Welsh folklore, Wirt Sikes
Llyn y Fan Fach
In Sikes’s Myddfai narrative a farmer grazes lambs near Llyn y Fan Fach and encounters three beautiful women coming from its waters. He repeatedly fails to catch them until a change in the story permits conversation and a marriage proposal. He must distinguish his chosen woman from her sisters and succeeds by noticing the fastening of her sandal. She joins him with cattle from the lake, on condition that he never strike her three times without cause.
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In the sources
Principal account
TraditionalIn Sikes’s Myddfai narrative a farmer grazes lambs near Llyn y Fan Fach and encounters three beautiful women coming from its waters. He repeatedly fails to catch them until a change in the story permits conversation and a marriage proposal.
Further detail
TraditionalHe must distinguish his chosen woman from her sisters and succeeds by noticing the fastening of her sandal. She joins him with cattle from the lake, on condition that he never strike her three times without cause.
Context & interpretation
The entry follows the particular Myddfai lake-wife narrative in British Goblins. Sikes presents another elaborated version nearby; its details are not merged into this account as though the variants were identical.
Original passages
Source 1
British Goblins
near Llyn y Fan Fach, on the Black MountainsOpen this page in the book
Passage & edition details
Location recorded at citation review: Wirt Sikes, British Goblins (1880), active reader leaf 53
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-P0053
- Original scan leaf
- 54
- Recorded leaf number
- 54
- Current Reader position
- 52
- Reader verification
- Source-preserving update confirmed
Source 2
British Goblins
a trifling singularity in the strapping of the chosen one's sandalOpen this page in the book
Passage & edition details
Location recorded at citation review: Wirt Sikes, British Goblins (1880), active reader leaf 54
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-P0054
- Original scan leaf
- 55
- Recorded leaf number
- 55
- Current Reader position
- 53
- Reader verification
- Source-preserving update confirmed
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