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
An old man named Evan Morris, who lives at Goginan, near Aberystwyth,
informed me that about 60 years ago, a young man in that neighbourhood
was struck dumb all of a sudden, that he could not utter a word. As he
had neither been ill nor met with an accident it was suspected that
he had been witched by some neighbour. So his father at last went
over the mountain to Llangurig, about twenty miles off, to consult a
well-known wizard named "Savage." The wizard opened his magic book,
from which out came a big fly, buzzing or making a humming noise,
boom, boom, boom, near the conjurer's face, who exclaimed, "What is
the matter with this old fly?" The wise man then struck the insect
with his hand and commanded it back into the book, and closed the
volume; but he opened it again at another page, and out came another
fly of a different colour. This fly again was buzzing till the wizard
commanded it back into the book, which he now closed altogether; and
addressing the man who had come to consult him, said to him: "You have
suspected a certain man in your neighbourhood of having witched your
son; but you are wrong; another man whom you do not suspect is the
guilty. But your son has not been witched at all; he is under a curse."
Welsh conjurers made a distinction between witchcraft and a
curse. Thomas Jones, of Pontrhydfendigaid, informed me that a conjurer
at Llangurig, named Morgans, told him once, that some men who were
born under certain planets, possessed an inherent power of cursing,
"and their curse," said he, "is worse than witchcraft itself."
When the man returned home from the conjurer, to his great joy and
surprise, he found his son able to speak. My informant vouches for
the truth of the story, and added that this conjurer was so deep in
the Black Art that he could do almost anything.
MERLIN.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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