The Adventures of Three Farmers

The Adventures of Three Farmers

THREE men who once went to Beddgelert Fair had strange adventures before they reached home.

One of them was the farmer of the Gilwern. On his way home he came across the Fair Family dancing. He looked on for hours, and the music was so sweet that he felt certain that even in Heaven he would not hear sweeter. But he forgot himself while listening and went too near. When they noticed him the little people threw a kind of dust in his eyes, and while he was wiping it away they betook themselves somewhere out of his sight, so that he neither saw nor heard anything more of them.

This was what befell the second, the farmer of the Ffridd. He also saw a company of fairies engaged in their revels, and while he was watching them he fell asleep. As he slept they bound him so tightly that he could not have stirred, and then they covered him over with a veil of gossamer, so that nobody could see him in case he called for help. As he did not return home his family made a minute search for him, in vain. However, about the same time the following night the fairies came and liberated him, and he shortly woke up after sleeping a whole night and a day. After awaking he had no idea where on earth he was; he wandered about on the slopes of the Gader and near the Gors Fawr until the cock crew, when he found where he was, namely, less than a quarter of a mile from his home.

The third was the farmer of Drws y Coed. He was going home along the old road over the Gader, and when he was near the top he saw a fine, handsome house, in which there was a rare merrymaking. He knew very well that there was no such building anywhere on his way, and it made him think that he had mistaken his road and gone astray. He therefore resolved to turn into the house to ask for a night's lodging. His request was readily granted, and when he entered he thought that a wedding feast (neithior) was being celebrated, such was the jollity, the singing and the dancing. The house was full of young men and women and children, all disporting as merrily as could be. Presently the company began to disperse one by one, and he asked if he might go to bed. He was led into a beautiful bed-chamber, where there was a bed of the softest down covered with bed-clothes as white as snow. He at once undressed, went into bed, and slept. quietly enough until the morning. He opened his eyes and found he was sleeping on the open bogland, with a clump of rushes as his pillow and the blue sky as his coverlet.