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Folk-Lore of West and Mid-Wales

Chapter 253: THE WIZARD OF LLANPUMPSAINT AND THE DUCKS OF ALLTYFERIN.
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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.

THE WIZARD OF LLANPUMPSAINT AND THE DUCKS OF ALLTYFERIN.

Mr. Griffiths, of ‘Rhenallt, an old farmer near Carmarthen, informed me about six years ago that long ago when he was a young man, he was once a servant at Alltyferin. Ducks were continually lost at the farm, and his master who suspected a neighbour as the thief, sent Griffiths with a letter to a conjurer who lived at Fosybroga. The wise man sent a note in reply giving a full description of the thief, and he was caught.

A woman in Pembrokeshire, who had lost a most valuable picture, consulted a well-known wizard, who showed her a picture of the thief in a magic glass. She recognised the culprit at once as one of her intimate friends. The wizard then wrote the name of the thief on a piece of paper, and pierced it with a needle, and informed his client that if the picture was not restored to her within half an hour the thief would be eaten up of a strange disease.