Newcastle Emlyn History
Emlyn History history archaeology and antiquities. Is a village in Ceredigion, West Wales. Situated between Adpar and Llandyfriog.
Newcastle Emlyn History Pictures |
Since 1909 the Ceredigion Historical Society has published articles written about the archaeology, antiquities and history of Ceredigion, many of these articles printed within the Ceredigion Journal, are about the history of Newcastle Emlyn.
The society has also produced three county volumes, under the name of the Cardiganshire County History series, these knowledgeable, learned, comprehensive and scholary publications record the history of prehistoric, early and modern Cardiganshire.
1. History
2. Map
View Larger Map of Newcastle Emlyn
3. External links
- Coflein, discover the archaeology, historic buildings, monuments and history of Newcastle Emlyn, Ceredigion
- Historic Place Names, learn about the field names and house names in the community of Newcastle Emlyn
- A Pint of History, read about the history of Ceredigion pub’s, inn’s and local taverns of Newcastle Emlyn
- People’s Collection Wales, share your stories, memories and photographs of Newcastle Emlyn
Some ideas to share your Stories below!
Have a memory and your not sure what to write? We have made it easy with some prompts and ideas, just think about this place and the importance its had in your life and ask yourself:
- What are my personal memories of living here?
- How has it developed and shops changed over the years?
- Do you have a story about the beach, community, its people and history?
- Tell us how it feels, seeing photographs and images of this place again?
- Tell us your favourite memories about this place?
The aim of the Ceredigion Historical Society is to preserve, record and promote the study of the archaeology, antiquities and history of Ceredigion. That objective has remained the same since the foundation of the Society in 1909, though its name was changed from Ceredigion Antiquarian Society to the Ceredigion Historical Society in 2002.
THE FAIRIES (TYLWYTH TEG)
(p133)
“FAIRY CHANGELINGS.
Mr. B. Davies in the II. Vol. of the “Brython,” page 182, gives the following tale of a Fairy Changeling in the neighbourhood of Newcastle Emlyn, in the Vale of Teifi, and on the borders of Carmarthenshire and Cardiganshire:—
“One calm hot day, when the sun of heaven was brilliantly shining, and the hay in the dales was being busily made by lads and lasses, and by grown-up people of both sexes, a woman in the neighbourhood of Emlyn placed her one-year-old infant in the “gader” or chair, as the cradle is called in these parts, and out she went to the field for a while, intending to return when her neighbour, an old woman overtaken by the decrepitude of eighty summers, should call to her that her Darling was crying. It was not long before she heard the old woman calling to her; she ran hurriedly, and as soon as she set foot on the kitchen floor, she took her little one in her arms as usual, saying to him, “O my little one! thy mother’s delight art thou! I would not take the world for thee, etc.” But to her surprise, he had a very old look about him, and the more the tender-hearted mother gazed at his face, the stranger it seemed to her, so that at last she placed him in the cradle and told her sorrow to her relatives and acquaintances. And after this one and the other had given his opinion, it was agreed at last that it was one of Rhys Ddwfn’s children that was in the cradle, and not her dearly loved baby. In this distress there was nothing to do but to fetch a wizard, or wise man, as fast as the fastest horse could gallop. He said, when he saw the child that he had seen his like before, and that it would be a hard job to get rid of him, though not such a very hard job this time. The shovel was made red hot in the fire by one of the Cefnarth (Cenarth) boys, and held before the child’s face; and in an instant the short little old man took to his heels, and neither he nor his like was seen afterwards from Abercuch to Aberbargod at any rate. The [133]mother found her darling unscathed the next moment. I remember also hearing that the strange child was as old as the grandfather of the one that had been lost.”—“Celtic Folk-Lore” by Sir J. Rhys.
There are many such stories in different parts of Wales and Scotland, and in both countries Fairies were believed to have a fatal admiration for lovely children, and credited with stealing them, especially unbaptized infants.
A Welsh poet thus sings:—
“Llawer plentyn teg aeth ganddynt,
Pan y cym’rynt helynt hir;
Oddiar anwyl dda rieni,
I drigfanau difri dir.
The Rev. Elias Owen’s translation of the above is as follows:—
“Many a lovely child they’ve taken,
When long and bitter was the pain;
From their parents, loving, dear,
To the Fairies’ dread domain.”
Another popular mode of treatment resorted to in order to reclaim children from the Fairies, and to get rid of ugly changelings was as follows:—The mother was to carry the changeling to a river, and when at the brink, the wizard who accompanied her was to cry out:—
“Crap ar y wrach”—
(A grip on the hag.)
and the mother was to respond:—
“Rhy hwyr gyfraglach”—
(Too late decrepit one);
Then the mother was to throw the changeling into the river, and then returning home, where she would find her own child safe and sound.
It was believed that the Fairies were particularly busy in exchanging children on St. John’s Eve.”
From ‘Folk-Lore of West and Mid-Wales’ by J. Ceredig Davies (1911).
DEATH PORTENTS.
Among the most important of the superstitions of Wales are the death portents and omens; and this is perhaps more or less true of every country. About a generation or two ago, there were to be found almost in every parish some old people who could tell before hand when a death was going to lake place; and even in the present day we hear of an old man or an old woman, here and there, possessing, or supposed to possess, an insight of this kind into the future.
(p211-12)
“A REMARKABLE ACCOUNT OF KNOCKING AND WAILING BEFORE DEATH.
A few miles from Newcastle Emlyn there is a farmhouse called Pen’rallt-hebog, which is situated in the parish of Bettws-Evan, in Cardiganshire.
Besides Pen’rallt-hebog there is also—or there was—another house on the same farm known as Pen’rallt-Fach. And there lived at this Penrallt-fach about 25 years ago a tailor named Samuel Thomas, and his wife.
About that time a very strange incident occurred, and the following account of it was given me by Mr. S. Thomas himself an intelligent middle-aged man who is still alive I believe.
One morning, very early, Thomas heard a knocking at the door of his bedroom, and he enquired from his bed “who is there?” but there was no reply, and everything was quiet again.
The next morning again he heard knocking at the door, though not the bedroom door this time, but the front door of the house. My informant exclaimed from his bed, “Alright, I am getting up now.” But when he did get up, and opened the door, not a single soul could be seen anywhere. Thomas was quite surprised, and perplexed as to who could have come to disturb him at five o’clock in the morning, two mornings one after the other, and disappear so mysteriously. No voice had been heard, nor the sound of footsteps, only a knocking at the door. After this there was no further knocking for some time.
Twelve months to the very day after this a brother of Thomas who lived in some other part of the country came on a visit, and to spend a day with him, and this was in the first week of January, 1883. Some day during this week the two brothers went out with their guns to shoot some game, but soon returned to the house again, and in the evening Thomas went to his workshop to do some “job”; but as he was busily engaged in making a suit of clothes, he heard a knocking at the window quite suddenly—two knocks. He thought that some friend outside wanted to call his attention to something; but when he looked at the window there was no one to be seen After a while the knocking went on again, and continued for about ten minutes.
The second night the knocking at the window continued as the previous evening between ten and eight o’clock, but nothing was to be seen.
On the third night there was a knocking at the window several times, and it was much louder or more violent than it had been on the two previous evenings. The tailor and the young man who was his assistant decided now to keep their eyes on the window, and as soon as they did so there was no more knocking; but the moment they ceased looking and resumed their work, the knocking was heard again. There were several young men present in the room this evening, and they heard the knocking, and even the wife heard it from another apartment of the house.
These “spirit knockings” had been now noised abroad everywhere, and amongst others who went there in order to hear them was the farmer on whose land the tailor lived. The farmer did not believe in superstition, but when he heard the knocking he was convinced that there was something supernatural about it.
On the fifth night a very loud knock at the door was heard as if some one attempted to break through; and on the sixth evening when my informant went out for a short walk he heard such noise as if two hundred horses were rushing by him.
On the seventh and eighth evenings the knocking still continued; and on the ninth evening, Thomas went out with a gun in his hand, and found that there was no one to be seen anywhere, but he heard some groaning voice in the air, and doleful wailing. The man returned to the house quite frightened.
There was no more knocking after this evening.
In the beginning of January, 1883, at the very time when these strange knockings, sound, and wailing were heard at Pen’rallt Fach cottage, a woman whose old home had been this very house before she had left her native land was dying in America; and her crying on her death-bed in that far-off land was heart-rending, when she found that she was too ill to return to Wales, to die at her old home in Cardiganshire, and to be buried with her husband, who had died before she had left for America. One Mr. Lloyd, from Newcastle Emlyn, happened to be at her death-bed in America, when she was longing in vain to die in her old home in Wales. This solves the mystery of the “spirit knockings,” and it also confirms the truth of the old belief that Death makes his presence known by knocking at the door of the relatives of friends of those he is about to strike.”
From ‘Folk-Lore of West and Mid-Wales’ by J. Ceredig Davies (1911).