An old couple named Huw and Bet journeyed to Aberystwyth to hire a maid at the mid-winter fair. When they arrived at the hiring place they found many servants to choose from. “See the girl who is standing alone near the doorway?” exclaimed Bet to her husband. “She is the one I like.” “Let us speak to her then,” said Huw, always anxious to please his wife. “If we can pay the wage she asks, we will take her home.” The old couple spoke to the young girl, who agreed to work for them. She told them her name was Elin. The three lived happily in the homestead in the shadow of the sheltering hills. In the long winter evenings Elin and her mistress would sit weaving while Huw sang and recited to the strumming of his harp. When summer came and the evenings were long and light, Elin no longer stayed in the kitchen. She took her spinning wheel out to the stream in the meadow, and there she worked and sang. The fairies came and helped her to spin, but Elin said nothing of this at home, lest her helpers should be displeased. Huw and Bet knew nothing of the fairies work, but when they saw all the wool Elin had spun, one would look at the other and cry: “We have indeed been fortunate in hiring so good a maid as Elin.” Winter came, and Elin helped her mistress to weave during the long evenings. Spring came, and Elin was with them no more. “It was too good to last,” said Huw sorrowfully. “What can have happened to our good Elin?” Bet sobbed. “Have the fairies taken her?” The answer was yes, though Bet did not know it at the time. Later she was to discover the strange fate that had befallen Elin. One stormy winter’s night Bet was sitting alone in the farmhouse when someone knocked at the door. Bet bade her visitor enter. A tall man, out of breath with running, came in and asked Bet to go with him over the hillside. “Why?” asked Bet in astonishment. “I need your help,” exclaimed the man, “ and there are others too who need your help.” Bet was the most generous of women. When she heard that someone needed her help she threw her cloak over her head, and bowing in the face of the storm, followed the stranger up the hill. Bet had known the paths from childhood, but on this particular evening she seemed to be following a new one. She kept close beside her companion, and followed him into a great cavern in the side of the hill. At the far end of the cave was a lofty doorway. The man after pausing to unlock the heavy studded door, stood aside for Bet to enter. When her eyes had grown accustomed to the light, Bet saw that she was in a spacious room with splendid furnishings. There was a four poster bed with golden curtains. On it lay a beautiful lady and her baby. “Take care of them,” said the man, and Bet ministered to the two who needed her help. “This will be your room,” said the man, opening the door of a smaller room. Bet entered. The table was laid, and there was all manner of good food upon it. In her room she found all the things she needed. She was all the more surprised, for she could see no servants or anyone who could have prepared for her wants. “I do not understand,” muttered Bet to herself. “Perhaps I am growing old- but in truth I do not understand.” One morning the man came to bet and said, “In future when you bath the baby, put some of this salve on his eyes, be very careful you do not put any on your own eyes. Should you do so, evil will befall you. “I will take care Sir.” Said Bet. For several days Bet was very careful. She rubbed the salve over the baby’s eyes, and at once washed her hands. “Evil will befall me if it reaches my eyes,” Bet reminded herself each day One day Bet as washing the baby, and placed the salve on his eyes. Suddenly her left eye started to itch. Without thinking of the evil that would befall her she rubbed her eye. But there was some of the salve on her hand! A strange thing happened; for although she could see everything as before with her right eye, with her left she saw things altogether differently. To her right eye the room appeared as beautiful and luxurious as before. But with her left it appeared as a dank miserable cave, unfit to live in. Bet looked around, and where the four poster bed had stood with it’s beautiful hanging curtains. She saw a clump of ferns and bracken. Bet stepped forward and looked more closely at the baby and the lady on the bed. “Elin!” cried bet. “My dear, dear maid. Is it here that I find you?” before Elin could answer, bet could see that they were not alone. There were many servants and maids, and pages moving about the cave, as light in their movements as dandelion tufts. “Mistress! Mistress!” cried Elin. “Yes it is I Elin! But tell me, how is it you know me?” Bet told how by accident she had rubbed her eye whilst washing the baby. “We must be careful” said Elin in a whisper, “that my husband does not get to know of this.” “So, the strange man is your husband!” Bet exclaimed. She did not know whether she was glad or sorry at Elin’s news. “I will tell you all about it this evening, when he is safely away.” For Bet the hours dragged slowly by. She was impatient to hear Elin’s tale. “This is my story,” said Elin. “You and the master were pleased when I could weave and spin so well. You did not know the fairy folk helped me. They helped me freely, on one condition; that I should marry their king.” Elin paused as though she were thinking deeply. “I promised,” she continued, “for I wanted their help, but” and here she laughed, “I had no intention of keeping that promise. To make sure that they would not worry me to keep it, I always carried a knife, sharp and keen. They were afraid of the sight of that knife.” “I feared they might carry me away when I was sleeping. To save myself I lay a branch of the mountain Ash at the foot of my bed. For months and months I was safe from them, so safe that I grew careless. One evening very tired I crept into bed, and forgot to put the Ash at the foot of the bed, and awoke in the land of the fairies. But Hush! Here comes my husband.” In his presence, Bet was very careful not to show that she could see differently through her left eye. Time passed. “Goodbye mistress, goodbye!,” sobbed Elin one evening. “He will take you away in the morning, I will not see you again.” At sunrise the man beckoned to Bet. He gave her a bag of gold, and led her home by the path she had come. Great was the surprise of Huw, and many were the questions he asked, but there were many things bet could not explain. “We must go to the mid-winter fair at Aberystwyth,” said Huw some months later. We must hire a maid to take Elin’s place.” When they reached the fair, Bet could see her sister busy bargaining at a stall. “The fairy folk are here today right enough,” said Nance. “Did you ever see such a crowd? Prices too are right high. Good for those who are selling.” The fairy folk were there as Nance had guessed, but nobody saw them except Bet. She saw them clearly with her left eye. Nearby she saw a stall of flannel. A man was stealing a roll of cloth from it! “Nay! Nay!, do not be dishonest,” cried Bet. She ran forward and saw that the man was Elin’s husband. Overcome with surprise, Bet forgot Elin’s warning not to show she could see magic things through her left eye. “How is Elin,” asked Bet all excited, “ How are Elin and the little baby?” “They are well, quite well,” the man answered. “But tell me, which eye is it that you see me with?” “With this one,” said honest Bet, pointing to her left eye. Immediately the man struck her left eye with a plantain flower, and the eye became dead and useless. For the rest of her life, Bet could only use her right eye. “It serves me as well as two,” she said comforting herself. Throughout the rest of her life Bet searched carefully with her right eye, but never again did she see Elin or her little baby.
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