at can be said
positively is, that the conquerors of the Fair race were certainly
acquainted with iron, and the blow with iron that brought about the
catastrophe was undoubtedly inflicted by the mortal who had married the
Fairy lady. Why iron should have been tabooed by the Fairy and her
father, must remain an open question. But if we could, with reason,
suppose, that that metal had brought about their subjugation, then in an
age of primitive and imperfect knowledge, and consequent deep
superstition, we might not be wrong in supposing that the subjugated race
would look upon iron with superstitious dread, and ascribe to it
supernatural power inimical to them as a race. They would under such
feelings have nothing whatever to do with iron, just as the benighted
African, witnessing for the first time the effects of a gun shot, would,
with dread, avoid a gun. By this process of reasoning we arrive at the
conclusion that the Fairy race belonged to a period anterior to the Iron
Age.

With one remark, I will bring my reflections on the preceding legends to
an end. Polygamy apparently was unknown in the distant times we are
considering. But the marriage bond was not indissoluble, and the
initiative in the separation was taken by the woman.

MEN CAPTURED BY FAIRIES.

In the preceding legends, we have accounts of men capturing female
Fairies, and marrying them. It would be strange if the kidnapping were
confined to one of the two races, but Folk-Lore tells us that the Fair
Family were not innocent of actions similar to those of mortals, for many
a man was snatched away by them, and carried off to their subterranean
abodes, who, in course of time, married the fair daughters of the
_Tylwyth Teg_. Men captured Fairy ladies, but the Fairies captured
handsome men.

The oldest written legend of this class is to be found in the pages of
_Giraldus Cambrensis_, pp. 390-92, Bohn's edition. The Archdeacon made
the tour of Wales in 1188; the legend therefore which he records can
boast of a good old age, but the tale itself is older than _The Itinerary
through Wales_, for the writer informs us that the priest Elidorus, who
affirmed that he had been in the country of the Fairies, talked in his
old age to David II., bishop of St. David, of the event. Now David II.
was promoted to the see of St. David in 1147, or, according to others, in
1149, and died A.D. 1176; therefore the legend had its origin before the
last-mentioned