At Dalton there is also an old barn, haunted by a headless woman. One night a tramp went into it to sleep. At midnight he was awakened by light, and, sitting up, he saw a woman coming towards him from the end of the barn, holding her head in her hands like a lantern, with light streaming out of the eyes, nostrils, and mouth. He sprang out of the barn in a fright, breaking a hole in the wall to escape. This hole I was shown some years ago. Whether the barn still stands I cannot say.
A Welsh Conjurer, 1831.—The following cutting from the Lincoln Herald, of August 19, 1831, is worth a place in the columns of Folk-Lore:
“A Welsh Conjurer.—Denbighshire Assizes. Before Mr. Baron Bolland.—John Evans, a Welsh seer, who officiates as high priest of the far-famed and much-dreaded Ffynnon Elian (or St. Elian’s Well), near Abergele, was indicted for obtaining 7s. from one Elizabeth Davies, by falsely pretending that he could cure her husband, Robert Davies, of a certain sickness with which he was afflicted by taking his name out of the well.
“This case affords a remarkable instance of the ignorance and simplicity of the Welsh peasantry even in these days of the march of intellect. Ffynnon Elian is celebrated in Cambrian history and song; and owing to the popular belief in the virtue and extraordinary property of its waters, the number and extent of the impositions practised upon the credulity of the people in past ages by a succession of impostors almost exceeds credibility. A few years ago the magistrates of the county prosecuted one of the high priests of the well, who, in consequence, was found guilty of cunning, cheatery, and fraud, put into prison, and his well of holy waters destroyed. For a time the celebrity of St. Elian and the protégé died away; their anathematisation ceased; and their memories were fast sinking into obscurity, when the prisoner revived them by laying in a stock-in-trade, and commencing business near the same spot as the high priest and favoured minister of the Saint.
“The following is the method pursued by the prisoner to gull the poor people. Into the Ffynnon Elian (a very shallow well) he put a large quantity of pebbles, slates, and stones, inscribed with number-less initials and names. No sooner did he hear of any poor person’s ill-health, or of anyone being afflicted with misfortune or disease, than he contrived to let them know that their names were in the well, and that nothing could cure or benefit them unless they were taken out. Of course this could not be done without money; and many hundreds of ignorant people were known to travel on foot thirty and forty miles to seek relief, and that, too, in the most distracted state of mind. The
