One of the first things that strikes the reader is the implicit belief the author has in the truth of all the incidents he relates:

couple, and lived in the most perfect nity. He always, when addressing her, or speaking of her, did so in biblical phaseology, calling her his "beloved spouse;" and his epitaph upon her is so quaint that I cannot resist the temptation to

sketch it. It is cut upon both sides of the upright stone at the head of the grave, and is continued upon another that covers the whole length of it, and is as follows:

indeed he takes every opportunity of asserting this belief, for he says, "If any think I am too credulous in these relations, of which I myself have had no experience, I must let them know

(HEADSTONE IN FRONT.)

HERE Lyeth the Body of MA
RY the Wife of the Revd. Edm
und Jones Who Died Agut. the
first 1770 Aged 76 Years

A Rare Excellt. Xtian one of ye best
of Ministers Wives in the World
not kind to temptations as too many
professors but Severely strict in the
Way of holiness & Strong on Gods
side, very careful of the Church
Under her Husbands care & fearful
lest her self & we should Dishonour
God, feared nothing but sin

And dishonouring God. Blessed be God

(HEADSTONE ON BACK.)
(part scaled oft.)

3 God brot her to the wilderness
By his glorious winning kindness
She followed him thro thick and thin
And feared nothing else but sin.

4 Feared neither men nor devils
For sin she thought ye worst of evils
In the Lord unconquerable
Her faith in God invincible

5 To temptation was not open
No altho she met them often
But like the cedar tree in storm
In every state she kept her form
6 On Jehovahs side was strong
In every state she kept along
Unto God's cause a trusty friend
How many like her can we find
7 In her faith unconquerable
In some things scarce Imitable
To Heaven bravely fought her way
And did not from ye path go stray

they are mistaken." King James I. himself could not have believed in witches more thoroughly; and he quaintly says, "Had his Majesty King George II. read the history of witchcraft, and known as much as we do in some parts of Wales, he would not have called his Parliament to determine that there are no such things as witches, and his Parliament would hardly have complimented him therein. If they say there never was such things as witches in the world, the Scripture is against them, both in the Old and New Testament, for there were witches in the days of Saul and in the days of Paul, or otherwise it would not have been written-Ŏ foolish Galatians, who hath bewitched you that you should not obey the truth?' Yet his Majesty is in some measure to be excused, as there are not so many of those sort of people in Wales since the preaching of the Gospel hath prevailed in it. I knew one woman in the parish of Aberystwith who was supposed to be a witch, and her son-in-law was positive she was such, though her daughter was a very good woman."

He appears to have been quite a popular preacher in his time, and many anecdotes are told to this day in the neighbourhood of his wisdom and sagacity, that are scarce in keeping with the superstition displayed in his books; but in fact he was almost accounted a prophet by his admirers. He is said to have foretold the making of the Monmouthshire Canal before it was projected, by telling his friends that ere many years had passed they would see boats sailing over the mountains; and often, when invited to preach on a certain day at a place distant from his home, he would say, "I will not come on that day, it will be so wet there will be no congregation there; but on such a day it will be fine, so I will come then," and it invariably happened as he had predicted. It is also related of him that upon one occasion, when an old man, on crossing the mountain from Llanithel to Pontypool, he came upon a party of gentlemen who were grouse shooting with Mr. Hanbury, of Pontypool Park. Mr. Hanbury had noticed the old man's approach, and had told his friends who and what he was, and they determined to pass off a joke upon

8 And sleep did not her overtake
Throughout her course she kept awake
In this excelled the wise virgins
In her goodness little changes

9 Comely in mind and comely in person
Guarded was in conversation

In word and action rarely guarded

We have cause to think her blessed.

Upon the next headstone is the following inscription commemorating our author:

Here lies the Body of
the Rev. Edmund Jones
who died November the

6th 1793 Aged 91 Years
And 7 months.

him, much against Mr. Hanbury's wish, who told them they would most probably come the worse off from the encounter. When Mr. Jones came up to the party, who were seated on the heath having their lunch, one of them addressed him, saying, "Good day, Father Abraham;" another said, "Good day, Father Isaac;" and a third, "Good day, Father Jacob." "Well, my friends," said the old man, "I am neither Abraham, Isaac, nor Jacob." "Then who may you be?" was the inquiry. "To-day," he said, "I most resemble Saul, the son of Kish, in search of his father's asses, for lo! I have found three of them," and with that he passed on his way.

One of the chief charms in the book is the quaint way in which he moralises upon the events narrated; each is made use of as a text from which he argues to confute all who do not believe in the appearance of ghosts, or the existence of fairies, and to whom he applies the terms Infidel, Atheist, and Sadducee unsparingly.

Although now rare, the book must at one time have been well known in the district in which the author lived; for the accounts of the apparitions were at no very distant period "familiar as household words," and were as implicitly believed in by most of the older inhabitants as by the author himself. The writer, when a boy, was often delighted and frightened by a tale of ghost or goblin from this book, told by some old gossip, whose thorough belief in the truth of her narrative did not at all detract from the graphic manner in which it was told.

This belief in ghosts and spirits has not long died out, but was furtively held by many who would not care to acknowledge their weakness in this respect, but who, nevertheless, had been accidentally betrayed into admitting it. Nor was it among the uneducated classes alone that this feeling existed, for the writer has known persons whose education and position in society should have lifted them above such weakness hesitate before declaring their disbelief in some of the events narrated, and doubtless it is to the influence of this book upon them in early youth that such feelings are to be attributed.

The belief in the existence of the fairies seems to have died out earlier than the belief in ghosts. The writer has only known of one person (a lady) who declared she had seen a fairy, but a few years since it was no uncommon thing to hear of ghosts being seen.

Many of the events narrated seem to have happened in the latter part of the Eighteenth Century, and in many instances were told the author by those directly implicated, while some appear to have been handed down by tradition from an earlier The fairies of the Welsh mythology differ but little from that period.

of their Saxon neighbours; neither does the Welsh Pwcca differ much from the English Brownie, whom Milton says,

"Stretched out along the chimney's length,

Basks at the fire his hairy strength."

An exception is the Pwcca of the Trwyn, noticed in the book, and whose doings and sayings are so well remembered in the neighbourhood in which he appeared to the present day. This spirit appears to have been superior in many respects to, although retaining some of the characteristics of the Lubber Fiend," while the ghosts have a strong family resemblance to those of England, with this trifling exception, that they are very frequently described here as of the male sex, whereas English ghosts are more frequently female.

It is also evident that the author believed in the personality of the devil, and that the medieval idea of hoofs, horns, and tail was the type believed in. There is an anecdote told of his wife, who, if she believed in, was evidently not afraid of his Satanic majesty. It is told of Mrs. Jones that, going to the cellar one night for some beer, taking a candle to light her, she placed the jug beneath the tap and turned the key, but to her surprise there was no beer forthcoming; knowing the cask was nearly full, she looked up, and there, seated astride the cask, was the "foul fiend" himself in propria persona. Nothing daunted at the sight, she coolly said in Welsh, "Oh, it's you who are there, is it?" "Yes," was the reply, "and your faith is in that candle." "You were always a liar," was her rejoinder, and she immediately blew the candle out. The devil, thus defied, gave in, and allowed the beer to run, and Mrs. Jones took it up in triumph for her husband's supper.

The apparitions in the county of Monmouth are those first related, and it is curious to note the line of demarcation, as it were, within which the spirits and fairies appear. There is no account of any being seen to the east of the River Usk, but a line drawn from St. Mellons in the south, through Bassaleg, Newport, Llantarnam, Panteg, Trevethin, Llanhileth and Aberystwith in the north, would include the whole of the Welsh speaking parishes of the county, and as it is in these alone that the apparitions appear, it would seem to suggest the thought that the belief in the supernatural retained its hold upon the Cymri to a later period than upon their Saxon neighbours.

The first incident in the book relates to a haunted house in Aberystwith parish, which appears to have retained the same ghostly inhabitants for a long period of years, although those in the flesh were changed from time to time. The next we will let the author tell in his own words.

"John ab John of Cwmceilin, in the Valley of the Church, was travelling very early in the morning, before day, towards Caerleon Fair, and on going up the hill on Nulbie Mountain, he