Free Celtic Lore & Legend by Bob Curran Page A

to the place where he had first met his beloved, but she was not there, and, lovesick and lonely, he returned to Hafodgarrog. Such devotion deserved its reward. It would seem that the young lady loved the young man quite as much as he loved her. And in the land of allurement and illusion (yen nhir hud a lledrith), she planned a visit to the earth, and met her lover, but she was soon missed by her father, and he suspecting her love for this young man came upon them, and found them conversing lovingly together. Much talk took place between the sire and his daughter, and the shepherd, waxing bold, begged and begged her father to give him his daughter in marriage. The sire, perceiving that the man was in earnest, turned to his daughter and asked her whether it were her wish to be married to a man of the earth? She said it was. Then the father told the shepherd he should have his daughter to wife, and that she should stay with him, until he should strike her with iron , and that as a marriage portion, he would give her a bag filled with bright money. The young couple were duly married and the promised dowry was received. For many years, they lived lovingly and happily together, and children were born to them. One day this man and his wife went to the hill to catch a couple of ponies, to carry them to the Festival of the Saint of Capel Garmon. The ponies were very wild and could not be caught. The man, irritated, pursued the nimble creatures. His wife was by his side and now he thought he had them in his power, but just at the moment he was about to grasp their manes, off they wildly galloped, and the man in anger, finding that they had again eluded him, threw the bridle after them, and, sad to say, the bit struck his wife and, as this was of iron , they bothknew that their marriage contract was broken. Hardly had they time to realise the dire accident, ere the aged father of the bride appeared, accompanied by a host of Fairies, and there and then departed with his daughter to the land whence she came, and that too, without even allowing her to bid farewell to her children. The money though, and the children were left behind, and these were the only memorials of the lovely wife and the kindest of mothers, that remained to remind the shepherd of the treasure he had lost in the person of his Fairy spouse.
    Such is the Pentrevoelas Legend. The writer had evidently not seen the version of this story in the Cambro-Briton nor had he read Williams’s tale of a like occurrence, recorded in Observations on the Snowdon Mountains . The account, therefore, is all the more valuable as being an independent production.
    A fragmentary variant of the preceding legend was given me by Mr. Lloyd, late schoolmaster of Llanfibangal-Glyn-Mylyr, a native of South Wales who heard the tale in the parish of Llanfibangel. Although but a fragment, it may not be altogether useless, and I will give it as I received it:
    Shon Rolant, Haford y Dre, Pentrevoelas, when going home from Llanrwst market, fortunately caught a Fairy-maid whom he took home with him. She was a most handsome woman, but rather short and slight in person. She was admired by everybody on account of her great beauty. Shon Rolant fell desperately in love with her and would have married her but this she would not allow. He, however, continued pressing her to become his wife and by and by, she consented to do so, provided she could find out her name. As Shon was again going home from the market about a month later, he heard some one saying, near the place where he had seized the Fairy maid: “Where is little Penloi gone? Where is little Penloi gone?” Shon thought that some one was searching for the Fairy he had captured, and when he reached home, he addressed the Fairy by the name he had heard, and Penloi consented to become his wife. [ Editor’s Note : This portion of the tale seemsto be a variant of a very old legend that has come down to us in the form of the children’s fairy tale