Editor’s Note: This relates to Aberdaron in North Wales: does this farm actually exist?

In a farm nearby there lived a farmer whose habit it was, before he retired for the night, to go a few steps outside the front door; indeed, it was the only door the house possessed, as was the case, then, in most farmhouses and cottages. While he was outside, this particular night, a stranger came up to him and in effect said: ‘My dear sir, you have no idea the great annoyance you cause me and my family like this every night.’ The farmer inquired how that could be, to which the stranger replied ‘that his house was just below where they stood, and if he would only stand on his food he would see that what he said was true.’ The farmer did so and at once was able to see ‘that all the slops from his house’ went down the chimney of the little fairy dwelling ‘which stood far below in a street that he had never seen before.’ He was then asked by the fairy if he wouldn’t mind removing the door from the front to the back, promising him that if he did so his cattle would be ever clear of the disease called clwy byr – they black-quarter. The farmer, being a kind and considerate person, and fully realizing what it all meant to the little family down below, consented to do so. The front door was blocked up and another opened at the back. After that the farmer became the most prosperous rearer of stock in that part of the country. ‘To place the whole thing beyond the possibility of doubt, Evan Williams (the smith) assured me that he had often seen the farmer’s house with the front in the back.’ D. Parry-Jones, Welsh Legends and Fairy Lore, 19