Ellyllon of Cymru
In Cymru all fair folk are gathered under Tylwyth Teg, but the elves among them are properly the Ellyllon. Hill raths and lake courts were their first homes—Llyn y Fan Fach and Bala’s dark waters, ridgeway forts and oak knolls—each kept by a lord or lady whose right rested on presence, hospitality, and song. From the start they stood close to the gods of the land: Arawn of Annwn across the misted border; Ceridwen of the cauldron and awen; Arianrhod of the star-fort by the sea; Rhiannon who rides between worlds. Their law moved to bardic measures: truth that must hold in cynghanedd, justice that arrives with a harp and a witness.
Neighbors shaped them. Before Albion raised its Four Courts, the Ellyllon and the Aelfe traded, intermarried, and raided along the marches; craft, courtesy, and a taste for pageantry crossed the border long before pride would allow either side to admit it. Sea-roads brought other influences—Francia’s ogres and courtly dames, Álfar scouts out of the north—but Cymru’s fae took what fit and sent the rest back with a verse. Where giants tried to set palisades over wells and causeways, the Ellyllon turned the land itself against them; where goblin bailiffs counted cattle at the ford, a single satire could empty their ledger of legitimacy.
Their deepest wars were with weather and water. The stories remember lake maidens who married mortal shepherds on tabooed terms; they also remember Cantre’r Gwaelod, the sunken lowlands whose dykes failed when watch and measure slipped. From that drowning the Ellyllon learned to tie sovereignty to stewardship: keep the sluices and stones, keep the songs that call the sea back down. Across winters the Cŵn Annwn—Arawn’s white hounds—ran the high roads as wardens more than hunters; their cry meant time to settle debts and put houses in order
Humans stepped deeper into the tale with the courts of Pwyll and Pryderi, and later with Arthur’s circle when Camelot’s shadow fell long across both worlds. The Ellyllon dealt with Morgan as much as with Merlin; their poets carried the Fisher King’s parable of wound and repair into lake-law; their heralds rode beside the Green Knight when it suited Cymru to check Albion, and faced him when it did not. Through it all they kept their own councils—gorseddau of lords and bards who judged by precedent and proverb rather than imported rule.
When crossings grew thin, the Ellyllon retreated into wells, isles, and ridge halls, keeping the road with gifts that teach: lent cattle returned with a first calf owed; a cloak for a song; a basket of bread for a promise not to count the loaves. When crossings quickened, they walked among mortals under good names—Bendith y Mamau, “the Mothers’ Blessing”—and let courtesy do what glamour need not. In modern years they move easily in Earth-facing circles where water, music, and craft hold status: conservatories and boatyards, museums and mountain parks, boardrooms that answer to rivers and harbors.
The Ellyllon stand beneath Y Ddraig Goch—the Red Dragon—proud of what sets them apart from the other elven peoples they have influenced and been shaped by. “Do not wake Cymru’s dragon” is more than a proverb: their steel is as beautiful as their ballads. From giant overlords to Orcneas shield-walls to goblin petty kings, would-be conquerors learned the same lesson—Cymru bends to courtesy, not to chains.
Each victory births a new song, and the bards carry it across Otherworld as warning and welcome both: cross the elves who live under the Red Dragon at your peril. As the old triad has it—three things that rouse the Dragon of Cymru: a broken guest-right, a defiled well, and a song silenced by fear. And the Dragon will stand for none to be broke least they feel its fangs.
Neighbors shaped them. Before Albion raised its Four Courts, the Ellyllon and the Aelfe traded, intermarried, and raided along the marches; craft, courtesy, and a taste for pageantry crossed the border long before pride would allow either side to admit it. Sea-roads brought other influences—Francia’s ogres and courtly dames, Álfar scouts out of the north—but Cymru’s fae took what fit and sent the rest back with a verse. Where giants tried to set palisades over wells and causeways, the Ellyllon turned the land itself against them; where goblin bailiffs counted cattle at the ford, a single satire could empty their ledger of legitimacy.
Their deepest wars were with weather and water. The stories remember lake maidens who married mortal shepherds on tabooed terms; they also remember Cantre’r Gwaelod, the sunken lowlands whose dykes failed when watch and measure slipped. From that drowning the Ellyllon learned to tie sovereignty to stewardship: keep the sluices and stones, keep the songs that call the sea back down. Across winters the Cŵn Annwn—Arawn’s white hounds—ran the high roads as wardens more than hunters; their cry meant time to settle debts and put houses in order
Humans stepped deeper into the tale with the courts of Pwyll and Pryderi, and later with Arthur’s circle when Camelot’s shadow fell long across both worlds. The Ellyllon dealt with Morgan as much as with Merlin; their poets carried the Fisher King’s parable of wound and repair into lake-law; their heralds rode beside the Green Knight when it suited Cymru to check Albion, and faced him when it did not. Through it all they kept their own councils—gorseddau of lords and bards who judged by precedent and proverb rather than imported rule.
When crossings grew thin, the Ellyllon retreated into wells, isles, and ridge halls, keeping the road with gifts that teach: lent cattle returned with a first calf owed; a cloak for a song; a basket of bread for a promise not to count the loaves. When crossings quickened, they walked among mortals under good names—Bendith y Mamau, “the Mothers’ Blessing”—and let courtesy do what glamour need not. In modern years they move easily in Earth-facing circles where water, music, and craft hold status: conservatories and boatyards, museums and mountain parks, boardrooms that answer to rivers and harbors.
The Ellyllon stand beneath Y Ddraig Goch—the Red Dragon—proud of what sets them apart from the other elven peoples they have influenced and been shaped by. “Do not wake Cymru’s dragon” is more than a proverb: their steel is as beautiful as their ballads. From giant overlords to Orcneas shield-walls to goblin petty kings, would-be conquerors learned the same lesson—Cymru bends to courtesy, not to chains.
Each victory births a new song, and the bards carry it across Otherworld as warning and welcome both: cross the elves who live under the Red Dragon at your peril. As the old triad has it—three things that rouse the Dragon of Cymru: a broken guest-right, a defiled well, and a song silenced by fear. And the Dragon will stand for none to be broke least they feel its fangs.
Encompassed species
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