Men Captured By Fairies
Category:
MEN CAPTURED BY FAIRIES.
Source:
Welsh Folk-lore
In the preceding legends, we have accounts of men capturing female
Fairies, and marrying them. It would be strange if the kidnapping were
confined to one of the two races, but Folk-Lore tells us that the Fair
Family were not innocent of actions similar to those of mortals, for many
a man was snatched away by them, and carried off to their subterranean
abodes, who, in course of time, married the fair daughters of the
Tylwyth Teg. Men captured Fairy ladies, but the Fairies captured
handsome men.
The oldest written legend of this class is to be found in the pages of
Giraldus Cambrensis, pp. 390-92, Bohn's edition. The Archdeacon made
the tour of Wales in 1188; the legend therefore which he records can
boast of a good old age, but the tale itself is older than The Itinerary
through Wales, for the writer informs us that the priest Elidorus, who
affirmed that he had been in the country of the Fairies, talked in his
old age to David II., bishop of St. David, of the event. Now David II.
was promoted to the see of St. David in 1147, or, according to others, in
1149, and died A.D. 1176; therefore the legend had its origin before the
last-mentioned date, and, if the priest were a very old man when he died,
his tale would belong to the eleventh century.
With these prefatory remarks, I will give the legend as recorded by
Giraldus.
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Elidorus And The FairiesPrevious:
The Cambro-briton Version Of The Myddvai Legend
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