In Wales the belief exists that the devil can manifest as a pig, calf, dog, or headless horse.
A woman once passing through a village in North Pembrokeshire at night shouted, "Come out, you evil one!" and there appeared a white cat in answer to her call. In the same country a certain Mr. David Walter was passing two large stones called locally the Devil's Nags, accompanied by a mastiff, when an apparition in the form of a huge dog appeared in his path. He tried to set his own animal upon the other, but the mastiff was frightened and would not attack the phantom. Thereupon Walter picked up a stone and was about to throw it at the evil beast when it was suddenly illumined by a circle of fire, and he knew it to be one of the "infernal dogs of hell."
A black calf was said to haunt a stream in the same neighbourhood and one night two villagers caught the animal and took it home. They locked it up safely as they thought, but in the morning it had disappeared.
The Roaring Bull of Bagbury is a famous Shropshire ghost. Miss Georgina Jackson recites the story as it was told by an old farmer called Hayward.[155]
A very bad man lived at Bagbury Farm, and when he died it was said of him that he had only done two good deeds in his life, one being to give a waistcoat to a poor old man and the other a piece of bread and cheese to a poor village lad. After he was dead, his ghost refused to rest and haunted the farm buildings in the shape of a bull, roaring till the boards, the shutters, and the tiles seemed about to fly off the outhouses. It was quite impossible for anyone to live within range of this roaring which usually began about nine or ten o'clock at night, sometimes even earlier, and at last became so troublesome that the people at the farmhouse sent for twelve parsons to lay the ghost.
When the parsons came "they got him under," but could not lay him, and at last they drove him, still in the shape of a bull, into Hessington Church. All the parsons carried candles, and one of them, who was blind, knowing that there was danger from a stampede, placed his lighted candle in his top-boot. It was a good thing that he did so, for presently the animal made a great rush, and out went every candle except that belonging to the blind parson who said, as though prepared for the event, "You light your candles by mine." But before he was laid the bull made such a "burst" that he cracked the wall of the church from top to bottom, as hundreds of witnesses have asserted from that day to this.
At last they secured the ghost "down into a snuffbox," as the custom is, and he begged that he might be laid under Bagbury Bridge, declaring that every mare that passed over the bridge should lose her foal and every woman her child. This threat made them refuse his request, and they laid him in the Red Sea, where he has to remain for a thousand years. The knowledge that he was so far away did not prevent the villagers being very chary of crossing Bagbury Bridge at night-time.
Another story of a man who turned into a bull after death is told of a squire at Millidrope in Corve Dale. He was killed by a fall from one of the upper windows of the Hall, and an indelible blood-stain marks the spot. Unfortunately for his peace of mind, his estate, owing to his own carelessness or to the malpractices of his trustees, went to the wrong heir. Unable to rest in his grave owing to this piece of injustice, the squire haunted his own parish, where he was frequently seen in the guise of a flayed bull.[156]
Edmund Swifte tells a story of an animal ghost in the Tower, which appeared while he was keeper of the Crown Jewels. The peculiar point about the story is that this phantom animal was seen with fatal results. One of the night sentries in the Jewel chamber was alarmed by a figure like a huge bear issuing from beneath the door. He thrust at it with his bayonet, which stuck in the door. Then he fell into a fit and was carried senseless to the guard-room. His fellow sentry declared that the man was neither asleep nor drunk, he himself having seen him the moment before awake and sober. Swifte saw the man in the guard-house after the incident, when he lay prostrated with terror, and two or three days later the poor sentry was dead.[157]
In the outer Hebrides it is believed that demons take the form of dogs, and a story is told of a priest's dog which was lying on the hearth while his master was hearing confessions. Suddenly the animal started up, annoyed beyond endurance by the atmosphere of ultra-piety and, exclaiming, "If you liked me before, you never will again," he vanished amidst a shower of sparks.