Of Little Folk and Ghosts

Still on the subject of the land of my birth, there is a field above Llangattock Park on the hillside bank of the canal known as Cae Cefn Cythraul “The field of the Devil’s Ridge”. It was believed that the Devil used to haunt a clump of trees growing in the centre of the field and that he used to come out on Mid-Summers Eve to dance with the fairies. This clump of trees is still there.

Welsh fairies (Tylwyth Teg) did not have gossamer wings and acorn hats, but resembled the human race, being miniature people with miniature horses and dogs. They were well disposed towards humans and lived in remote places and under hills. Time became irrelevant to those who went away with the Tylwyth Teg and danced in Fairy Circles, such a circle was said to exist in the Black turf, a flat area near Craig Ciliau Nature Reserve. A human being beguiled by the sweetness of their music and stepped into the circle was lost for days maybe years unless someone had the presence of mind to throw them a bunch of Rowan and pull them out.

Rowan Tree

Superstition has always associated Mid-Summer’s Eve with the appearance of witches, fairies and ghosts.

Ghostly footsteps were heard some 70 years ago by a local practitioner when he was called to attend a patient at Llangattock Park House. He was invited to stay until mid-night and claimed he distinctly heard footsteps walking from the bottom to the top of the house. A number of older residents remembered being told of the ghost choir that sang in the caves on Mid-Summer’s Eve.

One of the best known landmarks in the district is The Lonely Shepherd, also known as The Peaky Stone standing on the Hillside boundary between the parishes of Llangattock and Crickhowell. Legend has it that this needle of limestone was once a man who was so cruel to his wife that she drowned herself in the River Usk. The man for his sins was turned into stone but at midnight on Mid-Summer’s Eve this stone walks down to the river calling his wife’s name and trying to persuade her to come back to him. The dawn finds him back on top of the hill. An older generation of locals recalled that women on the Hillside visited the stone once a year to give it a coat of whitewash.

A ghost horse walked along the road between the present canal bridge and the Hillside road at the bottom of the Prisk Pitch. In Wales there is a great belief in Ceffyl Y Dwr orWater Horses. If you happen to mount one then you can be taken on a nightmare ride at breakneck speed over the whole countryside, sometimes the ride lasts for days or sometimes the rider is never seen again.

A one time resident of the Dardy returning home from Glanusk one night claimed he heard the rattling of the chains of the ghost that haunted the stretch of road between Glanusk and Llanwysk. He was not a nervous man but the sound of the chains following him left him very frightened.

Llangorse Lake, close to Brecon is a beautiful spot, full of fish of all types and many species of bird.

Beautiful Llangorse Lake

 We have been boating there on more than one occasion. Legend has it that it was once the site of a large city which had a reputation for wickedness and debauchery. The local King sent an ambassador to Llangorse to see whether the dreadful reports of the city were true. He arrived one evening but no one was there to meet and greet him, only the sounds of drunken revelry came from the centre. Entering into a cottage on the outskirts of Llangorse he found it deserted apart from a sleeping baby. Accidentally he dropped a glove into the baby’s cradle. He then left the city to spend the night on a hillside overlooking it. During the night he heard dreadful sounds, thunder, the clash or arms, shrieking, crying and screaming and also the sound of waves. When morning came it revealed that a lake now covered the site of the city and the only sign of life was a child’s cradle bobbing on the waves. When it drifted ashore he found that it held the baby, and his glove. It is said that on still nights you can still hear the lost souls wailing.

Sunset over Llangorse Lake

The lake is supposed to have miraculous properties. Local inhabitants have witnessed it being “completely covered with buildings” (this ties in with the drowned city story). In winter, when there is ice on the lake, it is supposed to groan loudly and at other times turn bright green (the latter is more likely to be a bloom of algae). The last time we were at Llangorse lake archealogical explorations were being made on an island in the lake and we were able to watch for some time. In 1925 a dug-out canoe was found there dating back to 800 A.D. Itis known that Iron Age people had a settlement at Llangorse.

Brecon and the surrounding area has many ghost stories. This is one of them. A solder was sharing a cottage on the outskirts of the town. He was sleeping one night when he was awakened by the latch of his door being lifted with a loud click. He then felt an almighty thump on his shoulder. Sitting up now, very startled, he saw a woman at the end of his bed brushing her hair. He put the light on and the woman immediately vanished. After a while he settled into an uneasy doze when suddenly he heard the door open again. This time another woman entered the room but she was in a wheelchair, much older and not wearing the same clothes. However, by the face, the soldier could recognise that this was the same woman at two different stages in her life. He decided to sleep elsewhere. The next day he asked the owner of the cottage if she knew of any ghosts connected with the place. He gave a description of what had happened and also of the two apparitions that he had seen. Shocked, the owner told him that what he had seen was her Grandmother but she could offer no explanation.