also credited with this power, and it was thought that the prayer of a

righteous man could overcome these emissaries of evil.



But there was a place for hope in the case of these transported or laid

Spirits. It was granted to some to return from the Red Sea to the place

whence they departed by the length of a grain of wheat or barley corn

yearly. The untold ages that it would take to accomplish a journey of

four thousand miles thus slowly was but a very secondary consideration to

the annihilation of hope. Many were the conditions imposed upon the

vanquished Spirits by their conquerors before they could be permitted to

return to their old haunts, and well might it be said that the conditions

could not possibly be carried out; but still there was a place for hope

in the breast of the doomed by the imposition of any terminable

punishment.



The most ancient instance of driving out a Spirit that I am acquainted

with is to be found in the Book of Tobit. It seems to be the prototype

of many like tales. The angel Raphael and Tobias were by the river

Tigris, when a fish jumped out of the river, which by the direction of

the angel was seized by the young man, and its heart, and liver, and gall

extracted, and, at the angel's command carefully preserved by Tobias.

When asked what their use might be, the angel informed him that the smoke

of the heart and liver would drive away a devil or Evil Spirit that

troubled anyone. In the 14th verse of the sixth chapter of Tobit we are

told that a devil loved Sara, but that he did no harm to anyone,

excepting to those who came near her. Knowing this, the young man was

afraid to marry the woman; but remembering the words of Raphael, he went

in unto his wife, and took the ashes of the perfumes as ordered, and put

the heart and liver of the fish thereupon, and made a smoke therewith,

the which smell, when the Evil Spirit had smelled, he fled into the

utmost parts of Egypt, and the angel bound him. Such is the story, many

variants of which are found in many countries.



I am grieved to find that Sir John Wynne, who wrote the interesting and

valuable History of the Gwydir Family, which ought to have secured for

him kindly recognition from his countrymen, was by them deposited after

death, for troubling good people, in Rhaiadr y Wenol. The superstition

has found a place in Yorke's Royal Tribes of Wales.



The following quotation is from the History of the Gwydir Family,

Oswestry Edition, p. 7:--



Being shrewd and successful in his dealings, people were led to believe

he oppressed them, and says Yorke in his Royal Tribes of Wales, It is

the superstition of Llanrwst to this day that the Spirit of the old

gentleman lies under the great waterfall, Rhaiadr y Wennol, there to be

punished, purged, spouted upon and purified from the foul deeds done in

his days of nature.



This gentleman, though, is not alone in occupying, until his misdeeds are

expiated, a watery grave. There is hardly a pool in a river, or lake in

which Spirits have not, according to popular opinion, been laid. In our

days though, it is only the aged that speak of such matters.



A Spirit could in part be laid. It is said that Abel Owen's Spirit, of

Henblas, was laid by Gruffydd Jones, Cilhaul, in a bottle, and buried in

a gors near Llanrwst.



This Gruffydd Jones had great trouble at Hafod Ucha between Llanrwst and

Conway, to lay a Spirit. He began in the afternoon, and worked hard the

whole night and the next day to lay the Spirit, but he succeeded in

overcoming a part only of the Spirit. He was nearly dead from exhaustion

and want of food before he could even master a portion of the Spirit.



The preceding is a singular tale, for it teaches that Spirits are

divisible. A portion of this Spirit, repute says, is still at large,

whilst a part is undergoing purification.



The following tale was told me by my friend, the Rev. T. H. Evans, Vicar

of Llanwddyn.