There is an incredible tradition connected with this place Ffinant, Trefeglwys. It is said that an old barn stands on the right hand side of the highway. One Sunday morning, as the master was starting to church, he told one of the servants to keep the crows from a field that had been sown with wheat, in which field the old barn stood. The servant, through some means, collected all the crows into the barn, and shut the door on them. He then followed his master to the Church, who, when he saw the servant there, began to reprove him sharply. But the master, when he heard the strange news, turned his steps homewards, and found to his amazement that the tale was true, and it is said that the barn was filled with crows. This barn, ever afterwards was called Crow-barn, a name it still retains.
It is said that the servant’s name was Dafydd Hiraddug, and that he had sold himself to the devil, and that consequently, he was able to perform feats, which in this age are considered incredible. However, it is said that Dafydd was on this occasion more subtle than the old serpent, even according to the agreement which was between them. The contract was, that the devil was to have complete possession of Dafydd if his corpse were taken over the side of the bed, or through a door, or if buried in a churchyard, or inside a church. Dafydd had commanded, that on his death, the liver and lights were to be taken out of his body and thrown on the dunghill, and notice was to be taken whether a raven or a dove got possession of them; if a raven, then his body was to be taken away by the foot, and not by the side
of the bed, and through the wall, and not through the door, and he was to be buried, not in the churchyard nor in the Church, but under the Church walls. And the devil, when he saw that by these arrangements he had been duped cried, saying:—
Dafydd Hiraddug, badly bred,
False when living, and false when dead.
Such is the tale. I now come to another series of Folk-Lore stories, which seem to imply that in ancient days rival religions savagely contended for the supremacy, and in these tales also Satan occupies a prominent position.
Satan and Churches.
The traditional stories that are still extant respecting the determined opposition to the erection of certain churches in particular spots, and the removal of the materials during the night to some other site, where ultimately the new edifice was obliged to be erected, and the many stories of haunted churches, where evil spirits had made a lodgment, and could not for ages be ousted, are evidences of the antagonism of rival forms of paganism, or of the opposition of an ancient religion to the new and intruding Christian Faith.
Brash in his Ogam Inscribed Stones, p. 109, speaking of Irish Churches, says:—
“It is well known that many of our early churches were erected on sites professedly pagan.”
The most ancient churches in Wales have circular or ovoidal churchyards—a form essentially Celtic—and it may well be that these sacred spots were dedicated to religious purposes in pagan times, and were appropriated by the early Christians,—not, perhaps, without opposition on the part of the adherents of the old faith—and consecrated to the use of the Christian religion. In these churchyards were often to be found holy, or sacred wells, and many of them