Folk-Lore of West and Mid-WalesDavies, Jonathan Ceredig
History
Folk-Lore of West and Mid-Wales
Davies, Jonathan Ceredig
Folklore -- Wales; Wales -- Social life and customs
On one occasion, however, when Shan expected her husband home the
day before Christmas as usual, Shon came not. Nine o'clock in the
evening she went out to meet him or to search for him and to prevent
him spending his money on beer at a public house which his friend,
a saddler kept at Tyngraig. But her husband was not at the public
house, nor was he seen anywhere, so the old woman had to return home
in disappointment. It was a cloudless moonlight night, almost as light
as day, but the road was lonely and the hour late, and when she had
walked some distance, to her great terror, she noticed a ghost in the
field making his way nearer and nearer to her till at last the strange
object came to the hedge on the roadside quite close to her. Frightened
as she was, she struck the ghost with the strong walking-stick which
she held in her hand, saying "D----l! thou shalt follow me no longer."
When Shan struck the ghost her walking-stick went right through the
head of the strange object, but she did not "feel" that it touched
anything--It was like striking a fog; but the spirit vanished into
nothing, and Shan walked on. The ghost was now invisible, but the old
woman "felt" that it still followed her, though she could not see it;
but when she was crossing a brook she became aware that her pursuer
left her.
TWO YOUNG WOMEN AND THE GOBLIN.
Two young women, daughters of a farmer in the parish of Llandyssul,
were walking home one night from Lampeter Fair. After reaching the
very field in one corner of which the house in which they lived stood,
they wandered about this field for hours before they could find the
building, though it was a fine moonlight night.
It seemed as if the farm house had vanished; and they informed me
that they were convinced that this was the doings of the Goblin,
who played them a trick.
The Welsh word for Goblin is Ellyll.
CHAPTER VII.
DEATH PORTENTS.
Among the most important of the superstitions of Wales are the
death portents and omens; and this is perhaps more or less true of
every country. About a generation or two ago, there were to be found
almost in every parish some old people who could tell before hand
when a death was going to lake place; and even in the present day
we hear of an old man or an old woman, here and there, possessing,
or supposed to possess, an insight of this kind into the future.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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