by the _gwyr shegouts_, and the cavalcade
started. All went on peaceably until a lane was reached, down which the
lady bolted, and here the struggle commenced, for her friends dashed
between her and her husband's friends and endeavoured to force them back,
and thus assist her to escape. The parties, Mr. Jones said, rode
furiously and madly, and the struggle presented a cavalry charge, and it
was not without much apparent danger that the opposition was overcome,
and the lady ultimately forced to proceed to the church, where her future
husband was anxiously awaiting her arrival. This strange custom of
ancient times and obscure origin is suggestive of the way in which the
stronger party procured wives in days of old.

Before the marriage of the Fairy lady to the mortal takes place, the
father of the lady appears on the scene, sometimes as a supplicant, and
at others as a consenting party to the inevitable marriage, but never is
he depicted as resorting to force to rescue his daughter. This
pusillanimity can only be reasonably accounted for by supposing that the
"little man" was physically incapable of encountering and overcoming by
brute force the aspirant to the hand of his daughter. From this conduct
we must, I think, infer that the Fairy race were a weak people bodily,
unaccustomed and disinclined to war. Their safety and existence
consisted in living in the inaccessible parts of the mountains, or in
lake dwellings far removed from the habitations of the stronger and
better equipped race that had invaded their country. In this way they
could, and very likely did, occupy parts of Wales contemporaneously with
their conquerors, who, through marriage, became connected with the mild
race, whom they found in possession of the land.

In the Welsh legends the maid consents to wed her capturer, and remain
with him until he strikes her with _iron_. In every instance where this
stipulation is made, it is ultimately broken, and the wife departs never
to return. It has been thought that this implies that the people who
immediately succeeded the Fair race belonged to the Iron Age, whilst the
fair aborigines belonged to the Stone or Bronze age, and that they were
overcome by the superior arms of their opponents, quite as much as by
their greater bodily strength. Had the tabooed article been in every
instance _iron_, the preceding supposition would have carried with it
considerable weight, but as this is not the case, all th