Such is the first story, and it is only remarkable, perhaps, for its allusion to the father of the fairy children.
(2) There used to be at Edern an old woman who occupied a small farm called Glan y Gors: the same family lives there still. One day this old woman had gone to a fair at Criccieth, whence she returned through Pwllheli. As she was getting above Gors Geirch, which was then a turbary and a pretty considerable bog, a noise reached her ears: she stopped and heard the sound of much talking. By-and-by she beheld a great crowd of men and women coming to meet her. She became afraid and stepped across the fence to let them go by. There she remained a while listening to their chatter, and when she thought that they had gone far enough she returned to the road and began to resume her way home. But before she had gone many steps she heard the same sort of noise again, and saw again the same sort of crowd coming; so she recrossed the fence in great fear, saying to herself, 'Here I shall be all night!' She remained there till they also had gone, and she wondered what they could be, and whether they were people who had been to visit Plas Madrun--afterwards, on inquiry, she found that no such people had been there that day. Now the old woman was near enough to the passers-by to hear them talking (clebran) and chattering (bregliach), but not a word could she understand of what they uttered: it was not Welsh and she did not think that it was English--it is, however, not supposed that she knew English. She related further that the last crowd shouted all together to the other crowd in advance of them Wi, and that the latter replied Wi Wei or something like that.
This account Alaw Lleyn has got, he says, from a great-granddaughter of the old woman, and she heard it all from her father, Bard Llechog, who always had faith in the fairies, and believed that they will come again to be seen of men and women. For he thought that they had their periods, a belief which I have come across elsewhere, and more especially in Carnarvonshire [106]. Now what are we to make of such a story? I recollect reading somewhere of a phantom wedding in Scotland, but in Wales we seem to have nothing more closely resembling this than a phantom funeral. Nevertheless what the old woman of Glan y Gors thought she saw looks by no means unlike a Welsh wedding marching on foot, especially when, as I have seen done, one party tried--seemingly in good earnest--to escape the other and to take the bride away from it. Moreover, that the figures making up the two crowds in her story are to be regarded as fairies is rendered probable by the next story, which describes the phantoms therein expressly as little men and little women.