I am grieved to find that Sir John Wynne, who wrote the interesting and valuable History of the Gwydir Family, which ought to have secured for him kindly recognition from his countrymen, was by them deposited after death, for troubling good people, in Rhaiadr y Wenol. The superstition has found a place in Yorke’s Royal Tribes of Wales.
The following quotation is from the History of the Gwydir Family, Oswestry Edition, p. 7:—
“Being shrewd and successful in his dealings, people were led to believe he oppressed them,” and says Yorke in his Royal Tribes of Wales, “It is the superstition of Llanrwst to this day that the Spirit of the old gentleman lies under the great waterfall, Rhaiadr y Wennol, there to be punished, purged, spouted upon and purified from the foul deeds done in his days of nature.”
This gentleman, though, is not alone in occupying, until his misdeeds are expiated, a watery grave. There is hardly a pool in a river, or lake in which Spirits have not, according to popular opinion, been laid. In our days though, it is only the aged that speak of such matters.
A Spirit could in part be laid. It is said that Abel Owen’s Spirit, of Henblas, was laid by Gruffydd Jones, Cilhaul, in a bottle, and buried in a gors near Llanrwst.
This Gruffydd Jones had great trouble at Hafod Ucha between Llanrwst and Conway, to lay a Spirit. He began in the afternoon, and worked hard the whole night and the next day to lay the Spirit, but he succeeded in overcoming a part only of the Spirit. He was nearly dead from exhaustion and want of food before he could even master a portion of the Spirit.
The preceding is a singular tale, for it teaches that Spirits are divisible. A portion of this Spirit, repute says, is still at large, whilst a part is undergoing purification.
The following tale was told me by my friend, the Rev. T. H. Evans, Vicar of Llanwddyn.
Cynon’s Ghost.
One of the wicked Spirits which plagued the secluded Valley of Llanwddyn long before it was converted into a vast reservoir to supply Liverpool with water was that of Cynon. Of this Spirit Mr. Evans writes thus:—“Yspryd Cynon was a mischievous goblin, which was put down by Dic Spot and put in a quill, and placed under a large stone in the river below Cynon Isaf. The stone is called ‘Careg yr Yspryd,’ the Ghost Stone. This one received the following instructions, that he was to remain under the stone until the water should work its way between the stone and the dry land.”