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
If learned men, like Augustine and Giraldus Cambrensis and others,
believed such stories, it is no wonder that ignorant people did
so. I am inclined to believe, like the late Rev. Elias Owen, that
the transformation fables that have descended to us would seem to
be fossils of a pagan faith once common to the Celtic and other
cognate races.
The belief in transformation and transmigration has lingered among some
people almost to the present day. Mr. Thomas Evans, Gwaralltyryn, in
the parish of Llandyssul, informed me that he was well-acquainted with
an old Ballad singer, who was known as Daniel Y Baledwr. Daniel lived
near Castle Howel, and sang at Llandyssul fairs, songs composed by
Rees Jones, of Pwllffein. This ballad-singer told my informant that he
was sure to return after death in the form of a pig, or of some other
animal; and that an animal had a soul or spirit as well as a man had.
WIZARDS.
There were many conjurers in Wales in former times, and even at the
present day there are a few who have the reputation of practising
the Black Art; for we still hear occasionally of persons taking long
journeys to consult them, especially in cases of supposed bewitched
cattle, horses, pigs, etc. I have already given stories of conjurers
counteracting the machinations of witches, and delivering both
people and animals from their spell. But they were accredited with
the power to do many other things beside. They could, it was thought,
compel a thief to restore what he had stolen; could also reveal the
future and raise and command spirits.
The possibility of raising spirits, or to cause them to appear, was
once believed in in Wales, even in recent times; and Shakespeare in his
Henry the Fourth, Act III., S. 1., makes the Welshman, Glendower say:--
"I can call Spirits from the vasty deep."
Wizards and others who practised magical arts were supposed to be
able to summon spirits at will; but it seems that some could not
control the demons after summoning them. An old man at Llandovery,
named Mr. Price, who was once a butler at Blaennos, informed me that
an old witch at Cilcwm, named Peggy, found it most difficult to control
the spirits in the house, and sometimes she had to go out into a field,
and stand within a circle of protection with a whip in her hand.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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