Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 24, 1913.djvu/544

 5o6 Collectanea.

Penywrlodd. Six neighbouring clergy therefore met after his death, armed with candles and books, " to read him down." A form of spell was read to bring the ghost to the spot. It arrived in the form of a bellowing bull, which frightened five of the parsons into fainting-fits. The sixth continued his incantation, whereupon the bull dwindled in size. " Why are you so fierce, Mr. Arndell ? " said the parson. '' Fierce I was when I was a man, but ten times fiercer now that I am a devil," replied the bull. The ghost continued to dwindle in size until it became as small as a fly. Whereupon the parson secured it in a box, and threw it into a well in the wood above Penywrlodd. Then the parish had peace. ^

On the banks of the brook Cilonow a tall plant of medicinal properties, with large yellow blossoms, called Elecampane {Inula Helenium), grows in masses. An old woman selling salves in the streets of Brecon was heard to sing the following rhyme, about fifty years ago, by Mr. Jones, the farmer of Llanthomas, —

" Elicampane sy'n gwella i'r hen Eli Trefynnon a'i gwella yn union Eli Treflint a'i gwella yn gynt." (Elicampane will cure the old.

Eli (the salve) of Trefynnon (Holywell) will cure directly. Eli (the salve) of Treflint (the town of Flint) will cure sooner.)

The belief in charms is still universal. One person, however, usually claims only to have power over one, or perhaps two, diseases, and they all declare themselves powerless over rheumatic affections. Neither thanks nor payment in money are permitted. Faith on the part of the patient is the one thing required, and it is not always necessary that the patient should see the charmer. The spell may be exercised if the name and description of the person and of the disease be given. A gift in kind generally finds its way to the home of the charmer later on. Williams, a gardener who has been for some years in America, told me that he got rid of 150 warts by stealing a piece of meat,- rubbing the warts with it, and then burying it. The warts disappeared within six months. He was cured of hernia by a man named Alcott, although a doctor (whose name he gave) had failed to cure him. This man

^ Rev. W. E. T. Morgan, Transactions of the Woolhope Club, 1898, p. 39.