The Llanfair Dyffryn Clwyd Version

: FAIRY MEN CAPTURED.
: Welsh Folk-lore

Mr. Evan Davies, carpenter, Bryn Llan, Efenechtyd, told the writer that

Robert Jones, innkeeper, in the same parish, told him the following tale,

mentioning at the same time the man who figures in the narrative, whose

name, however, I have forgotten. The story runs thus:--



A man, wishing to catch a fox, laid a bag with its mouth open, but well

secured, at the entrance to a fox's den in Coed Cochion, Llanfair Dyffryn< r />
Clwyd parish, and hid himself to await the result. He had seen the fox

enter its lair, and he calculated that it would ere long emerge

therefrom. By and by, he observed that something had entered the bag,

and going up to it, he immediately secured its mouth, and, throwing the

bag over his shoulder, proceeded homewards, but he had not gone far on

his way before he heard someone say, Where is my son John? The man,

however, though it was dark, was not frightened, for he thought that

possibly some one was in search of a lad who had wandered from home. He

was rather troubled to find that the question was repeated time after

time by some one who apparently was following him. But what was his

terror when, ere long, he heard a small voice issue from the bag he was

carrying, saying There is dear father calling me. The man in a

terrible fright threw the bag down, and ran away as fast as his feet

could carry him, and never stopped until he reached his home, and when he

came to himself he related the story of his adventure in the wood to his

wife.