Welsh folklore, Wirt Sikes
Gwyllion
The Gwyllion are frightening female fairies associated with mountain roads and night journeys. Their misdirection contrasts with the more often helpful woodland Ellyllon in Sikes’s arrangement. Some accounts place them inside houses during storms, where people offer clean water and remove cutting tools from the hearth. Fear of offence produces hospitality even towards beings feared outdoors.
Also known as Gwyll · Mountain fairies
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In the sources
Principal account
TraditionalThe Gwyllion are frightening female fairies associated with mountain roads and night journeys. Their misdirection contrasts with the more often helpful woodland Ellyllon in Sikes’s arrangement.
Further detail
TraditionalSome accounts place them inside houses during storms, where people offer clean water and remove cutting tools from the hearth. Fear of offence produces hospitality even towards beings feared outdoors.
Context & interpretation
The entry concerns Sikes’s mountain-fairy accounts and the reported storm-weather hospitality. The customs are described historically as folklore, without turning the book’s claims of successful exorcism into practical instructions.
Original passages
Source 1
British Goblins
lead night-wanderers astrayOpen this page in the book
Passage & edition details
Location recorded at citation review: Wirt Sikes, British Goblins (1880), active reader leaf 64
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-P0064
- Original scan leaf
- 65
- Recorded leaf number
- 65
- Current Reader position
- 63
- Reader verification
- Source-preserving update confirmed
Source 2
British Goblins
providing clean water for themOpen this page in the book
Passage & edition details
Location recorded at citation review: Wirt Sikes, British Goblins (1880), active reader leaf 67
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-P0067
- Original scan leaf
- 68
- Recorded leaf number
- 68
- Current Reader position
- 66
- Reader verification
- Source-preserving update confirmed
Continue exploring
Old Woman of the Mountain
A leading apparition whose cry precedes a traveller’s loss of the road.
Same subject and traditionBwbach
A household goblin who helps with work but can torment an unwelcome guest.
Same subject and traditionCoblynau
Mine fairies whose knocking is said to reveal rich veins of ore.
Same subject and traditionEllylldan
The luring elf-fire that draws a wanderer into marshy ground.