Of course this tale is capable of more than one humorous interpretation, such as that of an evening spent in overmuch good-fellowship, or as an example of a successful practical joke. But still I give it as it was told me, as an excellent instance of the Welsh "bogey story," of a kind that might, I expect, have been collected by the dozen in our remote districts twenty or thirty years ago, but are now rapidly being forgotten. I have heard of another "b[^w]cgi" (as bogey becomes in Welsh) of the same type as the above, which used to frequent a cross-road some four miles from Newcastle Emlyn, and took pleasure in frightening respectable people after dark. And still another of these creatures of the night was supposed to haunt the grounds of a house not far from Cardigan, and was known as "B[^w]cgi chain," its appearance being always accompanied by the noise of clanking chains. This bogey seems to have been quite an institution in the neighbourhood, and I fancy familiarity with the tradition had bred, if not contempt, at least disregard of poor old "B[^w]cgi chain."
A friend who lives in South Cardiganshire wrote to me of a man in her own neighbourhood--still living--who declared he had once seen "the evil spirit" of a neighbour, "at dawn, near a limekiln, a creature 'twixt dog and calf, and with lolloping gait, not fierce, but evil to look at, for the Welsh believe that evil people can take the form of creatures and roam about, for no good of course. And though they never name it, and would deny it to you or me, yet secretly, behind closed doors, they whisper of the different forms taken by the evil spirits of neighbours who are workers of darkness."
Personally I have never come across this belief in Wales, but it is most likely the remains of a very ancient superstition peculiar to that district, just as the belief in the "Tanwe" (to which I alluded in a former chapter) seems to have been localised in North Cardiganshire.
Of course this idea of the spirit of a living person roaming about to work wickedness can be nothing more nor less than a variation of the Were-wolf or Loup-garou legend, which from time immemorial has been believed throughout almost all Europe, and, it is said, still lingers in remote parts of France, and particularly Brittany. Now, closely related in race as the Welsh are to the Bretons, it is not hard to imagine that the superstitions and beliefs of both nations have had their origin in a common stock, taking us back to those far-away times when the great Celtic tribes were young. Local circumstances, religious influences, and differences of education have combined in the course of centuries to determine the survival or decay of these old traditions in both countries, and probably the "loup-garou" ceased to be generally heard of in Wales many hundreds of years ago. But everybody who has studied even slightly the subject of folk-lore and superstition, knows how long fragments of some ancient belief (often so tattered as to be almost unrecognisable) will be found obstinately preserved in perhaps quite a small district, among a few people in whom such a belief appears as an instinct which yields but slowly before the spread of modern education. And endeavouring to follow these dwindling rivulets of strange old-world ideas to their source is one of the most fascinating subjects of speculation in the world.