Despite their diverse natures, the fairies were believed to share a common background, although there were two distinct folk traditions that explained fairy origins.  One explanation stated that when Christ was living on the earth, he came to the house of a woman.  She saw him coming.  On some unaccountable impulse, she hid half her children.  After Christ had departed, she went to the place where she had hidden her children, only to find that they had vanished.  They were never seen again.  These were the first fairies.

The other explanation is that the fairies were the original inhabitants of Britain.  They were conquered by an iron-using race (hence their horror of iron) and were driven into hiding in the mountains of Wales.  This theory of the fairies as a lost race corresponds to other legends.  The first is of a great city and lands that are now lost but that once stood in the area of Rhos Goch (the red bog) in the southern part of the county.  The other legends concern a secret warrior force that sleeps beneath the hills.  In this context, Radnorshire’s fairy legends overlap with its rich lode of Arthurian romance and lore and with tales of Owen Lawgoch, the last warrior leader of the Cymryr (ancient Welsh).  There is a belief that Lawgoch will one day return to drive the oppressors of the Cymryr out of Wales, and there are stories throughout Celtic lands of a great king and his warriors sleeping beneath the hills, waiting to arise and combat the country’s enemies.  The king is usually identified as either Arthur or Owen, but these stories are generally more concerned with the discovery of a treasure trove that the sleeping knights guard.

Fairy rings and ensnarement

Whatever their origins and despite their supernatural abilities, fairies were not considered intelligent and could be easily outwitted.  They could not count above five, had no schools or formal education, and had no agriculture. 

Their principal occupations seemed to be dancing and bathing their babies, though occasionally fairy menfolk could be seen hunting and riding horses the size of hares.  Dancing took place in fairy rings at full moon and in the evenings, when heads could be seen above the curling mists, bobbing to the music.  Rings, often found beside yew, oak, or sycamore trees (but never a rowan), varied in size from a few yards in diameter to a radius of as much as three-quarters of an acre.  They were distinguished by unusual fertility and thicker grass patterns and might produce as much as three times the normal crop yield if cultivated.

But cultivation of a fairy ring was a dangerous task.  Fairy revenge could be dreadful indeed.