Of Doves and Ravens: The Witches and Wisefolk of Wales and the Borders E-Book

Benjamin Stimpson

• Herausgeber: The History Press
• Kategorie: Geisteswissenschaft
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 521

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2025

Beschreibung

Magic pervades every inch of Wales, from Anglesey in the north to the Vale of Glamorgan in the south, from the Marches in the east to the shores of the west. Every corner of this landscape has stories of local magicians and witches, yet so many of these figures are relatively unknown outside of Wales and are overshadowed by their English counterparts. Set in encyclopedia format, Of Doves & Ravens invites readers on a tour through the rich folklore of this landscape. Discover the recollections of market fortune-tellers who historically plied their trade in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, and meet the gwrach who dwell in lonely places; the dynen hysbys who help find lost cattle and protect against the malevolence of witches; and the legendary magicians who summon demons and often are buried in the walls of church. This is magical Wales revealed.

Leseprobe

First published 2025

The History Press

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Gloucestershire, GL50 3QB

www.thehistorypress.co.uk

© Benjamin Stimpson, 2025

Foreword © Andrew Phillip Smith, 2025

The right of Benjamin Stimpson to be identified as the Author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without the permission in writing from the Publishers.

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A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

ISBN 978 1 83705 010 9

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Er coffadwriaeth parchus am Bela Fawr o Ddinbych

Dedicated to the memory of Bella of Denbigh

CONTENTS

List of Figures

Acknowledgements

Foreword

Introduction

PART ONE: GOGLEDD CYMRU (NORTH WALES)

Chapter One: Ynys Môn (Anglesey)

The Witches of Llanddona (Llanddona)

Siani Bwt, ‘Little Jane’ (Gorsylwyd, Llanddona)

John Roberts of Maenaddwyn (Maenaddwyn)

Dick y Green (Biwmares/Beaumaris)

The Witch of Lligwy Bay (Moelfre)

Chapter Two: Gwynedd

Robin Ddu Ddewin, ‘Black Robin the Magician’ (Arfon)

The Gwrach y Rhibin, ‘The Hag of the Mist’ (North Wales)

Dorti Ddu (Dorothy the Black) of Llanor (Llanor)

Margaret Evans of Brynllyfni (Llanllyfni)

Gwydion and Arianrhod (Llandwrog)

Canrig Bwt of Nant Peris (Pont y Gromlech, Nant Peris)

Beti Ifan of Beddgelert (Beddgelert)

Huw Llwyd the Conjuror (Ffestiniog)

Sali Minffordd (Minffordd)

Dorti of Llandecwyn (Llyn Tecwyn Uchaf, Llandecwyn)

Brân the Blessed (Harlech)

Ceridwen (Llyn Tegid/Bala)

Siwsi of Dôl y Clochydd (Llanfachreth)

Bessi Rhisiart (Dinas Mawddwy)

Dr John Davies of Mallwyd (Mallwyd)

Chapter Three: Conwy, Sir Dinbych (Denbighshire), Sir Y Fflint (Flintshire), Wrecsam (Wrexham)

The Witch of Llyn Dulyn (Llyn Dulyn, Conwy)

Beti’r Baten of Llanrwst (Llanrwst, Conwy)

The Cursing Well of St Elian (St Elian Church, Llanelian, Conwy)

The Hag and the Freckled Cow (Cerrigydrudion, Conwy)

Henry John James (Dyserth, Denbighshire)

Dafydd Ddu Hiraddug, ‘Black David of Hiraddug’ (Dyserth, Denbighshire)

Pedws Ffoulk of Henllan (Henllan, Denbighshire)

Sioned Gorn (Dinbych/Denbigh, Denbighshire)

Bella Fawr, the Witch of Denbigh (Dinbych/Denbigh, Denbighshire)

Gwen Ferch Ellis of Llandyrnog (Llandyrnog, Denbighshire)

Ellen of Weirglodd (Pwllglas, Denbighshire)

The Witch Who Turned Blue Dye to Red (Clocaenog, Denbighshire)

The Witch of Tyddyn y Barcut (Corwen, Denbighshire)

A Witch of Caerwys (Caerwys, Flintshire)

David Jenkins of Mold (Yr Wyddgrug/Mold, Flintshire)

John Roberts, Mochyn-y-Nant (Ruabon, Wrexham)

PART TWO: CANOLBARTH CYMRU (MID WALES)

Chapter Four: Powys

Shon Gyffarwydd, the Wise Astrologer of Llanbrynmair (Llanbrynmair)

Richard Evans, the Magical Shopkeeper (Llanidloes)

R--- J---, A Conjuror of Llanidloes (Llanidloes)

William Pryse (Pen-cin-Coed, Llanidloes)

Old Savage of Llangurig (Llangurig)

John Morgan, Grandson of Old Savage (Llangurig)

Penny Mary, ‘Pal y Geiniog’ (Llangurig)

Old Griff and the Miracle Stone (Llangurig)

The Vicar of Beguildy and his Magic Book (Bugeildy/Beguildy)

Davies Sirevan, a Magician of Radnorshire (Cnwclas/Knucklas)

James Jones the Jockey (Clyro)

Maud de Braose, Mol Walbee of Hay-on-Wye (Y Gelli Gandryll/Hay-on-Wye)

Francis Morgan of Llansantffraed (Llansantffraed-ym-Mechain)

The Gwyll of Llyn Cwm Llwch (Llyn Cwm Llwch)

The Witch and the Bendith y Mamau (Craig y Nos)

John Gethin and the Cwmshurwr of Ystradgynlais (Ystradgynlais)

The Witch of Ynyscedwyn (Ystradgynlais)

Chapter Five: Ceredigion

Yr Hen Wrach (The Old Hag) of Cors Fachno Bog (Morfa Borth)

Taliesin, Chief of Bards (Tre-Taliesin)

Sir Dafydd (Davy) Sion Evan, the Magical Knight (Llandbadarn Fawr, Aberystwyth)

The Wise Woman of Ystumtuen and the Love Cure (Ystumtuen)

Sir Dafydd Llwyd the Magician (Ysbyty Ystwyth)

The Wise Man of Bronant (Bronant)

Beti’r Bont, the Witch of Dol Fawr (Ystrad Meurig)

The Witches of Ystrad Meurig (Ystrad Meurig)

Mari Berllan Biter (Aberarth)

The New Witches of Llanddewi-Brefi (Llanddewi-Brefi)

PART THREE: GORLLEWIN DE CYMRU/WEST AND SOUTH WALES

Chapter Six: Sir Benfro/Pembrokeshire

Burning a Heart of Bewitched Livestock (Abergwaun/Fishguard)

Dr Joseph Harries and ‘Abe Biddle’ of Werndew (Werndew, Dinas)

The Farmer’s Daughters (Waltwn/Walton East)

Dorcas Heddin (Hwlffordd/Haverfordwest)

Lord Roch and the Witch’s Prophecy (Hwlffordd/Haverford West)

The Gwraig Hysbys of Pembroke (Penfro/Pembroke)

John Jenkin of Pembroke (Penfro/Pembroke)

Chapter Seven: Sir Gaerfyrddin/Carmarthenshire

David Lewis and his Family (Tre-lech/Trelech)

Phillips of Pencader (Pencader)

The Dyn Hysbys of Llanpumsaint (Llanpumsaint)

The Witches of Carmarthen (Caerfyrddin/Carmarthen)

Mary Gorse of Carmarthen (Caerfyrddin/Carmarthen)

Peggy and Will Abercamles of Cilcwm (Cilycwm)

The Physicians of Myddfai (Llyn y Fan Fach)

Gwenllian Hir (Llangadog)

Maggi Hir (Llangadog)

The Tailor of Glanbran (Glanbran)

The Harries of Cwrt-y-Cadno (Cwrt-y-Cadno, Caio)

Chapter Eight: Abertawe/Swansea, Castell-Nedd Port Talbot/Neath Port Talbot, and Prifddinas-Ranbarth Caerdydd/Cardiff Capital Region

The Wind Sellers and other Practitioners of South Wales (The South Coast)

The Witches of Cwm Afon (Pontrhydyfen)

Thomas ab Rhys of Glamorgan, a Monk of Margam Abbey (Margam)

The Witch of Southerndown (Southerndown)

Kate of Flanders Farm (Llanilltud Fawr/Llantwit Major)

The Funeral of Dorothy Charles (Llanilltud Fawr/Llantwit Major)

Mallt-y-Nos, ‘Matilda of the Night’ (Sain Dunwyd/St Donats)

The Witch of Wenvoe and the Werewolf (Gwenfô/Wenvoe)

The Gwrach of Llandaff (Llandaff, Caerdydd/Cardiff)

The Dyn Hysbys of Castell y Nos and the Bendith y Mamau (Llanfabon)

Yr Hen Jem of Penderyn (Penderyn)

Charles Hugh, the Conjuror of Aberystruth (Llanhilleth)

The Old Woman of ‘Llanhyddel Mountain’ (Llanhilleth)

The Witch Under the Standing Stone (Crymlyn/Crumlin)

Maelor of Caerleon (Caerllion/Caerleon)

Nicholas Johnson of Devauden (Y Dyfawden/Devauden)

Jenkins, the Conjuror of Tregare (Rhaglan/Raglan)

The Magic Book of Abergavenny (Y Fenni/Abergavenny)

Old Jenkyns of Trellech (Tryleg/Trellech)

The Magic Stick of Penarth (Penarth/The Narth)

PART FOUR: Y MERS (THE WELSH MARCHES)

Chapter Nine: Gloucestershire, Herefordshire and Shropshire

The Nine Witches of Caerloyw (Caerloyw/Gloucester)

John/Jack of Kent (Llan-gain/Kentchurch)

The Witch of Mansel Lacy (Mansel Lacy)

‘Jenkins’ the Wise man of Weobley (Weobley)

Priss Morris of Cleobury North (Cleobury North)

The Hag and the White Cow of Mitchell’s Fold (Stripley Hill)

Challoner, the Man with the Evil Eye (Edgmond Marsh)

The Cunning Man of Child’s Ercall (Child’s Ercall)

The Clergyman who Breaks Spells (Llanyblodwel)

Richard Morris, ‘Dick Spot’ the Conjuror (Croesoswallt/Oswestry)

Mr Justice, ‘Old Rook’ of Ightfield (Ightfield)

Recommended Reading

Bibliography

LIST OF FIGURES

1. ‘Map of Wales and the Borders.’ Author generated.

2. ‘Map of Anglesey’. Author generated.

3. ‘Siani Bwt’ by Edward Pugh, 1815. (Courtesy Llyfrgell Genedlaethol Cymru – The National Library of Wales)

4. ‘Map of Gwynedd.’ Author generated.

5. ‘Pont y Gromlech’ by Eric Jones, 2006/Wikicommons.

6. ‘Pulpit of Hugh Llwyd, Merionethshire’ engraving, 1801. Samuel Alken, lithographer.

7. ‘Huw Llwyd’ from William Elliot Griffis’ Welsh Fairy Tales (1921).

8. ‘Llyn Tegid, or, Bala Lake, Merionethshire’ engraving, 1830. Thomas Barber, engraver.

9. ‘Statue of John Davies on the Translators’ Memorial in the Churchyard of St Asaph Cathedral, North Wales’. Photograph of Statue, by Robin Llwyd ab Owain, 2010/Wikicommons.

10. ‘Map of Conwy, Denbighshire, Flintshire, & Wrexham.’ Author generated.

11. ‘Elian shown in a stained glass window by Trena Cox in St Trillo’s Chapel, Rhos-on-Sea (1934)’. Photograph of Original Stained Glass, by Robin Llwyd ab Owain/Wikicommons.

12. ‘Bella, the Fortune Teller’ by Thomas Cartwright, 1815. (Courtesy of Llyfrgell Genedlaethol Cymru – The National Library of Wales)

13. ‘Map of Powys.’ Author generated.

14. ‘Llanidloes Fair, 1881.’ Photograph, John Thomas, 1881. (Courtesy of Llyfrgell Genedlaethol Cymru – The National Library of Wales)

15. ‘Llangerig’ engraving, John George Wood, 1816. (Courtesy of Llyfrgell Genedlaethol Cymru – The National Library of Wales)

16. ‘View of Craig-y-Nos Castle, residence of Adelina Patti, Powys, Wales, engraving after a photo’ from L’illustrazione Italiana, XX, No. 3, 15 January 1893. (Courtesy Getty)

17. An engraving depicting the Yniscedwyn ironworks, c.1845 (National Library of Wales, Wikicommons)

18. ‘Map of Ceredigion.’ Author generated.

19. ‘Cors Fochno Aberleri Nature Reserve’ by Nigel Callaghan, 2005.

20. ‘Map of Pembrokeshire.’ Author generated.

21. ‘Man plucked from fairy ring by a friend.’ Illustration by T.H. Thomas, from British Goblins: Welsh Folk-lore, Fairy Mythology, Legends and Traditions by Wirt Sikes (1880).

22. ‘Map of Carmarthenshire.’ Author generated.

23. Pages from NLW MS 11117B, ‘A manuscript volume from the library of John Harries (d. 1839), of Pantcoy, Cwrtycadno, Carmarthenshire, astrologer and medical practitioner, containing the spirit lists and seals of the seventeenth century grimoires Goetia and Theurgia-Goetia.’ (Courtesy Llyfrgell Genedlaethol Cymru – The National Library of Wales)

24. ‘Ambrotype purported to be of Dr John Harries the Younger (c.1855).’ Photographer unknown (Courtesy of Llyfrgell Genedlaethol Cymru – The National Library of Wales)

25. ‘Map of Cardiff Capital Region.’ Author generated.

26. ‘Margam Abbey Ruins, 1805.’ Engraving of original painting by Michael Angelo Rooker, 1746–1801, artist. Lee, fl. 1805, engraver.

27. ‘The Old Woman of the Mountain.’ Illustration by T.H. Thomas, from British Goblins: Welsh Folk-lore, Fairy Mythology, Legends and Traditions by Wirt Sikes (1880).

28. ‘The Roman Tower at Caerleon, Monmouthshire,’ S. Hooper. From The Antiquities of England and Wales by Grose, 1783.

29. ‘Map of the Welsh Marches.’ Author generated.

30. ‘Mitchell’s Fold Stone Circle’ by Mik Peach, 2009/Wikicommons.

31. Frontispiece to ‘The life and mysterious transactions of Richard Morris, Esq. better known by the name Dick Spot, the conjuror, particularly in Derbyshire and Shropshire. Written by an old Acquintance, … 1798’. Chapbook illustration, artist unknown.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

In recent years, Welsh folklore and traditions have become increasingly popular both within the United Kingdom and abroad. While rich folklore source material is available, much of this seems to still be relatively unknown, leading readers to rely on modern material to fill the desire for information. As someone born in Wales but who has lived most of his life away from it, I felt a special responsibility to do justice to the tradition of this incredible country when introducing it to a general audience. It was with this intent that I leaned heavily on fellow Welsh writers, academics, and practitioners who offered me advice, resources and insight.

I leaned heavily on my fellow authors from Cylch y Sarffes Goch (Coven of the Red Serpent), who are deeply engaged in the sharing of the culture and traditions of our homeland through social media and their respective works: Mhara Starling, Moss Matthey, and Brett Hollyhead … diolch yn fawr iawn fy ffrindiau. Brett and Moss were always there to supply a rare JSTOR article or titbit from some dusty library they had descended upon over the past couple of years. I am grateful for your assistance, friendship, and support as this project came together.

The following writers’ and academics’ work was inspiring and they offered assistance: Kristoffer Hughes, author of Cerridwen; Richard Suggett, author of A History of Magic and Witchcraft in Wales; and Dr Lisa Tallis of the University of Wales. All three have spent considerable numbers of hours in the archives in Cardiff, Bangor, and Aberystwyth piecing together clues from fragmentary records. Suggett’s and Tallis’ work in particular has given important insight into the historical realities of dyn hysbys and the practise of magic in Wales; and Hughes’ Cerridwen has become arguably one of the most important studies on an often misunderstood figure from Welsh lore.

I am very grateful to Andrew Phillip Smith for writing the beautiful foreword to this work. Andrew’s Pages From a Welsh Cunning Man’s Book is an exploration into the magical manual of a nameless cunning man from Denbigh, and someone possibly known to Sioned Gorn and Bella Fawr. His research adds to the understanding of the relationship between the historical dyn hysbys and the belief in fairies, whether through magical practices or beliefs, an element to the fascinating aspect of early modern culture that is reflected in the folklore found in this book.

To all of the endorsers who were so kind to look over the manuscript and give their words of encouragement. Each of them are themselves intimately and personally tied to the stories found in this book, whether they are magical practitioners continuing the historical magical traditions of Wales and the Borders, historians who have made their careers studying this facet of culture, or writers inspired by the rich folklore of Wales.

I would finally like to thank the team at The History Press for helping to bring this volume to market and for giving me the opportunity to share these stories with a wider audience.

FOREWORD

BY ANDREW PHILLIP SMITH

In my daily walks around Cadoxton, an old village now completely absorbed into the sprawl of the modern town of Barry, known best for its former industrial docks and its still thriving seaside resort of Barry Island, I often walk past the medieval church of St Cadoc’s, typically Welsh with its old stone and whitewashed walls.

Beneath the tower to the left of the church entrance may be found the flat gravestone of William Jenkin (1709–1781) and his family. William owned Golden Grove, a house that is still standing and occupied, and that still has a small farm attached to it.

William became relatively wealthy from a humble background; he was not a nice man and was a shrewd businessman, a usurer and also a ‘reputed wizard’. The author of these words was William Thomas, who kept a diary between 1762 and 1794 in which he recorded gossip about various characters who lived in the Vale of Glamorgan, the low-lying coastal land roughly between Cardiff and Ogmore.

Ann Jenkin née Richmond was his mother. She was reputed to be a witch. According to William Thomas she sold her soul to the Devil, who appeared to her with a bull’s head, for an extra year of life. In another story, a gentleman and his servant enter Porthkerry woods to obtain a love potion from Ann. Ann handed over the potion but the servant didn’t pay her, so she told them that they would never leave the woods. To this day they remain there, just off the path back from Ann’s cottage, in the form of a tall straight tree and an older crooked tree.

This is now a well-known story about Ann and is now found online but it doesn’t appear in any folklore collections. The foundations of Ann’s cottage, where William grew up, are still visible and an information plaque, in Welsh and English, tells the visitor about Ann.

Among the stories recounted concerning William and his family, some are folklore, some more historical. His grandson Robert Jenkin was known as Robin y Rheibwr (Sorcerer). He was accused of having ‘teats’ like the extra teats witches used to feed familiars.

Sucessive sons in each generation were named Robert and were known locally as Robin y Rheibwr. The last of these, in the latter decades of the nineteenth century, was renowned both for his kindness and as a man who shouldn’t be crossed. He both cured cattle and brought disease upon them. When a wagon fell into a ditch no one could get it out, but Robin immediately succeeded. He is remembered by the street named Robin’s Lane. In 1869 one of the Jenkins was called a ‘Ribwr’ by one of the Spicketts, the family of undertakers who were living in what is now our house (The Cardiff and Merthyr Guardian Glamorgan Monmouth and Brecon Gazette, 29th May 1869).

A Cadoxton witch named Mary George caused a gamekeeper to go bald after he shot her cat. Another old lady from Cadoxton caused the pigs of a farmer with whom she had a dispute when he objected to her begging to lie on their backs in a ditch. When he agreed to her begging they all got onto their legs and ran from the ditch.

Barry may typically be considered as being as far away from misty legends and mythic landscapes as you can get in Wales, and is probably most well known for the Gavin and Stacey TV sitcom, closely observed and very human in its sympathies. But many people in the town still know of William Jenkin and his mother Ann. Even today Cadoxton is remembered for its witches and, somewhat coincidentally, now has a witchcraft shop.

The dyn hysbys or cunning man tradition survived well into the twentieth century. One of my Welsh teachers told me that her great-grandmother had been, as she put it, a ‘hysbys’ in Carmarthenshire, who specialised in treating horses.

Ben Stimpson includes a story partly set in Cadoxton, ‘The Witch of Wenvoe and the Werewolf’. I like to think that the young woman who was from Cadoxton, and was the niece of a witch, perhaps came from the now-demolished house next to ours, which was called Witch’s Cottage.

I possibly played my own part in putting this story back into oral tradition a few years ago when I went to visit Bear’s Wood, where the werewolf had roamed. Two teenage boys took it upon themselves to show me around, taking me past a felled tree, a dead campfire, showing me where to walk without getting up to my knees in mud, telling me the unlikely tale of how people from all over the world came to see these small woods, and sometimes camped in them, which I suppose was a kind of modern folklore in itself. In turn I told them the story of the werewolf of Wenvoe, who had come from these very woods. I wondered if they told the story on to their friends and how it might have changed in the retelling.

Ben Stimpson writes from the standpoint of a trained folklorist. He rightly points out that Marie Trevelyan, from whose folklore collection the story of the Wenvoe werewolf derives, was sometimes an unreliable source, and that one tale in particular, concerning a witch from Southerndown, was clearly rewritten from a story she found in a newspaper that was originally set in Yorkshire. I find this sort of thing fascinating and valuable, but Ben will have to prise the story of The Witch of Wenvoe and the Werewolf from my cold, dead, hairy hands.

Another advantage of the folklore approach is that one doesn’t need to ask if a story is ‘true’ or not. Certainly, research into the locality of a story and the historicity of a character add context, and it’s always illuminating to see how tales have changed from one era to the next, acquiring new features and shedding others, swapping older forms of meaning and significance for new ones. Particularly with subjects like witchcraft or magic the folklore approach allows us to dispense with tedious discussions of what might have ‘really’ happened, or with dismissals of belief in magic or rationalisations of weird events/high weirdness.

Ben himself comes from Wales originally and in the story of the ‘Wizard of Tremeirchion’, told to him as a child, he adds from his own experience to the store of recorded foklore. But the bulk of this extensive book comes form his careful research into surviving Welsh foklore traditions of witches, wizards and cunning folk.

This book is filled with tales that are not only informative but are entertaining and even magical in themselves. I’m not unfamiliar with this body of work myself, but I found much in Ben’s collection that I hadn’t come across before. In the mid-1970s I played the part of Robin Ddu, a bard and wizard, in a St David’s Day drama at the Church in Wales School, Penarth. My main memory is walking in circles on the stage, acting out leaving home with a handkerchief tied to a stick as the handkerchief, supposedly containing all my worldy belongings, gradually slipped further and further away from the top of the stick and towards my hand. I giggled along with the parents in the audience. So I was pleased to see that Robin Ddu has an entire section to himself, and several entertaining tales about him are included.

I had been fascinated by Marie Trevelyan’s brief references to weatherworkers on the Glamorgan coast, particularly Modryb Sina (Auntie Sina) who could ‘procure a fair or foul wind’ and operated out of Lavernock, Sully, and Cadoxton-juxta-Barry in the eighteenth century. Yet I had never registered that Trevelyan includes part of the method, involving winds being sealed in a blown eggshell stopped up with cobbler’s wax or flogging the waters with rods.

Little fragments of magical technique like these are scattered throughout these pages and may be extracted by those so inclined. We may yet see a renaissance in Welsh charmers stroking pigs seven times in a row while uttering secret words, or packing snakeskin into small balls.

I have focused on my native Vale of Glamorgan but there are characters and stories here from all parts of Wales, ‘O Fôn i Fynwy’, from Anglesey to Monmouthshire, from Ceredigion to Denbighshire (one of the parts of Wales for which we have really extensive accounts of magical women), from the mountain fastness of Gwynedd to the Glamorgan valleys and even over Offa’s Dyke to the border counties where important practitioners like Dic Smot, Dick Spot, Richard Morris, originated.

I hope that Ben Stimpson’s collection of Wales’ magical folklore will make these strange yet homely figures once again familiar to generations of readers in Wales and beyond.

INTRODUCTION

Ever since I was a child I have loved folklore, the tales of fairies and knights in shining armour and the wise folk who aided them. I was born and partly raised in North Wales, a truly dramatic landscape of verdant valleys and imposing mountain peaks. One of my earliest memories is hurtling down the A55 on a day trip to Anglesey, and coming face to face with the mountain of Penmaenmawr, brooding on the edge of the sea. It is very easy to see that this landscape could be populated with all manner of beings, and indeed the folklore is rich across the whole country. From our cottage we could look out and see Moel y Parc in the distance with its radio tower on top, like some sleeping giant dark against the sky. In nearby Tremeirchion was said to have lived a wizard, and Llandyrnog had the dubious reputation as the birthplace of the first woman to be executed in Wales for witchcraft. Unfortunately, when I was 8 years old, my family moved to Canada, a very different landscape to the one I was used to. Whenever I felt homesick, it was a book, Ghosts and Legends of Wales by John Attwood Brooks, that gave me a sense of home. It was my first book of folklore, the first of many, and in many ways a lifeline to the mythical and legendary Wales that I missed so much.

In recent years the folklore of Wales has become increasingly popular, especially in North America, and yet as someone who spent a great deal of time living outside of Wales, I have noticed how little of the actual folklore people are familiar with. The stories of Y Mabinogi are well known, but there is also a great deal that is uknown to those outside of Wales. When putting this book together, along with other volumes focused on other areas of Britain, I wanted to create a work that gave access to the rich folklore of magical practitioners and beings of Wales, but in a way that also highlighted the vast corpus of sources we have for Welsh tradition. I wanted to present a work that would both introduce readers to the magical practitioners of folklore, and also highlight the sources that these stories are preserved within. These sources, whether anecdotes found in Victorian travel books or formal papers delivered by Welsh antiquarians and nationalists at meetings of various learned societies, are where so many of the stories that have come to define Welsh legend were preserved. If Welsh writers such as Jonathan Ceredig Davies, the Rev. Elias Owen, Isaac Foulkes, Myrddin Fardd or, yes, even Marie Trevelyan had not collected and published these stories when they did in the nineteenth century, many of them would have been lost entirely. As a source book of many extracts from these older writers, in a way this is an introduction as much to the community of antiquarians and folklorists as it is to the witches and magicians of Wales.

Yet, that is who we are actually focused on here: the witches and magicians. As you engage with this book, you will learn about the individual magical practitioners who exist in the folklore, but you will also hopefully learn about Welsh culture and the historical realities of witchcraft and magical beliefs in Wales and the Borders. Wales and the Borders/Marches constitute a unique cultural zone within Britain. The Borders are often forgotten about when speaking about Wales or Welsh culture, and in my experience this is especially true in the diaspora. I wanted to include this rich zone of conflict and exchange to focus on Welsh folklore in its broadest context, especially as until the last century large parts of Herefordshire and Shropshire were part of Wales proper. The Marches themselves are often defined by all the counties on both sides of the current Welsh border and at their greatest extent include, alongside Herefordshire and Shropshire, parts of Cheshire, Gloucestershire and even Worcestershire.

This is not a history book but it is a book with history, and I encourage readers to use this in conjunction with the recommended readings in the bibliography. While many of these stories are tall tales or anecdotes that were only ever meant to be entertaining, many of the entries reflect a legendary version of true historical magical practitioners. What we see in these stories are the cultural attitudes, beliefs, and thought processes of the Welsh culture over the span of the past few hundred years. These attitudes saw a vibrant community of dyn hysbys, ‘the knowing ones’, the Welsh counterparts to the pellars of Cornwall, cunning folk of England, and wisefolk of Scotland. These were members of a semi-profession who used astrology, ceremonial magic passed down in handwritten copies of grimoires, Catholic religious ritual that survived the Reformation, and folk charming of sometimes unknown origin to serve their communities in times when belief in magic was not considered silly … it was common sense.

This cultural view and understanding of magic stands in stark contrast to English and Scottish culture, each of which during the seventeenth century saw thousands of individuals accused and executed for witchcraft. For those who are interested in exploring more about the historical realities of magic in Wales, I direct you the bibliography at the back. Traditionally, witchcraft was not defined by who you were but what you did. Compared to England and Scotland, which believed witches became inhuman due to a pact with the Devil, witching in Wales was defined by practising cursing over other forms of charming for beneficial purposes. In a tight-knit agrarian society, magic was seen as a resource to be used. This is not to say in England and Scotland this was not also true, but there was a stark difference in how witches were conceptualised by comparison to cunning folk. The dyn hysbys were there to solve problems secular authorities could not, not necessarily always to frustrate evil demonic witches who had sold their souls. The dyn hysbys aided in strengthening their communities’ social fabric by routing out destabilising elements such as thievery or the pettiness that posed a threat to social unity. Whereas in England and Scotland witches and cunning folk were believed to gain their power from celestial or infernal sources, anyone in Wales could utilise charming or cursing. This crucial difference in conceptualisation is one of the main reasons why there were so few people executed in Wales during the witch trial era. In Welsh culture, the ability to perform magic did not come from what you were believed to be (ie. non-human) like in England or Scotland. However, as time went on and Welsh language declined (more often due to English oppressive policies), the English influenced Welsh folklore so that we see English ideas about witches appear more often. This is, for me, what makes Welsh folklore so dynamic in that we have presently, especially in the Borders, strands of cultural concepts existing side by side from both England and Wales. Some of these strands of belief were adopted organically, others developed in response to English cultural imperialism. However it happened, we can see within the corpus of Welsh lore elements of purely Welsh origin, elements of English origin, and hybrids that developed from both.

A NOTE ON LAYOUT AND FOLKLORE

I was very specific in the layout of this book. An important aspect of folklore is not just stories or narratives, but stories in context and in relationship to the landscape. For folklore to be truly memorable, three basic ingredients need to be in in place: story, face, and place. Yes, we have fairy tales that are set in some vague or non-defined space, but many of those tend to have been stripped of their original locations upon collection (the Brothers Grimm are a good example of this). True folklore, I would argue, needs to have these three elements to make a good memorable story. This is what differentiates folklore from fiction, in that the stories take place usually in the local environment. This is important because folklore tends to, in a sociological sense, be useful to communities.

Another intention, when possible, was to illustrate the lineage of the stories of these magical practitioners. Folklore and legend as an aspect of traditional culture evolves and grows in the retelling, often quite quickly. While this book is not designed to be a primer on folklore studies, it is important for the general reader to realise these stories are not purely for entertainment purposes but have evolved to fit particular social needs. Folklorists study folklore in the same way anthropologists do, and authentic folklore has certain signatures that identify it as being organically negotiated within communities. Legends often have multiple versions but those will traditionally have been defined by certain parameters understood within the community. Storytellers knew the basics of a story and could embellish here or there for the entertainment of audiences, but only to a certain point. Storytellers that strayed too far from an accepted narrative would be criticised or corrected. ‘No, no, the monster did not live under the stone at Rhys’ farm, it was at the Old Well down near the bridge into town! Don’t be silly!’ Folklore is essentially the original oral library of communities, and within folklore are shared beliefs, knowledge, historical records, and a sense of identity. Legend is not static though, and stories are often updated and evolve to remain meaningful to the community retaining them while being understood as timeless. In traditional oral culture this would have been done within families and at community events; the legends would remain local even if they were versions of stories found throughout the region or country. Historically, people would have remained where they were for much of their lives, so local stories were retained for local people by local people. This all began to change in the Early Modern period, which saw more movement by people away from their areas of origin and a rise in literary culture, which supplanted the oral culture as the primary form of communication and information sharing. Stories were still told, but starting in the eighteenth century these were written down and became mobile, suddenly shared with the outside community. All of these societal factors contributed to the decline of oral folklore and by now in the twenty-first century most people are learning folklore by reading books as opposed to learning them in their communities mouth-to-mouth.

We hit a snag, however, when we rely on the written record to learn folklore because any story written down becomes dead. A story loses its elastic and living quality when it takes a solid form such as being printed. So what we see in this collection are ghosts of stories told a hundred or two hundred years ago. That does not mean they are worthless, but we need to understand how many of the living versions of the stories found now in Wales originated from these ghosts. Often these stories were preserved for outsiders of communities, they were not necessarily recorded for the community of origin. This really underlines how murky folklore can be because we in the twenty-first century rely on the written record (in many cases, the sources cited here) to learn the folklore. All readers of this book will be reading about an area they don’t come from, and so we need to be mindful of how impacted by the writers the folklore tradition is. This is true of all folklore that is recorded, not just the Welsh tradition. In this case we have writers such as the Rev. Elias Owen or Jonathan Ceredig Davies, who were interested in recording stories without necessarily dissecting them to rationalise them. Marie Trevelyan was interested in writing versions of stories that would be entertaining, and often fabricated or infused older stories with her own ideas. We have Wirt Sikes and William Elliot Griffis, who were both Americans and relied on Welsh writers to write their books, but who also needed to modify stories to make them understandable to an American audience. We have celebrated figures such as Iolo Morganwg, Isaac Foulkes, and Myrddin Fardd, who were very interested in a nationalistic sense in preserving stories as an important form of Welsh identity and culture. For them, these stories represented a vibrant Welsh identity that needed to be protected in the face of English imperialism. So, depending on who the writer is, you will see hints to their biases, misunderstandings, and geniuses. While this book is not a treatise on members of the Welsh literati, I encourage you if interested to explore and become aware of this community of scholars so that you can better understand the Welsh folklore tradition. This is supported by meticulous citations of the source material, much of which is now available freely online, so that readers can go to these sources and read further.

I’m certainly not immune to biases and this brings us to my hope for this book: that you engage with the figures focused on, their stories, and the land of Wales. So many folkloric practitioners actively engage with the material from this corpus of folklore to inform their own lived practices. As a result, they are engaging with the material in a traditionally folk cultural way. This is an aspect of folklore that I am passionate about; the engagement with the stories and the knowledge to inform the modern instead of relegating this aspect of culture to the past. Every single one of the antiquarians and folklorists, and those modern readers and magical practitioners now, engage with this material in their own way. Everyone who loves folklore has their own interests. For me, I loved these stories because of my own interest in the occult and the magic of the land I come from.

One of the cosy aspects for me while I waded through all of the primary sources is I felt like I was joining some gossiping circle of ladies after church, or entering a pub like the one my parents used to run to listen to some old character from the village regale us with tales. ‘There sits Bobby Bach being served pint after pint, the higher his blood-alcohol level gets the more ludicrous his tales! There’s Old Gwen Owens showing some tourists a boulder in the field said to be where a member of the Good People once appeared.’ At times I felt like I was sitting with the Rev. Elias Owen after a long hard day in the community as he asked his acquaintances for any interesting stories, or in the audience at a meeting of the Honourable Society of Cymmrodorion on some chilly evening listening to the reports of members. I felt like I was 5 years old again and being told a legend while out mushroom picking with neighbour and her nain. In a word, despite being so far away from Wales, it made me feel at home.

Whether you are fortunate enough to currently live in Wales or you are from away and are planning on visiting, my hope is that this book will inspire you to learn a story of a gwrach, gwyll, ddewin, or dyn hysbys and to then go and visit that place. Go and visit Llyn y Fan Fach, where it is said the fairy foremother of the Physicians of Myddfai (see page 208) emerged from. Go and stand on the beach south of Caernarfon and peer at the rocks said to be Caer Arianrhod. Go and see the standing stones at Mitchell’s Fold in Shropshire and imagine the witch staring out at you from within her rocky prison. Go to the beach on Anglesey where the Llanddona witches were said to have landed. Go to the small towns and villages and wonder if that was the spot the magician flew home from on the back of his demon, or if that was the river where his young apprentice let loose a spirit. Go to Wales, because it is in my opinion one of the most beautiful countries on earth.

One of the final notes for readers is an intentional emphasis on Welsh language place names and spellings. Trends in replacing Welsh with English place names have done considerable damage to the culture and folklore of the landscape, whether it be English speakers buying properties and changing the name, or the insistence of English place names over the Welsh in official publications. The recent change from Snowdonia to Eryri has emphasised the Welsh understanding of that mountain as a tomb. The mountain was called ‘Snowdon’ in English because it was often capped by snow, and the emphasis of this name reinforced an English understanding of Wales. But the Welsh understand it as the legendary burial site of Rhita Gawr, known in Arthurian lore as the giant who collected the beards of defeated kings. King Arthur defeated Rhita Gawr and his corpse was placed in a cairn that became Yr Wyddfa. The change officially only took place in 2022, with the Eryri National Park Authority changing the name along with many other sites in the region. This is important work as folklore and legend is often grounded into the landscape, as we discussed previously. Place names retain information about stories long after those stories have died out and are thus crucial to understanding local culture. As such, most if not all place names in this book have both the Welsh and the English, when possible. This is doubly important I feel as a way of learning Welsh, becoming used to place names, mutations, and emphasising the language that contains so much of folklore. I don’t speak Welsh fluently myself, dw i ddim siarad cymraeg, dw i’n dysgu cymraeg, and while my family is a mixture of Scottish, Irish, Welsh and English, I know my Welsh great-grandparents lost the language themselves because of the history of suppression.

For the sake of readers outside of Wales, however, the maps provided display the place names most common on English maps so that readers who are not Welsh speakers can more easily find the places on English maps. One day, I hope, the maps in this volume will need to be updated fully to reflect the original Welsh spellings as more and more place names are reclaimed.

As someone non-fluent in the language, I apologize for any inadvertent mistakes that might come up in the sections to follow that come from my hand. No disrespect is intended to the language or the community of Cymraeg speakers.

So, with that dear reader, with all of this said, let us go and meet some of the magical practitioners of Wales and the Borders. Compiling this book has been one of the most fulfilling things I’ve done to date. I hope you enjoy this journey around magical and legendary Wales as much I enjoyed putting it together.

Fig. 1

PART ONE:

GOGLEDD CYMRU (NORTH WALES)

Ynys Môn (Anglesey),

Gwynedd, Conwy,

Sir Ddinbych (Denbighshire),

Sir y Fflint (Flintshire),

Wrecsam (Wrexham)

Fig. 2

1

YNYS MÔN (ANGLESEY)

THE WITCHES OF LLANDDONA

(LLANDDONA)

One of Anglesey’s most famous legends, and arguably one of the more well-known legends outside of Wales, is that of the Llanddona witches. The witches were a group of women and their husbands who, as some versions tell, were shipwrecked or landed on the large beach north of the village of Llanddona, south-east of Moelfre. The story was given to us by Rev. Elias Owen in Welsh Folk-lore (1887):

There is a tradition in the parish of Llanddona, Anglesey, that these witches, with their husbands had been expelled from their native country, wherever that was, for practising witchcraft. They were sent adrift, it is said, in a boat without rudder or oars, and left in this state to the mercy of the wind and the wave. When they were first discovered approaching the Anglesey shore, the Welsh tried to drive them back into the sea, and even after they landed they were confined to the beach. The strangers, dead almost from thirst and hunger, commanded a spring of pure spring water to burst forth from the sands. This well remains to our days. This miracle decided their fate. The strangers were allowed, consequently, to land, but as they still practised their evil arts the parish became associated with their name, and hence the Witches of Llanddona was a term generally applied to the female portion of that parish, though in reality it belonged to one family only within its boundaries. The men lived by smuggling and the women by begging and cursing. It was impossible to overcome these daring smugglers, for in their neckerchief was a fly, which, the moment the knot of their cravats was undone, flew right at the eye of their opponents and blinded them, but before this last remedy was resorted to the men fought like lions, and only when their strength failed them did they release their familiar spirit, the fly, to strike with blindness the defenders of the law.1

The power of the family is said to have been passed down from mother to daughter within the group, and eventually a large clan of witches formed. Counted among their number was the legendary version of Bella Fawr (Big Bella) of Denbigh, and Siani Bwt (Little Jane). Siani in particular is notable for she was, like Bella, the focus of one of Edward Pugh’s paintings.

It is recounted that many of the members of this group wore their hair dishevelled and went about bare chested, and demanded food from their neighbours. Out of fear, none of their neighbours refused these demands. If any did offend or refuse the witches, they would routinely curse the offending party. One of these curses was collected by the Rev. Owen and reportedly was used against a local man while being uttered at the well called Y Ffynon Ocr in Llanddona:

Crwydro y byddo am oesoedd lawer (May he wander for ages many)

Ac yn mhob cam, camfa (And at every step, a stile)

Yn mhob camfa, codwm (At every stile, a fall)

Yn mhob codwm, tori asgwrn (At every fall, a broken bone)

Nid yr asgwra mwyaf na’r lleiaf (Not the largest, nor the least bone)

Ond asgwra chwil corn ei wddw bob tro. (But the chief neck bone, every time.)2

GORONWY TUDOR AND THE WITCHES OF LLANDDONA

One fully intact version, and one frequently cited and shared, comes to us from W. Jenkyn Thomas’ The Welsh Fairy Book (1907), no doubt taken from the material of the Rev. Owen. This version includes the legendary Bella Fawr as the Llanddona witches’ leader:

Very few men in Anglesey in the olden days dared to cross any of the Witches of Llanddona, and those who were bold enough to do so suffered grievously for their rashness. But Goronwy Tudor, who lived not far from Llanddona, was reckless enough to defy even Bella Fawr, Big Bella, the most famous and most dreaded of all the witches of that uncanny village, and he was not a ha’porth the worse.

Perhaps you do not know the history of the Llanddona witches. Long ago a boat came ashore in Red Wharf Bay without rudder or oars, full of men and women half dead with hunger and thirst. In early days it was the custom to put evil-doers in a boat to drift oarless and rudderless on the sea, and when this boat was swept by wind and waves on the beautiful sands of Llanddona, the good people who then lived there prepared to drive it back into the sea, thinking it was manned by criminals. But the strangers caused a spring of pure water to burst forth on the sands (the well still remains), and this decided their fate. They were allowed to stay and to build cottages. But they did not change their evil natures. The men lived by smuggling, and the women begged and practised witchcraft.

It was impossible to overcome the ‘mugg’ers in a fray, for each of them carried about with him a black fly tied in a knot of his neckerchief. When their strength failed them in the fight they undid the knots of their cravats, and the flies flew at the eyes of their opponents and blinded them. The women used to visit the farmhouses, and when they asked for a pound of butter, a loaf of bread, some potatoes, eggs, a fowl, part of a pig, or what not, they were not denied, because they cursed those who refused them. If they attended a fair or market, no one ventured to bid against them for anything.

But Goronwy Tudor was not afraid of them. He had a birthmark above his breast, which is a great protection against witchcraft, and he knew how to break nearly every spell. He had the plant which is called Mary’s turnip growing in front of his house: he also nailed horseshoes above every door, and put rings made of the mountain ash under the doorposts, thus making his house and all his farm buildings safe.3 To make them doubly sure he sprinkled earth from the churchyard in all his rooms, and in his byre, stable and pigstye. When the animals were in the fields, however, he had some difficulty in securing them from harm. One day when he went to fetch his cows from the meadow to be milked he found them sitting like cats before a fire, with their hind legs beneath them. Goronwy took the skin of an adder, burnt it and scattered the ashes over the horns of the cows. They got up at once, and walked off with their usual dignity to the byre.

Another day the milk would not turn into butter, and a very unpleasant smell arose from the churn. Goronwy took a crowbar, heated it red hot, and put it in the milk. Out jumped a large hare, and ran away through the open door of the dairy. After this the milk was churned into beautiful butter.

Some time after the supply of milk began to decline, and the butter made from it was so bad and evil-smelling that the very dogs would not touch it. The milk became scantier and scantier, until at last it ceased altogether, and the cows gave nothing but blood. Goronwy watched in the fields at night and saw a hare going up to a cow and sucking it. She squirted from her mouth and nostrils the milk she had sucked, and then went on to another cow. She did the same with her and with all the other cows. Goronwy knew that it was old Bella in the form of a hare, and he prepared to stop her evildoing and to punish her. The next night he took his gun, putting into it a silver coin instead of shot (shot cannot penetrate a witch’s body), and placed a bit of vervain under the stock. When he saw the hare milking the cows, he fired at her. The hare immediately ran off in the direction of Bella’s cottage, with Goronwy after her. He was not so fleet of foot as puss, but he managed to keep her in sight, and saw her jumping over the lower half of the door of the house. Going up to the cottage he heard the sound of dreadful groans. When he reached the door he went in. There was no hare to be seen, but old Bella was sitting by the fire with blood streaming from her legs. He was never again troubled by old Bella in the shape of a hare, and by drawing blood from the bewitched kine he broke the spell.

Bella made one more attempt to injure him. She went to the Cold Well and launched at him the great curse of the Witches of Llanddona:

May he wander for ages many,

And at every step, a stile,

At every stile, a fall;

At every fall, a broken bone,

Not the largest nor the least bone,

But the chief neckbone, every time.

Goronwy felt in his bones that he had been cursed. He got some witch’s butter that grows on decayed trees and stuck pins in it. When the pain inflicted by the pins penetrated her body, Bella had willy-nilly to appear before him. She was screaming with pain, and Goronwy refused to take the pins which were causing the anguish out of the butter until she said: ‘Rhad Duw ac ar bopeth ar a feddi – God’s blessing on thee and on everything that thou possessest.’ After this neither Bella nor any of her tribe had any power over Goronwy or his wife, or his man-servant or his maid-servant, or his ox or his ass, or anything that was his.4

SIANI BWT, ‘LITTLE JANE’

(GORSYLWYD, LLANDDONA)

Remembered in folklore as being a member of the Llanddona witches was one Jane Williams, aka Siani Bwt (Little Jane), nicknamed on account of her small stature. In the folklore record she is reputed to have been a practising witch, and evidently she was perceived this way even in her own time. Around 1809, Edward Pugh met Siani at her cottage in Gorsylwyd, and wrote this account in his Cambria Predicta: A Tour Through North Wales (1816):

Fig. 3: Jane Williams, aka Siani Bwt (‘Little Jenny’) of Gorsylwyd. (Edward Pugh, 1815. Courtesy of Llyfrgell Genedlaethol Cymru – The National Library of Wales)

Taking my leave, I directed my steps towards Gorslwyd, in the parish of Llandonna [sic], to see Jane Williams, alias Shane Bwt, or little Jane; who, among her poor neighbours, is a reputed witch. Overtaking a woman on a common, I requested to be directed to Jane’s house. The woman expressed her surprise that I should like to visit her, and earnestly cautioned me to take the utmost care not to offend her, for that she could, at pleasure, overwhelm me in numberless difficulties. ‘A twelve-month ago,’ continued she, ‘a young man in this neighbourhood felt the fatal effects of a quarrel with her, the enchantress having doomed him to perpetual drunkenness, who, before this brawl, was noted for sobriety.’

I endeavoured to impress on this woman’s mind the evil of such reproachful aspersions, and the necessity of chasing away such absurd opinions. She had probably imbibed them in the neighbourhood, where prejudices generally run high against those poor objects to whom the great Designer and Modeller of the human figure, for reasons too deep for the scanty powers of our minds to fathom, has thought proper to deny those just proportions and symmetry of body which generally belong to man. On knocking at the door of Jane’s cottage, which we soon reached, it was opened to us by an old woman, whose head and shoulders, bearing a downward inclination, bespoke extreme age, and who very civilly requested to know my business. I told her that I should be glad to see her daughter Jane.

‘Sir,’ said she, ‘Jane is not at home, but I will send this boy to fetch her.’

During a space of twenty minutes, I was in conversation with the good old woman and her second daughter, who is a young married woman, well grown, and very handsome. On my observing that all I wanted was a portrait of Jane, they seemed much pleased at the thought: the daughter, however, hoped it was not intended, by this portrait, to do any thing which might hurt the feelings of an already distressed family.

I replied that, on the contrary, it was my intention to serve them. They were perfectly satisfied. A little boy now announced the arrival of Jane, who made her appearance, and was so bashful, that it required some persuasion, on her sister’s part and my own, to prevail on her to stand steadily while I sketched her: however, she behaved very well. Her portrait, attached to this work, will convey to the reader a better idea of her person, than I am able to express with my pen. Her height is forty-four inches, her age forty years. On her left hand are two thumbs. She lives upon the charity of her bene-volent and enlightened neighbours, with whom indeed she is a favourite.

Her father, who has been dead some ‘years’, was less than she is; and it is said of him that when bringing home upon his shoulders a load of fuel from the common, strangers were often puzzled to make out so strange a sight as a moving stack of fern, without the least appearance of any living creature to convey it. This cot stands exactly on the lower road from Beaumaris to Amlwch and Paris mine, over the Red wharf sands.5

JOHN ROBERTS OF MAENADDWYN

(MAENADDWYN)

A story recorded in 1882 said to have happened in 1777 in Amlwch spoke of a local ‘magician of no mean reputation’ named John Roberts. In Y Cymmrodor (1882) an informant named Mr E.S. Roberts reported he heard it from one Robert Roberts of Amlwch. The same tale is recounted in Celtic Folklore: Welsh and Manx (1901). The informant for this version was Mr Hugh France of Ruthin, who also said he had heard it from Robert Roberts:

About 105 years ago there lived in the parish of Llandyfrydog, near Llannerch y Med, in Anglesey, a man named Ifan Gruffyd, whose cow happened to disappear one day. Ifan Gruffyd was greatly distressed, and he and his daughter walked up and down the whole neighbourhood in search of her. As they were coming back in the evening from their unsuccessful quest, they crossed the field called after the Dyfrydog thief, Cae Lleidr Dyfrydog, where they saw a great number of little men on ponies quickly galloping in a ring. They both drew nigh to look on; but Ifan Gruffyd’s daughter, in her eagerness to behold the little knights more closely, got unawares within the circle in which their ponies galloped, and did not return to her father.

The latter now forgot all about the loss of the cow, and spent some hours in searching for his daughter; but at last he had to go home without her, in the deepest sadness. A few days afterwards he went to Mynadwyn to consult John Roberts, who was a magician of no mean reputation. That ‘wise man’ told Ifan Gruffyd to be no longer sad, since he could get his daughter back at the very hour of the night of the anniversary of the time when he lost her. He would, in fact, then see her riding round in the company of the Tylwyth Têg whom he had seen on that memorable night. The father was to go there accompanied by four stalwart men, who were to aid him in the rescue of his daughter. He was to tie a strong rope round his waist, and by means of this his friends were to pull him out of the circle when he entered to seize his daughter.

He went to the spot, and in due time he beheld his daughter riding round in great state. In he rushed and snatched her, and, thanks to his friends, he got her out of the fairy ring before the little men had time to think of it. The first thing Ifan’s daughter asked him was, if he had found the cow, for she had not the slightest reckoning of the time she had spent with the fairies.6

DICK Y GREEN

(BIWMARES/BEAUMARIS)

A very small tale told by the Rev. Elias Owen in Welsh Folk-lore (1887) speaks of a dyn hysbys named Dick y Green from Beaumaris. The story goes that a woman once sold a pig to a man in Biwmares/Beaumaris named Dick y Green. The woman was not able to sell any more of her stock that day, and went back the next day to the market to try to sell more. Dick was waiting for her at the market and said that the pig he’d bought from her had been bewitched. He asked her to come with him to undo the curse, which she did and asked, ‘What do I do to undo this curse, Dick?’ He told her, ‘Draw thy hand seven times down his back, and every time say “Rhad Duw arnat ti” (the Blessing of God be on thee).’ The woman did as she was asked, and the pig recovered.7

THE WITCH OF LLIGWY BAY

(MOELFRE)

An alleged local legend relayed by Marie Trevelyan in Folk-lore and Folk-stories of Wales (1909) connected to Lligwy Bay near Moelfre tells of an encounter between a rescued witch and a local fisherman.

A fisherman was caught in a storm when going down to the sea and sought shelter at the cromlech of Arthur’s Quoit overlooking Lligwy Bay. When the rain stopped, he thought he saw someone struggling in the water. He dashed down to his boat and saw that there was a woman with long dark hair struggling to swim to shore, but the current was proving too strong. He rowed out to the woman and pulled her into his boat, and noticed she was dressed in white robes with golden jewellery on her arms. She was exceedingly beautiful and youthful. As they came ashore, she began squeezing water out of her garments and asked if he would help her up to Arthur’s Quoit on the hillside. As she rested against the stone, the fisherman was going to ask how she managed to find herself in the middle of the bay. She answered before he asked, ‘If I had been swimming in my usual appearance, you would have let me drown. I was thrown off a ship in the bay because I am a witch, and when I disguised myself, you came to rescue me.’ The man became very fearful, and the woman said, ‘Don’t be frightened, one good turn deserves another. Take this, this is for you.’ She held out her palm and in it was a small ball. ‘As long as you keep it concealed and in a secret place where nobody can find it, good luck will be yours. Once a year you must take it out of hiding and dip it in the sea, then safely return it to its place of concealment. But remember, if it is lost, misfortune will follow. The ball contains a small snakeskin.’ After having said this, the woman vanished, but an hour later the fisherman saw her leaping from rock to rock down on the bay towards a boat waiting in the bay, and when she boarded it sailed off into the sea.

The fisherman dug a hole near Arthur’s Quoit in which to conceal the ball, as the stone was locally said to be haunted and was thus avoided. Once a year he went back to the spot, removed the ball from its hiding place and dipped it into the sea. If the ball was preserved, the family had great luck, but one day the fishermen went to carry out his yearly ritual only to discover the ball was missing. No matter where he looked, the ball could not be found. Seven years passed and a dying neighbour confessed that he had stolen the ball, and it was returned to the family.