Review : Of Doves And Ravens

Let's get straight on with another Christmas read : Benjamin Stimpson's Of Doves And Ravens. This second bit of Welsh folklore is more specialist than Anne Ross's Folklore of Wales, concentrating on witches, wizards, and to a lesser extent magical practises in general. There's a smattering of other stuff here and there : the occasional ghost, weird creature and so on. But mostly it's about magical people.

This appears to be Stimpson's first book, and good on him. It's a pretty extensive, 300 page compendium of tales from across Wales, organised geographically. While I'm not at all sure I agree with Ross that magical beliefs are inevitably dying out (and even less sure as to whether this would be a good thing or not), I definitely think the stories need to be collected. Many of Stimpson's chosen stories are extremely minor, local legends, some of which are even at the level of rumours and gossip. Without books like this, such things would all too easily be lost forever. Some of them are shite, but some are wonderful. They deserve to be remembered.

As with Ross, Stimpson concentrates on presenting the stories rather than analysing them. But the commentary he does offer is intelligent and it's clear he's done some exhaustive research in compiling all this – it's only a shame there's no kind of conclusion section. The other minor issue is that there's a good deal of repetition in the chosen stories, such as :

• The "crow barn", in which a wizard manages to trap crows in a barn to stop them eating crops. That's it. It's dull as hell, but interminably minor variations of this occur across Wales, despite the fact it's an incredibly boring story. It makes us seem like a bunch of halfwits.
• Outwitting the Devil : typically by promising him half the crops (why does the Devil want vegetables anyway ?) and giving him the bad half, e.g. the tops of potatoes or the roots of wheat; being buried in the wall of a churchyard to avoid being buried inside or out and so cheating the Devil of a soul. That sort of thing.
• Using a magical spell book with imprisoned spirits that are released accidentally. Usually the book is so dangerous that the wizard only uses it once per year, but the reason it's used at all is rarely stated.
• And the title : on the death of a wizard, a dove will come to the body if his soul is pure, a raven if it's to be taken by the Devil. There are variations but this basic motif is found in many stories of wizards who would have lived remarkably similar lives if they were real people.
• Endless variations of the Llyn Y Fan Fach tale of a fairy who emerges from a lake to marry some young boy based on the consistency of his bread. Then he "strikes" her three times so she buggers off, leaving him with three medically-gifted children. It's not a bad story, but we don't need this many retellings of it.

If you're reading it geographically then I suppose this repetition doesn't matter so much, but if you read it straight through then it all becomes a bit tiresome. Many local wizards have an essentially identical story, and it would have been far better to just state the repeated bits in the introductory summary that accompanies each entry. 

This aside, there's little else to find fault with. The individual stories are told as descriptions of what the story says rather than actually as fiction. It's an easy read, all very straightforward and with a wealth of detail, once you get past the repetitive strain of yet another witch who did no worse than stopping the milk from churning. But then, this fits with Stimpson's description of a time when "magic was not considered silly... it was common sense".

I'm going to give this one another solid 7/10. It's a great read, and even in the repetitive bits, some interesting themes emerge.

Wyrd Wales

Alright then, let's get on with summarising my favourite bits. I mean, look, you can either go and watch the news about the actions of real-life monsters in America and Russia... or you can read about the much more fun fictional variety in Wales. Your choice.

The Nuisance Witch

As Stimpson says in the introduction, most typical Welsh witches were essentially normal people, not villainous old crones bent on murder. If they caused problems then they were incredibly petty ones : preventing milk from churning, making cows get a bit lost, stopping carts, that sort of thing. Both male and female magicians were often friendly members of the community and usually fully and unequivocally Christian. Unlike other countries, including our English neighbours, witches weren't seen as demonic or inhuman.

Reading through the individual cases I was reminded of nothing so much as the witches of Discworld :  figures who commanded respect but tinged with genuine fear. You wouldn't cross a witch, but you wouldn't expect her to come after you for no good reason – and you could fully expect any curse they inflicted to be lifted so long as you made a suitable apology. Pissing off the local witch would be a lot like annoying the town mayor : it's a bad idea, but for heaven's sake, he wouldn't be likely to try and eat your children or anything.

And as Keith Thomas pointed out, the only time most witches ever retaliated were when they had been wronged in some way. The fear of the witch was not a fear of their innate malevolence, but a projection of guilt : knowing you should have been more charitable* would lead to a fear of legitimate reprisal. At worse, in most cases you'd have a nuisance witch who'd act out of petty spite, but the chance of them doing anything really bad were extremely low.

* Another common motif is a curse that makes people dance for overcharging customers. One extreme case is that of a male witch who made his host get stuck up a ladder for refusing to share his fruit. It's an odd story, and he comes across as a colossal dick : when someone invites you round for tea, what kind of jerk demands they share things they never promised to share ? "Oh, you won't let me change the TV channel ? Well I guess I'll glue you to your chair then !".

What's weird about many of these cases were that people sincerely believed, incredibly recently, that some among them possessed incredible powers but used them for the most petty gains. One nuisance witch was said to turn into a hare in order to sneak into a field and eat the vegetables, another was said to fly from town to town and teleport into beer cellars for a drink. These would be world-changing, reality-altering powers which people seemed to think, quite genuinely, were being used for utterly minor personal gains.

And when I say recently, I mean extremely recently, exactly as in Anne Ross. While a handful of the tales here are medieval, the majority are 19th century, with plenty even in the early 20th century. Even the more exotic claims could be found in the Victorian era, including stories of rescuing a girl from the fairies and the ritual killing of animals in magical rites. Strictly speaking the latter wouldn't be classed as a sacrifice as the animals – which could include, dramatically, horses – weren't being offered to a deity*, though functionally I suppose it would be basically the same. 

* As Keith Thomas also said, there's almost no evidence of witches engaging in devil worship, with only a single example in the whole book. There's even one story of a witch who was literally ripped apart by the Devil because she spoiled milk – which hardly suggests they were on good terms.

Which isn't something I typically associate with such a modern historical period. It's like finding a lost bunch of Druids but in an era of steam trains and newspapers... I also can't help escape the notion that my forefathers must have been incredibly backward people. Had the Enlightenment just passed rural Wales by ? Were we all isolated shepherds living in the misty valleys, scratching a living off rocks and relying on wizardry for survival ?

Witchcraft

One other common aspect is that witchcraft was seen very much as a learnable skill. When magic practitioners were consulted, very often the advice was for the client (not the wizard) to perform some magical rite, typically something very simple like writing down a charm and placing it in the correct location (see also the healing and cursing wells discussed last time). In one case a witch treated two patients, but only one recovered because the other hadn't heard the incantation, almost as though magic were believed to be a two-way thing.

To be fair to my deplorably uncritical forebears, there were at least some notes of skepticism about the whole thing. There are plenty of stories where the famous local wizard might successfully summon demons or fly fifty miles in a night* but then be totally unable to find their own stolen property. At least they didn't think of magic as being a foolproof solution; they seemed aware that things didn't always work.

* In one particularly pointless case, a wizard flew across the country to deliver a hot mince pie to the King. We're a weird bunch.

Skepticism proper also crops up from time to time. Some visitors write in downright mocking terms about the claims of the local wizardry, with one story in particular deriding an "ancient book" as clearly having been printed with moveable type. One case that stands out to me is when someone pointed out that the reason the oxen weren't moving was not because of a curse but because their harness was demonstrably too small. 

So the Welsh were not entirely stupid, and we have to be given full marks for creativity if nothing else. Even so, it's hard to understand why people went straight for magic as an explanation. Now I love Uncanny, but there are only a few cases where I can honestly say, "yep, that's plainly stupid*, why did you even report this ?" (like the one where the claimed supernatural monster is blatantly just a smelly goat). Yet virtually all the cases here fall into this category, and there are none at all which present anything that sounds even remotely like credible evidence.

* There are, to be sure, only a very few of the opposite extreme where I struggle to see any rational explanation. Most are in a happy, entertaining grey area; I think, if I'm honest, I would like to believe in some supernatural aspect, but equally honestly, I can't say that I actually do.

It's not that I'm surprised to find a lack of evidence for fairies, you understand. No, what I'm getting at is that I'm surprised such beliefs persisted for so long and until so recently without any good supporting data. The demand to have some explanation is extremely strong, and far outweighs the need for it to be correct. If a child went missing, fairies it must be; if the milk won't churn, we'll blame it on a witch and get on with our day.

Even so, I perpetually wonder that people really do seem to think like this. And I continuously fret over the notion that half of all people are stupider than the average, especially when I look at the state of the world today.

Hags and Hounds

Witches in Discworld come from magical stock : some innate ability is required. This notion appears absent from Welsh witches but with a few exceptions. For as well as the formidable but usually well-meaning village witch, there were also other beings of an entirely different order.

Fairies are one such case, being inherently magical and inhabiting a world all of their own. Spirits and demons are another, often of extreme power... and yet, like the Devil himself, usually unbelievably stupid (though presented as though those who outwitted him were absolute geniuses) and easily manipulated creatures. But two stand out as being truly the stuff of horror. As promised last time, I want to look at these in a bit more detail.

My favourite is the gwrach y rhibin, the hag of the mist. Stimpson notes that modern would-be witches are making a mistake when they adopt this term for themselves, because the term is one of insult and true gwrachs are implicitly understood to be inhuman monsters. He charts the evolution of the creature over about a hundred years. The gwrach begins as a mountain hag who comes at dusk to the windows of a house where someone is about to die, naming in a "shrill voice" the the unfortunate person. Then she gains an apron full of stones which dribble along the path behind her as well as wings with which she flies (so being upstairs will no longer save you). Next comes her extreme ugliness, leathery bat-like wings and a "cadaverous appearance", as well as an ability to literally freeze the blood in the veins of those who hear her. She can even change gender and has fire in her eyes, with a screech that can drive men insane.

The gwrach began as a northern mountain legend, related to the torrent spectra and Grey King (both other figures associated with streams and mists, with the streams explaining the trail of stones). But at least one tale, from 1878, reports a gwrach much further south, visiting the far more domestic setting of a pub in Cardiff : and a full-on gwrach too, with teeth like tusks and a gown trailing as she flew through the air.

There are a few other interesting hag figures not directly related to the gwrach. The canthrig bwt was a child-eating hag who dwelt in a cave. She features in varying legends, sometimes killed by a criminal to avoid his penance, sometimes contemporary with – and even asking for assistance from – King Arthur. Sometimes she's a giant. A smaller but intimidating 7-foot swamp-dwelling hag, the Morfa Borth, was supposed to cause disease by blowing on people's faces. 

And then there's the gwyll of Llyn Cwm Llwch, a lake-dwelling Druid priestess seeking 900 victims to secure her immortality. Falling in love with a prince come to retrieve his lover, a princess already in her thrall, the Druidess called on the Devil. A whole host of writhing corpses followed her out of the pool* together with the princess, but she – in a most un-fairytale-like fashion, rejected the prince and chose the Devil instead. The prince seized the gwyll and leapt over the cliff to their deaths. Good luck with that one, Disney.

* This is one of few stories featuring undead bodies of any sort. There are no vampires, no zombies, but arguably one werewolf (if we count them as undead). The latter was a nasty little man turned into a wolf twice for bad behaviour, but the second time the witch died before he could be turned back. He was shot some years later, c.1890.

The last hag I want to mention brings us also to the terrifying cwn annwn, the hell hounds*. These huge dogs also come with the mist, white of coat but sometimes with red ears or covered in gore, with flaming eyes and nostrils. Their howls foretell death, and apparently they had a good make-work plan because they were also feared as dangerous in their own right, being thought to eat sleeping children. Incidentally, this hardly suggests a mere scare-them-straight threat to misbehaving youngsters, because how would this do anything but keep them awake and unruly ?

* Google them and most of the pictures are adorable. Canthrig bwt returns almost nothing, which just goes to show how important it is to have actual books about this stuff. 

The legend gets even stranger, and is worth a full quote (from James Motley, 1848) :

They are guided by the Master, a dark gigantic figure, carrying a long hunting pole at his back, and with a horn slung around his neck... no-one must call to them, for if anyone says, "I join in the hunt", blood will rain, and pieces of dead bodies fall to the earth, which have been torn from the ground by a powerful witch who accompanies the procession. This witch is probably the Mallt y Nos, or "Matilda of the night".

Blimey ! The witch herself seems very similar to the gwarch, and may or may not be the same figure. Later her story was developed into something all of its own, said to be a noble lady who declared she'd not go to heaven if she couldn't hunt there. Now she's condemned to join the Wild Hunt for all eternity, and some say she's a figure of misery, having long since come to regret her casual blasphemy.

... but wait, there's one more ! Not really a hag or a witch, but a fairy. I have to mention Llyn Y Fan Fach because it's so popular and strange. I visited the lake once, in the depths of winter. Smaller pools were frozen and there was a bitter wind up in the mountains; at a frosty sunset, it's a place all too suggestive to the imagination. Anyway, the basic tale (there are others which involve giants and stuff, but this is the principle legend) is that a young lad goes to the lake minding his herds when he spots a beautiful girl emerging with her own cattle. He offers her bread, three times : in goldilocks fashion, it's the wrong consistency until on the third day he gets it right. She promises to marry him, but in true fairy tale Chekhov's Gun fashion, the condition is that he mustn't strike her three times without cause. 

The marriage is by all accounts a happy one, and they have three children who later go on to become great physicians. But here the versions differ. In some, he gets angry and indeed strikes her; in others, he does no more than tap her on the shoulder to get her attention. In all cases he has cause, such as her laughing inappropriately at a funeral*. Nonetheless, three blows are three blows, and she takes all her herds back into the lake and he never sees her again. Like most fairy tales it isn't clear what exactly compels her to do this, but unlike most, she does in fact return, though only to see and tutor her sons. This makes it all the stranger as to why she can't see her husband again, especially in the cases where he's done her no injury (in one, the "blow" is no more damaging or threatening than a pillow fight).

* I mean there's a clear reason for his actions, not that he's justified in the versions where he hits her violently. She herself appears to be morally impeccable.

What does it mean ? Is it supposed to describe the complexities of life, with rules we can't fully understand – a case of making no mistakes but still getting things wrong ? Or is the man a figure who literally can't control himself ? Perhaps the popularity is due to its ambiguity, a useful metaphor that's flexible to many different situations.

Conclusions

In all of these examinations of supernatural beliefs, I keep coming back to two questions : did people really believe all of this, and did those beliefs reflect a moral belief or a world view ?

The answer to the first is relatively straightforward here : largely yes. Most of the stories don't actually go anywhere or make any sort of moral point whatsoever, literally amounting to "the milk wouldn't churn until the witch removed the curse" and suchlike. They feel like very simple tales that do no more than claim the event happened. There's a fundamental honesty about their utter lack of narrative and highly limited entertainment value.

Of course, that doesn't mean everyone believed all of them, and presumably some were things people just straight-up invented to amuse each other. But that they thought people would take them seriously seems clear enough. It would be much harder to decide on the boundaries of what they believed, whether they really thought the gwrach had wings or not for example. But the general principles, the belief in witches, fairies, wizardry and charms and omens of death... that's secure enough. As to why such ideas persisted for so long, I don't care to speculate.

What of the morality ? Here it's more complicated. Some definitely fall firmly into "this is just the way the world works" variety : there's no moral defence against the hounds of hell; writing down a charm wasn't itself deemed a moral or immoral act. That there was seen no issue of the clergy being wizards, or witches usually (though not quite always) being professed Christians who happened to do magic, suggests that for the most part, the supernatural was an inescapable part of life. Nobody gets punished or rewarded for their actions in most of these stories – they might benefit or suffer, but that's not the same thing at all. They might be warnings or encouragements, but they're not moral lessons.

On the other hand, morality does creep in. Share your wealth with your community. Treat the old and the poor with generosity and kindness. Apologise when you give offence. Try to follow the rules and respect the elderly. And from time to time, don't assume your cart broke down because a witch broke it – use your stupid brain and do some proper maintenance every once in a while.

Myths, legends and folklore are too complex to pigeonhole. Morality tales or world view... sometimes they're one or the other, sometimes they're both, and sometimes they're about flying a mince pie to the king. Make of them what you will.