The Fairy Gift
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Story 3 – The Fairy Gift
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There was once a weaver called David who lived in a house called Llurig, near Pentrefoelas. He made cloth for the ordinary working folk in Pentrefoelas, but they could seldom afford to buy cloth. David struggled to make enough money to eat and pay his rent.
One day he was walking over a hill on his way to Bala to buy thread. Two beautiful fairies appeared. Their hair flowed down their backs, and their skin seemed to shine in the sunlight. The fairies asked David to follow them, and said they would show him a chest filled with gold which he could have all to himself!
As you can imagine, David didn’t have to be asked twice. He followed the lovely fairies for miles across the bleak, bare mountain, until they reached a small area of trees. There was the chest! The fairies opened it and the gold inside was piled high – more gold than he had ever seen in his life!
David was so happy that he jumped for joy. Under fairy law, he had to claim the chest as his own immediately, otherwise it would disappear. To show that he owned the chest, he pushed his walking stick into the middle of the gold and left it standing upright.
Before he hurried home with the good news, the fairies warned David that he must tell nobody except his wife about the gift. He promised them faithfully and rushed back to the village.
His wife was thrilled and promised not to tell a soul! Shortly after, David went out to measure a man for a suit. As soon as he left the house, David’s wife rushed to see her friend the miller’s wife next door, and boasted about the chest of gold and all the wonderful things she was going to buy. When David returned, she didn’t tell him that she had revealed the secret she was supposed to keep.
The next morning, David and his wife walked up the hill to the cluster of trees. The chest had disappeared. Even David’s stick had gone! The couple were miserable, and David was puzzled.
Within a week, the couple noticed that their neighbours were buying new clothes and smartening up their home. They learned that in the middle of the night, the miller and his wife had sneaked up the hill and claimed the chest as theirs, because they knew that David’s wife had broken the fairy rule.