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
Not far from Glanbran, in Carmarthenshire, lived a tailor, who added
to his trade as a breeches-mender the loftier, if wickeder,
employments of a worker in magic. A certain Mr. Gwynne, living at
Glanbran, took it upon himself to ridicule this terrible tailor, for
the tailor was a little man, and Mr. Gwynne was a burly six-footer,
who feared nobody. 'Thou have the courage to look upon the devil!'
sneered Gwynne; 'canst thou show him to me?' 'That I can,' said the
tailor, his eyes flashing angrily; 'but you are not able to look at
him.' 'What!' roared Gwynne, 'thou able to look at him, and not I?'
'Very well,' quoth the tailor; 'if you are able to look at him I will
show him to you.' It was in the day time, but the tailor went
immediately into a little grove of wood in a field hard by, and made a
circle in the usual manner. In a short time he returned to fetch the
incredulous Mr. Gwynne, saying, 'Come with me and you shall see him.'
The two then crossed the field until they came to the stile by the
wood, when suddenly the tailor cried, 'Look yonder! there it is!' And
looking, Mr. Gwynne saw, in the circle the tailor had drawn, 'one of
the fallen angels, now become a devil.' It was so horrible a sight
that the terrified Mr. Gwynne was never after able to describe it; but
from that time forth he had a proper respect for the tailor.
FOOTNOTE:
[85] Dennys, 'Folk-Lore of China,' 89.
CHAPTER VI.
The Evil Spirit in his customary Form--The stupid Medieval
Devil in Wales--Sion Cent--The Devil outwitted--Pacts with
the Fiend and their Avoidance--Sion Dafydd's Foul Pipe--The
Devil's Bridge and its Legends--Similar Legends in other
Lands--The Devil's Pulpit near Tintern--Angelic
Spirits--Welsh Superstitions as to pronouncing the Name of
the Evil Spirit--The Bardic Tradition of the Creation--The
Struggle between Light and Darkness and its Symbolization.
I.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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