l uses, was equally useful,
or equally useless, and often the distance between the two sites is not
great, and the land in our days, at least, and presumably in former,
belonged to the same proprietor--if indeed it had a proprietor at all.
We must, therefore, I think, look outside the occupier of the land for
objections to the surrender of the spot first selected as the site of the
new church.

Mr. Gomme, in an able article in the _Antiquary_, vol. iii., p. 8-13, on
"Some traditions and superstitions connected with buildings," gives many
typical examples of buildings removed by unseen agencies, and, from the
fact that these stories are found in England, Scotland, and other parts,
he rightly infers that they had a common origin, and that they take us
back to primitive times of British history. The cause of the removal of
the stones in those early times, or first stage of their history, is
simply described as _invisible agency_, _witches_, _fairies_; in the
second stage of these myths, the supernatural agency becomes more clearly
defined, thus:--_doves_, _a pig_, _a cat_, _a fish_, _a bull_, do the
work of demolishing the buildings, and Mr. Gomme remarks with reference
to these animals:--"Now here we have some glimmer of light thrown upon
the subject--the introduction of animal life leads to the subject of
animal sacrifice." I will not follow Mr. Gomme in this part of his
dissertation, but I will remark that the agencies he mentions as
belonging to the first stage are identical in Wales, England, and
Scotland, and we have an example of the second stage in Wales, in the
traditions of Llanfair Dyffryn Clwyd, and of Llangar Church, near Corwen.

VII. LLANGAR CHURCH.

"The tradition is that Llangar Church was to have been built near the
spot where the Cynwyd Bridge crosses the Dee. Indeed, we are told that
the masons set to work, but all the stones they laid in the day were gone
during the night none knew whither. The builders were warned,
supernaturally, that they must seek a spot where on hunting a 'Carw Gwyn'
(white stag) would be started. They did so, and Llangar Church is the
result. From this circumstance the church was called Llan-garw-gwyn, and
from this name the transition to Llangar is easy."--_Gossiping Guide to
Wales_, p. 128.

I find in a document written by the Rural Dean for the guidance of the
Bishop of St. Asaph, in 1729, that the stag was started in a thicket
where the Church of Llangar now st