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
There is a story very much like the one I have just given, to
be found in the South-Western part of Montgomeryshire. In the
Montgomeryshire version, however, the wizard is not Sir Dafydd Llwyd,
but Dafydd Hiraddug, who had charged his friends, that on his death,
the liver and lights were to be taken out of his body and thrown on
the dunghill. They were then to take notice whether a raven or a dove
got possession of them; if a dove got possession of them, he was to
be buried like any other man in the churchyard; but if a raven, then
he was to be buried under the wall, and under the wall he was buried,
as a raven got possession of the liver and lights.
The devil in disappointment cried out:--
"Dafydd Hiraddug ei ryw,
Ffals yn farw, ffals yn fyw."
(Dafydd Hiraddug, ill-bred
False when living, false when dead.)
The dove and the raven play their part in many of the wizards tales. An
old man from Llandilo, named David Evans, informed me that the wizard
of Cwrtycadno asked his friends to throw his heart on the dunghill. If
a dove came for it first, he had been a good man; but a raven, a sign
that he had been a bad man.
The appearance of a dove at the time of a death or a funeral was
regarded as a sure sign that the deceased had been a good man. The
Rev. Edmund Jones in his "Apparitions," referring to the death of
a certain godly man, says that "Before the body was brought forth,
a white dove came and alighted upon the bier."
WIZARDS RIDING DEMONS THROUGH THE AIR.
In the present day we hear a great deal about airships; but if we are
to believe some of the old folk-stories, magicians travelled through
the air in days long before anyone had ever dreamt of a balloon. In
former times it was believed by the ignorant that a wizard with his
magic book could, and did, summon a demon in the shape of a horse,
and travelled on the back of the fiend through the air. It is said
that Sir Dafydd Llwyd of Ysbytty Ystwyth, employed a demon for that
purpose; and one night when he was riding home from Montgomeryshire
on a demon in the shape of a horse, a boy who rode behind him on the
same horse lost one of his garters on the journey. After this the
boy went to search for his garter, and to his great surprise saw it
on the very top of a tree near the church, which convinced him that
the wizard and himself had been riding home through the air!
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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