The Welsh Minister and the Golden Ghost

Anyone who likes to explore the stranger side of life is familiar with the many odd rumors and conspiracy theories centering around the French village of Rennes-le-Chateau.  In brief, a priest named Francois Bérenger Saunière is said to have discovered buried treasure hidden in Rennes, a tale that has spawned any number of dizzying legends connecting the village and this treasure to Freemasons, the Knights Templar, the Merovingians, the Cathars, the Holy Grail, and--last but certainly not least--the alleged descendants of Jesus Christ.

While the following story, taken from "The Fairy-Faith in Celtic Countries," (W.Y. Evans-Wentz, 1911) is not quite as strange--and certainly not as famous--as the mythology surrouding Rennes-le-Chateau, the two tales share certain similarities.  Certainly, this account of a Welsh minister’s mysterious wealth deserves to be better known.

I offer now, in my own language, the following remarkable story: — The ancient manor-house on the Trewern Farm (less than a mile from the Pentre Evan Cromlech) had been haunted as long as anybody could remember. Strange noises were often heard in it, dishes would dance about of their own accord, and sometimes a lady dressed in silk appeared. Many attempts were made to lay the ghosts, but none succeeded. Finally things got so bad that nobody wanted to live there. 

About eighty years ago the sole occupants of the haunted house were Mr.--- and his two servants. At the time, it was well known in the neighbourhood that all at once Mr.--- became very wealthy, and his servants seemed able to buy whatever they wanted. Everybody wondered, but no one could tell where the money came from; for at first he was a poor man, and he couldn't have made much off the farm. The secret only leaked out through one of the servants after Mr.--- was dead. The servant declared to certain friends that one of the ghosts, or, as he thought, the Devil, appeared to Mr.--- and told him there was an image of great value walled up in the room over the main entrance to the manor. A search was made, and, sure enough, a large image of solid gold was found in the very place indicated, built into a recess in the wall. Mr.--- bound the servants to secrecy, and began to turn the image into money. He would cut off small pieces of the image, one at a time, and take them to London and sell them. In this way he sold the whole image, and nobody was the wiser. 

After the image was found and disposed of, ghosts were no longer seen in the house, nor were unusual noises heard in it at night. The one thing which beyond all doubt is true is that when Mr.--- died he left his son an estate worth about £50,000 (an amount probably greatly in excess of the true one); and people have always wondered ever since where it came from, if not in part from the golden image.

This is the substance of the story as it was told to me by a gentleman who lives within sight of the farm where the image is said to have been found. And one day he took me to the house and showed me the room and the place in the wall where the find was made. The old manor is one of the solidest and most picturesque of its kind in Wales, and, in spite of its extreme age, well preserved. He, being as a native Welshman of the locality well acquainted with its archaeology, thinks it safe to place an age of six to eight hundred years on the manor. 

What is interesting about this matter of age arises from the query, Was the image one of the Virgin or of some Christian saint, or was it a Druid idol? Both opinions are current in the neighbourhood, but there is a good deal in favour of the second. The region, the little valley on whose side stands the Pentre Evan Cromlech, the finest in Britain, is believed to have been a favourite place with the ancient Druids; and in the oak groves which still exist there tradition says there was once a flourishing pagan school for neophytes, and that the cromlech instead of being a place for interments or for sacrifices was in those days completely enclosed, forming like other cromlechs a darkened chamber in which novices when initiated were placed for a certain number of days--the interior being called the "Womb or Court of Ceridwen."

"Mr.---" was apparently the Reverend David George, who lived at Brithdir Mawr in the mid-to-late 19th century.  Other versions of the story claim the treasure George found was not an "idol," but gold that had been hidden during the English Civil War.

In any case, this tale is a pleasant twist on the usual "haunted house and hidden treasure" story.  Usually, finding and selling off an ancient idol causes all Fortean hell to break loose.  In this instance, disposing of the gold seems to have laid the ghosts to rest.