The Lord, the Farmer and Their Fairies


A lord of the castle of Argouges in France, for instance, loved a fairy who loved him in return and agreed to marry him, provided only that he never mention the word 'death' in her presence. This seemed an easy task, and the union was a happy one that lasted for many years and produced handsome children. One day, however, the fairy - who seems to have been somewhat frivolous - lingered long over her dressing. When, at length, she appeared in the great hall of the castle, her irritated husband snapped out a common proverb.

"Madam," he said, "You would be a fine messenger to summon Death, for you take a long time to finish your business."

At the word, his pretty wife wailed and disappeared. Her husband found no trace of her ever again, save for the print of her hand on the castle gate.

It was ever thus. The price of love that spanned two worlds - small as the price might be - seemed greater than mortals could pay. Even so, the joys of that love, however brief, were remembered for centuries, as a Welsh tale tells. Near the Black Mountains of that country was a small lake called Llyn y Fan Fach.

A farmer of the region used to graze his cattle close to its shores. Early one morning, he saw a strange sight indeed. A gleam of gold shone through the mist on the water's surface. As the sun rose and the mist burned away, the gleam became a real image. Sitting lightly on the surface of the water was a beautiful young woman. Head bent so that she could use the water as a looking glass, she was combing her golden hair. The farmer made a movement, and the maiden looked up at once. When she saw the tall young man on the bank, she gave a smile of piercing sweetness.

The farmer was enchanted. He knew her for a gwragedd annwfn, a lake fairy who, unlike the dangerous water spirits of other countries, was full of affection for mortals. Heart pounding and hands trembling - for her beauty was unearthly - the farmer stretched out his hands and entreated her to cross the water to him. He offered her the only gift he had to give - a loaf of bread, the staff of mortal life. She shook her head.

"Your bread is too hard," said the fairy.

But she smiled once more upon him before she sank into the lake, leaving only a golden nimbus on the water to mark the place where she had disappeared.

The farmer returned the following day and found the fairy drifting gently just above the ripples of the lake. He bore a loaf of unbaked bread dough, but this she would not take, saying it was too soft, and she sank once more beneath the surface.

The third day, the farmer brought the proper offering for a fairy: a lightly baked loaf that, being neither raw nor fully cooked, partook of the mystery of borderlines and of all things that escaped definition. The surface of the lake was empty when he arrived, but when he held out his gift, there rose from the depths of the water a tall old man with a flowing beard. He was flanked by two golden maidens. The old man regarded the farmer impassively and said;

"You may have the maiden you desire, if you can tell me which of my daughter is she."

This was like the riddle trials sometimes held before mortal weddings, but infinitely harder, for the young women who stood before the farmer were as alike as two pears.

He studied them, searching for a clue. He looked at their hair and their faces and their flowing gowns and found them exactly the same. His glance dropped to the surface of the water, where the hems of their skirts rippled. From the skirts of one maiden peeped two small shoes. The farmer recognized them and made his choice. There was a pause.

"You have chosen well," the old man said at last. "That is the maiden you love, and you may take her to wife. But treat her kindly. If you strike her as many as three causeless blows, I will have her back with me."

The farmer gave his word that he would cherish his wife, and the old man sank into the water, taking with him the gwragedd annwfn's sister.

Light as a dragonfly, the gwragedd annwfn skipped across the water and onto the shore. She ran straight into the farmer's arms, smiling her sweet smile. So the two were married, and they were happy indeed. As the years passed, the fairy bore her husband three fine sons, who in later life became physicians of otherwordly and intuitive skill.

But the gwragedd annwfn had curious ways, and these disturbed her husband, happy as he was with her. She fell sometimes into trances and sometimes conversed with beings he could not see. And she did other things as well.

The couple went to the christening of a neighbor's child, and the gwragedd annwfn wept throughout. To a fairy, a christening was a sad occasion: The conferral of a mortal name severed a human's inborn ties with the other world. But the farmer did not understand this, and in his shame at her behavior, he rebuked her with the lightest of taps on the arm.

"That is the first blow," was all the gwragedd annwfn said.

They went together to a wedding, and while those about her were joyful, the fairy wept. They went to a funeral, where she laughed. She understood that sadness and joy could go hand in hand on any occasion, and she lacked the fear of censure that governed much of mortal behavior. But her husband understood only that his wife had shamed him. After the wedding, he railed at her for weeping, and then he struck her.

"That is the second blow," the fairy said. "Take heed how you treat me if you would keep me."

And she wept with sadness as she looked for the last time on her husband who had betrayed her.

The farmer understood then what he had done and what he must pay. Tears coursed down his cheeks as he watched the fairy leave his house and cross the meadows to the lake where he had found her. He saw his wife no more and lived alone the rest of his life, but it was said that while her sons were young, the gwragedd annwfn visited them and that she disappeared for the last time only after they were grown.

As it was with the lake fairy's husband, so it was with all mortal men - and women, too. The rules that governed elfin marriage always were broken by mortal spouses, through stupidity or curiosity or mistrust or carelessness. It was as if the condition of mortality demanded that sorrow follow joy.


See also
Fairies - Content | Myths and Legends