Welsh folklore, Wirt Sikes
Fad Felen
The Fad Felen appears in an account of Maelgwn Gwynedd looking through a church keyhole and dying as a consequence. Sikes describes the creature as coming from the sea marsh, with golden hair, teeth and eyes. He interprets the monster as the yellow-fever plague of the sixth century. This explanation belongs to the collector’s reading of the legend rather than the creature’s own speech or action.
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In the sources
Principal account
TraditionalThe Fad Felen appears in an account of Maelgwn Gwynedd looking through a church keyhole and dying as a consequence. Sikes describes the creature as coming from the sea marsh, with golden hair, teeth and eyes.
Further detail
InterpretationHe interprets the monster as the yellow-fever plague of the sixth century. This explanation belongs to the collector’s reading of the legend rather than the creature’s own speech or action.
Context & interpretation
The entry distinguishes the Maelgwn monster narrative from Sikes’s historical disease interpretation. The latter is reported as his explanation, without adopting the medical identification or chronology as independently established history.
Original passages
Source 1
British Goblins
hair and teeth and eyes like goldOpen this page in the book
Passage & edition details
Location recorded at citation review: Wirt Sikes, British Goblins (1880), active reader leaf 230
Exact passage checked against active scan text and its original-leaf mapping; whitespace and scan line breaks normalised.
- Edition
- IMJ-0044-E001
- Reader page
- IMJ-0044-E001-P0230
- Original scan leaf
- 231
- Recorded leaf number
- 231
- Current Reader position
- 229
- Reader verification
- Source-preserving update confirmed
Source 2
British Goblins
is the monster referred to in this legendOpen this page in the book
Passage & edition details
Location recorded at citation review: Wirt Sikes, British Goblins (1880), active reader leaf 230
Exact passage checked against active scan text and its original-leaf mapping; whitespace and scan line breaks normalised.
- Edition
- IMJ-0044-E001
- Reader page
- IMJ-0044-E001-P0230
- Original scan leaf
- 231
- Recorded leaf number
- 231
- Current Reader position
- 229
- Reader verification
- Source-preserving update confirmed
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