Mysterious Britain & Ireland

Category: Fairies

Fairies / Folklore / Folktales / Welsh Fairies / Welsh Folktales

‘The Baby of Y Dolydd’

Y Dolydd is a long vacated, derelict cottage with an interesting Tylwyth Teg (Welsh Fairy) legend associated with it. Many years ago the cottage was the residence to a poor young widow, who one day encountered a charismatic Tylwyth Teg who asked her to bring up a child for him. The widow agreed to this, and several days later she found a beautiful baby boy on her doorstep.

Fairies / Folklore / Folktales

An Underground Woman in Labor

A woman who died at Neu-Bukow in 1841 at the age of 118 told that when she was a child underground people lived in a mountain near her home town. She herself and other children often saw them, but they always ran away from them. One night an underground man knocked at their door and asked the mother to go with him. His wife was in labor. He also asked to borrow a kettle.

Fairies / Folklore / Folktales

The Woman Among The Elves

Not long ago there lived in Frankenberg a midwife who could tell many amazing things about the elves, for once she had spent an entire eight days among them observing their deeds and ways.

Fairies / Folklore / Folktales

The Godmother

Two girls, all dressed up, were walking along playfully and mischievously one evening when suddenly a gigantic fat toad waddled across their path. The girls joked about the large animal: One of them said that if it ever had a baby, she would be its godmother. The other one quickly added that she would cook for the occasion.

Fairies / Folklore / Folktales

The Dwarfs In Schalk Mountain And Wohlden Mountain

Schalk Mountain (Schalksberg), between Ettenbüttel and Wilsche, near Gilde on the Aller River, is only a little mole hill today, but formerly it was a high and narrow mountain in which the dwarf people made their home.

Fairies / Folklore / Folktales

Midwife For A Nixie

A midwife in Westerhausen was sitting one evening at home when someone knocked on her window and shouted that she should come outside. She did so, and there stood a nix, who told her to follow him. They walked to the Beck [a deep pond near Westerhausen], and the nix took a rod and struck the water with it. The water separated, and with dry feet they walked to the bottom.

Fairies / Folklore / Folktales / Irish Fairies / Irish Folktales

The Midwife Of Listowel

"Why do you call the fairies ‘good people?’" asked I.
"I don’t call them the good people myself," answered Duvane, "but that is what the man called them who told me the story. Some call them the good people to avoid vexing them. I think they are called the good people mostly by pious men and women, who say that they are some of the fallen angels."

Fairies / Folklore / Folktales / Mabinogion / Occult / Occult Traditions / Welsh Fairies / Welsh Folktales / Witchcraft

Llyn Cowlyd

On the edge of the Carneddau range of mountains in Snowdonia lays the deepest lake in North Wales, Llyn Cowlyd. The lake has been dammed so it is unnaturally deep, but it has given soundings of 229 feet, and has a mean depth of 109 feet. The lake is almost 2 miles long, and a third of a mile wide, with the adjacent hills dropping steeply to the lakes edges.