Spirit in a Snuff-Box

Manawatu Times, Volume 61, Issue 45, 24 February 1936, Page 2

Spirit in a Snuff-Box

About the year 1830 (writes Mr. A. G. Bradley in the Morning Post) there died a usurious and unpopular tanner near Builth, Breconshire. The local farmers complained that his spirit was abroad. Among other causes of annoyance it gave, it jumped up behind them when riding back from market. Tho services of the then vicar of Llansantffraid, a notable spirit-layer, wore engaged. He shut himself, up, together with the vicar, in the church where the •tanner ad been buried, and the public thronging the churchyard anxiously awaited the results. After some half an hour the clergy emerged, having successfully captured the spirit of the tanner in a blue-bottle fly, now safelyencased in a snuff-box. In solemn procession the crowd -now followed the successful spirit-layer to a neighbouring bog, where the snuff-box enclosing the. tanner ’s spirit was pressed down at the point of a stick as far as it would go—lest he should-spring up and restart his evil ways. This is not a yarn from a.folk-lore book or from the lips of an old woman, but a brief summary from a contemporary local paper, •which described the whole performance as an ordinary piece of local news.