Early Inscribed Stones--The Stone Pillar of Banwan Bryddin, near Neath--Catastrophe accompanying its Removal--The Sagranus Stone and the White Lady--The Dancing Stones of Stackpool--Human Beings changed to Stones--St. Ceyna and the Serpents--The Devil's Stone at Llanarth--Rocking Stones and their accompanying Superstitions--The Suspended Altar of Loin-Garth--Cromlechs and their Fairy Legends--The Fairies' Castle at St. Nicholas, Glamorganshire--The Stone of the Wolf Bitch--The Welsh Melusina--Parc-y-Bigwrn Cromlech--Connection of these Stones with Ancient Druidism 373
Baleful Spirits of Storm--The Shower at the Magic Fountain--Obstacles in the way of Treasure-Seekers--The Red Lady of Paviland--The Fall of Coychurch Tower--Thunder and Lightning evoked by Digging--The Treasure-Chest under Moel Arthur in the Vale of Clwyd--Modern Credulity--The Cavern of the Ravens--The Eagle-guarded Coffer of Castell Coch--Sleeping Warriors as Treasure-Guarders--The Dragon which St. Samson drove out of Wales--Dragons in the Mabinogion--Whence came the Red Dragon of Wales?--The Original Dragon of Mythology--Prototypes of the Welsh Caverns and Treasure-Hills--The Goblins of Electricity 385
At eve, the primrose path along, The milkmaid shortens with a song Her solitary way; She sees the fairies with their queen Trip hand-in-hand the circled green, And hears them raise, at times unseen, The ear-enchanting lay. REV. JOHN LOGAN: _Ode to Spring_, 1780.
Fairy Tales and the Ancient Mythology--The Compensations of Science--Existing Belief in Fairies in Wales--The Faith of Culture--The Credulity of Ignorance--The Old-Time Welsh Fairyland--The Fairy King--The Legend of St. Collen and Gwyn ap Nudd--The Green Meadows of the Sea--Fairies at Market--The Land of Mystery.
With regard to other divisions of the field of folk-lore, the views of scholars differ, but in the realm of faerie these differences are reconciled; it is agreed that fairy tales are relics of the ancient mythology; and the philosophers stroll hand in hand harmoniously. This is as it should be, in a realm about which cluster such delightful memories of the most poetic period of life--childhood, before scepticism has crept in as ignorance slinks out. The knowledge which introduced scepticism is infinitely more valuable than the faith it displaced; but, in spite of that, there be few among us who have not felt evanescent regrets for the displacement by the _foi scientifique_ of the old faith in fairies. There was something so peculiarly fascinating in that old belief, that 'once upon a time' the world was less practical in its facts than now, less commonplace and humdrum, less subject to the inexorable laws of gravitation, optics, and the like. What dramas it has yielded! What poems, what dreams, what delights!