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
There was an old curmudgeon of a money-hoarder who lived in a cottage
on the side of the cwm, or dingle, at St. Donat's, not far from the
Castle. His housekeeper was an antique dame of quaint aspect. He died,
and the dame lived there alone; but she began to grow so gaunt and
grizzly that people wondered at it, and the children ran frightened
from her. Some one finally got from her the confession that she was
haunted by the miser's ghost. To relieve her of its presence the
Methodists resolved to hold a prayer-meeting in the haunted house.
While they were there singing and praying the old woman suddenly
jumped up and screamed, 'There he is! there he is!' The people grew
silent. Then some one said, 'Ask it what it wants.' 'What do you
want?' quavered the old woman. No one heard the reply, except the
dame, who presently said: 'Where is it?' Then the old woman, nodding
and staring as if obeying an invisible mandate, groped her way to the
chimney, thrust her gaunt arm up, and drew down a bag of money. With
this she cried out, 'Let me go! let me go!' which, no one preventing
her, she did, as quickly as a flash of light. Some young men by the
door followed her, and, it being a bright moonlight night, beheld her
whisk over the stile without touching it, and so off up the road
towards the Ogmore. The people now resumed their praying and singing.
It was an hour before the old woman got back, and then she was found
to be spattered with mud and bedraggled with wet, as if she had been
having a terrific time. She had indeed, as she confessed, been to the
Ogmore, and thrown the bag of money down the stream; the ghost had
then taken off its hat, made a low bow, and vanished, to trouble her
no more.
III.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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