Press
1893
Llwynypia
A female claimed getting physically abducted by a ghost carrying a white sheet… The story as explained to by the newspapers would not audio notably convincing, but the witness was adamant more than enough to compose up her have account.
The South Wales Day by day Information of October 28th noted:
Odd Tale FROM THE RHONDDA
A HAUNTED COTTAGE. LANDLADY CARRIED OFF BY A GHOST. Interview WITH THE Abducted Woman. A SPECTRE IN MOLESKIN TROUSERS. Great Pleasure AT LLWYNYPIA. Courageous FOOTBALLERS FRIGHTENED. Remarkable SCENES.
Terrific exhilaration has prevailed throughout the past handful of days at Llwynypia and the adjacent districts in consequence of startling allegations by Mr John Dunn and his spouse, who reside at 9, Amelia-terrace, Llwynypia, and also by a number of neighbours. These individuals point out that for various nights earlier hideous apparitions have been witnessed, and unaccountable peculiar noises heard, in the bedrooms and other pieces of the cottage. The premises have been frequented by hundreds of persons throughout the earlier two or three times, and viewed by Sergeant Hayle, P.C. Pearce, and the other constables for hrs in the evening, but practically nothing abnormal has been identified by them. On Thursday evening a well-known quoiter and a selection of footballers stood for some time in entrance of the cottage, eagerly waiting around the visual appeal of the ghost, and it is said that the bravest of the soccer adult men was instantly startled by an alleged supernatural visitant.
Our agent, accompanied by Mr Tom John, schoolmaster, named on Mrs Dunn yesterday afternoon to receive her personal model of the affair. The dwelling is a four-roomed one particular with a pantry adjoining just one of the rooms in close proximity to the back again door. As we paced along the terrace (writes our consultant), consisting of about 20 residences, situated on the mountain facet, gentlemen and ladies ended up standing on the thresholds discussing the subject. We entered the cottage and identified Mrs Dunn standing by a tub upon a chair washing some donning apparel.
“Is this the property where by the ghost has been leading to disturbance?” I requested.
“Yes, sir get a chair, gentlemen, if you remember to.”
Mr John, who is the Welsh consultant on the executive committee of the Countrywide Union of Instructors, and myself seated ourselves straight away at her request, and then she unfolded her odd story.
“On Wednesday night, about nine o’ clock,” she broke forth, in a fairly reduced voice, “I was standing in the vicinity of the pantry door, and abruptly the back door opened, and a tall apparition robed in white appeared near by me suitable prior to my eyes. I shrieked, and right away it stretched forth equally arms and clutched me tightly. There was no a single in the house beside myself at the time. I shed my perception, and uncovered myself shortly later on in an outhouse. The ghost explained to me there that he was likely to take me away with him. I was dumb, could not utter a phrase for some time. There he kept me, keeping me on the wood seat, and telling me in Welsh to increase a brick for him. I could not do so. The scones and the couple bricks moved, and a rattle was listened to by me. Then I was lifted up bodily and taken out and lifted up into the air, and I lost my senses again. Afterwards, when I arrived to myself I discovered myself by the brink of a pond decrease down on the hill-side, and he threatened to chuck me into the drinking water and drown me. In getting me there the ghost had to lift me around a fence 7 ft high.”
“Was the ghost even now conversing in Welsh?”
“Oh, sure and he also talked to me in English, but I spoke to him in Welsh.”
“What were the text in Welsh?”
“Mae rhaid i ti ddyfod gyda mi.”
At this stage of our dialogue, two or 3 of the neighbours entered the kitchen area wherever we had been seated, and they enlivened the proceedings by narrating what they experienced listened to and witnessed in and about the premises. Mrs Dunn, resuming her tale, mentioned, “This home has been troubled by the ghost for nearly 7 months off and on, but it is for the duration of the past few days that we have been tremendously disturbed.”
“How was he attired?”
One of the neighbours standing shut by Mr John and myself interjected excitedly “He had a pair of moleskin trousers on, I consider, and a white sheet above his shoulders.”
“It was not a guy, was it?”
“No, because he vanished into air all at when, and then appeared in advance of our extremely eyes and went off once again. Listed here, this little lady has observed him several moments” (pointing to a lady about 16 a long time of age standing close to). “She can inform a lot more than we can.”
Mrs Dunn looked pretty pale, but did not look to be struggling from any form of mental aberration. Continuing with her account of the strange affair, she mentioned, “Men living in this locality have been sleeping in turns upstairs for times previous for the function of getting to the bottom of the subject. They listen to the latch rattling and rapping on the doorways and noises like the shuffling of ft and the clatter of crockery, and other noises, and they can not see something.”
Mr John place various thoughts to her, and in reply she mentioned that the ghost experienced instructed her she would have peace in foreseeable future, and that he would not torment her once again. She gained that ghostly assurance, according to her assertion to Mr John, on the previous night. Yet another of the neighbours who had patiently listened to all this, observed that she experienced also found a shadow of the ghost on the wall reverse her home, and she assumed that the ghost was donning corduroy breeches. She said that a “Christian young person,” and really religious, was a person of the gentlemen who had been sitting down up in turns all night in the property, and he had skilled the really same matter as they and Mrs Dunn experienced. “Jack,” the partner, who was a indigenous of Somersetshire, was also troubled be the spectre, and he sincerely considered it was a ghost. The pond has been frequented by hundreds of men and women throughout the earlier working day or two, and they all marvel at the toughness of the “goblin” in lifting or conveying the landlady about the superior fence.
“What is the induce of the visual appearance of the ghost, or why does he difficulties you much more than the neighbours?” requested our representative.
“Very well, I will not know,” replied Mrs Dunn.
“An previous man was taken to the asylum from below lots of years ago,” broke forth a single of the neighbours, “and he wore ribbed trousers and moleskin trousers at times, and I assume his spirit has returned to seem for a bag of gold which, it is explained, he left at the rear of. A whole lot of people today have been looking the spot for money yesterday.”
P.C. Pearce, Llwynypia, stated that the pond to the brink of which the ghost carried Mrs Dunn is about 300 yards away from the cottage. He had been telling “Jack,” the spouse, that the sounds he heard in the household at night was not produced by a ghost, but it was no use arguing with “Jack,” mainly because it only drove him out of mood. The delusion experienced trapped in “Jack’s” intellect, and also in his wife’s and neighbours’ brains. A really substantial range of persons experienced visited the premises, and remained outdoors the house until a late hour in the night. Dr. Jennings had also frequented the premises, and described the whole affair, according to P.C. Pearce, as a pack of nonsense. But the make a difference is, even so, the topic of the day in the district, and has induced a good sensation among the the inhabitants.
On Oct 31st the South Wales Day-to-day News carried a letter from Sergeant W. Hoyle at Tonypandy, disputing his involvement.
“When looking at a duplicate of your paper this early morning I arrived throughout my identify in link with the ghost story, as obtaining viewed the residence which is intended to be haunted for numerous several hours. Now, as I only knew for the to start with time, by means of reading your paper, that there was this kind of a detail at Llwynypia, I desire to emphatically deny the assertion with regard to my viewing the home in dilemma, as neither I nor any of my males have been around the home. Hoping you will, with your typical kindness, give this letter publicity in your very first problem.”
Mrs Dunn wrote up her have account for the newspaper. The South Wales Everyday Information of November 11th wrote:
THE RHONDDA GHOST. AUTHORITATIVE Model OF THE Thriller.
We have been given a extended letter from the woman who alleges that she was frequented in her dwelling at Llwynypia by a spectre, which carried her bodily away and deposited her a appreciable length from her dwelling. In the course of her considerably discursive epistle, Mrs Downe, of 8, Amelia-terrace, says: – “I am the lady who was carried absent, and I am the woman who can notify you the reality about it. I have lots of witnesses who have listened to the noise, and I had a great deal of firm in the residence when he (the ghost) took me absent. They requested the constable who seems to be just after the company’s residences to stop right here a night time to hear and see, if he could, but he did not occur.
I was sitting down on a chair by the hearth, with three other folks – Mrs Lewis, Mrs George, and John Samuel. The organization was outside. It was at half-past 8 in the night, as in the vicinity of as I can say, when the ghost pulled me off the chair towards him to the passage. I was afraid, and I screamed, and jumped back to my chair. He was continue to there. Mrs Lewis instructed me to converse to him. I felt as well nervous at initial, but right after a time I commenced to communicate to him, when, ahead of I could end my words and phrases he pushed me out from the property and across the bailey and into the water closet. Right here he lifted me on to the seat, standing, and he pointed to the leading of the wall.
He informed me in Welsh to increase the stone and just take what was below it, and that I have to go with him. That was all he said to me there. Then he took me down about 200 yards from the home. I cannot convey to you how he took me from the closet simply because I shed all my management. I observed myself by the brim of a pond. In this article he took from he what I experienced in my hand, and threw it into the drinking water. Then he explained to me he need to never ever difficulty me any additional. So that’s all the truth, and I hope you can expect to be so type as to set the reality down in your paper.
I am not ready to do the washing nor anything else I am not the similar woman that I was in advance of, and I will not assume I at any time will be. I can give you these names and many other folks who can swear to what I have explained – John Samuel, 9 Amelia Terrace Mrs [Elizabeth] Lewis, 1 Amelia Terrace and Mrs [Jane] George, 11 Amelia Terrace.”
Other newspapers treated the tale with the typical seriousness… A neighborhood correspondent for the Pontypridd District Herald of November 18th reported:
“There is no news deserving of chronicling this week we haven’t even had a take a look at as nevertheless from the Llwynypia ‘ghost’, so as I have nothing else worthy of jotting down I ought to say adieu to each you Mr Editor, and your visitors, for at the very least another 7 days.”
Regardless of what the reality of the matter, it failed to look to scare the Dunns absent. Listed here they are on the 1901 census:
