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.Jones gives many accounts whichterminate in the manner of the following: Rees John Rosser, born at Hendy, in the parish of Llanhiddel, avery religious young man,' went one morning very early to feed the oxen in a barn called Ysgubor y LIan,and having fed them lay himself upon the hay to rest.While he lay there he heard the sound of musicapproaching, and presently a large company of fairies came into the barn.They wore striped clothes, some ingayer colours than the others, but all very gay; and they all danced to the music.He lay there as quiet as hecould, thinking they would not see him, but he was espied by one of them, a woman, who brought a stripedcushion with four tassels, one at each corner of it, and put it under his head.After some time the cock crew atthe house of Blaen y Cwm, hard by, upon which they appeared as if they were surprised and displeased; thecushion was hastily whisked from under his head, and the fairies vanished.' The spirits of darkness do notlike the crowing of the cock, because it gives notice of the approach of day, for they love darkness rather thanlight · And it hath been several times observed that these fairies cannot endure to hear the name of God.' Amodern Welsh preacher (but one whose opinions contrast most decidedly with those of Jones) observes: 'Thecock is wonderfully well versed in the circumstances of the children of Adam ; his shrill voice at dawn of dayis sufficient intimation to every spirit, coblyn, wraith, elf, bwci, and apparition to flee into their illusivecountry for their lives, before the light of day will show them to be an empty nothingness, and bring them toshame and reproach.' [Rev.Robert Ellis, in 'Manion Hynafiaethol' (Treherbert, 1873.) Shakspeare introducesthis superstition in Hamlet:Ber.It was about to speak, when the cock crew.Hor.And then it started like a guilty thingUpon a fearful summons.['Hamlet,' Act I., Sc.I]But the opinion that spirits fly away at cock-crow is of extreme antiquity.It is mentioned by the Christianpoet Prudentius (fourth century) as a tradition of common belief.[Brad, ' Popular Antiquities,' ii., 31] As forthe effect of the name of God as an exorcism, we still encounter this superstition, a living thing in our ownPiety as a Protection from the Tylwyth Teg 41 British Goblins: Welsh folk-lore, fairy mythology, legends and traditionsday, and in every land where modern 'spiritualism' finds believers.The mischief produced at 'spirituals ances' by 'bad spirits' is well-known to those who have paid any attention to this subject.The late Mr.FitzHugh Ludlow once related to me, with dramatic fervour, the result of his attempts to exorcise a bad spiritwhich was in possession of a female 'medium,' by trying to make her pronounce the name of Christ.Shestumbled and stammered over this test in a most embarrassing way, and finally emerged from her trance withthe holy name unspoken ; the bad spirit had fled.This was in New York, in 1867.Like many others whoassert their unbelief in spiritualism, Mr.Ludlow was intensely impressed by this phenomenon.Students of comparative folklore class all such manifestations under a common head, whether related offairies or spirit mediums.They trace their origin to the same source whence come the notions of propitiatingthe fairies by euphemistic names.The use of such names as Jehovah, the Almighty, the Supreme Being, etc.,for the terrible and avenging God of the Jewish theology, being originally an endeavour to avoid pronouncingthe name of God, it is easy to see the connection with the exorcising power of that name upon all evil spirits,such as fairies are usually held to be.Here also, it is thought, is presented the ultimate source of that horror ofprofane language which prevails among the Puritanic peoples of England and America.The name of the devilis similarly provided with euphemisms, some of which - such as the Old Boy - are not of a sort to offendthat personage's ears and until recently the word devil was deemed almost as offensive as the word God,when profanely used.II.A popular protection from the encroachments of fairies is the eithin, or prickly furze, common in Wales.It isbelieved that the fairies cannot penetrate a fence or hedge composed of this thorny shrub.An accountillustrating this, and otherwise curious in its details, was given in 1871 by a prominent resident of Anglesea:[Hon.W.O.Stanley, in 'Notes and Queries'] 'One day, some thirty years ago, Mrs.Stanley went to one of theold houses to see an old woman she often visited.It was a wretched hovel so unusually dark when she openedthe door, that she called to old Betty Griffith, but getting no answer she entered the room.A little tinywindow of one pane of glass at the further side of the room gave a feeble light.A few cinders alight in themiserable grate also gave a glimmer of light, which enabled her to see where the bed used to be, in a recess.To her surprise she saw it entirely shut out by a barricade of thick gorse, so closely packed and piled up thatno bed was to be seen.Again she called Betty Griffith no response came.She looked round the wretchedroom the only symptom of life was a plant of the Wandering Jew (Saxifraga tricolor), so called by the poorpeople, and clearly loved to grace their windows
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