Church the Fenmen were very wicked, and the Evil Spirit hired a number of people to carry the tower away."

Mr. W. S. Lach-Szyrma, in the Antiquary, vol. iii., p. 188, writes:-" Legends of the Enemy of Mankind and some old buildings are numerous enough-e. g., it is said that as the masons built up the towers of Towednack Church, near St. Ives, the Devil knocked the stones down, hence its dwarfed dimensions."

The preceding stories justify me in relegating this kind of myth to the same class as those in which spirits are driven from churches and laid in a neighbouring pool; and perhaps in these latter, as in the former, is dimly seen traces of the antagonism, in remote times, between peoples holding different religious beliefs, and the steps taken by one party to seize and appropriate the sacred spots of the other. Apparitions of the Devil.

To accomplish his nefarious designs the Evil Spirit assumed forms calculated to attain his object. The following lines from Allan Cunningham's Traditional Tales, p. 9, aptly describe his transformations :—

Soon he shed

His hellish slough, and many a subtle wile
Was his to seem a heavenly spirit to man,
First, he a hermit, sore subdued in flesh,
O'er a cold cruse of water and a crust,

Poured out meet prayers abundant. Then he changed
Into a maid when she first dreams of man,

And from beneath two silken eyelids sent,

The sidelong light of two such wondrous eyes,

That all the saints grew sinners.

Then a professor of God's word he seemed,
And o'er a multitude of upturned eyes

Showered blessed dews, and made the pitchy path,
Down which howl damnéd Spirits, seem the bright
Thrice hallowed way to Heaven; yet grimly through

The glorious veil of those seducing shapes,
Frowned out the fearful Spirit.

S. Anthony, in the wilderness, as related in his life by S. Athanasius, had many conflicts in the night with the powers of darkness, Satan appearing personally to him, to batter him from the strongholds of his faith. S. Dunstan, in his cell, was tempted by the Devil in the form of a lovely woman, but a grip of his nose with a heated tongs made him bellow out, and cease his nightly visits to that holy man. Ezra Peden, as related by Allan Cunningham, was also tempted by one who "was indeed passing fair, and the longer he looked on her she became the lovelier—“ owre lovely for mere flesh and blood,” and poor Peden succumbed

to her wiles.

From the book of Tobit it would appear that an Evil Spirit slew the first seven husbands of Sara from jealousy and lust, in the vain hope of securing her for himself. In Giraldus Cambrensis's Itinerary through Wales, Bohn's ed., p. 411 demons are shown to possess those qualities which are ascribed to them in the Apocryphal book of Tobit.

There is nothing new, as far as I am aware, respecting the doings of the Great Enemy of mankind in Welsh Folk-Lore. His tactics in the Principality evince no originality. They are the usual weapons used by him everywhere, and these he found to be sufficient for his purposes even in Wales.

Gladly would I here put down my pen and leave the uncongenial task of treating further about the spirits of darkness to others, but were I to do so, I should be guilty of a grave omission, for, as I have already said, ghosts, goblins, spirits, and other beings allied to Satan, occupy a prominent place in Welsh Folk-Lore.

Of a winter's evening, by the faint light of a peat fire and rush candles, our forefathers recounted the weird stories of

olden times, of devils, fairies, ghosts, witches, apparitions, giants, hidden treasures, and other cognate subjects, and they delighted in implanting terrors in the minds of the listeners that no philosophy, nor religion of after years, could entirely eradicate. These tales made a strong impression upon the imagination, and possibly upon the conduct of the people, and hence the necessity laid upon me to make a further selection of the many tales that I have collected on this subject.

I will begin with a couple of stories extracted from the work of the Rev. Edmund Jones, by a writer in the CambroBriton, vol. ii., p. 276.

Satan appearing to a Man who was fetching a Load

of Bibles, &c.

"A Mr. Henry Llewelyn, having been sent to Samuel Davies, of Ystrad Defodoc Parish, in Glamorganshire, to fetch a load of books, viz., Bibles, Testaments, Watts's Psalms, Hymns, and Songs for Children, said -Coming home by night towards Mynyddustwyn, having just passed by Clwyd yr Helygen ale-house, and being in a dry part of the lane—the mare, which he rode, stood still, and, like the ass of the ungodly Balaam, would go no farther, but kept drawing back. Presently he could see a living thing, round like a bowl, rolling from the right hand to the left, and crossing the lane, moving sometimes slow and sometimes very swift-yea, swifter than a bird could fly, though it had neither wings nor feet,-altering also its size. appeared three times, less one time than another, seemed least when near him, and appeared to roll towards the mare's belly. The mare would then want to go forward, but he stopped her, to see more carefully what manner of thing it He staid, as he thought, about three minutes, to look at it; but, fearing to see a worse sight, he thought it

was.

It

high time to speak to it, and said- What seekest thou, thou foul thing? In the name of the Lord Jesus, go away!'. And by speaking this it vanished, and sank into the ground near the mare's feet. It appeared to be of a reddish oak colour."

In a footnote to this tale we are told that formerly near Clwyd yr Helygen, the Lord's Day was greatly profaned, and "it may be that the Adversary was wroth at the good books and the bringer of them; for he well knew what burden the mare carried."

The editor of the Cambro-Briton remarks that the superstitions recorded, if authentic," are not very creditable to the intelligence of our lower classes in Wales; but it is some satisfaction to think that none of them are of recent date." The latter remark was, I am sorry to say, rather premature.

One other quotation from the same book I will here make.

The Devil appearing to a Dissenting Minister at

Denbigh.

"The Rev. Mr. Thomas Baddy, who lived in Denbigh Town, and was a Dissenting Minister in that place, went into his study one night, and while he was reading or writing, he heard some one behind him laughing and grinning at him, which made him stop a little-as well indeed it might. It came again, and then he wrote on a piece of paper, that devil-wounding scripture, 1st John, 3rd,- For this was the Son of God manifested, that he might destroy the works of the Devil,'—and held it backwards from him, when the laughing ceased for ever; for it was a melancholy word to a scoffing Devil, and enough to damp him. It would have damped him yet more, if he had shewn him James, ii. 19The devils believe and tremble.' But he had enough for one time,"

The following objectless tale, still extant, I believe, in the mountainous parts of Denbighshire, is another instance of the credulity in former days of the people.

Satan seen Lying right across a Road.

The story related to me was as follows:-Near Pentrevoelas lived a man called John Ty'nllidiart, who was in the habit of taking, yearly, cattle from the uplands in his neighbourhood, to be wintered in the Vale of Clwyd. Once, whilst thus engaged, he saw lying across the road right in front of him and the cattle, and completely blocking up the way, Satan with his head on one wall and his tail on the other, moaning horribly. John, as might be expected, hurried homewards, leaving his charge to take their chance with the Evil One, but long before he came to his house, the odour of brimstone had preceded him, and his wife was only too glad to find that it was her husband that came through the door, for she thought that it was someone else that was approaching.

The Devil's Tree by Eglwys Rhos, near Llandudno.

At the corner of the first turning after passing the village of Llanrhos, on the left hand side, is a withered oak tree, called by the natives of those parts the Devil's Tree, and it was thought to be haunted, and therefore the young and timid were afraid to pass it of a dark night.

The Rev. W. Arthur Jones, late Curate of the parish, told me that his horse was in the habit of shying whenever it came opposite this blighted tree, and his servant accounted for this by saying that the horse saw something there which was invisible to the sight of man. Be this as it may, the tree has an uncanny appearance and a bad reputation, which some years ago was greatly increased by an occurrence that happened there to Cadwaladr Williams, a shoemaker, who lived at Llansantffraid Glan Conway.

W