The Conjuror's Dress
:
STORIES OF SATAN, GHOSTS, ETC.
Conjurors, when engaged in their uncanny work, usually wore a grotesque
dress and stood within a circle of protection. I find so graphic a
description of a doctor who dealt in divination in Mr. Hancock's History
of Llanrhaiadr-yn-Mochnant that I will transcribe it:--He (the raiser
of the devils) was much resorted to by the friends of parties mentally
deranged, many of whom he cured. Whenever he assumed to practise the
'black art,' he put on a most grotesque dress, a cap of sheepskin with a
high crown, bearing a plume of pigeons' feathers, and a coat of unusual
pattern, with broad hems, and covered with talismanic characters. In his
hand he had a whip, the thong of which was made of the skin of an eel,
and the handle of bone. With this he drew a circle around him, outside
of which, at a proper distance, he kept those persons who came to him,
whilst he went through his mystic sentences and
performances.--Montgomeryshire Collections, vol. vi, pp. 329-30.