HALLOWE’EN is a time for spooky stories, scary movies, fun costumes and of course trick or treating.

It is also a time when many people become curious about any spooky goings on in their area, whether it is suspected hauntings, UFO sightings or anything that could send a shiver down your spine.

Here we take a look at some of the spookiest stories to come out of Ceredigion, north Pembrokeshire and parts of Carmarthenshire over the centuries, including ghostly apparitions, poltergeists, ghostly pre-warnings of death and even the alleged appearance of the devil himself.

The devil and silent bells

In Llanarth it is said that at one spot close to the church, you cannot hear the church bells and this is related to the devil.

It is believed that the devil tried to steal the bells from the church tower but it was so heavy that he struggled to carry it. He put it down to have a rest and was caught by the vicar. The devil would escape and allegedly left marks from his hooves on a nearby gravestone during his escape.

There is another story relating to devils and Newcastle Emlyn. The story begins with a nobleman going to Newcastle Emlyn to visit a lawyer and is believed to have happened in the mid 1700s. The lawyer gave the nobleman a sheaf of documents and instructed him to not open them until he got home. But he was impatient and stopped on his way home to open them. When he did so, ‘a swarm of devils surrounded him, and making some strange expressions. He retied the papers immediately and tried to go towards home, but there was no way of rising from that spot, and he was trapped.’

He is reported to have tried to get out of the situation by telling the devils to cut all the gorse in the nearby area and bring it back to him, hoping to be able to make his escape while they were doing so (it was a belief that you could set an impossible task for a demon or ghost to do and it would be trapped to do it until the task was completed) but they returned with all the gorse before he had time to stand. They put it in a nearby field and lit it on fire, again all before he could escape. He was able to escape after asking them to go and get water from the River Teifi to put the fire out. But the devils were said to have been appearing around the area for a period of time after the encounter.

Manifestations

Manifestations are said to appear in a variety of different styles. It could be a sort of light or haze, outline of a person or thing or a full detailed picture that could pas to some people as a living being. A number of manifestations have been recorded across our region including the manifestation of a white shape around three-foot tall passing through a gate along the St Dogmaels-Croft Road. The reports started around 1908 and it was believed to be a man called John Thorne. A relative of John’s saw it and believed it to be him. He had died and left his money to his brother’s children. They found that £25 of the money was missing and the appearance of the manifestation happened a few weeks later, leading the relative to believe the ghost wanted to reveal the location of the missing money.

Another apparition appeared at the church in Blaenporth to a local man. It was a white lady who had a task for the man. She told him to find the thief who stole the church’s communion cup, giving him the exact details of where to find both the thief and the cup, with the man returning it shortly after.

Another ‘white lady’ made an appearance in St Dogmaels. There used to be a footbridge across the stream and a ‘white lady’ would be seen to cross at night. The Sagranus Stone – a stone taken from the footbridge – was said to have been haunted by the white lady. It is now in the church.

Cardigan Castle was home to two manifestations of women. The first – a lady in white who was known as Ladi Wen – could be seen walking the parapets in the 1860s. The second was nicknamed the lady in black. She was believed to be the ghost of Arabella Davies and was seen in the castle by two South Wales Borderers soldiers who were billeted there during the Second World War.

Another manifestation is reported to be the ghost of a vicar who would haunt a well in the parish of Llandysul. Reverend David Dafis was buried in St Gwenog’s Church and Reverend William Jenkin Davies recorded in his 1896 book about the history of Llandysul parish that the ghost would haunt the spring for a number of years. He said: “Old Dafis Castellhywel’s ghost haunted the pasture of pistyll gwyn (white spring) for many years after he died. The women wouldn’t for any price fetch water from the spring once darkness fell, because his ghost walked about the place.”

Death warnings

There are a number of stories across Wales of eerie happenings that foretell the death of someone nearby. The most common are corpse candles which are said to appear shortly before someone is due to die, at the place where their life will end. There are also records of phantom funerals and bells ringing out.

In Blaenporth there was a belief that when the phantom bell was heard ringing three times at midday or midnight, someone of importance would die.

Poltergeist

Poltergeist activity can come in many forms but it is usually mischievous or causes issues and damage.

In early 1905, a poltergeist was reported at Bank House in Lampeter. It was reported by an 11-year-old boy who said he saw a woman in black briefly enter his bedroom. Then at 7am and 7pm each day, a bed would rock violently and knock against the wall. It was so loud that the sound would be heard throughout the building.

Eerie feelings and goings on

Not all reports of ghosts have been of physical manifestations. There are also many records of people having a sudden change in feeling such as the temperature of the room decreasing rapidly, feeling something touching them when there was nothing or no one around, hearing voices when there is no one around and seeing things happen that usually need to be triggered by a person.

Cardigan Castle is a place that is rife with reports of eerie goings on like this. A number of volunteers and staff reported hearing voices and noises coming from the room where the Escape Game Room is. The room has an interesting backstory as in 1897, the room’s occupant – 18-year-old George Davies – accidentally shot himself in the eye whilst in the room and the damage from the bullet is still seen in the ceiling.

The House at the castle is also said to be haunted after a visit by Pembrokeshire Ghost Hunters stayed there in 2016 and reported the lift going up and down by itself during the early hours. In 1987, volunteers reported hearing noises upstairs when they were locking up. They investigated and found nobody there, finished up and left the house. When they looked at the house, they noticed that all of the shutters that they closed on the top floor had been re-opened.

It is also said that you can hear the sound of a harp on part of the River Teifi in Llandysul, although there is no one playing nearby. It is believed that a performer had drowned at the spot, which has been named the Pool of the Harper.

Happy Hallowe’en!