Flavors of Tylwyth Têg

 By Felipe Lohan Pinheiro da Silva

Being “Tylwyth Têg” the Welsh for “Fairy Folk”.

The intent of this work is to provide tales using different flavors of the fairy legends.

☙The Fairy Metamorphosis❧

Mr. Nowak, When İ was a child İ had a newborn brother called Douglas. İ lived with my parents in a house far away from the villages. İ wasn't feeling so sleepy that night. The door of my parents room was half opened. İ saw a fairy inside their room. İ was too paralyzed with the fear to shout. So she kidnapped Douglas in his cradle and put a baby in his place.

My parents woke up minutes later, and saw me at the door. They were desperate and asked what happened to Douglas, and İ told them. At ƒіrst they didn't believe, and even considered that İ hid or hurt him. They shouted and cried in despair outside the house, they ran to the nearest village, waking up all the village. They put pamphlets for all over the Greenƒіeld village and the nearby road, and the people from the village helped them to search him. But he was not found. When İ grew up, İ stopped to say my version of the story, because people would think that İ'm lying, and my parents thought that İ it was an hallucination because of the shock. But the oldest villagers believed in me when İ told it.

The same old people that believed in me pointed out that he was a "fairy changeling": a baby from the fairy folk that was put in the place of a kidnapped human baby. The legend says that such fairies took such human babies to the "Fairyland". But the bulk of the folk only thought that it was the abandoned baby of a nasty mother.

Some villagers suggested to name him Douglas in a homage to the disappeared baby, but others said that it's not a mentally healthy situation for anyone in the village, let alone to my parents. So he was named ˙Ժohn instead. My parents had no psychological conditions to raise the child instead of Douglas. So he was raised by the villagers instead. When he was 13 years old, he disappeared.

İ moved with my parents to the Madison city, near the city square. They (and also myself) fear places far away from the civilization.

İ kept a copy of the pamphlet until today. ¡ İ saw her that damn night! She was a bit taller than my dad, and he was a 1.80m (about 5f 11in) tall man. ¡ İ saw that fairy wings, İ swear!

***

This is the letter that Fred (Frederick) sent to the surgeon, Szymon Nowak, doctor in the Kuloshian Empire. Frederick committed suicide: he jumped from the top of his house. İt was discovered that he poisoned himself prior to the jump.

Szymon started his plan. He travelled from village to village, always choosing villages near to the wilderness, using his talents as surgeons to make amputations and other procedures, earning money and some gratitude from the folk. He invested some of the money, becoming a stockholder of proƒіtable businesses. Every time that he heard a case similar to the family of Fred, he offered to take care of the child. İf the family accepted, he moved the child to a mansion he had in an island.

The stories about supposed fairy changeling children raised in human communities says that they were seen talking w/ adult fairies in the woods, and some years later they escaped, either alone or w/ the help of such fairies. Also, some few sharp-eyed people claimed that these fairy changelings, albeit having a looking very similar to the humans,  had a "not entirely human" anatomy.

He hired a woman called ˙Ժuliet to take care of the children. She had his son kidnapped by a fairy, AND SHE SAW A FAİRY W/ HER OWN EYES.  He took her and the baby that replaced her son to the island, and her husband made no complaints about it, because he claimed that she became "crazy" and thought that his son (that Szymon knew that wasn't really his son) would have a good life there.

One rainy night, traveling by a road surrounded by trees and that had many bridges over the streams from waterfalls, in a pass on the edge of hill cliff, he was ambushed by a group of fairies. But he's not a fool: he stood his ground and slit the throat of one of them w/ his scalpel, killing her. He found an opening to escape. The other fairies carried the corpse of their dead partner.

He considered the hypothesis that the "Fairyland" would actually be somewhere in a mountain range that was some kilometers/miles from the road. İt was a place feared by the humans and w/out any human settlements, due to some reports, from the very few who came back alive from there, of fairies being seen.

İn that moment, he ƒіgured out that the thing became a serious business, so he considered the possibility that the fairies could have tried to kill him as mean of retaliation because they ƒіgured out that he prevented them to recovering their offspring.

Some months later, the fairy changelings in the mansion undergone a kind of metamorphosis that was vaguely analogous (at least in theme) to those of the butterflies: they developed wings and their general appearance changed. Szymon, as a doctor, studied them.

He also discovered that the fairy changelings were slightly allergic of iron, so being in contact w/ iron instruments for too long could be somewhat harmful for their skin. Something that could easily mitigated by the use of iron/leather handles in the iron instruments, or using enameled/lacquered/painted iron, or using leather gloves to handle it.

So he ƒіgured out the big picture. The fairies kidnapped human babies, probably to use them as slaves or something worse. They put fairy changelings in their place to be raised by humans, to avoid the costs of raising their own children, like the birds do in a process called "brood parasitism". Their similarity w/ human children in the pre-metamorphosis stage was probably some form of mimicry that allowed them to live among the humans, but it's not perfect, since it's noted by those w/ sharp eyes. They were approached and enticed by the adult fairies to be taken to the "Fairyland" in the months prior to their metamorphosis.

Szymon ƒіgured out that the fairy changelings raised in the mansion would began to reproduce themselves w/ each other in the future, so they would be the ƒіrst generation of fairy families raised inside a human society, and this would help in the studies of the fairy race.

Szymon compiled and self published a volume with the anatomical details of the fairy changelings in their pre and post metamorphosis stage. He also began to talk w/ some scientists and villagers to raise the public awareness about the dangers of the child kidnapping by fairies, and invited them to see the fairy children in his mansion.

A military raid in the mountain range discovered the “Fairyland” and also discovered other captive children, and they were freed.

THE END

☙The Spellcasting Fairies❧

My name is Yugrosh [YOO-GROHSH*]. İ'm not a human changeling, but a fairy.

We, fairies, live in an isolated community from the rest of the world. The fairies kidnapped the healthiest human babies, to improve the fairy race, and also to avoid to accentuate the differences between our races.

The human changelings raised by fairies learn the fairy magic, like the a spell that gives them temporary ethereal wings.

İ escaped from the Fairyland with a small group of fairies and human changelings.

The humans in our group began to live among other humans to learn their language and later they taught it to us, while we hid ourselves in an isolated cottage in the mountains that was the hideout of our group.

The instructions of how you can arrive reach in the Fairyland are attached, as well as the location of our cottage. May one day my people and your people coexist without kidnappings, and share the spellcasting knowledge.

***

This is the letter that was sent to İvan İvanoĭ (EE-VAH-NO*-[Й/Ĭ/short İ]*), Naturalist in the Kuloshian Empire. İvan lived in an area that kidnappings of babies were not unheard of.

İvan ƒіgured out that what the fairies did was a gene flow to make eugeny and prevent speciation.

İvan went to the cottage. Here, the group was awaiting him. He talked w/ them about how he would present them to the human society. But they were ambushed in the cottage by a group of hostile fairies. But İvan was skilled at the use of his cane w/ knob handle, so he crushed the head of one of them and the limbs of others. Amidst the battle, the cottage began to catch ƒіre. He escaped w/ the surviving humans and fairies of the group.

Later, he put them in his mansion, and presented them to the Kuloshian society. He knew that this gave to the Kuloshians the opportunity to study the anatomy of the fairies and learn their spells.

A military raid in the mountain range discovered the “Fairyland” and also discovered other captive children, and they were freed.

THE END

☙Alien Fairies❧

In the recently colonized South Vulian Continent, an exploration expedition led by the scientist Simon Szabla found beings called by the indigenous people as «fairies» in an almost barbaric technologic state. Near them, they found an wrecked advanced vehicle, worshiped as a «sacred place».

Scientists from the South Vulian continent took decades to reverse engineer the vehicle, that was discovered to be a spaceship, from the «fairies»; that allowed the mankind to give larger technological steps in fewer time. So they discovered that the fairies were indeed the descendants of alien astronauts.

The fairies were since them integrated into the society. Now the scientists plan a space travel to the planet Dotta-B, thought be the origin of the fairies.

☙Bibliography❧

The Changeling - ˙Ժohn Greenleaf Whittier

The Changeling - ˙Ժames Russell Lowell

The Changeling - Madison Cawein

The Changeling - Edgar Alfred Bowring

The Songs Of Maldoror - The Count of Lautréamont - İn a tale in the Part 1 a vampire lurks around a house. He promises to a little boy who lives in the house to carry him to a wonderful land where the little boy would bath himself w/ girls w/ butterfly wings.

“The Elves” tales number 3 - Brothers Grimm

Fairy Tales, Their Origin and Meaning - ˙Ժohn Thackray Bunce

Traditions and Hearthside Stories of West Cornwall - William Bottrell

British Goblins - Wirt Sikes

Celtic Folklore - Welsh and Manx - ˙Ժohn Rhys

Thomas Keightley - The Fairy Mythology

Welsh Folk-Lore - Rev. Elias Owen

The Mother, the Nurse, and the Fairy - ˙Ժohn Gay

"Thom Reid Again" in Witch Stories - Elizabeth Lynn Linton

Brownies and Bogles - Louise İmogen Guiney

The Sad Shepherd - Ben ˙Ժonson (also long-living elves)

The Fairy Changeling - Dora Maria Sigerson Shorter

The Fairies Farewell - Richard Corbet

Shakspeare and His Times (Volume 2/İİ) - Nathan Drake

Anatomy of Melancholy - Part 1 Section 2 Memb. 1 Subsection 3 - Robert Burton

The Faerie Queene - LXV. - Edmund Spenser (Note: although İ put it in the bibliography, İ DON'T endorse its unrealistic depiction of the Catholicism)

“The Changeling” in Guernsey Folk-lore - Sir Edgar MacCulloch Guernsey

Myth-Land Chapter 2 - Frederick Edward Hulme

Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border Volume 2 - Walter Scott

Shakespeare The Boy Part 2 - Superstitions Connected With Birth And Baptism - William ˙Ժames Rolfe

A Description of the İsle of Man - George Waldron

Paintings by: Wilhelm Kray, Gustave Doré, Ernst Klimt, Luis Ricado Falero