Child Sees Fairies in Sheepfold (Monmouthshire)

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sheep fold

If any think I am too credulous in these relations, and speak of things of which I myself have had no experience, I must let them know they are mistaken. For when a very young boy, going with my aunt, early in the morning, but after sun-rising, from Hafodafel towards my father’s house at Pen-y-Llwyn, at the end of the upper field of Cae’r Cefn, (by the wayside which we were passing) I saw the likeness of a sheepfold, with the door towards the south, and over the door, instead of a lintel, the resemblance of a dried branch of a tree (I think of a hazel tree). Within the folds there was a company of many people. Some sitting down, and some going in, and coming out, bowing their heads as they passed under the branch over the door. It seemed to me as if they had been lately dancing, and that there was a musician among them. Among the rest, over against the door, I well remember the resemblance among them of a fair woman with a high-crown hat and a red jacket, who made a better appearance than the rest, and whom I think they seemed to honour. I still have a pretty clear idea of her white face and well-formed countenance. The men wore white cravats. I always think they were the perfect resemblance of persons who lived in the world before my time(There is a resemblance of their form and countenances still remaining in my mind.) I wondered at my aunt, going before me, that she did not look towards them, and we going so near them. As for me, I was loth to speak until I passed them some way, and then told my aunt what I had seen, at which she wondered, and said I dreamed.. However, she came to believe me and told my mother of it when we came home. It was some time before I could be persuaded that there was no fold in that place. There is indeed the ruins of some small edifice in that place, most likely a fold, but so old that the stones are swallowed up, and almost wholly crusted over with earth and grass. But it is a pleasant dry part of the mountain. Jones

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