The Story of the Tylwyth Teg

The Story of the Tylwyth-Teg

I

Every turning, when the forests burn with red and gold twisting in the cooling air, father prepared the mule and traveled northeast through the forested lowlands of Ranne’s Pass, to Lekwyth Lake.  During the 40th turning of the autumn moon, in the fragrant hills on the outskirts of Lekwyth, the Festival of the Bee-Charmers was held.
Peoples from distant lands with strange tongues and colorful vestment, as well as those of the surrounding villages and shires came to celebrate the harvest of the richest and most sweet-scented gwenynen-gwefr[1] in the land. Father’s return brought tapped barrels of sweet fragrant amber, pungent wines which he allowed us to sniff at, and rolls of cloth as delicate as cobweb and as soft as lily petals which made mother dance.

After the evening fire had broken down into glowing embers and dancing wisps of flame, and the pipe was filled with the spiced weed of distant lands, with stories of brave warriors, nightmarish beasts and giants of the Old World my father delighted us and kindled daydreams which would last through our lives. Long after the barrels of the Eastern Amber were broken open and scraped clean our thoughts strayed to the lands which would one day find us brave and heroic men.
As mother tended the crockery and shook her head at the tales told, we sat wide-eyed and our familiar and safe surroundings dissolved around us. The shadows of dusty corners became the dens of dangerous creatures and the wind which howled against the window pains became the furious wraths who hungered for our warmth. How he played us! Drawing long upon his pipe when the hero’s sword shattered beneath the crushing blows of the giant’s studded mace, he pretended not to notice our pained faces and held breath while he contemplated his next words with grave and sage looks.

[1] Gael for Amber of the Bee

It was the end of the grain-threshing season, when the rising  sweetness of bruised reed and the sleepy drift of woodsmoke flavors the nights. Mother prepared supper and shuttered the windows for the first time since spring’s breezes had pushed out the stale winter air.  As we supped, my father stated flatly that I was of age to accompany him on his provisioning trips to the Lowlands. My heart leapt in my chest though my eyes remained on my plate and away from my mother’s shocked looks of protest. Father gave me a quick glance across the table and I saw the sparkle of light in his eyes - as if we shared some secret between only us. And in an instant it was gone. How I wished to live within the space of that light!
The next morning we saddled our old mule and walked through lands I had heard of only in tale. I felt then that forever I was to be at his side walking those hills; And the sights, the scents, and the unending discoveries of those journeys were braces against the walls of my world; pressing my mind and my imagination ever outward – and leaving within a space that would be filled by a lifetime of wanderlust, and an unrelenting longing for the path that curves into the distance and out of sight.

When father died, for three years I begged mother that I might travel alone to Lekwyth; but always she said the trails came too near to the Cairn Tylwyth Teg, which we were told was an evil place after dark.
Then one year, when my head reached just to the tips of the summer grasses, I renewed my pleas to attend the festival.

All through the harvest season I kept pace behind the threshers and gleaned the crops. Some were kind and threshed lightly so that I might fill my sack and weigh in a worthy amount at day’s end. By the 40th moon, I had saved enough copper that we might afford gwenynen-gwefr enough for the whole year. I begged for her to give leave and promised to depart early before the sun, and return long before dark. In time, she relented.
My mother was watchful and mindful; not only of our activities and mischief, but of the movements of our hearts as well. I think she could see how I longed to show her the man I was becoming and care for the family in my father’s absence.  And as much as she worried, she couldn’t bring herself to deny me of it. So on the eve of the moon’s first turn, father’s rucksack was swept of the dust it had gathered and mother helped me to pack for the journey.

I barely slept the night before my departure, and when I did I dreamt of nothing but the festival at the lake and the amazing sight of the mountains rising in the distance that had so astounded me when I was small.
I was out the door as soon as the sun’s first rays reached across the canopy of the forest of my youth. And with barely a look behind, and the cool mists parting before my steps, I left the sleeping village.

The sun was high before I arrived at Lekwyth; but it was all that I had remembered and dreamt it to be. Strange accents and dress pressed all about and the air was charged with light, music and activity. Exotic animals paced in brightly painted wooden cages, men bested each other in games of strength, and everywhere there were congratulations and toasts raised to a successful harvest, a child on the way, and a hearth well-stocked for winter.
It was the first time that I had been truly alone in the world; far from home and free from a mother’s stern look. In truth, I was scared and homesick. Fortunately, however, the people of Lekwyth were adept at making every traveler and newcomer feel as if at home. There was no end to the delights around me and every turn of my head found a new reason to reach for my purse.

There were mela[2] cakes, peaches soaked in mela that one ate off a stick; I drank the most delicious warmed cider while the men swilled a sweet-smelling golden wine which they called medd[3] . The season’s cider was dark and full of warm exotic spices which floated on top and stuck in one’s teeth. I was amazed by the star-shaped pods which were sweet and warm at once and as nothing I’d ever tasted. A sandy-haired boy and I wagered who could spit them the farthest, then who could skip stones the farthest, and finally, who could eat the most green-apples, which hung upon the trees in abundance and flavored the air with a sharp sweetness.

[2] Honey
[3] A wine made from fermented honey

Before long I was sick, and realized that I had spent much of my copper and even more of the day. I quickly bought all of the mela I could afford, though I knew it wasn’t the near to the quantity I had promised. The hive was split and pieces placed inside small barrels made from a light wood of a beauty and grain I had never before seen. Then each barrel was filled to the top, sealed at the end and then dipped in wax. I purchased four of these for two stacks of coppers and packed them in the heavy burlap sack my uncle had made for the occasion. 

I walked the trails as fast as I could, trying to measure strides as long as my father’s. The barrels jostled about endlessly and poked awkwardly into my back. I chased after the setting sun but it seemed to fall farther and farther while the shadows of the tall and twisting trees seemed to slide closer and closer to me. I comforted myself by imagining how my mother’s anger would be softened by the discovery of enough mela to fill all the ovens of Colwynn with cakes.

It hadn’t occurred to me to fear anything in the wood. As a boy, I spent nearly all of my waking hours running through glades, hiding in dense forests and climbing trees. Even at night, the wood surrounding my village was peaceful and safe; alive with the commerce of a thousand small creatures making their rounds.
Soon, I realized though that the forests I traveled through were not like those of my home. They were filled with trees appearing very much the same, and the trail under my feet felt soft with the fallen leaves and pine needles of the last turning. It wasn’t how the forest looked that seemed so strange to me, but how it had felt. Particularly in the fading light, the wood took on a more sinister character and menacing shapes formed and dissolved all around from tricks of light and shadow.
Stories of the Cairn Tylwyth Teg[4]  immediately leapt to my mind and I began to wonder if the trail I followed would be easily discernable in the dim light of an autumn eve, or if an ill-turn would lead me into a forest known to be enchanted and dangerous.
As I approached a clearing, my fears abated somewhat when I recognized a stream tricking through a mossy grove of boulders. I had crossed it on the path to Lekwyth and had been thankful for the sweetness of its cool flow which had both quenched my thirst and set me on the path feeling invigorated and somehow more aware.
It was then that I saw him.



[4] Gael: The Forest of the Tylwyth Teg ~ Known to be generally located south-west of the Lekwyth, North of Lake Maetliyn, and directly west of the Maeve Valley. The lack of certainty of its location is due to the widely held belief that the borders of the forest shift position frequently. According to accounts, many travelers passing through the region have made evening-camp in an open field and awoke to find themselves in a dark and impenetrable wood.
Tylwyth Teg ~ The keepers of the forest. Known to be extremely hostile. Rarely known to leave its boundaries. Thought to be nocturnal.

II

He stood no taller than to a grown man’s hip; though while a man’s body appears to reach for height, his form seemed somehow pulled to the ground. Upon his head was a twisting mass of wiry black hair; matted back in some places and on end in others. His eyes were hooded beneath a heavy brow crowned with bushy tufts standing about much the same as on his head.
He had the longest nose I had ever seen; it curved slightly downward and opened up with enormous nostrils which flared as he walked. He appeared to be looking for something.
Laying down immediately in the grass at the edge of the clearing I turned my head to the side as father had taught me to do while hunting. I couldn’t take my eyes off of him; he was, at that time the most magnificent fellow I had ever seen.

His back lurched forward and his thin neck attached itself to his body at an odd angle. His shoulders were little knots of muscle perched high upon his torso. The upper portion of his arms seemed overly short, while the lower overly long. His hands were what had frightened me the most. They seemed grossly out of proportion to his small wiry frame, and his long boney fingers writhed; clasping and unclasping as if nervous. His legs looked powerful and may have been quite long were they not bent at such an angle. He walked with his knees thrust outward and the movement of his legs and his entire frame gave the impression of a coiled spring.
He demonstrated their power when he suddenly sprang into the air and landed with ease atop a moss stained boulder that stood to a grown-man’s head. It was there that I saw his feet. They were proportioned to his hands and flapped slightly as he walked. He hopped from boulder to boulder for some time as if enjoying the exercise.
So amazed was I at my fortune to see such a creature that I’d forgotten my own self completely. My head was raised straight up above the grass; and so certain was I that the shadows at my back would hide my form, I stayed in that posture for some time to afford the best view.
Though the sun was very low I could make out some of the details of his vestige. His jacket appeared to be mainly of some crudely stitched animal skin. A large hood flopped across his back when he leaped and occasionally the sun caught the glint of the brass buttons decorating his chest. His legs were bare up to his knotty thighs where over-sized bransas[5]  of some unrecognizably-soiled material were belted tightly about his waist. It was then that I caught another glint. From his belt there was what appeared to be a long and curving blade. It was secured without a sheath and I thought it funny that he not poke himself when he sat.
It wasn’t until he went very still that I came back to the reality of my position.

[5] Breaches which have been cut away above the knee.

The creature was but a dark silhouette surrounded by a gentle curtain of the sun’s last rays; streaming down into the glade and lighting up the brilliance of the foliage. The wind moved through the trees setting a million gilded leaves dancing down - glinting gold and orange as they caressed the beams of light. The wind rose from the west and blew strong again and the air was filled with sound and the soft dark scent of the seasons turning over. 
Standing immobile upon the boulder which I had originally been delighted to see him leap so effortlessly atop, he closed his eyes and raised his chin to the sky. His arms stood slightly apart from his sides as and his fingers reached and writhed, as if in a moment of rapture, or concentration, or…
Too late - I realized that his posture was not that of one under the spell of the forest, but of tension and awareness. He snuffed at the air so loudly that I could hear it even when I buried my face low in the grass. After a moment I glanced up and saw that he had moved himself down from the great rock and stood alert in the meadow, scanning the tree line.
Several times he seemed to look directly at me and my blood flowed as cold and hectic as the spring thaw. When his gaze moved across my hiding place there was a brief instant when, from the shadows where his eyes should have been, an unnatural glint shone. Its light was entirely unlike the glint of firelight which reflects off the large eyes of night creatures coming to examine your camp; this light seemed to come from within, and reached out to part the shadows like the cold fingers of a winter wind tussle the long prairie grasses. 
I believe I had nearly ceased breathing altogether and I pressed my face so close to the earth that I think were I to open my mouth for breath it would fill with more soil than air.
It was then that I heard a most incredible sound. It seemed to come up to me from the ground – a rapid thump followed by a cry that began low and gravely – then rose to a shrill staccato before cutting off sharply.
Then again the thumping; like the heartbeat of a frightened animal. I raised my head just enough to get a look at the creature and realized the source of the sound. His enormous foot pounded the earth with such force that a small cloud of dust gathered about him. He then raised his head and his chest seemed to expand impossibly as he drew breath. A low croaking moan; like the ponderous mud-frogs of the northern swamplands, began in his chest and reverberated across the meadow. Again, it rose in pitch and trilled eerily before ending with a sharp crack of sound which echoed off rock and tree and left the air still and silent as if the world held its breath.

Suddenly from far off behind me, deep into the now darkened wood came a reply. A thumping like a rabbit’s call followed by a shrill, wavering howl. I realized then the seriousness of my error.
A thousand stories told to my younger brother and I by old men before warm fires flashed through my mind - all of small boys who disobeyed their mothers; and the horrors that stole them away to be only a warning for the brash youth to come.
I glanced again at the figure, who was now moving slowly through the tall grass. The outline of the cruel blade which had been tucked securely in his belt was now clear. His fingers were closed around its hilt and he held its blade pointed stiffly at the ground beside him as he moved. I shuddered with the thought of it grinding its way across bone.

There has never before been within me a battle of such opposing forces than at that moment. Every trembling fiber and stiffened joint within seemed rooted to the ground; refusing to move -  while at the same time demanding flight. I don’t recall what occurred next; but I remember being on my feet and running – running not as boys who prove themselves in foot races - I ran as the deer, pressed forward by the eager death that races close behind – and how different the feel!
Tears streamed across my cheeks and the blood roared in my ears. I don’t recall seeing anything but what lay directly ahead; and of that only hazy glimpses frozen in time – the slick bark of a tree being consumed by the patient growth of a lacy white lichen, the blur of tiny branches reaching out to snatch at my clothing and rake across my cheeks – the purple glow of the sky spinning against a dark leafless canopy.
My head swam with the tilting nausea of dread, the nightmarish warping of time, and horrible anticipation rising a ticklish path up my back.
As I burst into a small glade my eyes closed around a twisted visage emerging from the dense brush ahead and to my right. Breaking from the shadows, it floated wraith-like across the open ground. Its feet seemed barely to meet the turf between impossible strides. Kicking hard off a flat-iron stone, I threw myself to the left and crashed through a thick hedge. Sound and motion burst all around as a multitude of tiny birds hiding within exploded outward.
Suddenly the ground seemed to open up before me and I was falling. Whether out of fright, or a mulish unwillingness to see, I closed my eyes tightly. The distance could not have been more than what a running horse might leap, but I seemed to hang impossibly in the air as my mind clung to the moment – unwilling to accept or go forward.
I must have tumbled headlong because my face and hands broke the heavy surface of a dark creek and the bitterness of stagnant water filled my mouth. Choking and struggling to free myself from the slimy grasp of reeds, I pulled myself away from the bank. My lungs burned as I swam and in my mind the creature skimmed the inky surface and wrapped its bony fingers about my neck. Oily clumps of vegetation grasped at my ankles and covered my face threatening to both entangle and drown me.
The opposite bank was near; but once reaching its shallows, my feet became so encased in the thick mud that I found myself falling again and again forward into the black water. My breathing was so erratic and hysterical that each time it washed into my lungs and I fought for both for breath and consciousness.
Freed from the mud, I fell into a great mass of spiny bushes which tore at my skin and clothing. Disentangling myself from their stinging grasp I collapsed into the oozing muck and fought to reclaim my breath.
My chest was on fire and my legs had turned to stone. I was beyond certain that any moment that cruel blade would find its way across the softness of my throat.
I turned over to face my pursuer - but found him not on the bank nor in the water. My thrashing exertions had barely caused a ripple on the thick surface and everything was cloaked in shadow and complete silence. Even the cach-tahs[6]  had gone silent as if in anticipation.

[6]Similar to Crickets, but ground-dwelling and creating a lower-frequency sound used to send their messages through the soft, aqueous soil of swamps. Creates a highly unnerving sensation and during spawning has been said to shake the leaves of nearby trees.

Across the creek all was still and where the blackness of the water met the blackness of the land and forest I could only guess.
Then I saw them – eyes across the water. They were still, and seemed content to watch me from the shore.
Though I was completely encased in the densest shadows of overgrowth, I was certain that they reached across the water and found my own gaze – holding it tight within the smoky and shifting orbs of yellow, then green, then glinting, then fading.
And to the right they were joined by two more; then another far to the left; and another closer and behind.
And across the opposite shore they appeared without number; shining points of eerie light like gwres-nics[7]  unnaturally suspended in flight.
A ghostly howl crept across the water and seemed to possess the very mist skimming its surface. And then another joined, and another; until the air was filled with the rising and falling of their cries, the pounding of their feet which rippled the water crowding cold about my ankles; and laughter.

[7]Similar to the Lampyridae, a nocturnal luminous winged beetle.
Nic ~ a general term for any flying insect.
Gwres ~ To have luminous properties.

Since that night I have heard many sounds which have chilled my bones and caused me to long for the safety of home – but never have I heard such a sound as what I now know to be the Tylwyth Teg.  I’ve felt horror in all of its forms – seen death descending upon me many times over; but there is no dread, no terror that saps the strength from the limbs and stills the stoutest heart – as seeing death in the eyes of a creature that your eyes tell you shouldn’t walk the upon our terra; that your mind refuses to accept, and that your heart knows you have no ability to contest.

My mother never knew of that night, and I dis-remember the story I created for the absence of my cargo. On into my years I’ve held that close to my breast – as if the perfection of its horror were too profound to communicate in words, and my escape too narrow to cloak in the conceit of tale.
But more so even, I know I’ve always felt it somehow not mine to give. And the most unaccountable thing occurred that night as I lay listening to their taunting laughter and the cacophony of their cries.
Outside and all around their dissonance filled my ears; but inside, there was another sound. It was as if a door had opened up within my mind - to a place either born that night or simply shut-up tight until then. Their harsh and broken voices rushed in to fill that space – and against its smoky walls discordant resonance coalesced into a sinister melody.
In the rhyming meter for which I’ve since learned the Teg are known, these words were born.

~

run child, run! – and know that your life - though ours by right –
is our gift to you this night.

down the hole dark! – and dragged to our keep –
withheld from you is death’s sweet sleep
until your bones molder - beneath the clay
forever the guest of the Tylwyth Teg!
forever the guest of the Tylwyth Teg!

~