GriffisWilliam Eliot

Welsh Fairy Tales, William Eliot Griffis, 1921

A PREFACE-LETTER TO MY GRANDFATHER

DEAR CAPTAIN JOHN GRIFFIS:

Although I never saw you, since you died in 1804, I am glad you were one of those Welshmen who opposed the policy of King George III and that you, after coming to America in 1783, were among the first sea captains to carry the American flag around the world. That you knew many of the Free Quakers and other patriots of the Revolution and that they buried you among them, near Benjamin Franklin, is a matter of pride to your descendants. That you were born in Wales and spoke Welsh, as did also those three great prophets of spiritual liberty, Roger Williams, William Penn, and Thomas Jefferson, is still further ground for pride in one's ancestry. Now, in the perspective of history we see that our Washington and his compeers and Wilkes, Barre, Burke and the friends of America in Parliament were fighting the same battle of Freedom. Though our debt to Wales for many things is great, we count not least those inheritances from the world of imagination, for which the Cymric Land was famous, even before the days of either Anglo-Saxon or Norman.

W. E. G.

Saint David's and the day of the Daffodil, March 1, 1921.

CONTENTS

I. WELSH RABBIT AND HUNTED HARES

II. THE MIGHTY MONSTER AFANG

III. THE TWO CAT WITCHES

IV. HOW THE CYMRY LAND BECAME INHABITED

V. THE BOY THAT WAS NAMED TROUBLE

VI. THE GOLDEN HARP

VII. THE GREAT RED DRAGON OF WALES

VIII. THE TOUCH OF CLAY

IX. THE TOUCH OF IRON

X. THE MAIDEN OF THE GREEN FOREST

XI. THE TREASURE STONE OF THE FAIRIES

XII. GIANT TOM AND GIANT BLUBB

XIII. A BOY THAT VISITED FAIRYLAND

XIV. THE WELSHERY AND THE NORMANS

XV. THE WELSH FAIRIES HOLD A MEETING

XVI. KING ARTHUR'S CAVE

XVII. THE LADY OF THE LAKE

XVIII. THE KING'S FOOT HOLDER

XIX. POWELL, PRINCE OF DYFED

XX. POWELL AND HIS BRIDE

XXI. WHY THE BACK DOOR WAS FRONT

XXII. THE RED BANDITS OF MONTGOMERY

XXIII. THE FAIRY CONGRESS

XXIV. THE SWORD OF AVALON

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