon rose, he looked down and there was a sweet young woman. She sat up and held out her hand, and spoke to him with such a sweet bleating voice. Her face was so beautiful and her beard was silky smooth. She took his hand in her hoof, and helped him climb out of the gorge. Cadwaladr found himself surrounded by his herd of goats, all singing and bleating. One big hairy billy rushed at him, butted him in the stomach and knocked him off the top of the mountain. Down and down he tumbled.

  When he awoke, he found himself lying at the bottom of the gorge, the birds were singing and the rain was drizzling and there was no sign of Jenny or his goats, only sheep as far as the eye could see.

  Swan Ladies

  Grassi was the Keeper of the Well at Glasfryn on Pen Llŷn. She opened the door whenever anyone needed water, then closed it again before they took too much. It was a dreary job, so Grassi lost herself in dreams and fairy tales. One day, she was dreaming and forgot to close the door. The waters overflowed and she found herself drowning in a great lake. Her neck began to stretch, her arms sprouted feathers, her nose turned orange, her cheeks black, she hissed and spat and became a swan. For three hundred years Grassi was cursed to swim round and round the lake, and at two o’clock every morning she was heard whooping and weeping, frightening the servants at Glasfryn House. When she died, she regained her human form and haunted the fields around the lake dressed in a spectral white gown.

  A swan landed on a rock on the coast of Gower, removed her white wings and feathers and a girl stepped out and washed herself in the sea. She lay on a rock to dry herself, dressed in her wings and feathers and flew away. Day after day, the swan-girl swam in the sea, and all was well until a young farmer spotted her and became enchanted. Day after day he watched. His head
swirled, for her feathers were as white as her skin was dark, and soon he convinced himself he was in love. He waited until she was in the water, and he stole her wings and feathers. She walked out of the water, stared straight into his eyes and told him to return her clothes. He refused, and said he loved her. She told him he knew nothing about her. He took hold of her, she struggled to escape, but without her wings her arms were weak and she could not fly away. She was pinioned to him.

  He took her home and locked her wings and feathers in an oak chest beneath his bed. He gave her pretty dresses which were rough against her skin. He fed her fine and rich foods, but all she craved was weed from the pond. He kept her dry, and she dreamed of drowning. Every night he stroked her feathers against his cheek, and every night she watched him while the muscles in her arms wasted away to string. Three years passed, until one night he forgot to lock the chest. She dressed in her clothes and flapped her wings and, oh, how her arms ached, but she threw herself from the window and flew away, crying tears of pleasure and pain. And the young farmer cried too, every day until he pined away and died.

  In the early 1800s, a young man from Rhoose and another from Cadoxton were shooting wildfowl at Whitmore Bay on Barry Island when they were cut off by the tide. To while away the time they went to Friars Point where they saw two swans. They crept closer, raised their guns and were about to shoot when the swans removed their wings and feathers to reveal two young women. The men knew the story of the Gower Swan-girl, so they stole the feathers and wings and forced the girls to promise to marry them. They had children with long curved necks who preferred to swim than go to school. One day, the wife of the Cadoxton man was run over by a wagon and killed. She left her human form, turned back into a swan, found the hidden clothes belonging to the wife of the Rhoose man, and they flew away together as swans.