Fairy Treasures Seen By A Man Near Ogwen Lake
:
FAIRY MOTHERS AND HUMAN MIDWIVES.
Another tale, similar to the preceding one, is told by my friend, Mr.
Hugh Derfel Hughes, in his Hynafiaethau Llandegai a Llanllechid, pp. 35,
36. The following is a translation of Mr. Hughes's story:--
It is said that a servant man penetrated into the recesses of the
mountains in the neighbourhood of Ogwen Lake, and that he there
discovered a cave within which there was a large quantity of brazen
vessel
of every shape and description. In the joy of his heart at his
good fortune, he seized one of the vessels, with the intention of
carrying it away with him, as an earnest that the rest likewise were his.
But, alas, it was too heavy for any man to move. Therefore, with the
intention of returning the following morning to the cave with a friend to
assist him in carrying the vessels away, he closed its month with stones,
and thus he securely hid from view the entrance to the cave. When he had
done this it flashed upon his mind that he had heard of people who had
accidentally come across caves, just as he had, but that they, poor
things, had afterwards lost all traces of them. And lest a similar
misfortune should befall him, he determined to place a mark on the mouth
of the cave, which would enable him to come upon it again, and also he
bethought himself that it would be necessary, for further security, to
indicate by some marks the way from his house to the cave. He had
however nothing at hand to enable him to carry out this latter design,
but his walking stick. This he began to chip with his knife, and he
placed the chips at certain distances all along the way homewards. In
this way he cut up his staff, and he was satisfied with what he had done,
for he hoped to find the cave by means of the chips. Early the next
morning he and a friend started for the mountain in the fond hope of
securing the treasures, but when they arrived at the spot where the
chip-marked pathway ought to begin, they failed to discover a single
chip, because, as it was reported--They had been gathered up by the
Fairies. And thus this vision was in vain.
The author adds to the tale these words:--But, reader, things are not
always to be so. There is a tradition in the Nant, that a Gwyddel is to
have these treasures and this is how it will come to pass. A Gwyddel
Shepherd will come to live in the neighbourhood, and on one of his
journeys to the mountain to shepherd his sheep, when fate shall see fit
to bring it about, there will run before him into the cave a black sheep
with a speckled head, and the Gwyddel shepherd will follow it into the
cave to catch it, and on entering, to his great astonishment, he will
discover the treasures and take possession of them. And in this way it
will come to pass, in some future age, that the property of the Gwyddelod
will return to them.