The story of Cadogan's ghost is one of many in kind. Thomas Cadogan was the owner of a large estate in the parish of Llanvihangel Llantarnam, and being a covetous man did wickedly remove his landmarks in such a way as to absorb to himself part of the land of a widow his neighbour. After his death this injustice troubled him, and as a certain woman was going home one night, at a stile she passed over she met Cadogan's ghost. By a strange forgetfulness, this woman for the moment lost sight of the fact that Cadogan was now a ghost; she had momentarily forgotten that Cadogan was dead. 'Mr. Cadogan,' said she, with ungrammatical curiosity, 'what does you here this time o' night?' To which the ghost answered, 'I was obliged to come.' It then explained the matter of the landmarks, and begged the woman to request a certain person (whom it mentioned) to remove them back to their proper places; and then the ghost vanished. At this unexpected termination of the interview, the woman suddenly recollected Cadogan's death, and fell into a state of extreme terror. She however did as the ghost had bidden her, and Cadogan walked no more.
Household Ghosts and Hidden Treasures--The Miser of St. Donat's--Anne Dewy's Ghost--The Ghost on Horseback--Hidden Objects of Small Value--Transportation through the Air--From Breconshire to Philadelphia, Pa., in Thirty-Six Hours--Sir David Llwyd, the Magician--The Levitation of Walter Jones--Superstitions regarding Hares--The Legend of Monacella's Lambs--Aerial Transportation in Modern Spiritualism--Exorcising Household Ghosts--The Story of Haunted Margaret.
The majority of stories of this class turn on the subject of hidden treasures. The popular belief is that if a person die while any hoarded money--or indeed metal of any kind, were it nothing more than old iron--is still hidden secretly, the spirit of that person cannot rest. Its perturbation can only be relieved by finding a human hand to take the hidden metal, and throw it down the stream of a river. To throw it up the stream, will not do. The Ogmore is the favourite river for this purpose in lower Glamorganshire. The spirit selects a particular person as the subject of its attentions, and haunts that person till asked what it wants, when it prefers its request. Some say it is only ill-gotten treasure which creates this disturbance of the grave's repose. A tailor's wife at Llantwit Major, who had been a stout and jolly dame, was thus haunted until she was worn to the semblance of a skeleton, 'for not choosing to take a hoard honestly to the Ogmore.' But flesh and blood could not resist for ever, and so--this is her story: 'I at last consented, for the sake of quiet, to take the treasure to the river; and the spirit wafted me through the air so high that I saw below me the church loft, and all the houses, as if I leaned out of a balloon. When I took the treasure to throw it into the river, in my flurry I flung it up stream instead of down: and on this the spirit, with a savage look, tossed me into a whirlwind, and however I got back to my home I know not.' The bell-ringers found her lying insensible in the church lane, as they were going home from church late in the evening.