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THE TYLWYTH TEG
by Peri Vale, Sluagh Courtesan and gossip Columnist to the Dreaming!!
As taught to me by Crom ap Liam of the Regency Oathcircle.

THE TYLWYTH TEG: Welsh Changelings
The Fae of Wales are known as the Tylwyth Teg and the Sidhe as the Ellylion. Their history is partially recorded in the Mabinogion, a collection of medieval Welsh tales but just as with the Irish Myth's, Christianity and Human memory have diluted and edited the truth considerably. Several of the Myths of the Welsh fae influenced the Arthurian mythology, especially those of Kulhwch who is aided in several of his adventures by his cousin Arthur and some of Arthur's men, including Kei (Sir Kay) and Gwalchmei (Sir Gawain).

The Welsh Seelie, calling themselves the Children of Dôn, were organized around the Strict rule of House Gwydion, supported by House Dougal, House Liam and House Pendragon. Dôn, a Welsh manifestation of the Mother Goddess Danu, had the Red Dragon as her symbol and this appeared on all banners of the Seelie Ellylion. The Red Dragon is called Dewi and is still remembered in Wales beneath the Myth of St. David (Ty-Dewi), and obviously on their national flag.

The Unseelie, the Children of Llyr, were ruled by Gwydion's sister Aranrhod or Arianrhod ("Silver Wheel"), head of a minor Unseelie house from the North. Commoner myths claim that Aranrhod was a virgin and yet also the mother of Lleu Llaw Gyffes ("Lleu (Lugh) of the Dexterous Hand") via a miraculous birth. Aranrhod was a magician, who lived in orgiastic maidenhood surrounded entirely by women, although it is also said she lived a wanton life, mating with mermen. The Welsh peoples worshipped her as goddess of the moon, but in truth she led the Unseelie who had as their Symbol Ddraig, the White Dragon. Like Ddraig her house favoured subterranean holdings, although the Bards would have you believe her palace is the Corona Borealis.

Tales speak of the members of House Aranrhod fearing the daylight. In the time of the war of trees, the Unseelie Princess Branwen, daughter of the Tuatha de Danu Llyr, married the sun god Matholwch, a King of the Seelie. Aranrhod insulted Branwen, listing the faults of her new husband and belittling his manliness. Matholwch laid a mighty curse on Aranrhod and her line, causing them to ever after be burnt by his fury and to never walk again in sunlight. Branwen later had to cause to regret her marriage and her husbands mistreatment of her led to a devastating war. (see below).

MYTH AND HISTORY
In the time between the departure of the Tuatha de Danu and the shattering, rulership of Wales was contested by the two courts and conflicts such as those between Pwyll and Gwawl were par for the course. While they shared their throne between the year as was customary, both courts sought to prove the other unworthy of the role and thus retain their seat for the entire year. Every Beltaine and Samhain festival brought new challenges, accusations and slurs as the Seelie and the Unseelie engaged in a campaign of mud slinging and dirty politics that would shock even the immature members of today's Parliament. Few kingdoms saw as much open conflict between the Seelie and the Unseelie as the fields of Wales. There enough legends of these times to keep a thousand bards fed for life, Heroes from both sides were required to solve impossible riddles or wrestle terrible beasts in order to prove their right to rule and cause their opposite numbers to step down for a further six months.

One of the greatest Unseelie kingdoms of this time was Dyfed, a beautiful land containing the magic caldron of life, one of the four treasures of the Tuatha de Danu. Dyfed was ruled by King Pwyll ap Aranrhod, whose Seelie rival was Gwawl of House Liam. Pwyll is remembered in Arthurian legend, as Pelles, the keeper of the Holy Grail, itself a diluted memory of the caldron and the story of his rule is an important legend for all Bards. The Cauldron was a gateway to Annwn, the Dark Umbra of the Dead, and through it Pwyll became a friend of Arawn, king of Annwn. The two were such firm friends that they exchanged shapes and kingdoms for a year and a day, thus gaining Pwyll the name Pwyll Pen Annwn ("Head of Annwn").

As the Bards tell it, Pwyll is out hunting one day when he meets a beautiful Pooka woman on a pale, mysterious steed. He falls in love with her and discovers that she is Rhiannon, descended from both the Horse Goddess Epona and the Irish goddess Macha. Unfortunately True love needs its troubles and theirs came in the form of Gwawl who also loved the Horse maiden. Eventually Pwyll wins her love from his rival and they marry, a union blessed by the birth of a son; Pryderi.

Jealous of their love and still smarting from his defeat Gwawl abducts Pryderi and leaves clues that point to his being murdered. Rhiannon was accused of killing her infant son, and in punishment she was forced to act as a horse and to carry visitors to the royal court and was made to wear the collars of asses about her neck in the manner of a beast. Eventually Pryderi was restored to his parents and Rhiannon's innocence proven, but it was her stoic and uncomplaining nature while under such harsh punishments and her unconditional forgiveness of her persecutors once cleared that has earned her the undying love of the Tylwyth Teg. Even today, those who remember her tale look to her for comfort when they must suffer prolonged misery or unjust punishments.

Pryderi grows up in the love of Dyfed's court, with an Unseelie father and a Seelie mother and finally succeeds Pwyll, when he is killed in the battle by the forces of Matholwch, as ruler both in Dyfed and Annwn. Stewardship of the Cauldron passed to Cerridwen (Caridwen), the goddess of nature, death, fertility, regeneration, magick, inspiration, astrology, herbs, science, poetry, spells, corn, and knowledge. She was the consort of Tegid Foel and mother of Morfan, Taliesin, and the monstrous Afagddu.
Often these minor disputes escalated into skirmishes and even full blown wars. Gwydion and Aranrhod led their armies into battle dozens of times, the pennants of a hundred Sidhe houses beneath the Banners of the red and white Dragons. The Seelie Houses of Liam and Dougal, always the loyal pawns of the Gwydion, stood beside the House of the Griffon and even a smattering of the other Seelie houses came to war. By themselves, the Unseelie Ellylion were no match for the Seelie Houses, but they had strong support from among the commoners, especially the Gofannon (Nockers) who mined Copper from mount Snowdon. Lady Aranrhod and her warriors had all manner of magical weapons from the Gofannon workshops, not to mention the use of Pwyll's Cauldron of life left to him by the Tuatha de Danu.

Incensed by their inability to defeat the wondrous weapons of the Gofannon the Seelie Knight Creidylad, a daughter of Lludd, led an army into the Mountain fast of Snowdonia to destroy the Unseelie workshops. Becoming lost in the Trods and tunnels beneath the mountain, the Seelie found a large feasting hall and afraid to loose the element of surprise attacked immediately with fell magics and bitter fury. When the battle was over and the victorious Seelie surveyed the cavern they discovered not only the bodies of the Gofannon, but those of a handful of Troll's as well. Later they discovered that these troll's were the mothers and children of the children of Black Annis, a small Troll family who shared the caverns with the Gofannon and the Sluagh.

As they crept out of the Troll hall the Seelie became horribly lost, partly due to the whispers and cantrips of the Sluagh Gwyllion who had witnessed the slaughter. After days of wandering and close to death, the Knights were led to the secret workshops of the Gofannon and their doom. The Sluagh had deliberately kept the Seelie busy until the Children of Annis returned from their hunting and now the murderers were met by not only the industrious Gofannon and the cold Sluagh, but by the Troll's they had so recently made widowers and orphans. When Creidylad's Lone squire staggered into the sunlight a week later he was close to death and unable to face the sun. Before he died at the feet of the Gwydion King he told of the vast underground foundries and the endless tunnels and the wrath of the Ap Annis Troll's.

Eventually Gwydion and Aranrhod retreated into the Dreaming and their children took the Thrones of Wales. The constant border raids and political back biting continued as they had always done and as the first chills of the sundering began to be felt War broke out among the Tylwyth Teg. The cause of the greatest and most bloody Battle of the Welsh Fae was the marriage between the Seelie tyrant Matholwch and the Unseelie daughter of Llyr; Branwen. Hearing of Matholwch's maltreatment of Branwen her brother, Brân (Bendigeidfran) the Blessed; a bard and poet, and the warrior Manawydan; lord of the Sea, led an expedition to avenge her. For the first time in the wars of the Tylwyth Teg, the Troll's of Snowdonia stood beside the Unseelie forces and prepared themselves to bathe in the blood of the treacherous Gwydion and their allies. Among Matholwch's forces was a mysterious figure known only as Teyrnon or "Divine Lord", who may well have been Gwydion himself. Beside him were such heroes as Kulhwch, Bendigeidfran, Penarddun, Beli Mawr, Math ap Mathonwy, Owein and Geraint.

By night the battle raged and the blood flowed, while by day the forces of the white Dragon retreated back into the earth and those of the Red Dragon took refuge in the forests. Each evening the Unseelie emerged once more from the caves and fissures at the foot of their great mountain and the war began anew. This went on for seven days and seven nights until Agrona of House Pendragon led her Kinain Uthur along the river Aeron (named after her) and into the caves by day and had the mortals dig out the caverns and slaughter all the Unseelie they found. Once the Ellylion of House Aranrhod had been uncovered the Pendragon archers peppered them with flaming arrows from the cover of sunlight. When the 8th night came, the Forces of the white dragon were in tatters.

Brân was killed in the subsequent conflict, which left only seven survivors, among them Manawydan and Pryderi. Manawydan married Pwyll's widow, Rhiannon, and the story ends with the survivors of the great battle feasting in the presence of the severed head of Bran the Blessed, having forgotten all their suffering and sorrow. The forces of the White Dragon had been all but obliterated and Wales was secured as a bastion of the Seelie Court. House Gwydion had very little time in which to celebrate its victory as the Banal wave of the sundering drove them from the waking lands within the next few years and Wales became the domain of the Commoners.

THE INTERREGNUM
Of the few Ellylion who did undergo the Changeling way ritual, most popular with the Commoners was Gilfaethwy, younger sister to Gwydion and Aranrhod. Having no offspring of her own, Gilfaethwy founded no house and was simply considered to be a vassal of her Brothers lineage. While Gwydion and Aranrhod bickered and sniped at each other and then begrudgingly transferred the throne from Seelie to Unseelie and then back again, Gilfaethwy was always welcome and thus managed to always be where she needed to be.

During the interregnum, however, she was considered the most senior member of both Houses and her presence served to prevent anymore internecine squabbles for the six centuries before Gwydion returned. Supported by the ap Annis Troll family of Snowdonia, Gilfaethwy was a major supporter of the Welsh Shadow court and together with the Commoners who came to rule Wales was a force for the survival and continuance of the Tylwyth Teg community.

The ap Annis Trolls ruled the frozen kingdom of Snowdonia from their Freehold Tormentill. Sharing their balefire were a large population of Gofannon and Sluagh, together with a few members of the other Kith. Bred from the hardy but insular Welsh peoples the Tylwyth Teg tended to be unfriendly to visitors, stopping just short of outright hostility, but Bards were always welcomed. These fae were strongly protective of their own communities, even the Unseelie cherished their Kinain and their Dreamers. They value hard work, local crafts and song, as the countless choirs and Eisteddfods attribute.

THE RESURRGENCE
Gilfaethwy's most recent incarnation died in the early sixties and has yet to reincarnate again and so has not seen her Brother since his return from Arcadia. With their patroness absent, the Tylwyth Teg looked to the Trolls of the Annis line to lead them in the fight for independence against the returning Ellylion. Led by their Jarl; Caradawc of the Strong Arms, husband to Gwyllion the Sluagh, the Trolls made the Ellylion pay for every square inch of land the annexed. When their land was threatened, the Gofannon Elen magically built highways (exclusive Trods) across the country so that the Commoner soldiery could gather and defend it, giving them an edge and allowing the freehold of Tormentill to remain free. The partisan Tylwyth Teg fought ferociously, mostly with guerrilla tactics, but eventually they were only too pleased to accept the same peace accord that ended the accordance war in England.

Towards the end of the accordance war Caradawc died and his throne passed to his son, named after the very mountain they called home. In peace time the freehold of Tormentill became a place of learning and apprenticeship for young Knights, receiving the young sons and daughters of many houses that wished to learn the traits of Nobility from the Trolls. This state of affairs lasted for two decades and the Trolls knew peace and prosperity, until the arrival of the first Hybrid.

The ap Annis of Snowdonia gave sanctuary to several strange fae, hybrids of two Kiths, and paid for their hospitality with their lives. These poor creatures had drawn down the wrath of a group of assassins within the legendary Red Branch; the 'Crimson Elite'. These puritanical Knights stormed the gates of the freehold in dead of night with numbers far too great for the Trolls to defeat. As the Jarl and his house were slaughtered or sent to their deaths at the bottom of a cavern, the Sidhe knights murdered their charges. All the Hybrids were killed and their mortal bodies burnt and all but a handful of the household similarly butchered. Only the Jarl Snowdon, his nephew Tarquin and a handful of Troll youngsters survived the madness and it took them hours to climb out of the cavernous depths within the mountain.

After the brutal and criminal attack the Snowdonia freehold became untenable and so jarl Snowden and his few surviving family members travelled to London and sought the sanctuary the Regent of House Fionna. Since then, the ap Annis family have been the driving force behind Fionna's armed forces. The training in Chivalric warfare and courtly honour for which they were famous has become the guiding force behind the Troll and Sidhe units of the Fionna army and the Regency palace guard. Snowdon has shaped his loyal trolls into the Snowdon underground, a team of skilled special forces trained to smuggle Hybrids and those who know of them away from the Crimson Elite. Snowdon's forces garner a great deal of respect from other Changeling's, whether they know about their secret mission or no, but the ap Annis hold a dark secret.

Since joining the forces of House Fionna, Snowdon and Tarquin have worked to uncover the true identities of the Crimson elite so that they might take their just revenge. This goal has been carried out in secret, along with the search for other hybrid children who might need protection. Those Trolls loyal to the ap Annis and House Fionna are being trained not only to protect the Regency, but also for the day when the Snowdon underground can openly declare itself an enemy of the Crimson Elite and protectors of the Hybrids. For now they are too small to break the terrible secret of the Hybrids existence and have not gained enough intelligence on their enemies, but that will change.

Click HERE for an explanation of the Hybrid's

SNOWDONIA: THE TORMENTILL FREEHOLD


SNOWDON
Mount Snowdon in northern Wales is the highest point in England and Wales and the principal massif in the Snowdonia mountains. It is located in the county of Gwynedd and the historic county of Caernarvonshire. Snowdon consists of about five main peaks that are connected by sharp ridges and between which lie cirques (scooped-out basins). The highest of these peaks is Yr Wyddfa, which reaches an elevation of 3,560 feet (1,085 metres). Farther south Cader Idris ("Chair of Idris"), a long mountain ridge, reaches a height of 2,927 feet (892 metres) at Pen-y-Gader. Snowdon is composed mainly of slates and porphyries that date from the Ordovician Period (490 million to 443 million years ago). Intense glaciation has affected the entire locality, producing the ridges, cirques, and numerous small lakes that nestle in the lower valleys radiating out from Snowdon. The mountain is ascended by a rack-and-pinion railway that runs from Llanberis to the summit of Yr Wyddfa.
Snowdonia National Park (Welsh Parc Cenedlaethol Eryri) is for all intense and purposes the Kingdom once ruled by House Aranrhod and now overseen by the Tormentill freehold. Set in Gwynedd county and Conwy county borough, northern Wales, with an area of 838 square miles, it is best known for its mountains, and tourism thrives here, stimulated by the possibilities for climbing, hill walking, fishing, and sightseeing. Tourist centres in and near the park include Bala, with recreational facilities on Bala Lake, the largest natural lake in Wales; Betws-y-Coed, noted for its waterfalls, wooded gorges, and picturesque bridges; Blaenau Ffestiniog, where the defunct Llechwedd Slate Caverns are open to visitors; Dinas Mawddwy, with a textile mill and craft shop oriented toward touring shoppers; Dolgellau, overlooked by Cader Idris; the old village of Ffestiniog, on a bluff above the wooded Vale of Ffestiniog; Llanberis, at the foot of Snowdon, facing the massive Dinorwic slate quarries; and the Cardigan Bay resorts of Harlech, Barmouth, and Aberdovey.

THE AP ANNIS TROLLS
A knight is sworn to valour
His heart knows only virtue
His blade defends the helpless
His might upholds the weak
His word speaks only truth
His wrath undoes the wicked
- The code of the old way. Dragonheart