Spooky stories and legends of ghosts and more this Hallowe’en

To compliment the spooky season, we took a look for some of the creepy, spooky and downright bizarre stories and legends involving ghosts, dragons and mysterious goings on.

Aberglasney Gardens

Aberglasney Gardens is a Grade II Listed Mansion and acres of gardens in different styles and has been home to many people over 500 years.

It is said that the Blue Room is one of the most haunted in the mansion. In this room, a stove was left on to help with the drying of plaster and five maids lost their lives through suffocation.

Aberglasney Gardens

Visitors have said that they were touched by invisible hands while in the room and some have even seen the faces of the women who are said to have died there.

It is also said that a fugitive who was murdered in the grounds still appears to this day.

This came from a medium in 1999 who visited the Pigeon House Wood at the rear of the grounds as many people report feeling a sudden fear and eerie coldness.

The medium said that the fugitive spent his last moments trying to evade capture before being shot.

The ghost of Thomas Phillips is reported to appear around the grounds and had seemingly cursed the successive owners of the mansion. He was a wealthy surgeon in the East India Company and owned Aberglasney until his death in 1824.

Since his death, it has been said that successive owners were subject to bad luck, with many children dying in the house during their infancy.

His ghost is said to have been seen by gardeners and butlers.

It is also said that corpse candles appear in the house before every tragedy – something that began following the death of the maids mentioned above.

Dinefwr Castle

In Newtown House in Dinefwr Castle, there is said to be a ‘White Lady.’

It is believed that the spirit – which can be seen gliding throughout the manor – is the ghost of Lady Elinor Cavendish. Lady Elinor was said to have been forced into a marriage and attempted to escape from it.

Her suitor is said to have caught up to her there and murdered her by strangling her in the 18th century.

Along with her ghost, muffled voices are said to be heard and strange scents are said to be picked up and electronic devices seem to malfunction.

Some people have reported invisible hands squeezing their throats and others have seen a young girl disappear into a cupboard.

Screaming in the basement

This is a more recent case which made headlines in Wales. In Ammanford, a couple had been living in a house in the town for 11 years.

They had no problems until one day in June 2018 when they fled their home.

The couple had been hearing screams and voices coming from their basement and said they had hundreds of hours of strange sounds.

The couple believed that it was coming from a secret underground criminal lair but police hadn’t found anything suspicious.

Sleeping Owain

There is a legend that somewhere in Carreg Cennen is a cave system which includes Owain Llawgoch’s Cave. He was a Welsh soldier who led a French battalion in the Hundred Years War.

He is said to be sleeping somewhere in the cave system along with 51 other men. The legends talks about when they wake, there will be peace across all of the Earth.

Laughing children

In the 200s, the owners of Trecynllatch Farm on Llandeilo Road in Garnant had reported seeing and hearing manifestations of children and adults.

They said that they had seen figures walking up and down the stairs and had heard children laughing and people talking, despite there being nobody else around. Some believe that the area was a place for criminals to be hung.

Poltergeist

Around 1910, it was reported that there was a poltergeist at the Emlyn Arms pub in Llanarthney. It was reported that over a number of days, the spectre would throw hot stones around and create disembodied footsteps in empty rooms.

It is also said that a police officer attended the scene and just missed being hit by a polished rock that was initially on a mantelpiece but had launched itself off and towards the officer.

King’s Head Hotel ghost

It is said that during the 1980s, a woman with auburn hair could be seen at the King’s Head Hotel in Llandeilo.

She was seen frequenting the bar and also often seen in the form of a yellow patch of mist.

It is believed the woman is the ghost of a lady who was at the hotel during the 1830s and fell to her death from a window.

Llandeilo dragon

It is said that there was a dragon living in the tower of Llandeilo Graban Church, although it is not known when this was said to have taken place.

The legend tells that a young lad was able to kill the dragon by making a dummy dragon out of oak and covering it with steel spikes. The real dragon is said to have attacked its model counterpart and died of the injuries suffered when it was impaled on the spikes.

Dinefwr Castle from Golden Grove. Picture: Wendy Stephens

Golden Grove corpse candles

Earlier we mentioned corpse candles when talking about Aberglasney Gardens. In Llandeilo there is said to be more corpse candles. In the 19th century, three spectral lights were seen hovering over a part of the river by Golden Grove, the night before three men drowned in the exact spot the lights were seen.

Wellington Bomber

The Wellington Bomber is a popular story that is said to have taken place between Llandovery and Llandeilo.

A number of people have recorded seeing a Wellington Bomber in the skies over the Towy valley between Llandovery and Llandeilo. Records show that the area was a training zone for crews in the Second World War and it is assumed the phantom belongs to a group that didn’t make the cut.

There is also a crash site of a Wellington Bomber from the Second World War near Llandeilo, where in 1944, a bomber crashed into Garreg Goch and all six Canadian crew members were killed. Could this be the bomber seen?

Coach

In 1805 a family living in the building at Myrtle Hill, Myddfai were in for a bizarre and sad sequence of events.

They were sitting in the parlour of the building when they heard a loud noise. The noise was described as if a horse and coach was running down their staircase. On investigation, they could not find where the sound had come from.

A mysterious event turned to downright creepy and devastating for the family, as just a few minutes later, their son’s was carried into the house after he had drowned not too far away.

Water fairy/Lady of the Lake

It is said that around the 13th century, a fairy was living in a lake on the Black Mountain in Myddfai. The fairy – which is also known as Lady of the Lake - is said to have emerged from Llyn y Fan Fach and spoke to a local who walked past the lake on a daily basis.

She told him that if he married her, he would become rich and respected but there were conditions. He was not to hit her three times or speak of her origins or the supernatural success of their relationship.

He agreed and managed to keep her appearance quiet from the people of his village and his father gave her a dowry of some of the best sheep, goats, horses and white cattle in the county.

According to the legend, the fairy lived with the man happily for a number of years and had three children but it didn’t last.

He struck her on three occasions, once when she was reluctant to attend a baptism, the second when she cried at a wedding and the third when she laughed at a funeral.

She is said to have stood up and looked him in the eye after the third hit, and told him they were over and walked away. She called for her cattle to follow her and crossed the land before descending back to the lake, with every animal following her underwater.

Her husband returned to work but was unable to work the land anymore and became lost in self-reproach and disbelief.

The couple’s three sons remained with their father and their mother later returned to the family to teach her sons medical skills. The sons are said to have been the original physicians of Myddfai.

Happy Hallowe’en.