A GIRL WHO WAS BEWITCHED BY THE GYPSIES, NEAR CARMARTHEN.
About fifty years ago there was a young woman very ill in the parish of Llanllawddog, Carmarthenshire, but no one could tell what was the matter with her, and the doctor had failed to cure her. At last, her mother went to consult the local wizard, who at that time kept a school in the neighbouring parish of Llanpumpsaint, and lived at a place called Fos-y-Broga. At the woman’s request the conjurer accompanied her home to see her daughter. After seeing the girl he entered into a private room alone for a few minutes, and wrote something on a sheet of paper which he folded up and tied it with a thread. This he gave to the woman and directed her to put the thread round her daughter’s neck, with the folded paper suspending on her breast. He also told the mother to remember to be at the girl’s bedside at twelve o’clock that night. The young woman was put in bed, and the wizard’s folded paper on her breast. The mother sat down by the fireside till midnight; and when the clock struck twelve she heard her daughter groaning. She ran at once to the poor girl’s bedside, and found her almost dying with pain; but very soon she suddenly recovered and felt as well in health as ever. The conjurer had told the girl’s mother that she had been bewitched by the Gypsies, which caused her illness, and warned the young woman to keep away from such vagrants in the future. The Conjurer’s paper, which had charmed away her illness was put away safely in a cupboard amongst other papers and books; and many years after this when a cousin of the mother was searching for some will or some other important document, he accidentally opened the wizard’s paper and to his surprise found on it written:
“Abracadabra,
Sickness depart from me.”
My informant, whose name is Jones, an old farmer in the parish of Llanpumpsaint, vouches for the truth of the above story, and that the young woman was a relation of his.
Another old man, named Benjamin Phillips, who lives in the same neighbourhood gave me a similar tale of another girl bewitched by the Gypsies, and recovered by obtaining some wild herbs from a conjurer. Such stories are common all over the country. Certain plants, especially Meipen Fair, were supposed to possess the power of destroying charms.