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Folk-Lore of West and Mid-Wales

Chapter 59: IAGO AP DEWI AMONG THE FAIRIES SEVEN YEARS.
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About This Book

A compilation of folk beliefs, tales, and customs gathered across western and mid-Wales from elderly informants and local tradition. It presents translated Welsh narratives and organized material on fairies, mermaids and water‑horses, ghosts, witches and wizards, omens, animal superstitions, and popular spells, alongside accounts of wedding, birth, funeral, inheritance and sheep‑shearing customs, divination practices, augury, and prophecies. The emphasis is on literal fidelity to oral testimony and on preserving vanishing traditions rather than offering theoretical interpretation.

IAGO AP DEWI AMONG THE FAIRIES SEVEN YEARS.

A Carmarthenshire tradition names among those who lived for a period among the Fairies no less a person than the translator into Welsh of Bunyan’s “Pilgrim’s Progress.”

“He was called Iago ap Dewi, and lived in the parish of Llanllawddog, in a cottage situated in the wood of Llangwyly. He was absent from the neighbourhood for a long period, and the universal belief among the peasantry was that Iago got out of bed one night to gaze on the starry sky, as he was accustomed (astrology being one of his favourite studies), and whilst thus occupied the Fairies, passing by, carried him away, and he dwelt with them seven years. Upon his return, he was questioned by many as to where he had been, but always avoiding giving them a reply.”

A district famous for Fairies long ago was the parish of Llanedi in Carmarthenshire, and Mr. Williams, says in his “Llen Gwerin Sir Gaerfyrddin,” that an intelligent old man in that parish, named John Rees, gave him the following story of