Ellylldan

Also Known As: Welsh, from ellyll, an elf or goblin, and tân, fire, so elf-fire; also written Ellyll-dân; the Welsh will-o’-the-wisp, known in some districts as Lantern Jack and often called by the name of the Pwca
Region/Culture: Northern Europe
Mythos: Welsh Mythology
Primary Type/Nature: Fairy Folk and Spirit Beings
Mythical Attributes: A fire-carrying elf that dances over bog and marsh at night and draws late travellers off the path.
Role in Mythos: It is the Welsh form of the will-o’-the-wisp, counted among the ellyllon, the small elves of the hollows and valleys.
Relation to Humans: It lures people walking home in the dark into wet ground or to the lip of a drop, then leaves them there. Farmers ended it without meaning to, since the old accounts say it died out as the bogs were drained.

The marsh is loudest just after dark. Frogs start up in the reeds, a bittern booms somewhere out in the wet, and bats come down low over the standing water. Then, a little way ahead and about knee height, there is a light. It bobs. It moves off a few yards and stops, the way a dog stops to see whether it is being followed.

This is the Ellylldan, and following it is a mistake that Welsh country people once made often enough to give the thing a name. The name is two plain words pressed together: ellyll, an elf or goblin, and tân, fire. Elf-fire. The American writer Wirt Sikes, who served as United States consul at Cardiff and published his collection British Goblins in 1880, added that the second half of the word could also be read as a lure, which gave him a luring elf-fire. He set it down as the exact match of the English will-o’-the-wisp, and listed it among the ellyllon, the pygmy elves of Welsh groves and valleys who eat toadstools and wear foxglove bells for gloves.

What it does is simple. It dances over soft ground at night, in front of anyone late on the road, and it leads them into the bog. That is the whole of its trade.

The fullest sighting in print is older than Sikes. It comes from a book called The Vale of Glamorgan, issued in London in 1839 without an author’s name and since credited to Charles Redwood, where a character known as Iolo the Bard tells of meeting one. He follows the glow across a marsh, stumbling past frogs and lizards, a squatting toad, owls, and a spider’s web strung across his way. Whenever he falls behind, the light waits for him. At last it brings him to a place where others of its kind are gathered, and it joins them in a ring. They dance. He watches the lights go round and round until he can no longer keep his eyes open, and he sleeps where he stands. The teller describes only the glow. He never says what was holding it.

That silence runs through every account. A book on the folklore of Beddgelert, printed in 1899, describes the same being under the name Lantern Jack and says outright that nobody has ever clearly seen his shape or his colour. What people saw was the lantern, a small clear blue flame travelling up the middle of a sheep path on a dark night. What they heard was the laugh, loud and abrupt, like a horse neighing without warning. The flame, by that account, goes ahead of a lone walker and swells until he is dazzled and can see nothing else, and from then on he can be taken anywhere. Young men out courting on winter nights were said to have been led miles out of their way.

Where a body is given at all, it belongs to the Pwca, the Welsh Puck, whose name Sikes treats as another word for the same creature. In a tale he says was told in many districts with only the place changed, a farm worker coming home from a fair sees a light on the road and a small dusky figure carrying a lantern at arm’s length. He follows it for miles. He stops only because the ground stops: he is standing at the edge of a cliff with a river roaring below. The little figure springs clean across the gap, lifts its light high, lets out a spiteful laugh, blows out the candle and is gone up the far hillside. Sikes was told the story belonged to Cwm Pwca, Puck’s Valley, in the glen of the Clydach in Breconshire. By his day an ironworks stood there.

No tale explains how the Ellylldan came to be. Other countries make their marsh lights out of damned souls or dead children, but the Welsh accounts under this name offer no such history, and none says the light can be caught or killed. It is simply one of the elves, with fire.

Its powers are those of a guide who cannot be trusted. It can make itself seen from far off, hold a walker’s eye, keep an even distance, and wait. In Redwood’s telling the dance of a whole company of them can send a man to sleep. In the Beddgelert account the flame can grow until it blinds. It knows the ground and the walker does not.

Its limits are just as plain. It works only in the dark and only on someone alone. From a distance, the Beddgelert writer says, its clumsy movement gives it away to anyone watching from the hillside. And it needs wet ground. A Welsh landowner and member of Parliament, W. O. Stanley, wrote to the journal Notes and Queries that the elf had been starved out. The farmers had drained the bogs, the rank marsh growth where the bittern and the snipe had lived was now corn and potatoes, and the light was quenched. Drainage killed it. Nobody set out to do so, and nobody is recorded as missing it until afterward.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the Ellylldan?

The Ellylldan is the Welsh will-o’-the-wisp, a fire-carrying elf that dances over marshes and bogs at night. It appears as a small light ahead of late travellers and leads them off the path into wet ground. Wirt Sikes described it in British Goblins in 1880 and counted it among the ellyllon, the small elves of Welsh folklore.

What does the name Ellylldan mean?

Ellylldan means elf-fire. It joins the Welsh words ellyll, an elf or goblin, and tân, fire. Wirt Sikes added that the second part could also be read as a lure, which gave him the sense of a luring elf-fire.

What does the Ellylldan look like?

No account gives the Ellylldan a body. A Beddgelert account of 1899, which calls it Lantern Jack, describes a small clear blue flame moving along a path and says nobody has clearly seen its shape or colour. Only the related Pwca story shows a small dusky figure carrying a lantern at arm’s length.

Is the Ellylldan the same as the Pwca?

Wirt Sikes treated Pwca as another name for the Ellylldan, in the way Puck is another name for the English will-o’-the-wisp. In the Pwca tale a small figure with a lantern leads a farm worker to the edge of a cliff, jumps across, laughs, and blows out its light. Sikes was told the story belonged to Cwm Pwca in the Clydach glen in Breconshire.

Why did the Ellylldan disappear?

The Ellylldan disappeared because the bogs were drained. W. O. Stanley wrote in Notes and Queries that farmers had turned the marshes into fields of corn and potatoes, so the elf was starved out and its light quenched. The Ellylldan needs wet ground and darkness to work.