MEN CHANGED INTO ANIMALS.
It is said that an old witch near Ystrad Meurig, in Cardiganshire, turned a servant man of a farm called Dolfawr, into a hare on one occasion; and into a horse on another occasion and rode him herself.
In the Mabinogion we have the Boar Trwyth, who was once a King, but God had transformed into a swine for his sins. Nynniaw and Peibaw also had been turned into oxen. And in the topography of Ireland, by Giraldus Cambrensis, mention is made of a man and a woman, natives of Ossory, who through the curse of one Natalis, had been compelled to assume the form of wolves. And while speaking of witches changing themselves into hares the same writer adds: “We agree, then, with Augustine, that neither demons nor wicked men can either create or really change their nature, but those whom God has created can, to outward appearance, by His permission, become transformed, so that they appear to be what they are not.”
If learned men, like Augustine and Giraldus Cambrensis and others, believed such stories, it is no wonder that ignorant people did so. I am inclined to believe, like the late Rev. Elias Owen, that the transformation fables that have descended to us would seem to be fossils of a pagan faith once common to the Celtic and other cognate races.
The belief in transformation and transmigration has lingered among some people almost to the present day. Mr. Thomas Evans, Gwaralltyryn, in the parish of Llandyssul, informed me that he was well-acquainted with an old Ballad singer, who was known as Daniel Y Baledwr. Daniel lived near Castle Howel, and sang at Llandyssul fairs, songs composed by Rees Jones, of Pwllffein. This ballad-singer told my informant that he was sure to return after death in the form of a pig, or of some other animal; and that an animal had a soul or spirit as well as a man had.