I got some interest on Bluesky for doing a series of videos on Welsh folklore, fables and folktales, so I thought as it’s Bi Visibility Month I’d start with an 18thC fable that Iolo Morgannwg recorded in his infamous manuscripts called Einion and the Lady of the Wood. I’ll do a video on who Iolo Morgannwg was another time, but you can Google him if you’re curious.
Iolo claimed this tale was composed by Hopkin son of Thomas of Gower, but who knows, it’s Iolo.
The story goes like this:
Einion ap Gwalchmai of Anglesey was married to Angharad, daughter of Ednefyd Fychan, and he was out walking in the woods of Trefeilir when he meets a mysterious and beautiful woman. He’s taken with her until he notices she’s got hooves, but it’s too late. She enchants him and he has to follow her everywhere, but he gets to say goodbye to Angharad and their son first. When he sees Angharad, she appears like a hag to him, and nothing in his old life looks right – but he still loves his wife so they split a gold ring in half as a remembrance of each other and he walks out on his family to follow this beautiful woman everywhere instead.
29 years later (according to the ‘fragment’ of the tale Iolo says he found elsewhere), Einion alone, the Lady of the Wood isn’t around, but he’s still bound to her, and he’s just bereft and lost and nothing looks right to him, everything and everyone around him looks different and weird, except for this half ring he’s carrying around. So he’s looking at his half of this ring and decides to try and hide it somewhere, so he puts it under his eyelid. He immediately sees a man dressed in white on a white horse coming over to him and the man starts to talk to him and asks him what sort of spell he’s under, and Einion tells him the whole story. So the man in white gives Einion a long white staff, which is meant to be magic, and it will grant you what you desire, but that’s what they all say. Einion isn’t free of the spell yet, so he says he wishes to see the Lady of the Wood.
The staff takes him to her and he sees her as this most hideous, grotesque goblin-witch that is worse than anything he’s ever seen in his life and he screams with horror and the man in white pulls his cloak over Einion and rescues him from her, and Einion wishes on the staff to be back with his wife and child, and that’s where he ends up.
But what’s this? Now everyone sees Einion as an old man, they don’t recognise him, and his wife believes he’s dead and is due to remarry a great nobleman who is incredibly rich, very handsome, very persuasive… and the exact same goblin that pretended to be the Lady of the Wood and has been with Einion for the past however many years. So Einion pretends to be a beggar to gain entry into the hall, where he’s able to speak with Angharad and he realises that she’s been enchanted by the same goblin in this different disguise, so he gives her the staff (behave) and she sees her suitor for what he is, which is this grotesque horrible goblin-witch creature. So she faints, which is proof enough that this is an 18thC fable, not an older one, to be honest, and when she comes to, the thwarted goblin and his retinue have vanished, and she sees Einion for who he is, and gets her husband back, and their kid gets a shit ton of therapy. The End, except for some unnecessary 18thC moralising tacked on to the conclusion.
This version is found in the 1888 edition of the Iolo MSS, via Internet Archive. Iolo manuscripts. A selection of ancient Welsh manuscripts, in prose and verse, from the collection made by the late Edward Williams, Iolo Morganwg, for the purpose of forming a continuation of the Myfyrian archaeology; and subsequently proposed as materials for a new History of Wales: with English translations and notes (1888) pp. 587-92
So that’s the story – and I think there must be some really cool and creepy ways to tell it and retell it.
I’m going to tease out some of the points from it that might help with a retelling, some bits I find really interesting as images or ideas.
- Firstly, the Lady’s complexion is described as white and red (like the blush of sunset, like blossoms, you know the kind of thing). White and red are very important colours and Welsh fairies are often wearing red, white, green, or blue, so you’ve got these colours to play with to help create the aesthetic.
- Secondly, this idea of glamour having a side effect, so that it’s not just that Einion sees the goblin witch as this beautiful enchantress, but as a result of that, he can’t see the reality around him for what it is either. He sees his wife as a hag, and he’s unable to see anything correctly, with the sole exception of the love token he’s carrying around from his wife after leaving her.
- Putting the half ring under his eyelid, onto his eye – I think there’s a lot of eye stuff, and a lot you can do with that. I think the point of that is the ring is meant to be touching his eyeball and curved around it with the eyelid over the top, so his eye is wearing the ring, and that’s what enables him to see this mysterious magician.
- The man in white and his magic staff… go wild, everyone’s bi here
- The big reveal that the Lady of the Wood is in fact a monstrous creature, the other big reveal that this creature has been wooing his wife in his absence in disguise as a handsome noble, and you might want to lean in to the love triangle, resolve it as a monster-fucking throuple, I don’t know, but you’d have to reckon with the magical coercion that’s a key theme.
- The ending – very 18thC moral tale, which is basically saying, men don’t stray unless they meet a beautiful woman, women don’t stray unless they’re lured by wealth, which is explicit as the moral at the end, so if you don’t agree with that, then what are you going to do with the arc of the narrative to make sure that this is not the message that can be read in your version?
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