Folk-Lore of West and Mid-Wales

Chapter 79: FAIRIES PLAYING TRICKS WITH THE OVEN.

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History - Other Mythology, Legends & Folklore

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.

FAIRIES PLAYING TRICKS WITH THE OVEN.

Miss Evelyn Lewes, Tyglyn Aeron, in the “Carmarthenshire Antiquities” says, “Should the dough not rise properly, but present a stringy appearance, the Cardiganshire housewife announces that “Mae bara yn robin,” and forthwith orders the sacrifice of an old slipper, presumably to propitiate the fairy folk who are inclined to play tricks with the oven.... A native of Montgomeryshire tells me that in her youth no loaf at her home was ever placed in the oven unless a cross had been previously signed upon it.”