Pwca
The Pwca is the Welsh puck — a shape-shifting prankster, willing farm drudge, and misleading light, paid in milk and dangerous to cheat.
At a glance
- Tradition
- Welsh folklore
- Region
- Wales (place of origin)
- Trait family
- The Hearth-Bound
Near this figure
Traits
Read from the figure's description, which a model wrote. Open "why" for the sentence a trait came from.
Behaviour
- Domestic spirit helps or harms based on treatment
why
The farm relationship ran on tribute, possibly wages for his services as a cowherd: at one farm near Abergwyddon the milkmaid carried a bowl of milk and a piece of white bread to a lonely place on the pastures every day.
- Confuses travelers into losing their way
why
His offices run the puck's full range: a willing drudge who will work about a farm, a mischievous poltergeist when the mood takes him, and a misleading light on the night hills — the will-o'-the- wisp role in which he draws travelers astray.
Curses
- Mischief pranks
why
His offices run the puck's full range: a willing drudge who will work about a farm, a mischievous poltergeist when the mood takes him, and a misleading light on the night hills — the will-o'-the- wisp role in which he draws travelers astray.
Roles
Judged from the works' own entries, not from the description. Carries: the figure holds the role. Meets: the role is in its stories, held by something it meets.
- Trickster carries both readings
3 citations
- Carol Rose, Giants, Monsters, and Dragons, s.v. "Pwca."
- Carol Rose, Spirits, Fairies, Leprechauns, and Goblins, s.v. "Pwca."
- Katharine Briggs, An Encyclopedia of Fairies, s.v. "Pwca."