Two Horrible Apparitions

Nearly three centuries ago near Welshpool, mid Wales, two horrible figures appeared one evening.

A man was taking an evening stroll along the river bank when he saw coming towards him what he first thought was a man. He looked again and the figure seemed to be walking on his hands. It stopped and the man saw to his horror that whatever it was its neck was dangling limply. The thing somersaulted straight into the river. Following behind it a woman was screaming and running. She threw herself into the river.

The spectator could not attempt to rescue the figure as it had obviously been dead before somersaulting into the river as its neck had been dangling. While the man was in shock, the current had carried the woman away.

Later the man learned that close to the place where he had seen the somersaulting figure and the drowning woman a terrible tragedy had taken place. The figure of the somersaulting man had not been a goblin but a phantom who, when he was a man, had committed suicide by severing his throat, and the woman had been his wife who saw him with his neck dangling and drowned herself, afterwards becoming a phantom.

Not more than a mile from where the first nasty incident was alleged to have been seen, on the same night, another happened.

A man was going home by the bright light of the moon when he saw a sight that almost made him insane for life. He had only seen pictures of Goblins or trolls or been given descriptions of those ghastly beings.

Surely this was one of them; it came towards him on all fours, whirling around and around, shaking its massive head from side to side. From its lips came a loud moaning sound. Finally its whirling made it crash into a low stone wall shattering it to bits. The creature stopped shaking its ugly head from side to side then commenced to whirl again.

The man fell to his knees and prayed for deliverance from such a horror. Immediately after a long wail, the figure rose into the air and vanished. For many months the man suffered from shock and hallucinations and never during the rest of his life went near the place where he had seen the horror.