Research source

I will now proceed in Mr. Davies' words, heading each incident with the title given it in the collec

Date of account: Published 1911
Source: Stranger Than Fiction: Being Tales from the Byways of Ghosts and Folk-lore
Reference: Stranger Than Fiction: Being Tales from the Byways of Ghosts and Folk-lore · selected passage 121
Rights: public_domain
Language: English
Record updated: 2026-08-24

Record summary

All dwellers in the country are familiar with the appearance of "fairy rings," those curious and inexplicable circles that occur in the grass of meadows and lawns

Published source text

Read the available text below. Archive transcriptions may contain OCR errors; later context is labelled separately. A recorded claim is not a finding that it happened.

Source passage

Source text · mention only

All dwellers in the country are familiar with the appearance of "fairy rings," those curious and inexplicable circles that occur in the grass of meadows and lawns. No amount of mowing obliterates them, and probably nothing short of digging up or ploughing would get rid of them. In Wales these odd patches seem to have ever been regarded with a mixture of fear and interest, as the undoubted haunts of the Tylwyth Teg, and were carefully shunned in consequence, especially after nightfall. Howells says, regarding these rings, that "no beasts will eat of them, although some persons suppose that sheep will greedily devour the grass." He adds that he had a friend who told him that when he was a child he was always warned by his mother never to approach, much less enter, the rings, for they were enchanted ground, and anybody going near them was liable to be carried off by the Fair Folk.

Historical context

Contextual commentary · mention only

This material belongs to a folklore tradition. Story type, collector, community, transmission and literary editing matter when comparing it with other sources.

Modern context

Contextual commentary · mention only

Lattice compares motifs and reported features without assuming that a traditional being is a biological species or that similar stories document one external cause.

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