An equally thorough, but much more honest and satisfactory, agent of the Reformation was Ellis Price, popularly known in North Wales as the "Red Doctor." He was a Welshman, and a kindly individual who seems to have entertained much good-natured contempt for all forms of religion. He destroyed superstitious relics; but did not plunder churches in order to enrich himself. We possess the reports which he sent to Cromwell; and no impartial reader can peruse them without coming to the conclusion that the Welsh people were indeed sunk in the deepest ignorance and {150} the most abject superstition. One of the idols with which Price had to deal has earned for itself a tragic fame. This was an immense wooden image of Derfel Gadarn, clothed in complete armour, which stood in the church of Llandderfel in Merionethshire. So popular was this figure, says Price in a letter to Cromwell, that people "come daily in pilgrimage to him, some with kine, some with oxen and horses, and the rest with money, insomuch that there were five or six hundred, to a man's estimation, that offered to the said image the fifth day of this month of April. The innocent people hath been sore allured and enticed to worship, insomuch that there is a common saying amongst them that, whosoever will offer anything to the image of Derfel Gadarn, he hath power to fetch him or them that so offer, out of hell." Cromwell commanded that the image should be sent to London, and an offer of the parishioners to ransom it for forty pounds was rejected. Its arrival in the metropolis was opportune. A Welsh prophecy had declared that, one day, Derfel Gadarn would set a forest on fire. The prophecy was now to be fulfilled. The great doll was hewn in pieces, and used to burn a friar of the name of Forest, who had denied the royal supremacy! {151}