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Folk-Lore of West and Mid-Wales

Chapter 252: A LLANFAIR CLYDOGAU WIZARD.
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About This Book

A compilation of folk beliefs, tales, and customs gathered across western and mid-Wales from elderly informants and local tradition. It presents translated Welsh narratives and organized material on fairies, mermaids and water‑horses, ghosts, witches and wizards, omens, animal superstitions, and popular spells, alongside accounts of wedding, birth, funeral, inheritance and sheep‑shearing customs, divination practices, augury, and prophecies. The emphasis is on literal fidelity to oral testimony and on preserving vanishing traditions rather than offering theoretical interpretation.

A LLANFAIR CLYDOGAU WIZARD.

Mr. Walter Evans (Pentre-Richard), in the Parish of Llanddewi Brefi, informed me a few years ago, before he died, that some years ago, when he lost some sheep, a conjurer who lived on Llanfair mountain, directed or pointed out to him where to find them, and that they were found two days afterwards in some water nearly drowning as the wise man had said. This Llanfair Clydogau conjurer only died about nine years ago, and until he died people consulted him from the surrounding districts of Cardiganshire and Carmarthenshire.

The best service rendered by conjurers to society was to help people to discover thieves, and the superstitious often restored what they had stolen through fear.

On one occasion a man who was often losing potatoes from the field went to Harries, Cwrtycadno, who was a terror to thieves. The conjurer showed him the thief in a magic glass, which enabled the man to discover who the culprit was. In another potato tale, the wise man, by means of his magic art forced the thief to appear at his house and confess his guilt.