Welsh folklore, Wirt Sikes
Fairy Money
Sikes records a belief that fairy money remains good so long as the finder conceals its source. Revealing the encounter can make the money vanish or stop future gifts. In Anne William Francis’s story, bringing water to dancers earns repeated shillings. Pressure from her mother leads her to disclose the source, and the payments cease.
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In the sources
Principal account
TraditionalSikes records a belief that fairy money remains good so long as the finder conceals its source. Revealing the encounter can make the money vanish or stop future gifts.
Further detail
TraditionalIn Anne William Francis’s story, bringing water to dancers earns repeated shillings. Pressure from her mother leads her to disclose the source, and the payments cease.
Context & interpretation
The entry distinguishes the general secrecy rule from the specific Anne William Francis account. Money changing or vanishing is a fairy-story claim; the entry does not suggest that found money has a supernatural origin.
Original passages
Source 1
British Goblins
so long as its source is kept a profound secretOpen this page in the book
Passage & edition details
Location recorded at citation review: Wirt Sikes, British Goblins (1880), active reader leaf 134
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-P0134
- Original scan leaf
- 135
- Recorded leaf number
- 135
- Current Reader position
- 133
- Reader verification
- Source-preserving update confirmed
Source 2
British Goblins
After that they never gave her any moreOpen this page in the book
Passage & edition details
Location recorded at citation review: Wirt Sikes, British Goblins (1880), active reader leaf 136
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-P0136
- Original scan leaf
- 137
- Recorded leaf number
- 137
- Current Reader position
- 135
- Reader verification
- Source-preserving update confirmed
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