On their arrival at the river side, a terrible struggle ensued, the Fiend would not submit to be imprisoned, and he made a most determined attempt to drag his captors into the water. He, however, by and by, agreed to enter his prison on the condition that they would lie on their faces towards the ground when he entered the river, this they did, and the Spirit with a splash jumped into the water.
Mr. Roberts further states, that there was a tradition in those parts, that the horse which carried the Devil to the river left the impression of his hoof in a stone by the river side,
but Mr. Roberts assures me that he could never discover this stone, nor did he know of any one who had seen it.
The case of the imprisoned Spirit was not hopeless—tradition says he was to remain in the pool only until he counted all the sand in it. It would almost appear that he had accomplished his task, for Mr. Roberts says that he had heard that his father’s eldest brother whilst driving his team in the dead of night through Llanfor village saw two pigs walking behind the waggon. He thought nothing of this, and began to apply his whip to them, but to no purpose, for they followed him to Llyn-y-Geulan-Goch, and then disappeared.
There was in these latter times some dispute as to the Spirit being still in the pool. This, however, has been settled in the affirmative. A wise man, in company with others, proceeded to the river, and threw a stone with writing on it into the pool, but nothing came of it, and he then affirmed there was no spirit there. This the people would not believe, so he threw another stone into the water, and now the river boiled up and foamed. “Yes,” said the sceptic, “he is there, and there he will remain for a long time.”
Such is Mr. Roberts’s account.
Llyn-y-Geulan-Goch is a pool in the river Dee, about a quarter of a mile from Llanfor village.
For the purpose of shewing how variously tales are narrated, I will give another version of this haunted church, which was taken down by me from the mouth of an aged woman, a native of the village, whose life had been spent among her own people, and who at present lives in a little cottage on the road side between Llanfor Rectory and Bala. Her name is Ann Hughes, she firmly believes the story, but she could not tell how long ago the spirit was driven out of the church, though she thought it was in her grandfather’s days. Her tale was as follows:—
The Evil Spirit was heard but not seen by the people, and he was in the habit of coming down the pathway leading from Rhiwlas to the church, making a great noise, as if dragging after him chains, or wheeling a wheelbarrow, and he went straight into the church, and there he stayed all night lighting up the church and making a great noise, as though engaged in manual labour. There was then a pathway leading to a row of houses situated in the church yard on the north side, and the people who occupied those cottages dared not leave them the live-long night, in fact the whole village avoided that, and every other path in the neighbourhood of the church, whilst the Spirit was in the church, and every one could see when he was there. At last the disturbance was so great that the parson and another man determined to lay the Spirit, and therefore one night they walked three times round the church, and then went into it, and by and by three men were seen emerging from the church and they walked into the public house through the door that opened into the church yard and they went together into the little parlour. The parson had already given instructions that no one was to come to them on any account, nor even to try to get a glimpse of them; but there was a man in the house who went to the keyhole of the parlour and, looking into the room, saw distinctly three men sitting round the table. No sooner, however, had he done so than the parson came out and said if anyone looked through the keyhole again their plans would be frustrated. This put a stop to all further inquisitiveness, and their deliberations were not again interrupted.
Ann Hughes could not tell me what plan was adopted to get rid of the Evil Spirit, but she knew this much, that he was laid in Llyn-y-Geulan-Goch, and that he was to remain there until a lighted candle, which was hidden somewhere