British Goblins: Welsh Folk-lore, Fairy Mythology, Legends and TraditionsSikes, Wirt
History
British Goblins: Welsh Folk-lore, Fairy Mythology, Legends and Traditions
Sikes, Wirt
Folklore -- Wales; Goblins -- Wales; Mythology, Celtic -- Wales; Mythology, Welsh; Wales -- Social life and customs
This was
considered by the Ystradgynlaisians, with many nods to each other, as
a most accurate description of what Elizabeth Gething would probably
be, after having shuffled off this mortal coil. The time occupied in
this mysterious transportation and ghostly enterprise was three days
and three nights; that is, from Friday night to Monday night; and when
the voyager came home he could scarcely speak.
VII.
Sir David Llwyd, the Welsh magician, was once at Lanidloes town, in
Montgomeryshire, and as he was going home late at night, saw a boy
there from his neighbourhood. He asked the lad if he would like to
ride home behind him, and receiving an affirmative reply, took the boy
up behind on the horse's back. They rode so swiftly that they were
home in no time, and the boy lost one of his garters in the journey.
The next day, seeing something hanging in the ash-tree near the
church, he climbed up to learn what it was, and to his great surprise
found it was the garter he had lost. 'Which shows they rode home in
the air,' observes the Prophet Jones in telling the story. Mr. Jones
has a number of extraordinary narratives of this class--e.g., the
following, which I condense:
Henry Edmund, of Hafodafel, was one night visiting Charles Hugh, the
conjuror of Aberystruth, and they walked together as far as Lanhiddel,
where Hugh tried to persuade his companion to stay all night with him
at a public house. Edmund refused, and said he would go home. 'You had
_better_ stay,' said Hugh in a meaning tone. But Edmund went out into
the street, when he was seized by invisible hands and borne through
the air to Landovery, in Carmarthenshire, a distance of fully fifty
miles as the crow flies. There he was set down at a public house where
he had before been, and talked with people who knew him. He then went
out into the street, when he was seized again and borne back to
Lanhiddel, arriving there the next morning at daybreak. The first man
he met was the conjuror Charles Hugh, who said, 'Did I not tell you
you had better stay with me?'
VIII.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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