The following is a copy of the paper written by the late Mr. John Lloyd:—
LLAETHFAEN.
I know very little about this stone or what curative power it has or was supposed to have. I only know that it was very much in request many years ago. It came to my father’s possession on the death of his uncle, Rev. David Bowen, of Waunifor about the year 1847. In those days and for many years afterwards, mad dogs were very “fashionable,” a summer never passing without one hearing of a great many people having been bitten, and, consequently, a great many people called at Gilfachwen for a dose of the Llaethfaen, and whether it had curative or preventive powers or not, none of the patients were ever known to be attacked with hydrophobia. People who had been bitten would travel immense distances in order to get the stone. I remember a whole family, father, mother, and four or five children, who had been bitten by the same dog, arriving at Gilfachwen early one summer morning, before anyone was up, having travelled all night in order to be treated with the stone cure; they went away very happy and relieved in mind, after each had received a dose. It has not been used now for many years. The last instance I recollect was this: two men employed in a Brewery at Llanon, on the Cardigan coast, had been bitten by the same dog, supposed to be mad, arrived here on a Sunday afternoon; poor fellows, they looked utterly miserable and wretched; they had spent nearly a week enquiring for the stone, and meanwhile, had been advised by some old woman who was supposed to be learned in some ailments, not to eat any food; this advice they very foolishly followed, and when they arrived here, they were truly in a terrible plight. After giving each of them a dose of the Llaethfaen and a good meal they went away happy and never heard of them since.
JOHN LLOYD, Gilfachwen.
It is rather interesting that Iolo Morganwg saw a stone of this kind in the year 1802, in the neighbourhood of Bridell, North Pembrokeshire. The following extracts from Iolo’s Diary appeared in “Young Wales,” June, 1901:—“Leave Cardigan, take the road to Llanfernach. Bridell Church.... Meet a man who carries a stone about the country, which he calls Llysfaen. Scrapes it into powder with a knife, and sells it at about five shillings an ounce as an infallible remedy for the canine madness. He says that this stone is only to be found on the mountains after a thunderstorm, that every eye cannot see it. He showed me the stone, and when I assured him and a little crowd that had gathered about him, that the stone was only a piece of the Glamorgan alabaster, the poor fellow was confounded and seemed very angry; but I was surprised to hear many positively assert that they had actually seen the Hydrophobia cured in dogs and man with this powder given in milk, and used as the only liquid to be taken nine days, and the only food also.... The name by which this fellow named his stone is obviously a corruption of Cleisfaen, from its blushy white colour, veined or spotted with a livid or blackish blue colour like that of a bruise (clais).”
The excellent old Welsh Magazine “Y Gwyliedydd” for the year 1824, page 343, gives an account of two other such stones, one of them preserved at Maes y Ffynon, Maelienydd, and the other at Llwyn Madog, Breconshire. How these two stones were discovered the following story is given:—A man attacked with hydrophobia wandered away one day and slept on a hill, where he dreamt that a remedy for his disease was to be found in the ground under his head, where he was sleeping. After digging the ground, two white stones were discovered.
A healing stone supposed to have descended from the sky was discovered on a farm called Disgwylfa, in Carmarthenshire.