Welsh Folk-Lore / a Collection of the Folk-Tales and Legends of North Wales

by Elias Owen

Mysterious Removal of Churches.

I. LLANLLECHID CHURCH.

There was a tradition extant in the parish of Llanllechid, near Bangor, Carnarvonshire, that it was intended to build a church in a field called Cae’r Capel, not far from Plasuchaf Farm, but it was found the next morning that the labours of the previous day had been destroyed, and that the materials had been transported in the night to the site of the present church. The workmen, however, carried them all back again, and resumed their labours at Cae’r Capel, but in vain, for the next day they found their work undone, and the wood, stones, etc., in the place where they had found them when their work was first tampered with. Seeing that it was useless fighting against a superior power, they desisted, and erected the building on the spot indicated by the destroyers of their labours.

I asked the aged, what or who it was that had carried away the materials: some said it was done by Spirits, others by Fairies, but I could obtain no definite information on the point. However, they all agreed that the present site was more convenient for the parishioners than the old one.

Many legends of this kind are current in Wales. They are all much alike in general outline. A few only therefore shall be mentioned.

II. CORWEN CHURCH.

In Thomas’s History of the Diocese of St. Asaph, p. 687, the legend connected with the erection of the present church is given as follows:—“The legend of its (Corwen Church) original foundation states that all attempts to build the church in any other spot than where stood the

’Carreg y Big yn y fach rewlyd,’ i.e., ‘The pointed stone in the icy nook,’ were frustrated by the influence of certain adverse powers.”

No agency is mentioned in this narrative. When questioned on such a matter, the aged, of forty years ago, would shake their heads in an ominous kind of manner, and remain silent, as if it were wrong on their part to allude to the affair. Others, more bold, would surmise that it was the work of a Spirit, or of the Fairies. By and by I shall give Mr. A. N. Palmer’s solution of the mystery.

III. CAPEL GARMON CHURCH.

A legend much like the preceding is current respecting Capel Garmon Church. I will give the story in the words of my friend, the Rev. Owen Jones, Pentrevoelas, who writes to me thus:—

“The tradition is that Capel Garmon Church was to have been built on the side of the mountain just above the present village, near the Well now called Ffynnon Armon, but the materials carried there in the daytime were in a mysterious manner conveyed by night to the present site of the church.”

IV. LLANFAIR DYFFRYN CLWYD.

For the following legend, I am indebted to Mr. R. Prys Jones, who resided for several years in the parish of Llanfair Dyffryn Clwyd. In answer to a letter from me respecting mysterious removal of churches, Mr. Jones writes as follows:—

“We have the same tradition in connection with a place not very far from Llanfair village. It was first intended to erect Llanfair Church on the spot where Jesus Chapel now stands, or very near to it. Tradition ascribes the failure of erecting the structure to a phantom in the shape of a sow’s head, destroying in the night what had been built during

the day. The farm house erected on the land is still called Llanbenwch”—Llan-pen-hwch, i.e., the Llan, or church, of the Sow’s Head.

In this tale the agent is a sow, and Mr. Gomme in the Antiquary, vol. iii. p. 9, records a like story of Winwick Parish Church, Lancashire. He states that the founder had destined a different site for this church, “but after progress had been made at the original foundation, at night time, ‘a pig’ was seen running hastily to the site of the new church, crying or screaming aloud We-ee-wick, we-ee-wick, we-ee-wick.’ Then taking up a stone in his mouth he carried it to the spot sanctified by the death of St. Oswald, and thus succeeded in removing all the stones which had been laid by the builders.”

V. LLANFIHANGEL GENEU’R GLYN.

The traveller who has gone to Aberystwyth by the Cambrian Line has, most probably, noticed on the left hand side, shortly after he has left Borth, a small church, with a churchyard that enters a wood to the west of the church, the grave stones being seen among the trees. There is in connection with this church a legend much like those already given. I am indebted to the Rev. J. Felix, vicar of Cilcen, near Mold, for the following account of the transaction.

“It was intended to build Llanfihangel Church at a place called Glanfread, or Glanfread-fawr, which at present is a respectable farm house, and the work was actually commenced on that spot, but the portion built during the day was pulled down each night, till at last a Spirit spoke in these words:—

Llanfihangel Geneu’r Glyn,
Glanfread-fawr gaiff fod fan hyn.
Llanfihangel Geneu’r Glyn,
Glanfread-fawr shall stand herein,”

intimating that the church was to be built at Geneu’r Glyn, and that Glanfreadfawr farm house was to occupy the place where they were then endeavouring to build the church. The prophecy, or warning, was attended to, and the church erection abandoned, but the work was carried out at Geneu’r Glyn, in accordance with the Spirit’s direction, and the church was built in its present position.

VI. WREXHAM CHURCH.

The following extract is from Mr. A. Neobard Palmer’s excellent History of the Parish Church of Wrexham, p. 6:—“There is a curious local tradition, which, as I understand it, points distinctly to a re-erection of one of the earlier churches on a site different from that on which the church preceding it had stood.”

“According to the tradition just mentioned, which was collected and first published by the late Mr. Hugh Davies, the attempt to build the church on another spot (at Bryn-y-ffynnon as ’t is said), was constantly frustrated, that which was set up during the day being plucked down in the night. At last, one night when the work wrought on the day before was being watched, the wardens saw it thrown suddenly down, and heard a voice proceeding from a Spirit hovering above them which cried ever ‘Bryn-y-grog!’ ‘Bryn-y-grog!’ Now the site of the present church was at that time called ‘Bryn-y-grog’ (Hill of the Cross), and it was at once concluded that this was the spot on which the church should be built. The occupier of this spot, however, was exceedingly unwilling to part with the inheritance of his forefathers, and could only be induced to do so when the story which has just been related was told to him, and other land given him instead. The church was then founded at ‘Bryn-y-grog,’ where the progress of the work suffered no interruption, and where the Church of Wrexham still stands.”

Mr. Palmer, having remarked that there is a striking resemblance between all the traditions of churches removed mysteriously, proceeds to solve the difficulty, in these words:—

“The conclusions which occurred to me were, that these stories contain a record, imaginative and exaggerated, of real incidents connected with the history of the churches to which each of them belongs, and that they are in most cases reminiscences of an older church which once actually stood on another site. The destroying powers of which they all speak were probably human agents, working in the interest of those who were concerned in the transference of the site of the church about to be re-built; while the stories, as a whole, were apparently concocted and circulated with the intention of overbearing the opposition which the proposed transference raised—an opposition due to the inconvenience of the site proposed, to sacred associations connected with the older site, or to the unwillingness of the occupier to surrender the spot selected.”

This is, as everything Mr. Palmer writes, pertinent, and it is a reasonable solution, but whether it can be made to apply to all cases is somewhat doubtful. Perhaps we have not sufficient data to arrive at a correct explanation of this kind of myth. The objection was to the place selected and not to the building about to be erected on that spot; and the agents engaged in the destruction of the proposed edifice differ in different places; and in many instances, where these traditions exist, the land around, as regards agricultural uses, was equally useful, or equally useless, and often the distance between the two sites is not great, and the land in our days, at least, and presumably in former, belonged to the same proprietor—if indeed it had a proprietor at all. We must, therefore, I think, look

outside the occupier of the land for objections to the surrender of the spot first selected as the site of the new church.

Mr. Gomme, in an able article in the Antiquary, vol. iii., p. 8-13, on “Some traditions and superstitions connected with buildings,” gives many typical examples of buildings removed by unseen agencies, and, from the fact that these stories are found in England, Scotland, and other parts, he rightly infers that they had a common origin, and that they take us back to primitive times of British history. The cause of the removal of the stones in those early times, or first stage of their history, is simply described as invisible agency, witches, fairies; in the second stage of these myths, the supernatural agency becomes more clearly defined, thus:—doves, a pig, a cat, a fish, a bull, do the work of demolishing the buildings, and Mr. Gomme remarks with reference to these animals:—“Now here we have some glimmer of light thrown upon the subject—the introduction of animal life leads to the subject of animal sacrifice.” I will not follow Mr. Gomme in this part of his dissertation, but I will remark that the agencies he mentions as belonging to the first stage are identical in Wales, England, and Scotland, and we have an example of the second stage in Wales, in the traditions of Llanfair Dyffryn Clwyd, and of Llangar Church, near Corwen.

VII. LLANGAR CHURCH.

“The tradition is that Llangar Church was to have been built near the spot where the Cynwyd Bridge crosses the Dee. Indeed, we are told that the masons set to work, but all the stones they laid in the day were gone during the night none knew whither. The builders were warned, supernaturally, that they must seek a spot where on hunting a ‘Carw Gwyn’ (white stag) would be started. They did

so, and Llangar Church is the result. From this circumstance the church was called Llan-garw-gwyn, and from this name the transition to Llangar is easy.”—Gossiping Guide to Wales, p. 128.

I find in a document written by the Rural Dean for the guidance of the Bishop of St. Asaph, in 1729, that the stag was started in a thicket where the Church of Llangar now stands. “And (as the tradition is) the boundaries of the parish on all sides were settled for ’em by this poor deer, where he was forc’d to run for his life, there lye their bounds. He at last fell, and the place where he was killed is to this day called Moel y Lladdfa, or the Hill of Slaughter.”

VIII. ST. DAVID’S CHURCH, DENBIGH.

There is a tradition connected with Old St. David’s Church, Denbigh, recorded in Gee’s Guide to Denbigh, that the building could not be completed, because whatever portion was finished in the day time was pulled down and carried to another place at night by some invisible hand, or supernatural power.

The party who malignantly frustrates the builders’ designs is in several instances said to have been the Devil. “We find,” says Mr. William Crossing, in the Antiquary, vol. iv., p. 34, “that the Church of Plymton St. Mary, has connected with it the legend so frequently attached to ecclesiastical buildings, of the removal by the Enemy of Mankind of the building materials by night, from the spot chosen for its erection to another at some distance.”

And again, Mr A. N. Palmer, quoting in the Antiquary, vol. iv., p. 34, what was said at the meeting of the British Association, in 1878, by Mr. Peckover, respecting the detached Tower of the Church of West Walton, near Wisbech, Norfolk, writes:—“During the early days of that

Church the Fenmen were very wicked, and the Evil Spirit hired a number of people to carry the tower away.”

Mr. W. S. Lach-Szyrma, in the Antiquary, vol. iii., p. 188, writes:—“Legends of the Enemy of Mankind and some old buildings are numerous enough—e.g., it is said that as the masons built up the towers of Towednack Church, near St. Ives, the Devil knocked the stones down; hence its dwarfed dimensions.”

The preceding stories justify me in relegating this kind of myth to the same class as those in which spirits are driven from churches and laid in a neighbouring pool; and perhaps in these latter, as in the former, is dimly seen traces of the antagonism, in remote times, between peoples holding different religious beliefs, and the steps taken by one party to seize and appropriate the sacred spots of the other.