On the whole, witches and wise men were feared or respected in Wales, and generally left alone. Wise men (wizards) seem always to have flourished there. At one time, every village had its dyn hysbys. It was said that they maintained their numbers by persuading ignorant country-people to sacrifice their children to the Devil in order to turn them into wise men.
Witches put spells on animals belonging to neighbors who annoyed them. If a cow was the victim it would grow sick for no apparent reason, perhaps stop giving milk, and even die. “Witching” a pig would cause it to have a seizure. There was an example of an old witch living near Llangadock in Carmarthenshire. She had witched a pig and was compelled to unwitch it. She went and put her hand on its back and gave the counter-charm in Welsh, “God keep you to your owner.”
Mary Lewis, the Welsh folklorist, knew a witch who lived not much more than a mile (1.6km) from her own home. The witch was called Mary Perllan Peter. The custom in Wales was to avoid using surnames as there were only a few, and far too many people going by the name of Jones or Davies or Evans, so the person’s forename was used along with their address. Mary lived at a house called Perllan Peter, deep in a wooded ravine. Once she asked a neighbor to take her some com. He agreed reluctantly, as the path down to her cottage was very steep and the sack of com was heavy. He spilt some on the way down and Mary was very angry. She muttered threats to him as he was leaving. When he got home, he was amazed to see his little mare sitting on her haunches and staring wildly. He tried in vain to pull her to her feet. The man became frightened, and thought of the witch’s threats. He set off to find Mary, to get her to remove the spell. She went to the mare and said simply, “What ails you now?” The mare jumped to her feet and was as well as ever.
Other, similar stories were told about Mary.
In Cardiganshire, as in other rural districts, it was commonly believed that when the butter would not “come” when it was being churned it had been bewitched. There were always remedies. One was to hang a branch from a rowan tree over the dairy door. Another was to put a knife in the chum; witches, like fairies, hate iron.
When Mary Lewis was staying at Aberdovey, she noticed a strangely shaped depression on the top of the hill behind the school. When she asked about it, she was told it was called the Witch’s Grave, that a witch was supposed to have been burned there and her ashes were buried on the spot. The old village green used to be up on that little plateau and if there ever was a witch-burning, that would have been the place. That was the only example Mary Lewis found of witches being ill-treated.
In about 1600, however, the Reverend Rees Prichard wrote a hymn against conjurers:
To drag children through a hoop,
Or flame offire on All Hallows Eve,
And taking them to the mill bin to be shaken.
Is the way of sacrificing them to the Evil One.
The first image may refer to an old Welsh custom of passing delicate children through a split ash to cure them of rickets and other ailments. The intention was to effect a cure, though, not to dedicate the child to the Devil.
Some of the stories about wizards reveal them to be frauds. A wise man who lived at a farm near Borth, not far from Aberystwyth, was frequently consulted; he sometimes wrote charms for people to wear. A girl in the district was ailing and her relatives thought a spell had been put on her. They went to the wizard, who told them that the first person they met on the way home was the witch who had put the spell on the girl. They set off and the first person they met was a harmless old man whom they knew must be innocent. Naturally they hurried back to the wise man to remonstrate, but he was as cool as could be: “It was not he, but his brother, who is dead. The girl will not be well until the brother’s body is decayed.” He was a poor and unconvincing wizard, to say the least.
Sometimes, surprisingly, it was the vicar who was the local wizard. There was a well-known Vicar Pritchard of Pwllheli who was well-known for being able to lay ghosts. A hundred years ago he was still remembered in Merionethshire as a usefial man to bring in if people were troubled by ghosts. He went armed with book and candle and said to one ghost, ‘TSfow, will you promise me to cease troubling this house as long as this candle lasts?” The spirit gladly promised, thinking there was perhaps an hour to wait. But the vicar put out the candle, put it into a lead box, and sealed and buried the box under a tree, where it still lies. What he was doing was in a long tradition of Welsh witchcraft.
As well as witches and wizards, there were also herb doctors, who prescribed various substances—often rather unpleasant substances—as cures. Dried earthworms were prescribed for fits. Oil of earthworms was prescribed for the nerves and “pain of the joints.” Snail water was particularly awful.
RECIPE FOR SNAIL WATER
Of Garden Snails two pounds, the juice of ground ivy, colt’s foot, scabious lungwort, pur slain, ambrosia, Paul’s betony, hog’s blood and white wine, dried tobacco leaves, liquorice elecampane, orris, cotton seeds, annis seeds, saffron, petals of red roses, violets and borage. Steep all of this three days and then distil Then drink. [Readers are strongly advised not to try this.]
A man called Brookes wrote A General Dispensatory in 1753 and in it he listed some of the odd materials currently used by medics and quacks. Various stones were recommended: Eagle-stone, Jew’s stone, Blood stone, and several others. Brookes claimed, “The stones are cried up as an antidote against all manner of poisons, plagues, contagious diseases, malignant fevers, the smallpox and measles.” Sometimes the stone was ground and drunk as a powder in a drink; sometimes it was applied externally by being rubbed onto the body. A particular stone, the size of a large marble, was used repeatedly in Cardiganshire to cure goitre.
In some parts of Wales a dried toad tucked into the armpit was believed to ward off fever. The unfortunate toads were put into an earthen pot and gradually dried in a moderate oven until they were dry enough to reduce to a powder. A similar powder made from bees “trimly decks a bald head being washed with it.”
Some remedies were very ordinary (mbbing a potato on a joint to cure rheumatism, and nettle tea for the chest), while others were not so (crab’s eyes to cure pleurisy, and snail broth to cure consumption). Amber was worn as a powerfrjl charm against blindness, the evil eye—and witches.
WYVERN
See Dragon.
World History
