Spirits of the folk and land- some Welsh examples

Here, I want to focus on some specifically Welsh spirits, a number of which I have described in the past in my book Beyond Faery. Now, I particularly want to follow up my previous discussions of ‘spirits of the land’ and to bring out how they seem to be connected to the land and people of Wales.

I’ll begin with the ellyll y llifeiriant (the torrent sprite)- a being who’s seen standing up to his waist amidst streams cascading from the mountains, his hair on end and surrounded by mist. He gives a savage laugh as he glides with the torrent and alarmingly, will periodically swell to huge size before shrinking back to human stature. The ellyll is generally considered to be malevolent towards humans in that he directs the course of mountain streams when they’re in flood. Some witnesses, though, have described the spectre as female: she’s said to collect large rocks as ballast for when she flies above storms. When she returns to the mountain cave where she lives, she drops these boulders and they form the bed of the torrents. As we’ll see, female gender is most typical of many Welsh spirits of the mountains and wild places.

Mist is- as some readers may know- rather a common climatic feature of the Welsh mountains. It’s reported that the most familiar faeries, the tylwyth teg, use it for cover when they’re plotting to kidnap livestock or children. It was also reported to Celtic folklore expert John Rhys that misty rain tends to provide the best conditions for seeing the tylwyth teg- perhaps because they feel safe from prying eyes. Mist is, it seems, the natural habitat of a much larger supernatural family. For example, in Carmarthenshire there is the ‘spirit of the mist’ a being who’s specifically tied to to damp weather and who’s seen as a white-haired old man, sitting on the mountain tops just where the clouds touch them. That liminal zone between cloud and clear is said to be a place where the tylwyth teg may be spied- dashing in and out of the fog banks.

A being who’s possibly related the ‘spirit of the mist’ is the person described by Wirt Sikes in British Goblins as the ‘Old Woman of the Mountain.’ He classes her as one of the gwyllion– female fairies of frightful characteristics, who haunt lonely roads in the Welsh mountains, and lead night-wanderers astray. The word gwyll denotes ‘gloom’ or ‘darkness’ and, by extension, “mountain fairies of gloomy and harmful habits.” The Old Woman appears as a poor elderly female, frequently carrying a milk-pail, and sometimes crying ‘Wow up!’ an old Welsh cry of distress. Those who see her and try to follow her to respond to her cry, whether at night or on a misty day, are sure to lose their way, even though they may know the area very well. It’s notable that sometimes the Old Woman is heard very close by- and then immediately far off, as if she’s instantly on the opposite mountain.

We now shift our attention from the wilds to the vicinity of humans. The gwrach y rhybin is spirit who’s regarded as a portent of disaster and death.  The Welsh name itself isn’t fully translatable, although the first element means ‘witch.’ She is hideous to see, with a long nose curving down to her chin and just two or three long, sharp black teeth, long, unkempt red hair, burning eyes sunk in a very pale face, long, thin arms, and- lastly- talon-like and leathery wings.  Distressing as her appearance may be, it’s the gwrach’s cry that is worst- she wails, moans and shrieks at night foretelling calamity for those who hear her. War, pestilence and famine are said always to come in her wake.

The gwrach y rhybin will often come to human homes and settlements at night, flapping outside windows and calling out the name of a person destined to die.  She’s often seen in the mist on mountains, as well as at crossroads, or by a lake or watercourse, where she splashes her hands (rather like the Highland bean nighe).  Any person who sees her in these circumstances is fated. The gwrach y rhybin is normally a woman, calling for a husband or child, but she can sometimes appear in male form mourning the imminent death of a wife.  If the sound she makes is inarticulate, it will signify that the hearer is the one fated to die. 

Closely related to the gwrach are the cyhiraeth and the tolaeth. These too are omens of death. The tolaeth is either heard as a funeral procession (horses, mourners’ laments, hymn singing) or is seen as a cortege moving without pall bearers, sometimes preceded by a light. Sometimes the tolaeth will knock at a house door, mourn by the hearth or will sound like people bearing a heavy burden moving around the home. Sometimes it will produce the sound of sawing and hammering at night in a carpenter’s workshop (imitative of a coffin being made). Interestingly, you can only either see or hear the tolaeth, not both, which means that if you see it and shut your eyes to block out the apparition, you’ll still hear it instead.

The cyhiraeth most typically gives a doleful cry as she proceeds from the fated person’s home towards the graveyard. However, it has another manifestation: on very wild and stormy nights it will be heard on the coast. At first it’s detected in the distance, but it will approach along the line of the waves before fading away and then producing a loud shriek very near to the listener. After this shock, it will pass away into the distance as moans. Heard on the sea-shore, the cyhiraeth is the sure sign of a shipwreck and that bodies will soon be washed in by the waves. The cyhiraeth’s swiftly moving voice reminds us of the Old Woman of the Mountain- but for that matter of the ghostly hounds known as the cwn wybir (sky dogs) or cwn annwn (‘hell’ dogs).

These beings may seem rather disparate and dissimilar, but I’d argue that they all have certain features in common: an association with mist and poor visibility- or very bad weather, their cries and their unnaturally speedy movements. What I think really unites them more fundamentally, though, is simply their integration into their environment. With the ellyll and the gwyllion, this seems to be purely physical; they are an element in the Welsh mountains and their climate. For the gwrach, tolaeth and cyhiraeth, the spirits’ contact with the human population is so close that they are able to foretell death and other disasters. They have, therefore, grown out of the Welsh landscape or have become entwined with the affairs of the human population beside whom they live- sensitive and responsive to their changes.

Black Velvet Fairies podcast

A quick plug for a project I was briefly involved with: the Black Velvet Fairies is a podcast created by a creative team including some of the filmmakers behind The Blair Witch Project, The Lord of the Rings trilogy, The Golden Compass and The Quest. The first season began free across all major podcast platforms (Apple, Spotify, Amazon and Overcast) on March 19th. More details can be found here.

The Black Velvet Fairies podcast is part of the multi-platform story-world Emerald Anvil, which includes a novel, a board game, and an interactive story-telling NFT activation. You’ll find Emerald Anvil videos on YouTube.

Later episodes of the podcast will reveal online evidence and clues about the dangerous fairies that the heroine, Lucy Verdell, is investigating. I was interviewed by Lucy as part of these investigations, giving her clues on what to look out for and what to beware in the world of Faery..

Faery Fauna III: Horses

The idea came to me to write these Faery Fauna posts when travelling back to London on the train. Just as we were passing the Uffington White Horse, we saw deer grazing in a field near to the line. The conjunction of ancient monument and faery cattle set my mind to work…

The horse is a form that can be assumed by several beings, including glaistigs, kelpies, the Manx nyker, buggane and glashtyn, the Shetland nuggle/ nyugl, the Somerset hob called the blue burche, various bogies, boggles, brags and boggarts, including the Hedley Kow, and, lastly, the skriker, trash and other black faery dogs.  In addition, the Highland water horse, or each uisge, can appear in human form– although it does this far more rarely than the kelpie.

I distinguish these horses, which are shape-shifted faeries, from the water sprites in solely horse form that are found across Scotland, such as on the River Spey at Moray or at Powguild on Loch Gelly in Fife.  Phantom horses that are the ghosts of dead travellers are also encountered, for example at Lochbuie on Mull and at Farnell, near Brechin in Angus.  Similar English equine ghosts are known, at Fitz in Shropshire and at Marbury Hall in Cheshire.  Phantom headless horses are also present in England, at both Blickling Hall and West Caister in Norfolk.

Just like faery beings, witches were said to be able to transform themselves into horses- as in a story from the Kennet Valley in Berkshire, in which a woman was exposed as a witch because, whilst shape-shifted, she was taken to the see the farrier and then, returned to her human form, she was found in agony with a horse shoe nailed to her hand.  The victims of witches might also be turned into horses so that they could be ridden; this was alleged at a witch trial in Cambridge in 1659 and readers might recall that the faeries were alleged to do the same to people if they were unable to steal their horses for riding at night..

As with deer and boars, the horse has a role in wider British mythology.  So, for example, in the first branch of the Mabinogion– the story of Peredur- Rhiannon is strongly associated with horses, as is her son Pryderi.  This link so strong that the queen and her son are often depicted as mare and foal and it has been proposed that the queen Rhiannon is an embodiment of the ancient British horse goddess Epona. For that matter, the Uffington horse may represent Epona- and similar stylised horses are found on pre-Roman coinage too.

The various faeries transformed into horses that I’ve mentioned are generally malign entities. At best, they’ll terrify witnesses, at worst , they have murderous intent. The best example is the kelpie, which carries off unwary individuals into deep water before consuming their drowned corpses, but others are dangerous carnivores as well.

The Mari Lywd at Llangynwyd

It’s curious that a domesticated beast, so familiar to people, should be given this fatal aspect- especially as there haven’t been wild horses in Europe for millennia. May be the power and potential of the creatures is what inspired this, but it would seem to run deeper. Across Britain, the vestiges remain of ceremonies involving a supernatural horse. In Wales this is called the Mari Lywd, once widespread throughout the country, now limited to the south in Glamorgan and Carmarthenshire. In England, traditions of the ‘hodening’ or ‘hooden’ horse existed from Kent as far north as south Yorkshire and Cheshire. Whether the very un-equine ‘hobby horses‘ of Cornwall and Devon are related is uncertain.

The customs are still performed in a few places. Around Christmas and New Year (from November to late January, in fact) a person disguised with a sheet and carrying a decorated horse’s skull parades, with supporters, through a settlement, going house to house with songs and verses, enjoying food and drink and bringing good luck to the homes visited. In some places, such as Chepstow, this ceremony blends with the ‘wassailing’ of orchards. The purpose is twofold- the horse initially tries to scare those it visits, but it is really there to bring fertility for the coming year. The Mari Lwyd and her kin can terrorise people but, just like the goddess Epona, they also ensure good crops (and plenty of lambs, calves and foals) in the year ahead.

Conclusions

What strikes me is how all the supernatural animals I’ve described are integrated into the British environment.  The ability of faery beings to change their form seems to emphasise how they are, one might say, an emanation of the land, an integral part of the natural world of Britain. They are part of the landscape (caves inhabited and marks left), their appearances can be seasonal and they influence the weather.  In this respect, they are unquestionably spirits of the land.

Chepstow Wassail and Mari Lwyd festival, January 2018
Picture by Nick Treharne (see People’s Collection Wales)

Faery Fauna II: Deer

Deer and the faeries are inseparably connected.  The animals provide the Good Folk with a valuable source of sustenance, but the association is even deeper than that; there is a magical control over them that merges into identity.

In the Scottish Highlands, the huge hag known as the cailleach bheur or cailleach-uisge, the water woman, inhabits wild places and acts as a guardian to wild animals, most particularly deer.  Normally, it is considered bad luck for a hunter to see the cailleach, for a glimpse of her would mean that he would certainly catch nothing that day.  Nonetheless, just occasionally, the hag might allow her deer to be hunted by favoured individuals- or she might curse a particular animal to be killed if it had offended- for example by kicking during milking.  In Sir Walter Scot’s poem Alice Brand, it is the elfin king who protects the deer of the greenwood; they are “Beloved of our Elfin Queen.”  Such is the affinity between the fae and deer that a fairy hunter encountered by two walkers at Corrieyairaick in Inverness-shire was seen to be able to walk through a herd without disturbing them at all.

Folklorist Joseph Campbell reported in Superstitions of the Highlands & Islands of Scotland that, according to popular Highland belief, no deer is ever found dead with age, neither are its annually shed antlers ever found, because the faeries hide both the bodies and the horns, just as they use enchantments to hide their herds.  The faery folk have a particular dislike for those who kill their hinds, and, if they discover those hunters in lonely places, they will torment them with elf-bolts.  When a dead deer is carried home at the end of a day’s hunting, the faeries will frequently lay all their weight on the bearer’s back, until he struggles under the huge burden. An iron knife, however, being stuck in the deer’s body, will repel the faery interference and make the carcase light again.  Campbell also recorded that the old faery woman (or gruagach) called the Carlin of the Red Stream, is able to restore to life any of her herd that have been hunted, provided that she can obtain a small portion of its flesh to taste.

As noted already, the cailleach keeps flocks of deer (as well as cattle and pigs) and she herds and milks the hinds on the mountains.  Whilst in the summer the hag grazes her deer on the remote heights, on winter nights she can sometimes be seen driving her herd down onto the beaches of the Ross of Mull, where they can feed on the seaweed whilst other vegetation is sparse.  By way of contrast, the Carlin Wife of the Spotted Hill (Cailleach Beinne Bhric Horo) has a herd which, it is said, she will not allow to descend to the beach; instead, they “love the water-cresses by the fountain high in the hills better than the black weeds of the shore.”   This same cailleach is said to have sung a unique song whilst milking her hinds and, in turn, to have rewarded a bold young hunter who sang verses in praise of her: she granted him supernatural skills in pursuing deer.  In Somerset in the south of England there are references to the closely related ‘Woman of Mist’ who lived on Bicknoller Hill in the western Quantock Hills.  She too herded deer on the hillsides.

In some districts, such as Lochaber and Mull, deer are said to be the only form of ‘cattle’ herded by faery women (bean sith). A faery lullaby recorded by Alexander Carmichael in Carmina Gadelica is called Bainne nam fiadh (Deer’s Milk); it suggests that milk from hinds may substitute for faery mothers’ weakness in breastfeeding:

“On milk of deer I was raised,

On milk of deer I was nurtured,

On milk of deer beneath the ridge of storms, 

On crest of hill and mountain.” 

Carmina Gadelica, vol.2, 232

Quite a dear deer- yours online for just £70…

The faeries’ link with deer is more than just a matter of food and oversight.  Faery women (and some witches) can transform into hinds- and Osian’s mother is said to have been a deer.  Likewise, the cailleach bheur can turn into a range of animals including the deer, as well as cats and ravens.  The cailleach’s shape-shifting ability is seen as well in the baobhan sith (‘hag faery’), a particularly fierce and dreadful supernatural female of the Highlands, who may appear in addition as a crow or raven or as a lovely girl in a long green dress.  The gown conceals the fact that she has deer hooves instead of feet, a clear indication of her non-human nature.  The baobhan sith is known for seducing and then consuming unwary men- slitting their throats, ripping out their hearts and drinking their blood.  Glaistigs are also known to herd deer, to allow favoured hunters to take single beasts and to transform into female human form in which their identity may be betrayed by their deer hooves.  It is very curious indeed that the deer, an animal normally characterised as timid and gentle, should be an alternative form of notoriously ferocious faery females.

The assumption of deer form is found elsewhere in British mythology.  In the fourth branch of the Mabinogion, the story of Math son of Mathonwy, the brothers Gilfaethwy and his astronomer/ magician brother Gwydion are punished by their uncle Math for their joint rape of the virgin Goewin.  This assault has precipitated war, so Math turns them into a breeding pair of deer for a year, then pigs, and lastly wolves. Three young are born over the three-year duration of the spell; Math uses magic to change these offspring into boys and names them: they are, respectively, Hyddwn (Stag Man), Hychddwn Hir (the Long Pig), and Bleiddwn (Wolf Man).  In a related story, Amaethon, another brother of Gwydion, steals a white roebuck and a whelp from Arawn, king of the otherworld, a crime which again leads to a major conflict.

Various other marvellous deer appear in the Mabinogion.  In the story of Peredur, son of Efrawc, the hero has to hunt a one-horned stag that is both very powerful and fast; a pure white stag is hunted by King Arthur in the tale of Geraint son of Erbin.  Far more impressive than either of these, though, is the very long-lived Stag of Redynvre in Culhwch and Olwen, whose wise advice Arthur solicits. 

Gloria Wallington, Pictish Hunting Scene III, 1995

Deer have other supernatural aspects.  It has been reported that in Breadalbane, in the central Highlands, the belief once was that ghosts could appear as various beasts, including dogs, cattle and- of course- deer.  In England, for example at Levens Hall in Westmorland, white deer were supposed to have been tied to the fortune of the house, the killing of one guaranteeing misfortune for the residents.

As a final confirmation of the deep-rooted supernatural and mythological status of deer in the British Isles, we may note the annual horn-dance that takes place at Abbot’s Bromley in Staffordshire. The antlers used in this day-long ceremony (or maybe ritual) are actually from reindeer and date back to around the Norman Conquest- two remarkable and quite inexplicable facts. In describing the dance, the recently released book Weird Walk notes that across Europe there was a tradition of dressing up as deer or cattle, something that early medieval churchmen recognised as pagan magic and sought to outlaw. It looks as though it somehow survived at Abbot’s Bromley, even today connecting us with those hags and stags…

Abbot’s Bromley Horn Dance, c.1900

Last Tuesday Society talk

A quick plug for the Last Tuesday Society online talks. These are linked to the Viktor Wynd Museum of Curiosities, Fine Art & UnNatural History, which is in Mare Street, Hackney, London E8. I’ve been booked to do a session on Faery Anatomy on Tuesday, 23rd April between 8pm and 9.30pm (BST).

Here are the links:

Facebook: https://fb.me/e/4S1m6djbh

Eventbrite

John Kruse – The Faes’ Anatomy

They asked me to plug the event and I’m sure they’d appreciate your bookings.

Faery Fauna I: Supernatural Swine

Twrch Trwyth– sculpture by Tony Woodward at Ammanford

The connection between faeries and certain animals in Britain is a complex and (as ever) sometimes rather confusing one. The fae can keep their own domestic and domesticated creatures- they have horses for riding, cows for milk and meat and dogs for hunting and guarding their homes, all of which feature in folk tales. Secondly, though, some faery beings can take on animal form or, more notably, may only appear as those creatures. I’ve written several times in previous posts about what I’ve termed these ‘faery beasts,’ the likes of the black dogs, water horses and water bulls.  In this and succeeding posts, I want to explore the slightly different vision of faery being: my focus will be upon those faeries who have two natures- animal as well as anthropoid- and the manner in which they are integrated into the wider enchanted environment of the isles of Britain. I will focus on a number of major animals, consider how their forms are often assumed by faery beings and examine how these creatures have long featured in the deeper mythology of Britain. 

Herds

The boar, or wild pig, appears very often in British folklore and there are regular associations with faeries: hence, the Highland hag called the cailleach bheur keeps flocks of pigs as well as deer and cattle.  Her storm-bringing assistants ride on both swine and wolves. A cailleach in Ross and Cromarty called Mala Liath is the protectress of herds of swine and, together with the wild boar of Glen Glass, is said to prey upon humans.

According to a Scots poem found in the Bannatyne manuscript, ‘The Gyre Carling,’ the faery female called the Gyre Carlin in Fife is said to be accompanied by her sow, which she will ride, in addition to which she can take on pig form if she wishes.  The gyre seems to be a southern variant of the cailleach bheur and, like so many of those northern hags, is thought to have lived on human flesh. 

The swine as supernatural companion is also found English ballad of the ‘Jovial Hunter.’ This tells of Sir Ryalas of Upper Wick in Worcestershire who went to the aid of a lady trapped in a tree after her husband and retinue had all, apparently, been killed by a wild boar.  The knight bravely fought the beast for four hours and eventually managed to kill it, but the ‘lady’ was not grateful to her saviour: she proved to be a wild woman of the woods who attacked him, complaining “you have killed my spotted pig!”

Shapeshifting

Regularly, too, faeries can take on the form of boars and pigs: the Manx glastin or glashtyn has one form as a horse but is also seen as a pig; Highland fuathan can also assume multiple shapes- including a pig and a dog; likewise, barguests- which often manifest as huge chained dogs, but also as donkeys, calves and pigs- and the Manx bugganes, which might appear as pigs, cows, dogs or cats.  The Scottish folklorist John Gregorson Campbell discovered a tradition in the Ross of Mull that a faery being might take the form of a small bird, called the torc sona (or ‘happy boar’) which could bring luck to farmers, such as a never-ending supply of seed.

Shapeshifting into pig form by a supernatural may also be encountered on the Isle of Man.  In 1910, the Reverend Canon Kewley, of Arbory parish on the island, recounted the experience of a staunch Methodist he knew.  This man had once seen the road full of little black pigs which all vanished as soon as he demanded of them, “In the name of God, what are ye?”  He was quite sure that he had seen a group of the ‘little folk.’  There also the faery pig of the Isle of Man, a creature called arkan sonney in Manx- ‘the lucky piggy.’  This is a white pig with red ears and eyes (a very typical colouring for supernatural beasts) which is capable of changing its size- but not its shape.  They are reputed to be very attractive and lucky creatures (akin to the Manx torc sona just mentioned).

Arkan Sonney by Luniers on DeviantArt

Boars

Monstrous supernatural boars that wreak destruction are a common feature of British myth.  The most famous of these, probably, is the Twrch Trwyth (Trwyth the Boar) in the Welsh story of Culhwch and Olwen in the collection of early medieval stories called the Mabinogion. Such was its reputation that the medieval Welsh poet Lewis Glyn Cothi (1420-90) made a comparison between a human warrior and the boar: “He would destroy towns with wrath, wounds and violence; he would tear down towers like Twrch Trwyth.”

The Twrch Trwyth has a comb, scissors and razor, hidden amongst the poisonous bristles between its ears, items which Culhwch needs so that he can cut the hair of the giant, Ysbaddaden, in the hope that he will then give consent for his daughter to marry the hero.  Trwyth is hunted across the whole of South Wales and into Cornwall by King Arthur and a large party of skilled pursuers.  A second boar, Ysgithrwyn Pen Beidd (Chief Boar), has then to be hunted to obtain a tusk with which to shave the giant.

Arthur hunts the Twrch– sculpture at Cwmamman

Several other magical boars and swine appear in the Mabinogion.  In the tale of Manawyddan son of Llyr, Pryderi and Manawyddan pursue a marvellous white boar into a castle never previously seen standing at that spot. When, successively, Pryderi and then his mother Rhiannon enter the castle, they are frozen on the spot by spells cast by the magician Llwyd ap Cil Coed.  The boar seen was either Llwyd in disguise- or was an apparition conjured by him.  Certainly, in the ancient Welsh stories we encounter examples of shapeshifting into pig-form: Twrch Trwyth is, according to King Arthur, a sinful king transformed into a swine by god in punishment; the poet Taliesin sang of his origins, describing how he was able to shape-shift, taking on multiple forms, including that of a stag (see a later posting) and of a swine: “I have fled as a bristly boar, seen in a ravine.” 

Generally, swine are portrayed positively, as highly valuable and desirable- so much so that in the story of Math, son of Mathonwy, the wizard Gwydion uses magical deception to steal swine from Pryderi.  However, at the start of the story of Culhwch and Olwen the boy’s mother is able to overcome a difficult labour by going to a place where swine were being herded; fear of the pigs hastened her son’s delivery. It’s not wholly clear whether there is a magical aspect to this.

Scottish tradition also has a tale of a monstrous and ferocious boar that lived in a cave on Ben Laighal in Sutherland.  It was killed by Diarmuid, but like Twrch Trwyth, it had poisonous bristles, one of which pierced his bare foot and killed him; the same tale is told of Diarmuid and the Mala Liath and Glen Glass boar mentioned earlier. The killing of monstrous boars that have ravaged neighbourhoods is also found in folktales from throughout England, for instance from Boarstall, Chetwode, Bishop Auckland and Brancepeth.

The wild boar has a reputation as a fierce and dangerous creature, but the stories recounted here go well beyond this. Not only can these swine become unnaturally huge, they may be found as the companions of malign faery females, wreaking devastation together with them. Then again, there can be a fortunate and benign aspect to some of these beings. At the very least, as we shall see in posts on other animals to follow, the faeries are regarded as being integrated into the British landscape and ecology not only through grazing swine but by becoming them.