The farmer who was hiding in the straw heard everything, and made up his mind to travel to Carmarthen at once, so as to be there in time to find his cows on the Bridge. So off he went to Carmarthen, and reached the Bridge just at 12 o’clock, and to his great joy the cows were there. Then he drove them home, but when he had gone about half-a-mile from the Bridge, the cows fell down as if half dead on the roadside, and in vain did he try to get them to move forward any further. So he had to go all the way to Cwrt-y-Cadno again, so as to consult what to do. When he arrived there “Serve thee right,” said the wizard to him, “I have cast a spell on thy cattle for running away secretly last night from the barn without paying me for the information obtained from the spirits.”
Then the farmer gave the wizard a certain sum of money and returned to his three cows which he had left on the road half-a-mile from Carmarthen Bridge; and to his great joy the cows went home without any further trouble.
A FAMILIAR SPIRIT IN THE SHAPE OF A DOG AND THE LONELY NIGHT TRAVELLER.
On one occasion a certain man from Cilcwm, was on a visit in the neighbourhood of Cwrtycadno. When he started to return home it was getting rather late, and he had a long journey to go through a lonely mountainous country. The wizard, Dr. Harries, asked him if he was afraid of such a journey over the mountain in the depth of night. The man confessed that he did not like such a journey at that late hour without a single soul to accompany him, but that he was obliged to go home that night without fail; and so he proceeded on his way. As he journeyed along, the darkness of night overtook him on his way over the mountain, but to his great surprise, when he looked around him, he noticed a black dog following him, or rather walking by his side. The dog was very friendly, and the lonely traveller felt glad of the animal’s company. So on they went together; but when they were nearing his home the dog vanished suddenly into nothing. The man was quite convinced that the dog was nothing but a familiar Spirit, in the shape of a dog, sent by the wizard to bear him company in his lonely night journey.
The above story was related to me by the Rev. J. Phillips, vicar of Llancynfelyn.
CONJURERS AND LUNATICS.
About one hundred years ago there lived in the neighbourhood of Pencader, a wizard, named Phillips, who was very successful in curing lunatics. On one occasion, an old woman from Tregroes, near Llandyssul, took her son to him who had been insane from his birth. The wise man blew into the young man’s face, and informed his mother that he would be sane for twenty years, and so it happened; but after twenty years he became insane again as the wizard had predicted.
My informant was Mr. Rees, Maesymeillion, in the parish of Llandyssul, whose father’s uncle remembered the lunatic.