Week 12 Essay: Magic and the Supernatural in Thomas's "Welsh Fairy Book"

Magic and the Supernatural in Thomas's Welsh Fairy Book

The world of Thomas's Welsh Fairy Book is, as one might imagine, a world where there is a lot of fairies. More than this, the actions of fairies very much actively affect the lives of mortal folk as well. As with the stories in the British North American unit, there is not a large gap dividing the worlds of the natural and supernatural. Fairies often interfere in the lives of regular humans, and for their part humans often find themselves stumbling into the territory of the fairy folk.

“The Stray Cow” provides a good example about how the affairs of the supernatural folk often come to affect the lives of your average mortal. When one of a number of sacred cows belonging to some local elfin women—essentially fairies—comes to live among the herd of an old farmer, the fortunate man finds himself suddenly becoming quite rich. This elfin cow produced the best calves and milk one could ask for, yet the farmer, apparently not realizing the exact nature of his divine bovine, fears that the stray cow will eventually grow too old to profit him further and decides to slaughter her. The fairies interfere and take away before he can follow through with this desire, and take the stray and her offspring back to live with the elfin people in their lake. Thus the old man goes from rags to riches to rags all in the space of one short story. This same idea of a man winning a supernatural jackpot and securing the blessing of the Fair folk before blowing it all up is seen in several more stories as well. The relationship between men and fairies is shown to be one that is very dynamic, but more often than not it is the flaws of the mortal that spells the end for the blessings of the fairy people.

Another interesting thing about these stories is how they convey a sense that the realm of man and the realm of fairies are closely connected, such that humans often find themselves stumbling into the fairy realm unexpectedly. Fairies are beings bound up with nature, so places like forests and bodies of water serve as fluid boundary points between the two worlds. In “Owen Goes A-Wooing,” the protagonist sinks to the bottom of a lake and ends up unintentionally crossing the boundary into a supernatural realm in which he can breathe and see just well as if he was on land. Although he spends only a few hours in the mysterious realm, by the time he has come back to the human world, a month’s time has passed. This same idea that time passes very slowly in the fairy realm is shown in "Einion and the Fair Family."

One of the most unique stories that deals with the connection between the two realms is “Why Deunant has the Front Door in the Back.” In this story a fairy explains to the man Deunant the unusual reason why the farmer’s cattle has fallen under a curse and become sick with the black quarter. The fairy states that he was the one who placed the curse on the cattle because Deunant is unintentionally throwing his slops down the little man’s chimney. As it turns out, whenever Deunant throws his slops outside his front door, they end up mysteriously going under the earth to some manner of under realm, where they find themselves going down the fairy’s chimney.
 The great thing about these Welsh stories is that when you read them, you truly feel like you’re entering a world where logic is suspended and anything seems to be possible. The world of Thomas’s book is supremely rich and mysterious in its treatment of the supernatural. Fairies seem to be almost everywhere, and their realm exists directly alongside that of humans, such that it becomes very easy for humans to stumble into threshold of the uncanny without even knowing it. Living in such proximity to humans, fairies often involve themselves in the affairs of men, often to the mortals’ eventual detriment. 

And this is why you have to watch where you throw your slops! (Un-textbook)