orgotten by most
people, but one day he returned with what he had been sent for in his
hand. But so many years had elapsed since he first left home, that he
was now an old grey-headed man, though he knew it not; he had, he said,
followed, for a short time, delightful music and people; but when
convinced, by the changes around, that years had slipped by since he
first left his home, he was so distressed at the changes he saw that he
said he would return to the Fairies. But alas! he sought in vain for the
place where he had met them, and therefore he was obliged to remain with
his blood relations.

The next tale differs from the preceding, insomuch that the seductive
advances of the Fairies failed in their object. I am not quite positive
whence I obtained the story, but this much I know, that it belongs to
Pentrevoelas, and that a respectable old man was in the habit of
repeating it, as an event in his own life.

_A Man Refusing the Solicitations of the Fairies_.

A Pentrevoelas man was coming home one lovely summer's night, and when
within a stone's throw of his house, he heard in the far distance singing
of the most enchanting kind. He stopped to listen to the sweet sounds
which filled him with a sensation of deep pleasure. He had not listened
long ere he perceived that the singers were approaching. By and by they
came to the spot where he was, and he saw that they were marching in
single file and consisted of a number of small people, robed in
close-fitting grey clothes, and they were accompanied by speckled dogs
that marched along two deep like soldiers. When the procession came
quite opposite the enraptured listener, it stopped, and the small people
spoke to him and earnestly begged him to accompany them, but he would
not. They tried many ways, and for a long time, to persuade him to join
them, but when they saw they could not induce him to do so they departed,
dividing themselves into two companies and marching away, the dogs
marching two abreast in front of each company. They sang as they went
away the most entrancing music that was ever heard. The man,
spell-bound, stood where he was, listening to the ravishing music of the
Fairies, and he did not enter his house until the last sound had died
away in the far-off distance.

Professor Rhys records a tale much like the preceding. (See his _Welsh
Fairy Tales_, pp. 34, 35.) It is as follows:--"One bright moonlight
night, as one of the sons of the fa