British Goblins Part 13

V.

The antics of these and similar inhabitants of the Cambrian spirit-world at times outdo the most absurd capers of modern spiritualism. At the house of a certain farmer in the parish of Llanllechid, in Carnarvons.h.i.+re, there was great disturbance by a spirit which threw stones into the house, and from one room to another, which hit and hurt the people who lived there. The stones were of various sizes, the largest weighing twenty-seven pounds. Most of them were river stones, from the stream which runs hard by. Some clergymen came from Bangor and read prayers in the house, to drive the spirit away, but their faith was not strong enough, and stones were thrown at them, so that they retired from the contest. The family finally had to abandon the house.

On the farm of Edward Roberts, in the parish of Llangunllo, in Radnors.h.i.+re, there was a spirit whose antics were somewhat remarkable.

As the servant-man was thres.h.i.+ng, the threshel was taken out of his hand and thrown upon the hay-loft. At first he did not mind this so much, but when the trick had been repeated three or four times he became concerned about it, and went into the house to tell of it. The master of the house was away, but the wife and the maid-servant laughed at the man, and merrily said they would go to the barn to protect him. So they went out there and sat, the one to knit and the other to wind yarn. They were not there long before their things were taken from their hands and tumbled about the barn. On returning to the house, they perceived the dishes on the shelves move to and fro, and some were thrown on to the stone floor and broken. That night there was a terrible clattering among the dishes, and next morning they could scarcely tread without stepping on the wrecks of crockery which lay about. This pleasant experience was often repeated. Neighbours came to see. People even came from far to satisfy their curiosity--some from so far as Knighton; and one who came from Knighton to read prayers for the exorcising of the spirit, had the book taken out of his hand and thrown upstairs. Stones were often cast at the people, and once iron was projected from the chimney at them.

At last the spirit set the house on fire, and nothing could quench it; the house was burnt down: nothing but the walls and the two chimneys stood, long after, to greet the eyes of people who pa.s.sed to and from Knighton market.

VI.

A spirit which haunted the house of William Thomas, in Tridoll Valley, Glamorgans.h.i.+re, used to hit the maid-servant on the side of her head, as it were with a cus.h.i.+on, when she was coming down the stairs. 'One time she brought a marment of water into the house,' and the water was thrown over her person. Another time there came so great an abundance of pilchards in the sea, that the people could scarcely devour them, and the maid asked leave of her master to go and fetch some of them.

'No,' said he, being a very just man, 'the pilchards are sent for the use of poor people; we do not want them.' But the maid was very fond of pilchards, and so she went without leave, and brought some to the house. After giving a turn about the house, she went to look for her fish, and found them thrown out upon the dunghill. 'Well,' said her master, 'did not I tell thee not to go?' Once a pot of meat was on the fire, and when they took it off they found both meat and broth gone, none knew where, and the pot as empty as their own bellies.

Sometimes the clasped Bible would be thrown whisking by their heads; and 'so it would do with the gads of the steller, and once it struck one of them against the screen where a person then sat, and the mark of it still to be seen in the hard board.' Once the china dishes were thrown off the shelf, and not one broke. 'It was a great business with this light-hating spirit to throw an old lanthorn about the house without breaking it.' When the maid went a-milking to the barn, the barn-door would be suddenly shut upon her as she was milking the cow; then when she rose up the spirit began to turn the door backwards and forwards with an idle ringing noise. Once it tried to make trouble between the mistress and the maid by strewing charcoal ashes on the milk. When William Evans, a neighbour, went there to pray, as he knelt by the bedside, it struck the bed such a bang with a trencher that it made a report like a gun, so that both the bed and the room shook perceptibly. On another occasion, it made a sudden loud noise, which made the master think his house was falling down, and he was prodigiously terrified; it never after that made so loud a noise.

The Rev. R. Tibbet, a dissenting minister from Montgomerys.h.i.+re, was one night sleeping in the house, with another person in the bed with him; and they had a tussle with the Tridoll spirit for possession of the bed-clothes. By praying and pulling with equal energy, the parson beat the spirit, and kept the bed-clothes. But the spirit, apparently angered by this failure, struck the bed with the cawnen (a vessel to hold grain) such a blow that the bed was knocked out of its place.

Then they lit a light and the spirit left them alone. It was a favourite diversion with this goblin to hover about William Thomas when he was shaving, and occasionally cuff him on the side of his head--the consequence being that the persecuted farmer shaved himself by fits and starts, in a very unsatisfactory manner, and in a most uncomfortable state of mind. For about two years it troubled the whole of that family, during which period it had intervals of quiet lasting for a fortnight or three weeks. Once it endeavoured to hinder them from going to church, by hiding the bunch of keys, on the Lord's day, so that for all their searching they could not find them. The good man of the house bade them not to yield to the devil, and as they were loth to appear in their old clothes at meeting, they were about to break the locks; but first concluded to kneel in prayer, and so did.

After their prayers they found the keys where they used to be, but where they could not find them before. One night the spirit divided the books among the members of the family, after they had gone to bed.

To the man of the house it gave the Bible, to the woman of the house 'Allen's Sure Guide,' and upon the bed of the maid-servant (whom it was specially fond of plaguing) it piled a lot of English books, which language she did not understand. The maid was heartily afraid of the spirit, and used to fall on her knees and go to praying with chattering teeth, at all hours of the day or night; and prayer this spirit could not abide. When the maid would go about in the night with a candle, the light thereof would diminish, grow feeble as if in dampness, and finally go out. The result was the maid was generally excused from making journeys into cellar or garret after dark, very much to her satisfaction.

Particularly did this frisky Tridoll spirit trouble the maid-servant after she had gone to bed--in winter hauling the bed-clothes off her; in summer piling more on her. Now there was a young man, a first cousin to William Thomas, who could not be got to believe there was a spirit at his kinsman's house, and said the family were only making tricks with one another, 'and very strong he was, a hero of an unbeliever, like many of his brethren in infidelity.' One night William Thomas and his wife went to a neighbour's wake, and left the house in charge of the doubting cousin, who searched the place all over, and then went to bed there; and no spirit came to disturb him.

This made him stronger than ever in his unbelief. But soon after he slept there again, when they were all there, and before going to bed he said aloud to the maid, 'If anything comes to disturb thee, Ally, call upon me, as I lie in the next room to you.' During the night the maid cried out that the spirit was pulling the clothes off her bed, and the doubting cousin awoke, jumped out of bed, and ran to catch the person he believed to be playing tricks with the maid. But there was no creature visible, although there rained upon his doubting head a series of cuffs, and about his person a fusillade of kicks, which thrust the unbelief quite out of him, so that he doubted no more. The departure of this spirit came about thus: William Thomas being in bed with his wife, heard a voice calling him. He awaked his wife, and rising on his elbow said to the invisible spirit, 'In the name of G.o.d what seekest thou in my house? Hast thou anything to say to me?' The spirit answered, 'I have,' and desired him to remove certain things out of a place where they had been mislaid. 'Satan,' answered William Thomas, in a candid manner, 'I'll do nothing thou biddest me; I command thee, in the name of G.o.d, to depart from my house.' And it obeyed.

VII.

This long and circ.u.mstantial account, which I have gathered from different sources, but mainly from the two books of the Prophet Jones, will impress the general reader with its resemblance, in many respects, to modern newspaper ghost stories. The throwing about of dishes, books, keys, etc.; its raps and touches of the person; its making of loud noises by banging down metal objects; all these antics are the tricks of contemporaneous spiritualism. But this spectre is of a date when our spiritualism was quite unknown. The same is true of the spirit which threw stones, another modern spiritualistic accomplishment.[75] The spiritualists will argue from all this that their belief is substantiated, not by any means that it is shaken. The doubter will conclude that there were clever tricksters in humble Welsh communities some time before the American city of Rochester had produced its 'mediums.'

The student of comparative folk-lore, in reading these accounts, will be equally impressed with their resemblance to phenomena noted in many other lands. The conclusion is irresistible that we here encounter but another form of the fairy which goes in Wales by the name of the Bwbach, and in England is called the Hobgoblin, in Denmark the Nis, in Scotland the Brownie. Also, the resemblance is strong in all stories of this cla.s.s to certain of the German Kobolds.

In several of these accounts of spirits in Wales appear the leading particulars of the Kobold Hinzelmann, as condensed by Grimm from Feldman's long narrative.[76] There is also a close correspondence to certain ghost stories found in China. In the story of Woo, from the 'Che-wan-luk,'[77] appear details much like those in Hinzelmann, and equally resembling Welsh particulars, either in the stories given above, or those which follow. But we are now drawn so near to the division of Familiar Spirits that we may as well enter it at once.

FOOTNOTES:

[75] For the sake of comparison, I give the latest American case which comes under my notice. The scene is Akron, a bustling town in the State of Ohio; the time October, 1878. 'Mr. and Mrs. Michael Metzler, middle-aged Germans, with their little daughter, ten years of age, and Mrs. Knoss, Metzler's mother-in-law, recently moved to a brick house in the suburbs known as h.e.l.l's Half Acre. The house is a good, substantial building, situated in a somewhat open s.p.a.ce, and surrounded by a lonesome deserted air. A few days after they had moved, they were disturbed by sharp rappings all over the house, produced by small stones or pebbles thrown against the window panes.

Different members of the family were hit by these stones coming to and going from the house. Other persons were hit by them, the stones varying in size from a pea to a hen's egg. Mrs. Metzler said that when she went after the cow in the evening, she could hear these stones whistling around her head. Mr. and Mrs. Metzler, who are devout Catholics, had Father Brown come to the house to exorcise the spirits which were tormenting them. The reverend father, in the midst of his exercises, was struck by a stone, and so dismayed thereby that he went home in despair.' (Newspaper account.)

[76] 'Deutsche Sagen,' i. 103.

[77] Dennys, 'Folk-Lore of China,' 86.

CHAPTER V.

Familiar Spirits--The Famous Sprite of Trwyn Farm--Was it a Fairy?--The Familiar Spirits of Magicians--Sir David Llwyd's Demon--Familiar Spirits in Female Form--The Legend of the Lady of the Wood--The Devil as a Familiar Spirit--His Disguises in this Character--Summoning and Exorcising Familiars--Jenkin the Pembrokes.h.i.+re Schoolmaster--The Terrible Tailor of Glanbran.

I.

Innumerable are the Welsh stories of familiar spirits. Sometimes these are spectres of the sort whose antics we have just been observing.

More often they are confessedly demons, things of evil. In numberless cases it is no less a personage than the diawl himself who makes his appearance in the guise of a familiar spirit. The familiar spirit which takes up its abode in the household is, as we have seen, a pranksome goblin. Its personal appearance--or rather its invisibility--is the saving circ.u.mstance which prevents it from being deemed a fairy. The familiar spirit which haunted the house of Job John Harry, at the Trwyn Farm, in the parish of Mynyddyslwyn, was a stone-thrower, a stroker of persons, etc., but could not be seen. It is famous in Wales under the cognomen of Pwca'r Trwyn, and is referred to in my account of the Ellylldan.[78] The tenants at present residing on the Trwyn Farm are strangers who have recently invaded the home of this ancestral spook, but I was able to glean abundant information concerning it from people thereabout. It made a home of Mr. Harry's house some time in the last century, for a period beginning some days before Christmas, and ending with Easter Wednesday, on which day it departed. During this time it spoke, and did many remarkable things, but was always invisible. It began at first to make its presence known by knocking at the outer door in the night; but when persons went to open the door there was no one there. This continued for some time, much to the perplexity of the door-openers. At last one night it spoke to the one who opened the door, and the family were in consequence much terrified. Some of the neighbours, hearing these tales, came to watch with the family; and Thomas Evans foolishly brought a gun with him, 'to shoot the spirit,' as he said. But as Job John Harry was coming home that night from a journey, the familiar spirit met him in the lane and said, 'There is a man come to your house to shoot me, but thou shalt see how I will beat him.' So Job went on to the house, and immediately stones were thrown at the unbelieving Thomas who had brought the gun, stones from which he received severe blows. The company tried to defend him from the stones, which did strike and hurt him, and no other person; but their efforts were in vain. The result was, that Thomas Evans took his gun and ran home as fast as his legs would carry him, and never again engaged in an enterprise of that sort.

As this familiar spirit got better acquainted with its quarters, it became more talkative, and used often to speak from out of an oven by the hearth's side. It also took to making music o' nights with Job's fiddle. One night as Job was going to bed, the familiar spirit gave him a gentle stroke on the toe. 'Thou art curious in smiting,' said Job. 'I can smite thee where I please,' replied the spirit. As time pa.s.sed on the family became accustomed to their ghostly visitor, and seeing it never did them any harm, but on the contrary was a source of recreation to them, they used to boldly speak to it, and indulge in entertaining conversation. One old man, a neighbour, more bold than wise, hearing the spirit just by his side, but being unable to see it, threatened to stick it with his knife. 'Thou fool,' quoth the spirit, 'how canst thou stick what thou canst not see with thine eyes?' When questioned about its antecedents, the spirit said, 'I came from Pwll y Ga.s.seg' (Mare's Pit, a place in the adjacent mountain), 'and I knew ye all before I came hither.' The wife of Morris Roberts desired one of the family to ask the spirit who it was that killed William Reilly the Scotchman; which being done, the spirit said, 'It was Blanch y Byd who bade thee ask that question;' and Blanch y Byd (Worldly Blanche) was Morris Roberts' wife ever after called. On Easter Wednesday the spirit departed, saying, 'Dos yn iach, Job,' (fare thee well, Job,) and Job asked the spirit, 'Where goest thou?' The reply was, 'Where G.o.d pleases.'[79]

There are other accounts of this Trwyn sprite which credit it to a time long anterior to last century; but all are consistent in this, that the goblin is always invisible. The sole exception to this rule is the legend about its having once shown a white hand to some girls in the kitchen, thrusting it through the floor of its room overhead for that purpose. Now invisibility is a violation of fairy traditions, while ghosts are very often invisible--these rapping and stone-throwing ghosts, always. It might be urged that this spirit was a Bwbach, if a fairy at all, seeing that it kept pretty closely to the house; but on the whole I choose to cla.s.s it among the inhabitants of the spirit-world; and really, the student of folk-lore must cla.s.sify his materials distinctly in some understandable fas.h.i.+on, or go daft.

FOOTNOTES:

[78] Supra, p. 21.

[79] Let me recommend the scene of this story to tourists. It is a most romantic spot, on the top of a mountain, a glorious tramp from Crumlyn, returning by another road to Abercarne. Wheels cannot go there, though a sure-footed horse might bear one safely up. The ancient farm-house is one of the quaintest in Wales, and must be hundreds of years old; and its front porch looks out over a ravine hardly less grand and lonely than a Californian gulch.

II.

The sort of familiar spirit employed by magicians in the eighteenth and preceding centuries was distinctly a demon. The spirit of this cla.s.s which was controlled by Sir David Llwyd is celebrated in Wales.

This Sir David was a famous dealer in the black art, who lived in Cardigans.h.i.+re. He was a physician, and at one time a curate; but being known to deal in the magic art, he was turned out of the curacy, and obliged to live by practising physic. It was thought he learned the magic art in Oxford. 'It was this man's great wickedness,' says the Prophet Jones, 'to make use of a familiar spirit.... The bishop did well in turning him out of the sacred office, though he was no ill-tempered man, for how unfit was such a man to read the sacred Scripture! With what conscience could he ask the sponsors in baptism to undertake for the child to renounce the world, the flesh and the devil, who himself was familiar with one of the spirits of darkness?... Of this Sir David I have heard much, but chiefly depend upon what was told to me by the Rev. Mr. Thomas Lewis, the curate of Landdw and Tolachdy, an excellent preacher of the gospel; and not sufficiently esteemed by his people, (which likely will bring a judgment on them in time to come.) Mr. Lewis knew the young woman who had been Sir David's maid servant, and the house where he lived.' His familiar spirit he kept locked up in a book. Once while he was in Radnors.h.i.+re, in going from one house to another he accidentally left this book behind him, and sent his boy back to fetch it. The boy, being of an inquisitive turn of mind, opened the book--a thing his master had expressly charged him not to do--and the familiar spirit immediately demanded to be set at work. The boy, though very much alarmed, had the wit to answer, 'Tafl gerrig o'r afon,' (throw stones out of the river,) which the spirit immediately did, so that the air was for a time full of flying stones, and the boy was fain to skip about in a surprisingly active manner in order to dodge the same.

After a while, having thrown up a great quant.i.ty of stones out of the river, (the Wye,) the spirit again, with the pertinacity of its kind, asked for something to do; whereupon the boy bade it throw the stones back again, which it did. Sir David having waited a long time for the boy to return, began to suspect that things had gone wrong, and so hastened back after him, and commanded the familiar spirit again into his book.

III.

Familiar spirits of this cla.s.s are not always invisible; and they can a.s.sume such forms as may be necessary to serve their purposes. A favourite shape with them is that of a young and lovely woman.

Comparisons are here suggested with the water-maidens, and other like forms of this fancy; but they need not be pursued. It is necessary for the student of phantoms to constantly remind himself of the omnipresent danger of being enticed too far afield, unless he keep somewhat sternly to the path he has marked out. How ancient is the notion of a familiar spirit in female form, may be seen from accounts which are given by Giraldus and other old writers. Near Caerleon, (Monmouths.h.i.+re,) in the twelfth century, Giraldus tells us[80] there lived 'a Welshman named Melerius, who by the following means acquired the knowledge of future events and the occult sciences: Having on a certain night met a damsel whom he loved, in a pleasant and convenient place, while he was indulging in her embraces, instead of a beautiful girl he found in his arms a hairy, rough and hideous creature, the sight of which deprived him of his senses; and after remaining many years in this condition he was restored to health in the church of St.

David's, through the merits of its saints. But having always had an extraordinary familiarity with unclean spirits, by seeing them, knowing them, talking with them, and calling each by his proper name, he was enabled through their a.s.sistance to foretell future events; he was indeed often deceived (as they are) with respect to circ.u.mstances at a great distance; but was less mistaken in affairs which were likely to happen soon, or within the s.p.a.ce of a year. They appeared to him on foot, equipped as hunters, with horns suspended from their necks, and truly as hunters not of animals but of souls; he particularly met them near monasteries and religious places; for where rebellion exists there is the greatest need of armies and strength. He knew when any one spoke falsely in his presence, for he saw the devil as it were leaping and exulting upon the tongue of the liar; and if he looked into a book faultily or falsely written, although wholly illiterate he would point out the place with his finger. Being questioned how he could gain such knowledge, he said he was directed by the demon's finger to the place.' In the same connection Giraldus mentions a familiar spirit which haunted Lower Gwent, 'a demon incubus, who from his love for a certain young woman, and frequenting the place where she lived, often conversed with men, and frequently discovered hidden things and future events.'

FOOTNOTE:

[80] Sir R. C. h.o.a.re's Trans., i. 105.

IV.

The legend of the Lady of the Wood is contained in the Iolo MSS., and is of considerable antiquity. It is a most fascinating tale: Einion, the son of Gwalchmai, 'was one fine summer morning walking in the woods of Treveilir,' when 'he beheld a graceful slender lady of elegant growth, and delicate feature, and her complexion surpa.s.sing every white and red in the morning dawn and the mountain snow, and every beautiful colour in the blossoms of wood, field, and hill. And then he felt in his heart an inconceivable commotion of affection, and he approached her in a courteous manner, and she also approached him in the same manner; and he saluted her, and she returned his salutation; and by these mutual salutations he perceived that his society was not disagreeable to her. He then chanced to cast his eye upon her foot, and he saw that she had hoofs instead of feet, and he became exceedingly dissatisfied,' as well he might. But the lady gave him to understand that he must pay no attention to this trifling freak of nature. 'Thou must,' she said, 'follow me wheresoever I go, as long as I continue in my beauty.' The son of Gwalchmai thereupon asked permission to go and say good-bye to his wife, at least. This the lady agreed to; 'but,' said she, 'I shall be with thee, invisible to all but thyself.' 'So he went, and the goblin went with him; and when he saw Angharad, his wife, he saw her a hag like one grown old, but he retained the recollection of days past, and still felt extreme affection for her, but he was not able to loose himself from the bond in which he was. "It is necessary for me," said he, "to part for a time, I know not how long, from thee, Angharad, and from thee, my son, Einion," and they wept together, and broke a gold ring between them; he kept one half and Angharad the other, and they took their leave of each other, and he went with the Lady of the Wood, and knew not where; for a powerful illusion was upon him, and he saw not any place, or person, or object under its true and proper appearance, excepting the half of the ring alone. And after being a long time, he knew not how long, with the goblin, the Lady of the Wood, he looked one morning as the sun was rising upon the half of the ring, and he bethought him to place it in the most precious place he could, and he resolved to put it under his eyelid; and as he was endeavouring to do so, he could see a man in white apparel, and mounted on a snow-white horse, coming towards him, and that person asked him what he did there; and he told him that he was cheris.h.i.+ng an afflicting remembrance of his wife Angharad. "Dost thou desire to see her?" said the man in white. "I do," said Einion, "above all things, and all happiness of the world."

"If so," said the man in white, "get upon this horse, behind me;" and that Einion did, and looking around he could not see any appearance of the Lady of the Wood, the goblin, excepting the track of hoofs of marvellous and monstrous size, as if journeying towards the north.

"What delusion art thou under?" said the man in white. Then Einion answered him and told everything how it occurred 'twixt him and the goblin. "Take this white staff in thy hand," said the man in white, and Einion took it. And the man in white told him to desire whatever he wished for. The first thing he desired was to see the Lady of the Wood, for he was not yet completely delivered from the illusion. And then she appeared to him in size a hideous and monstrous witch, a thousand times more repulsive of aspect than the most frightful things seen upon earth. And Einion uttered a cry of terror; and the man in white cast his cloak over Einion, and in less than a twinkling Einion alighted as he wished on the hill of Treveilir, by his own house, where he knew scarcely any one, nor did any one know him.' The goblin meantime had gone to Einion's wife, in the disguise of a richly apparelled knight, and made love to her, pretending that her husband was dead. 'And the illusion fell upon her; and seeing that she should become a n.o.ble lady, higher than any in Wales, she named a day for her marriage with him. And there was a great preparation of every elegant and sumptuous apparel, and of meats and drinks, and of every honourable guest, and every excellence of song and string, and every preparation of banquet and festive entertainment.' Now there was a beautiful harp in Angharad's room, which the goblin knight desired should be played on; 'and the harpers present, the best in Wales, tried to put it in tune, and were not able.' But Einion presented himself at the house, and offered to play on it. Angharad, being under an illusion, 'saw him as an old, decrepit, withered, grey-haired man, stooping with age, and dressed in rags.' Einion tuned the harp, 'and played on it the air which Angharad loved. And she marvelled exceedingly, and asked him who he was. And he answered in song: ...

"Einion the golden-hearted." ...

"Where hast thou been!"

"In Kent, in Gwent, in the wood, in Monmouth, In Maenol, Gorwenydd; And in the valley of Gwyn, the son of Nudd; See, the bright gold is the token."

And he gave her the ring.

"Look not on the whitened hue of my hair, Where once my aspect was spirited and bold; Now gray, without disguise, where once it was yellow.

Never was Angharad out of my remembrance, But Einion was by thee forgotten."'

But Angharad 'could not bring him to her recollection. Then said he to the guests:

"If I have lost her whom I loved, the fair one of polished mind, The daughter of Ednyved Vychan, I have not lost (so get you out!) Either my bed, or my house, or my fire."