Stevenson Ceredigion Folk Tales

1. Auflage 2014
ISBN: 978-0-7509-5532-4
Verlag: The History Press
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: 6 - ePub Watermark

E-Book, Englisch, 208 Seiten

Ceredigion is a land shaped by mythology, where mermaids and magic mix with humans and where ordinary people achieve extraordinary things. This is a captivating collection of traditional and modern stories, including the submerged city of Cantre'r Gwaelod, or the 'Welsh Atlantis', how the Devil came to build a bridge over the Rheidol, the elephant that died in Tregaron, and how the Holy Grail came to Nanteos. All the while the tylwyth teg (the Welsh fairies) and changelings run riot through the countryside. Storyteller and illustrator Peter Stevenson takes us on a tour of a county steeped in legend, encountering ghosts, witches and heroes at every turn.

PETER STEVENSON is a professional storyteller and illustrator, and is the organiser of Aberystwyth Storytelling Festival. He performs widely at festivals and events and has curated many exhibitions based on the tales he tells. He has produced books internationally for publishers such as Ladybird and Hodder & Stoughton.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Stevenson, Peter

Leseproben

2

SIR DAFYDD LLWYD,
THE CONJURER OF CEREDIGION

In Itinerarium Cambriae (1191), a description of his tour of Wales three years previously, Giraldus Cambrensis describes meeting soothsayers who when consulted go into a trance, lose control of their senses as if they are possessed, speak apparently meaningless words which suggest answers to your problems, and have to be violently shaken to wake them. Gerald is describing conjurers, dynion hysbys, cunning men. There have been many in Ceredigion, some charismatic, others solitary, all working their magic in very different ways, and all with their books of spells and written remedies. John Harries of Cwrt-y-Cadno served much of the south of the county early in the nineteenth century, Evan Griffiths from Llangurig oversaw the north, and there were others from Pencader, Talybont, Goginan, Trefechan and Ponterwyd. Then there was Sir Dafydd Llwyd of Ysbyty Ystwyth.

Sir Dafydd lived in the early eighteenth century. He was a clergyman who learned the Black Arts when in Oxford, which lead to him being defrocked by the bishop, taking the title of Sir, and moving to Ysbyty Ystwyth. He had a book of spells where he kept his familiar, a demon which shapeshifted and assisted him in his art. He had no rivals, and there is no description of him, which only adds to his mystique. A conjurer from Lampeter once challenged him to a battle of the Black Arts, to demonstrate their control over demons. On the appointed morning, Sir Dafydd arrived early and sent his young apprentice boy to the top of the hill to watch the road from Lampeter. The boy was eager to please, and aware of what might happen to him if he didn’t obey. He scampered up the hill and saw a savage bull approaching. Sir Dafydd proclaimed it was a demon sent from Lampeter, so he stood on Craig Ysguboriau, opened his book of spells and confronted the bull. The bull, seeing what he thought was a clergyman, pawed the ground, bent his head and charged. The conjurer stood his ground and commanded the bull to turn and follow the road back to Lampeter, which it did, goring the Lampeter conjurer to death on the way.

Sir Dafydd was making house calls in Rhaeadr and, on returning to Ceredigion, realised that he had left his book of spells behind. He sent his apprentice boy to fetch it, warning him that under no circumstances was he to look inside, but knowing with certainty that he would. The boy was a curious lad with shaggy black hair, deep eyes and an inquisitive and fearless nature. He sat down and opened the book by the banks of the Wye, the written words began to shiver and shift, and out of the book leapt a monkey demon, a big one, with furrowed eyebrows, hunched shoulders, a bald patch and long ape-like arms. It gazed around, looking gormless, and started to swear. The boy had been taught well, and despite his fear he remembered a spell, ‘Tafl Gerrig o’r Afon’, and immediately the simple demon leapt into the river and started throwing stones onto the bank. When there were few stones left, the boy couldn’t think of another spell, so he ordered the demon to throw the stones back into the river. Then to throw them onto the bank again. This went on until the demon became angry and the idea formed in his small mind that he could either ignore the boy, or eat him. Sir Dafydd had been watching from afar, and commanded the demon back into the book, leaving the boy thinking he had just won a great battle.

One day, Sir Dafydd had been on business in Montgomeryshire, and was feeling too tired for the long journey home, so he summoned a demon in the form of a horse, a black snorting wild creature, and he rode home with his apprentice boy sat behind him, clutching on for dear life. The journey was fast and rollicking and the boy sensed that they were flying, though it was too dark to see. He had been told of another conjurer, Sir Dafydd Siôn Evan of Llanbadarn Fawr, who flew through the air on a talking demon horse, often returning after weeks away covered in seaweed or sulphur. When he got home the boy found he had dropped his sock, so in the morning he set off back along the road to look for it, and found it hanging from the topmost branch of an ash tree. The boy was convinced that Sir Dafydd had flown through the air that night.

The apprentice boy was beginning to learn a few tricks from his master, and one Sunday when Sir Dafydd was on his way to church – ‘keeping up appearances’ as he put it – he told the boy to be a scarecrow and keep the crows from his corn. The boy decided that chasing crows all day was too energetic, and when Sir Dafydd returned, he found the boy fast asleep under an oak tree. He was about to scold him most severely when he noticed that every crow in the neighbourhood was locked in his barn. The conjurer smiled to know his boy was learning how to command birds.

A local tailor visited the celebrated conjurer and told him that a man had come into his shop to be measured for a new cloak, but the tailor was afraid because the man wore a hood over his head, had deep eyes, big teeth, cloven hooves for feet, and smelled strongly of sulphur. Sir Dafydd advised the tailor to measure the man as agreed, but to keep behind him and never to show himself. When the man came for his new cloak, the tailor kept behind, and every time the man turned, the tailor turned too. The man commanded the tailor to appear in front of him, and there stood Sir Dafydd, who ordered the man to ‘Go, and never return,’ which he did, for as the conjurer had already sold his soul in return for his powers, the Devil could do little until the contract expired.

The apprentice boy was learning fast, and one day he punched the conjurer on the nose until blood dripped. Sir Dafydd stared at the boy through dark eyes, and the boy met his gaze until the conjurer threw his head back and laughed, because he knew that to draw blood from a dyn hysbys meant they could never command you ever again. The apprentice boy had served his time.

Sir Dafydd was the last of the colourful conjurers. Those who came after were nonetheless in demand, curing cattle, lifting curses, finding lost objects, counteracting witchcraft, laying spirits and dispensing remedies. In the 1800s Evan Morris from Goginan often consulted a conjurer when his pigs and cattle were ill. The conjurer, probably Edward Davies from nearby Ponterwyd, drew circles over a sheet of paper, filled them with indecipherable writing and symbols, and told Mr Morris to rub the paper over the animal’s back from ears to tail muttering, ‘In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost.’ This same charm worked on Mr Morris’ sister-in-law’s old pig. A farmer from Llangwyryfon called on Harries – either John or Henry, it’s not clear which one – of Cwrt-y-cadno when his butter would not churn. The conjurer gave him a piece of paper with a spell written on it, and told him to show it to no one. On his way home, the farmer was stopped by a woman who asked to see Harries’ paper. He showed it to her, and when he returned home, the spell failed to work. He paid for another spell which he showed to no one, and only then did the butter churn. The Llangurig conjurer John Morgan cured a horse of the shivers after a witch in Pontrhydfendigaid in the mid-1850s had cursed it. Around the same time, a man from Lledrod believed his belly pain was due to a woman who was terrorising the neighbourhood, and he only recovered with the help of the Llangurig conjurer. At Penpompren near Talybont a conjurer transformed a spirit into an insect, caught it in a bottle and threw it into the river beneath a bridge. In Tregaron there was a sin-eater who would place a cake or bread on the man’s chest and eat it, so removing a lifetime’s sins.

The Ceredigion conjurers often used the word ‘abracadabra’, written as an inverted triangle with one letter fewer each time until there is only an ‘a’ on the last line. This protected against curses, witches and the evil eye. The charms were kept in bottles on shelves in the home or near the animals.

Conjurers could be a little mischievous. Dick Spot from Llanrwst, named after a black spot near his nose, was on his way home when he was delayed by a public house at Henllan. He was charged 4d for a glass of beer and 6d for bread and cheese, which he considered outrageous, so after paying the bill he wrote a spell on a scrap of paper, hid it under the table, and left. Later that evening, the landlord saw the servant girl dancing like a mad thing round the table, shouting at the top of her voice, ‘Six and four are ten, count it o’er again.’ He tried to stop her but found himself joining her in her dance, both of them shouting, ‘Six and four are ten, count it o’er again.’ His wife, disturbed by the noise, found her husband dancing shamelessly with the pretty servant girl, tried to stop them and with a hop and a jump she too joined in the dance, all of them singing, ‘Six and four are ten, count it o’er again.’ A neighbour heard the racket and, guessing that Dick Spot was the cause, set off after the conjurer to ask him to release the people from his spell.

‘Oh,’ said Dick, ‘if you wish to stop the madness, just burn the piece of paper that is under the table.’ This done, the cavorting stopped and the three people collapsed to the floor, exhausted.

In the late 1950s, the librarian of the National Library of Wales received a phone call from a family in Llanidloes concerning a member of their family from Llangurig who had just died in his 90s. He was said to be the last dyn hysbys, who reputedly had charms and potions that could take away warts and blemishes. The librarian was asked to remove...