Part 19 (1/2)

VI. WREXHAM CHURCH.

The following extract is from Mr. A. Neobard Palmer's excellent _History of the Parish Church of Wrexham_, p. 6:--”There is a curious local tradition, which, _as I understand it_, points distinctly to a re-erection of one of the earlier churches on a site different from that on which the church preceding it had stood.”

”According to the tradition just mentioned, which was collected and first published by the late Mr. Hugh Davies, the attempt to build the church on another spot (at Bryn-y-ffynnon as 't is said), was constantly frustrated, that which was set up during the day being plucked down in the night. At last, one night when the work wrought on the day before was being watched, the wardens saw it thrown suddenly down, and heard a voice proceeding from a Spirit hovering above them which cried ever 'Bryn-y-grog!' 'Bryn-y-grog!' Now the site of the present church was at that time called 'Bryn-y-grog' (Hill of the Cross), and it was at once concluded that this was the spot on which the church should be built.

The occupier of this spot, however, was exceedingly unwilling to part with the inheritance of his forefathers, and could only be induced to do so when the story which has just been related was told to him, and other land given him instead. The church was then founded at 'Bryn-y-grog,'

where the progress of the work suffered no interruption, and where the Church of Wrexham still stands.”

Mr. Palmer, having remarked that there is a striking resemblance between all the traditions of churches removed mysteriously, proceeds to solve the difficulty, in these words:--

”The conclusions which occurred to me were, that these stories contain a record, imaginative and exaggerated, of real incidents connected with the history of the churches to which each of them belongs, and that they are _in most cases_ reminiscences _of an older church which once actually stood on another site_. The destroying powers of which they all speak were probably human agents, working in the interest of those who were concerned in the transference of the site of the church about to be re-built; while the stories, as a whole, were apparently concocted and circulated with the intention of overbearing the opposition which the proposed transference raised--an opposition due to the inconvenience of the site proposed, to sacred a.s.sociations connected with the older site, or to the unwillingness of the occupier to surrender the spot selected.”

This is, as everything Mr. Palmer writes, pertinent, and it is a reasonable solution, but whether it can be made to apply to all cases is somewhat doubtful. Perhaps we have not sufficient data to arrive at a correct explanation of this kind of myth. The objection was to the _place_ selected and not to the _building_ about to be erected on that spot; and the _agents_ engaged in the destruction of the proposed edifice differ in different places; and in many instances, where these traditions exist, the land around, as regards agricultural uses, was equally useful, or equally useless, and often the distance between the two sites is not great, and the land in our days, at least, and presumably in former, belonged to the same proprietor--if indeed it had a proprietor at all.

We must, therefore, I think, look outside the occupier of the land for objections to the surrender of the spot first selected as the site of the new church.

Mr. Gomme, in an able article in the _Antiquary_, vol. iii., p. 8-13, on ”Some traditions and superst.i.tions connected with buildings,” gives many typical examples of buildings removed by unseen agencies, and, from the fact that these stories are found in England, Scotland, and other parts, he rightly infers that they had a common origin, and that they take us back to primitive times of British history. The cause of the removal of the stones in those early times, or first stage of their history, is simply described as _invisible agency_, _witches_, _fairies_; in the second stage of these myths, the supernatural agency becomes more clearly defined, thus:--_doves_, _a pig_, _a cat_, _a fish_, _a bull_, do the work of demolis.h.i.+ng the buildings, and Mr. Gomme remarks with reference to these animals:--”Now here we have some glimmer of light thrown upon the subject--the introduction of animal life leads to the subject of animal sacrifice.” I will not follow Mr. Gomme in this part of his dissertation, but I will remark that the agencies he mentions as belonging to the first stage are identical in Wales, England, and Scotland, and we have an example of the second stage in Wales, in the traditions of Llanfair Dyffryn Clwyd, and of Llangar Church, near Corwen.

VII. LLANGAR CHURCH.

”The tradition is that Llangar Church was to have been built near the spot where the Cynwyd Bridge crosses the Dee. Indeed, we are told that the masons set to work, but all the stones they laid in the day were gone during the night none knew whither. The builders were warned, supernaturally, that they must seek a spot where on hunting a 'Carw Gwyn'

(white stag) would be started. They did so, and Llangar Church is the result. From this circ.u.mstance the church was called Llan-garw-gwyn, and from this name the transition to Llangar is easy.”--_Gossiping Guide to Wales_, p. 128.

I find in a doc.u.ment written by the Rural Dean for the guidance of the Bishop of St. Asaph, in 1729, that the stag was started in a thicket where the Church of Llangar now stands. ”And (as the tradition is) the boundaries of the parish on all sides were settled for 'em by this poor deer, where he was forc'd to run for his life, there lye their bounds.

He at last fell, and the place where he was killed is to this day called _Moel y Lladdfa_, or the _Hill of Slaughter_.”

VIII. ST. DAVID'S CHURCH, DENBIGH.

There is a tradition connected with Old St. David's Church, Denbigh, recorded in Gee's _Guide to Denbigh_, that the building could not be completed, because whatever portion was finished in the day time was pulled down and carried to another place at night by some invisible hand, or supernatural power.

The party who malignantly frustrates the builders' designs is in several instances said to have been the Devil. ”We find,” says Mr. William Crossing, in the _Antiquary_, vol. iv., p. 34, ”that the Church of Plymton St. Mary, has connected with it the legend so frequently attached to ecclesiastical buildings, of the removal by the _Enemy of Mankind_ of the building materials by night, from the spot chosen for its erection to another at some distance.”

And again, Mr A. N. Palmer, quoting in the _Antiquary_, vol. iv., p. 34, what was said at the meeting of the British a.s.sociation, in 1878, by Mr.

Peckover, respecting the detached Tower of the Church of West Walton, near Wisbech, Norfolk, writes:--”During the early days of that Church the Fenmen were very wicked, and the _Evil Spirit_ hired a number of people to carry the tower away.”

Mr. W. S. Lach-Szyrma, in the _Antiquary_, vol. iii., p. 188, writes:--”Legends of _the Enemy of Mankind_ and some old buildings are numerous enough--e.g., it is said that as the masons built up the towers of Towednack Church, near St. Ives, the _Devil_ knocked the stones down; hence its dwarfed dimensions.”

The preceding stories justify me in relegating this kind of myth to the same cla.s.s as those in which spirits are driven from churches and _laid_ in a neighbouring pool; and perhaps in these latter, as in the former, is dimly seen traces of the antagonism, in remote times, between peoples holding different religious beliefs, and the steps taken by one party to seize and appropriate the sacred spots of the other.

_Apparitions of the Devil_.