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Dai Sion's Homecoming

DAI SION, the shoemaker�s son, living near Pencader, in Carmarthenshire, chanced
upon a fairy circle on the mountain and felt an irresistible inclination to
dance. He just gave a turn, as he thought, to air his legs, and immediately
jumped out of the ring again and proceeded to return home.
He had not gone far when he paused in amazement. Where was he? All was changed.
Instead of an uncultivated waste, tilled land met his eye. There were houses
where grouse had risen scared by his footfall. Where his father�s circular
wattled mud hut had been, there now stood a fine stone house. "Ah," said Dai to
himself, "this is some fairy trick to deceive my eyes; it is not ten minutes
since I stepped into the circle, and no one could have built my father a real
house in that time." Thinking then that he was under some spell, he regarded all
that he beheld as imaginary and unsubstantial, and hastened towards his father�s
dwelling. A thorn hedge stood right across the path which he had known from a
child. He rubbed his eyes and felt the hedge with his hand to test its reality.
A thorn ran into his finger and convinced him that the barrier was solid. "This
is no fairy hedge, anyhow," he said, "nor judging by the age of the thorns was
it grown in a few minutes� time." So he climbed over it and walked on. He
reached the farmyard, and all seemed so strange that he felt himself an
intruder. "Tango, Tango," said Dai, "though you have grown and changed your
colour, don�t you know me?" But the brute only barked the more. "Surely," he
said to himself, "I have lost my way and am wandering through some unknown
parish; but no, yonder is the Gareg Hir," and he stood staring at the Long Stone
which still stands on the mountain south of Pencader and commemorates some
battle long ago. As he gazed he heard footsteps behind him, and turning, beheld
the occupant of the stone house, who had come out to see why his dog was
barking. Dai�s clothes were so ragged and he looked so wan that the farmer�s
Welsh heart went out to him. "Who are you, poor man?" he asked. "I know who I
was," answered Dai, "but I do not know who I am now. I was the son of a
shoemaker who lived in this place this morning." "My poor fellow," said the
farmer, "you have lost your senses. This house was built by my great-grandfather
and repaired by my father, and none but members of my family have ever lived
here. What was your father�s name?" "Sion Ifan y Crydd," was the answer. "I
never heard of such a man," said the farmer, shaking his head. "Well, I do not
know what to make of it," said Dai; "anyhow, I know the Long Stone well enough.
It is but an hour since I was robbing a hawk�s nest close by it." "But where
have you been since?" asked the farmer. "I stepped into a fairy ring on the
mountain, had a turn round and stepped out again." "Ah, you have been with the
fairies?" said the farmer. "Old Catti Sion at Pencader is the one who knows most
about the fairies about here. We will go down to see her, she will probably be
able to tell us something. But come into the house to have some food before we
go." With this he beckoned Dai to follow him, and led the way; but hearing
behind him the sound of footsteps growing fainter and fainter, he turned round,
and to his horror saw Dai ap Sion crumbling in an instant into a thimbleful of
black ashes.
The farmer later on paid a visit to old Catti. He went to the wretched hovel in
which she lived and knocked at the door. Getting no answer, he entered and
called out, "Catti Sion, Catti Sion, where are you?" A thin quavering voice
said, "I am in my bed." The farmer turned and saw a barricade of thick gorse, so
closely packed and piled up that no bed was to be seen. "What is all this gorse
for, Catti?" asked the farmer. "It is because of the Fair Family," said Catti;
"they will never leave me alone. If I am up, they will sit upon the table making
faces at me: they turn my milk sour and spill my tea, and before I put up this
gorse they would not leave me at peace in my bed. But they cannot get through
this, it pricks them so bad, and then I get some rest." "it is a splendid
device, Catti," said the farmer, "but, tell me, do you remember a man called
Sion Ifan y Crydd � was there such a man?" "Well," said Catti, "I have some
faint recollection of hearing my grandfather relate that Sion�s son was lost one
morning, and they never heard of him afterwards, so that it was said he was
taken by the fairies. Sion�s cottage stood somewhere near your house."

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