Stranger Than Fiction: Being Tales from the Byways of Ghosts and Folk-lore

t peep and t

y paper a few days ago, I came

tchcraft still lingers here and there, and cropped up yesterday in an assault case at Aberav

ons ago the woman who had put the "criss-cross" on her neighbour's house would have stood a very good chance of l

confession. And the statute against witchcraft passed under James the First was not repealed until the reign of George the Second, though by that time it was indeed practically a dead letter. Mental progress and education have since done their part in abolishing that panic fear of witchcraft which, su

ved. According to her, quite a number of her clients belonged to the sterner (and we presume) more sensible sex, and my own observation has also led me to conclude that men on the whole are quite as much tempted to peer into futurity as women are, only naturally they think it their duty to pretend indifference on such matters! Still, however that may be, the Bond Street fortune-teller, with whom one makes a solemn appointment,

iding along in great haste, whom she tried to detain. But he, either not understanding what she wanted, or unwilling to stop, urged his horse forward, somewhat roughly bidding the old crone begone. Shrieking after him, she told him to beware, "as she would lay a curse upon his horse," which threat he soon forgot, and after visiting his patient returned home in safety. That night, however, Dr. G. was rou

e Trower family to his daughter in her bereavement. We will call her Patty Jones. After a decent interval had elapsed, Mr. Trower gave the woman notice to quit, as the cottage was wanted for somebody else. Although every indulgence regarding the notice was given, and continual consideration shown, Patty, being a woman of violent and ungrateful temper, took the matter very badly. She refused to go, and was eventually evicted, and her goods sold. It is said that meeting Mr. Trower on the road one day, she took the occasi

id would cure the cow. "And now," she added, "wouldn't you like me to put a curse on that woman? Because I can if you wish it." But Morgan magnanimously replied, "Oh, no. I do not wish her any harm whatever," and departed with his charm and cured his cow. It would be interesting to know the nature of this "charm," whether it was a written form of incantation, or something of the nature of a medicine. Mr. Henderson, whose i

atients with sulphur, a remedy which I think

r who annoyed them, making the poor animals pranking mad (as my informant expressed it). And nothing would cure

he same way by the healer. The patient goes home, and after a few days the witch measures her own piece of yarn. If it has shrunk from the original length, well and good; the yarn continues to grow shorter (so it is said) and the patient recovers. But if on the contrary the yarn grows perceptibly slacker, the patient gets worse and will surely die. The person who told me about the bewitched pigs had also much to say regarding this practice of "measuring the yar

ll how the t

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case the charm does not seem to have worked well, as though she did not die, she is still ailing. Another wizard, who died only last year

g to Theocritus, the Greek maidens used it as a charm to bring back faithless lovers. Mr. Elworthy, in his book on the "Evil Eye," refers to the ancient use ma

on rife in North Cardiganshire, and there to this day, any hare that has white about it is called "a witch hare," and it is held very unlucky to kill it, while until quite latel

hare might have left at any moment to seek cover among the heather and fern of the hill-side. But this it did not do; to the astonishment of all, the animal, apparently not a whit frightened by the people behind, held steadily on its way. Sometimes, of course, owing to its swiftness, it would be lost to view for a few moments, but always a turn of the way would bring it in sight again, and so it led the procession to the burial-ground. Then o

unfortunately only heard the vague outlines, but the incident is worth relating

y behind, saw them hurl themselves upon their quarry. The huntsman hastened forward, and every one pressed round to see the gallant animal which had given such a splendid run. But where was the hare? Whimpers and yelps of disappointment from the hounds proclaimed that their prey had escaped, but the question was, how? No hare that ever lived could have eluded the hound

me by the Rector of a certain parish in Pembrokeshire, who said that though the people it concerned had b

h it. However, "John the Smith" was a cunning man, and one day he loaded his gun with a silver sixpence in lieu of shot, and went out to look for the "witch hare." Presently he came across it in a field, and then-Bang! went his gun. Instantly the poor animal made off, but the sixpence had evidently

allow him to enter. Then John the Smith went home well satisfied that he had

her neighbours, in consequence, it was supposed, of a quarrelsome disposition. When the shooters reached this cottage, they found, to their surprise, that the gate by which they usually passed through the premises was fastened with a padlock. A shout produced the old woman from the house, who hastened to let them through, apologising profusely for the padlock, but saying she had been obliged

use was a witch. True, the animal should have been a hare, but the Ground Game Act having caused hares to become almost extinct in this district, the perpetrators of t

Hackett, she endeavoured to "distrew" her enemy the Bishop by witchcraft. After a time, Tanglost ventured to return to Pembrokeshire, and at a certain house[18] (still well known and inhabited), "in a chambre called Paradise Chambre," made, with Hackett's help, two waxen images for injuring the Bishop. Two images not being powerful enough to do the work, Tanglost and her coadjutor called in the aid of a third party, "which they thought hadde more counynge and experience than they had, and made the IIIrd ymage to distrew the Bishop." However, not only did the prelate continue to live and flourish, but, as was inevitable, knowledge of these sinister designs reached his ears, and Tanglost, with her two assistants, was summoned to appear for judgment before the Prior of Monckton, who held jurisdiction in her neighbourhood. Escaping for the moment, she again fled to Bristol, but was there reached by the long arm of the Church, and arrested on a charge of heresy. Four Doctors of Divinity co

all the inflictions to which the image was subjected were experienced by the original; he was consumed with fever when his effigy was exposed to the fire, he was wounded when the figure was pierced with a knife. The Pharaohs themselves had no immunity from these spells." Nor need we go back as far as the Pharaohs to find witches and wizards making use of effigies for the undoing of their enemies. According to Mr. Elworthy, from whose interesting book on the "Evil Eye" I have already quoted, such images and figures were used in quite modern ti

... for thirty years, 'failed,' as they say in Pembrokeshire, some time ago, and has done no work for seventeen weeks. He has had medical advice and medicine, but with no satisfactory results.... He took it into his head that he would consult the 'charmer.' I was on my way to visit him and his wife, when

id eleven little pieces of straw on the table; then she took a long straw and waved it several times round my head; having done this she went to the table and removed one of the little bits of straw to another pa

this performance. 'She mumbled something each time she

at did she say to you

aid that he would recover, but

e you as to what you shou

no doctor's stuff, and no drink.' My last

nothing.' I think I may safely say this

d a few days later added

ings is slightly different from what I wrote to you;-the little bits of straw are more than eleven, and she moves them, not on a table, but on two chairs, transferring them from one to the other; and

ral, most interesting fact, that such professional "charmers" should be still resorted to in the

lked of in the country, and if all tales told of him are true he must have possessed considerable psychic powers, which in these days would by no means be thought supernatural by enlightened people, but which thirty or forty years ago would most certainly have impressed and awed an ignorant peasantry. Harries is described as a fin

relation ill or in trouble, he would go to the wizard and ask what his friend's fate would be. Harries then put himself into a tran

em the information they sought. "But," he added solemnly and with great feeling, "I am sorry to tell you that your friend is no longer alive. If you cross the mountain between Llandovery and Brecon your path will lead you past a ruined house, and near that house there is a large and solitary tree. Dig at the foot of that tree and you will find him whom you seek." These words of gloomy import only crystallised the feelings of vague foreboding already in the minds of the inquirers, who, after a short consultation, determined to test the truth of the wizard's information. A small party was formed, who proceeded, according to the seer's directions, along the lonely track that led over the mountain to Brecon, the way by which it was known their frie

, and are now in the possession of the Registrar

rmaduke Lloyd, owner of the house and great estates, was universally known and respected in South Wales, counting among his intimate friends the well-known Vicar Pritchard of Llandovery, whose book, "Canwyll y Cymru" (The Welshman's Candle), is still much prized for its quaintly pious teaching by all religious Welsh people. This clergyman had a son, Samuel, who seems to have been

f God on Mae

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ower of fair L

st in Teivi's f

e origin

Duw ar M

eg, dan bob

lodeu tref

i Deifi

pty, and time and neglect have most literally fulfilled to the letter the curse pronounced by Vicar Pritchard nearly three hundred years ago. Not an unusual history, and one that might probably be true of many an old and extinct family in Great Britain. But in Cardiganshire the reverses and final extinction of the Lloyds of Maesyfelin were always ascribed to the effect of the pious Vicar's malison. Oddly enough, that curse seemed to follow the name of Lloyd, for the family of Peterwell had no better luck with the Maesyfelin estates than the original owners. At the death of John Lloyd of Peterwell, his great property, including Maesyfelin, went to his brother Herbert, who was made a baronet in 1763, and sat in Parliament for seven years. He was a man of extravagan

ies were Hanoverian, and the owner of considerable property. The Highlanders were duly condemned and executed, but before they died they solemnly cursed their enemy, prophesying that his descendants in the third generation should not possess an

motherless a little girl. The father soon married again, giving his child a cruel stepmother, who, in her husband's absence from home, so ill-treated and starved the poor little girl that very soon after her father's return she died. It is said that the facts of his wife's cruelty reached the father's ears, and in order that he might punish her with perpetual remorse, he had a wax model made of his child exactly as she appeared in death, and placed it conspicuously on the staircase landing, where his wife must see it whenever she went up or down stairs. He further directed in his will that the model should never be removed from its place, adding that if it were, a curse