a bed-chamber, the like of
which she had never seen. There the mistress of the house, to whom she
had been fetched, was awaiting her. She got through her duties
successfully, and stayed there until the lady had completely recovered;
nor had she spent any part of her life so merrily. There was there
nought but festivity day and night: dancing, singing, and endless
rejoicing reigned there. But merry as it was, she found she must go, and
the nobleman gave her a large purse, with the order not to open it until
she had got into her own house; then he bade one of his servants escort
her the same way she had come. When she reached home she opened the
purse, and, to her great joy, it was full of money, and she lived happily
on those earnings to the end of her life."

Such are these tales. Perhaps they are one and all fragments of the same
story. Each contains a few shreds that are wanting in the others. All,
however, agree in one leading idea, that Fairy mothers have, ere now,
obtained the aid of human midwives, and this one fact is a connecting
link between the people called Fairies and our own remote forefathers.

FAIRY VISITS TO HUMAN ABODES.

Old people often told their children and servant girls, that one
condition of the Fairy visits to their houses was cleanliness. They were
always instructed to keep the fire place tidy and the floor well swept,
the pails filled with water, and to make everything bright and nice
before going to bed, and that then, perhaps, the Fairies would come into
the house to dance and sing until the morning, and leave on the hearth
stone a piece of money as a reward behind them. But should the house be
dirty, never would the Fairies enter it to hold their nightly revels,
unless, forsooth, they came to punish the slatternly servant. Such was
the popular opinion, and it must have acted as an incentive to order and
cleanliness. These ideas have found expression in song.

A writer in _Yr Hynafion Cymreig_, p. 153, sings thus of the place loved
by the Fairies:--

Ysgafn ddrws pren, llawr glan dan nen,
A'r aelwyd wen yn wir,
Tan golau draw, y dwr gerllaw,
Yn siriaw'r cylchgrwn clir.

A light door, and clean white floor,
And hearth-stone bright indeed,
A burning fire, and water near,
Supplies our every need.

In a ballad, entitled "The Fairy Queen," in Percy's _Reliques of Ancient
English Poetry_, Nichols's edition, vol. iii., p. 172,