A Ghost Appearing To Point Out Hidden Treasures
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STORIES OF SATAN, GHOSTS, ETC.
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Welsh Folk-lore
There is a farm house called Clwchdyrnog in the parish of Llanddeusant,
Anglesey, which was said to have been haunted by a Spirit. It seems that
no one would summon courage to speak to the Ghost, though it was seen by
several parties; but one night, John Hughes, Bodedern, a widower, who
visited the house for the purpose of obtaining a second Mrs. Hughes from
among the servant girls there, spoke to the Ghost. The presence of the
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Spirit was indicated by a great noise in the room where Hughes and the
girl were. In great fright Hughes invoked the Spirit, and asked why he
troubled the house. Have I done any wrong to you, said he, addressing
the Spirit. No, was the answer. Then he asked if the girl to whom he
was paying his attentions was the cause of the Spirit's visit, and again
he received the answer, No. Then Hughes named individually all the
inmates of the house in succession, and inquired if they were the cause
of the Spirit's visits, and again he was answered in the negative. Then
he asked why, since no one in the house had disturbed the Spirit, he came
there to disturb the inmates. To this pertinent question the Spirit
answered as follows:--There are treasures hidden on the south side of
Ffynnon Wen, which belong to, and are to be given to, the nine months old
child in this house: when this is done, I will never disturb this house
any more.
The spot occupied by the treasure was minutely described by the Spirit,
and Hughes promised to go to the place indicated. The next day, he went
to the spot, and digging into the ground, he came upon an iron chest
filled with gold, silver, and other valuables, and all these things he
faithfully delivered up to the parents of the child to be kept by them
for him until he should come of age to take possession of them himself.
This they faithfully did, and the Spirit never again came to the house.
John Rowland, my informant, was a native of Anglesey, and he stated that
all the people of Llanddeusant knew of the story which he related to me.
He was eighty-three years old at the time he told me the tale, and that
was in October, 1882.
But one of the most singular tales of the appearance of a Ghost is
recorded in the autobiography of the grandfather of the late Mr. Thomas
Wright, the well-known Shropshire antiquary. Mr. Wright's grandfather
was a Methodist, and in the early days of that body the belief in
apparitions was not uncommon amongst them. The story was told Mr.
Wright, sen., in 1780, at the house, in Yorkshire, of Miss Bosanquet
(afterwards the wife of Fletcher of Madeley), by Mr. John Hampson, sen.,
a well-known preacher among the Methodists, who had just arrived from
Wales.
As the scene of the tale is laid in Powis Castle, I will call this
visitation