Full Transcript for Helpful Fairies

would have been very ungrateful in her fairy majesty if she had struck the child powerless for touching her dress. 24 00:02:43,660 --> 00:02:49,730 If indeed such powers were hers. But to return to our story. 25 00:02:49,730 --> 00:02:57,050 The very day mentioned the mail was returned not by the same lady, but by a curious little figure with a yelping voice. 26 00:02:57,050 --> 00:03:02,960 She was likewise dressed in green after handing the meal. She helped out Prall meal. 27 00:03:02,960 --> 00:03:08,210 It's the top pickle of the season. Corn. It was excellent. 28 00:03:08,210 --> 00:03:16,850 And what was very strange. All the family were advised to partake of it when sickness came shortly afterwards, the whole family survived. 29 00:03:16,850 --> 00:03:22,070 But there was one servant lad who spurned the fairies meal and he died shortly after 30 00:03:22,070 --> 00:03:27,470 the miller and his wife firmly believed it was because he refused to eat the meal. 31 00:03:27,470 --> 00:03:33,070 They also firmly believed that their first visitor was no less a personage than the queen of the fairies, 32 00:03:33,070 --> 00:03:39,990 who having this Mr. Court, had not one maid of honour in waiting to obey her commands. 33 00:03:39,990 --> 00:03:43,770 A few nights after this strange visit as the Miller was going to bed, 34 00:03:43,770 --> 00:03:48,780 a gentle tap was heard at the door and on, it's being opened by him with a light in his hand. 35 00:03:48,780 --> 00:03:53,730 There stood a little figure dressed in green, who, in a shrill voice but very polite manner, 36 00:03:53,730 --> 00:04:00,520 requested him to let on the water and set the meal in order that she was going to grind some corn. 37 00:04:00,520 --> 00:04:04,890 The miller did not dare to refuse. So did as she desired him. 38 00:04:04,890 --> 00:04:09,450 She told him to go to bed again and he would find all he had left it. 39 00:04:09,450 --> 00:04:18,360 He found everything in the morning, as she said he would. So much for the honesty of faries. 40 00:04:18,360 --> 00:04:28,970 Done view leaks on fire. Fairies were very friendly to some people whom they favoured, but equally mischievous, where they took a dislike. 41 00:04:28,970 --> 00:04:34,730 A hill in the farm of Don View, Luke in Craig Inish was one of their favourite haunts. 42 00:04:34,730 --> 00:04:39,890 And on a certain occasion, they offered to assistant honest tenant's wife in the neighbourhood for whom they had 43 00:04:39,890 --> 00:04:45,440 a kindness to manufacture a quantity of wool she had for clothing for her family. 44 00:04:45,440 --> 00:04:49,400 She was very glad to have their services and being always an active race. 45 00:04:49,400 --> 00:04:58,040 They set to work directly, repeating a song teasing, carding, mixing, distaff weaving loom waterfall walking on the fire. 46 00:04:58,040 --> 00:05:03,630 The thrifty housewife herself is the best at sitting up late. 47 00:05:03,630 --> 00:05:10,280 In the heat of their operations and envious neighbour came to the door crying, Don, Vueling is on fire. 48 00:05:10,280 --> 00:05:15,680 Dan, Vueling is on fire. Vueling is on fire, was reacted by all the little company done. 49 00:05:15,680 --> 00:05:20,260 Vueling is on fire. My Hamer's and my anvil, my hammers and my anvil. 50 00:05:20,260 --> 00:05:26,030 My little children and my grown men. My little children and my grown men. 51 00:05:26,030 --> 00:05:33,940 And they all scampered off, but not till they had nearly finished the housewife's weaving. 52 00:05:33,940 --> 00:05:40,240 So in the boring oatmeal's story, then the open hearted generosity of the household, it really paid off? 53 00:05:40,240 --> 00:05:45,760 Definitely, yes. The fairy leaves them with something not just equal to what they borrowed, 54 00:05:45,760 --> 00:05:52,420 but with an added special gift that they the fairies can see something coming in the future and helps the family overcome that. 55 00:05:52,420 --> 00:06:00,490 Yeah, it comes as a kind of surprise, doesn't it, to the family that they didn't know that the fairy would repay them with the kind of extra interest, 56 00:06:00,490 --> 00:06:07,870 as it were, but they just reach out to someone in trouble and sheds the kind of quite meagre resources that they have? 57 00:06:07,870 --> 00:06:11,220 Yes, there's the poor chap who decides not to eat it, though. 58 00:06:11,220 --> 00:06:17,280 Doesn't earn. He perishes and dies. So I'm not quite sure where that fits with fairy eating fairy food. 59 00:06:17,280 --> 00:06:23,110 Isn't there a bit of a taboo about eating food? Yes. And I think that kind of pulls against that in some way. 60 00:06:23,110 --> 00:06:27,850 If you eat fairy food when your below ground Disney Fairy World, 61 00:06:27,850 --> 00:06:34,210 you are prone to then develop a kind of addiction to it and you want to keep going back and getting more and more. 62 00:06:34,210 --> 00:06:41,200 And it can end up with your pining and dying, particularly if people, Christians, the priests, 63 00:06:41,200 --> 00:06:47,530 the mothers, stop people from going into fairy land to get a fix, then it all becomes rather dangerous. 64 00:06:47,530 --> 00:06:56,020 But I think perhaps in these Scottish tales, the fairies are bringing a magic fairy substance out of fairy land into the human world. 65 00:06:56,020 --> 00:07:02,520 I think probably the poor chap who doesn't eat it is being quite cautious and being quite God-Fearing in the way. 66 00:07:02,520 --> 00:07:02,890 Yeah. 67 00:07:02,890 --> 00:07:11,410 So there's a difference between being given a gift and being rewarded for something you did or just consuming and partying as part of the fairy dance. 68 00:07:11,410 --> 00:07:18,420 Yes, I think it's the attractions of the other world that drag you away from real human existence that is such a danger there. 69 00:07:18,420 --> 00:07:26,920 Mm hmm. Interesting. And

it's also interesting in the second story, I think, how we get the sense of the kind of endless work that women have to do, 70 00:07:26,920 --> 00:07:28,900 particularly in clothes manufacture, 71 00:07:28,900 --> 00:07:36,010 starting right from taking the wool off the sheep and going all the way through the spinning and the weaving and so on. 72 00:07:36,010 --> 00:07:41,410 Yes. And that the fairies just come and it seems quite altruistically just help get through that work. 73 00:07:41,410 --> 00:07:46,360 They're not looking to get anything out of it, particularly themselves. They just like her. 74 00:07:46,360 --> 00:07:54,010 Mm hmm. And there's other stories, aren't there were people where fairies come to mill people's grain for them or it's not just in clothing. 75 00:07:54,010 --> 00:07:57,590 There's all sorts of trades that fairies will come and do. Yes. 76 00:07:57,590 --> 00:08:01,930 Or sometimes there are stories about elves which have the same kind of structure where you 77 00:08:01,930 --> 00:08:08,230 have the the helpful elves who help the cobbler and they do his work for him overnight. 78 00:08:08,230 --> 00:08:16,860 And then those stories, if you try and reward the other well being. It takes offence and cares of doing it out of love, not for kind of gain. 79 00:08:16,860 --> 00:08:23,770 Then this story ends. It's rather saddening in a way to see that the envious neighbour just blows everything up. 80 00:08:23,770 --> 00:08:27,700 Yeah. Not very kind. Not going to do anyone any good, is it? 81 00:08:27,700 --> 00:08:34,750 No. I mean, it's also I guess it's quite striking that the the fairies, as they run the way they're shouting, oh, 82 00:08:34,750 --> 00:08:41,170 my Smith's tools, which is quite interesting given the the normal idea of fairies not getting on well with iron, 83 00:08:41,170 --> 00:08:46,630 but also my my man, my children, my family to the kind of fairy families in the hill, 84 00:08:46,630 --> 00:08:50,710 just like human families, and they share the same concerns with their villages on fire. 85 00:08:50,710 --> 00:08:58,870 They need to go and save themselves. So yes, they will do altruistic and good things for us, but not at the price to themselves. 86 00:08:58,870 --> 00:09:08,050 Yeah. So that kind of perhaps than we might have thought. So while sometimes these fairies are coming and doing work for us and putting 87 00:09:08,050 --> 00:09:12,340 their skills into practise and using their magic for the benefit of humans, 88 00:09:12,340 --> 00:09:20,650 as in giving you magic oatmeal or getting your work done for you. They also pass on their skills and enhance the human ability as well. 89 00:09:20,650 --> 00:09:23,950 In some cases they. Yeah, there's another interesting. Again, 90 00:09:23,950 --> 00:09:30,040 the Scottish Changeling story where Smith's son is snatched away by the fairies and eventually the 91 00:09:30,040 --> 00:09:35,560 father comes and rescues him from the

fairy mound and discovers that all the fathers and Xman Smith, 92 00:09:35,560 --> 00:09:40,720 the son, is even better because he's lent strange fairy metalworking trades. 93 00:09:40,720 --> 00:09:45,790 And so after his time in The Fairy Man, he's able to make a good living from the trade, 94 00:09:45,790 --> 00:09:50,290 which he wouldn't have had if he hadn't had that experience with the fairies. And in that tale, 95 00:09:50,290 --> 00:09:55,100 doesn't the son not speak for a year after coming out of fairy worlds of suggesting 96 00:09:55,100 --> 00:10:00,570 maybe he was having quite a nice time there or else he's kind of traumatised? 97 00:10:00,570 --> 00:10:07,030 Can't the fairies that want him to speak of what happened to him, the possibility that is interesting. 98 00:10:07,030 --> 00:10:13,720 And there's other skills as well, musician skills. So there's lots of Trower tunes that I've heard around the place. 99 00:10:13,720 --> 00:10:16,860 So these are supposed to be tunes that been learnt from the fairies. 100 00:10:16,860 --> 00:10:24,640 So passing on their tunes, but also their musical abilities and to make magical, mystical and enchanted music. 101 00:10:24,640 --> 00:10:30,560 Yeah, and that's an example that differs from some of the other kind of fairy stories where going into fairy land, 102 00:10:30,560 --> 00:10:37,150 the meeting the fairies has quite a detrimental. Not on your life, but because they're skilled musicians already. 103 00:10:37,150 --> 00:10:43,390 When they go into the mound where they meet the trials, the Orkney and Shetland version of fairies, 104 00:10:43,390 --> 00:10:47,530 they give good entertainment to the other world creatures while they're there. 105 00:10:47,530 --> 00:10:54,990 And that's a reward. They learn these wonderful, magical tunes, which they take away with them back to the outside world. 106 00:10:54,990 --> 00:13:06,670 Here's Lucy Farrell and Ewan McPherson playing The King of the Fairies. 107 00:13:06,670 --> 00:13:10,900 That was the King of the Fairies by Lucy Farrell and Ewan McPherson. 108 00:13:10,900 --> 00:13:15,880 Now that is an old tune said to summon the king to any social gathering. 109 00:13:15,880 --> 00:13:23,230 So if you play it round three times, he will appear. And depending on whether the parties to his liking or not, he might stay and join in. 110 00:13:23,230 --> 00:13:28,860 But if it's really not his taste, he can cause endless mischief and a great deal of problems. 111 00:13:28,860 --> 00:13:36,190 So helpful fairies is not just about fairies passing on skills to us and giving us wonderful music and wonderful food to eat. 112 00:13:36,190 --> 00:13:42,580 But they also need our help sometimes. And there's a few stories of humans being taken into the fairy world to be helpful. 113 00:13:42,580 --> 00:13:49,000 Yes, this is a story from Wales about a serving girl called Elion and her relationship with the teller. 114 00:13:49,000 -->

00:13:56,610 Take the Welsh version of the fairies and his Brime mum to read it to us. 115 00:13:56,610 --> 00:14:07,140 Alien and the tellies take. An old man and his wife lived at the golf dorwin in some period a long while ago. 116 00:14:07,140 --> 00:14:11,820 They went to Caernarfon to hear a servant maid at the All Hallows Fair. 117 00:14:11,820 --> 00:14:19,440 The custom then for young men and women who stood out for places to station themselves at the top of the present maze by a little green eminence, 118 00:14:19,440 --> 00:14:22,560 which was where the present post office stands. 119 00:14:22,560 --> 00:14:30,150 The old man and his wife went to that spot and saw their glass with yellow hair standing a little apart from all the others. 120 00:14:30,150 --> 00:14:36,140 The old woman went to her and asked her if she wanted a place. She replied that she did. 121 00:14:36,140 --> 00:14:40,860 And so she hired herself at once and came to her place at the time fixed. 122 00:14:40,860 --> 00:14:46,290 In those times, it was customary during the long winter nights that spinning should be done after supper. 123 00:14:46,290 --> 00:14:54,730 Now the maid servant would go to the meadow to spin by the light of the moon and tell if Taig used to come to her to sing and dance. 124 00:14:54,730 --> 00:15:03,590 But sometime in the spring, when the days had grown longer, Alien escaped with the telephone taig so that she was seen no more. 125 00:15:03,590 --> 00:15:12,580 The field where she was last seen as to this day called aliens field and the meadow is known as the Maids Meadow. 126 00:15:12,580 --> 00:15:19,680 The old woman of Garthe, Dorwin, was in the habit of helping women in childbed and she was in great request far and wide. 127 00:15:19,680 --> 00:15:26,170 Sometime after Alien's escape, there came a gentleman on horseback to the door one night when the moon was full. 128 00:15:26,170 --> 00:15:31,970 While there was a slight rain, just a little mist to fetch the old woman to his wife. 129 00:15:31,970 --> 00:15:36,510 So she rode off behind the stranger on his horse and came to Rossie Court. 130 00:15:36,510 --> 00:15:39,570 Now, there was at that time in the centre of the cross, 131 00:15:39,570 --> 00:15:48,330 somewhat of a rising ground that looked like an old fortification with many big stones on the top and a large cairn of stones on the northern side. 132 00:15:48,330 --> 00:15:54,660 It is to be seen there to this day, and it goes by the name of Brinn EPB in. 133 00:15:54,660 --> 00:16:04,040 But I have never visited the spot. When they reached the spot, they entered a large cave and they went into a room where the wife lay in her bed. 134 00:16:04,040 --> 00:16:08,440 It was the finest place the old woman had seen in her life. 135 00:16:08,440 --> 00:16:14,620 When she had successfully brought the wife to bed, she went near the fire to address the baby and when that was done, 136 00:16:14,620 --> 00:16:20,020 the husband came to the old woman with a bottle of ointment that she might anoint the baby's eyes, 137 00:16:20,020 --> 00:16:24,770 but he had treated her not to touch her own eyes with it. Somehow, 138 00:16:24,770 --> 00:16:28,820 after putting the bottle by one of the old woman's eyes happened to each and 139 00:16:28,820 --> 00:16:34,040 she rubbed it with the same finger that she had used to rub the baby's eyes. 140 00:16:34,040 --> 00:16:42,170 Then she saw with that eye how the wife lay on a bundle of rushes and withered ferns and a large cave with big stones all around her. 141 00:16:42,170 --> 00:16:48,170 And with a little fire in one corner. And she saw also the lady was only alien. 142 00:16:48,170 --> 00:16:56,060 Her former servant girl, whilst with the other eye, she beheld the finest place she had ever seen. 143 00:16:56,060 --> 00:17:05,120 Not long afterwards, the old midwife went to Caernarfon to market when she saw the husband and said to him, How is Alien? 144 00:17:05,120 --> 00:17:11,380 She's pretty well, said he, to the old woman. But with what I do, you see me. 145 00:17:11,380 --> 00:17:20,140 With this one. Was the reply. And he took a bullrush and put her eye out at once. 146 00:17:20,140 --> 00:17:24,100 So Alien turns out to be not such a great servant girl for her mistress. 147 00:17:24,100 --> 00:17:33,370 If she's away with the fairies, happy full moon dancing green. And I think you can understand in some ways why that kind of life with the fairies, 148 00:17:33,370 --> 00:17:41,630 even though it turns out to Christianised to be quite an illusion, is more attractive than just being a puss upon servant in the in the Welsh form. 149 00:17:41,630 --> 00:17:47,860 Yeah. Well, if you just get the one day off a month then I suppose you'd want to go and dance with the devil. 150 00:17:47,860 --> 00:17:55,150 But there's also notable, I think, that this midwife comes home with new information and with a reward. 151 00:17:55,150 --> 00:17:58,600 And that seems to because her Christian faith allows her to see clearly. 152 00:17:58,600 --> 00:18:06,520 So what looks like a rich hall with a tapestry beds and and fine hangings and carpets is actually nothing 153 00:18:06,520 --> 00:18:13,480 but an old cave with a straw on the floor and the girls lying on pallets of straw with Christianised. 154 00:18:13,480 --> 00:18:20,290 You can see that the fairy world is an illusion. Why do you think the fairies needed human help to deliver babies? 155 00:18:20,290 --> 00:18:26,800 It's interesting, isn't it? We can see in the next episode that humans give birth reasonably easily. 156 00:18:26,800 --> 00:18:34,750 But Fairy seem to have difficulty with it. They always seem to need human help and fairy children don't thrive necessarily. 157 00:18:34,750 --> 00:18:40,630 So there are reasons to swap your fairy child with a human child, as we'll hear shortly. 158 00:18:40,630 --> 00:18:43,420 Another issue that fairies have is with Ion, isn't it? 159 00:18:43,420 --> 00:18:50,920 So when without needing to manage tools or make industrial artefacts, they sometimes come for human intervention as well. 160 00:18:50,920 --> 00:18:58,330 Yeah, there's another lovely Welsh story where a ploughman is ploughing up and down the field and then he sees that the end of the field, 161 00:18:58,330 --> 00:19:05,170 a tiny little shovel with the long handle, which is the kind that you would use to put bread loaves into the ovens. 162 00:19:05,170 --> 00:19:11,860 And with a long handle so you don't get burnt. And the nail that secured the metal bit has come loose. 163 00:19:11,860 --> 00:19:14,890 And he realises that the fairies need his help. 164 00:19:14,890 --> 00:19:23,020 So at the end of the ploughed turn, he nails the people, as it's called, back together, and then he is rewarded with some delicious fairy loaves. 165 00:19:23,020 --> 00:19:29,350 Again, Pooh loves that come out of fairy land and which are both tasty and healing. 166 00:19:29,350 --> 00:19:35,440 So there's a lovely symbiotic relationship going on here that the fairies don't just give us everything 167 00:19:35,440 --> 00:19:41,620 they need us as well and were to two bodies that have to thrive off each other in order to really thrive. 168 00:19:41,620 --> 00:19:47,140 Yeah, we lived side by side with the fairies and sometimes we can see them, sometimes we can't. 169 00:19:47,140 --> 00:19:56,800 But cooperation, respect, promise, keeping. These are the things that stop the fairies being dark and malicious in the way that they can be. 170 00:19:56,800 --> 00:20:04,670 If you've enjoyed this podcast, join us in the next one in the series. Well, we'll talk about fairies and children and the fear of the changeling. 171 00:20:04,670 --> 00:20:10,990 And if you happen to be able to come to the stage, Gates said, there'll be a residency with open rehearsals and actual performances. 172 00:20:10,990 --> 00:20:18,050 The artist's new work in progress on April 26, 27 and 28, 2009. 173 00:20:18,050 --> 00:20:27,940 Goodbye. Goodbye. May seven. 174 00:20:27,940 --> 00:20:44,564 Paul.