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.