eturn to their old haunts, and well might it be said that the conditions
could not possibly be carried out; but still there was a place for hope
in the breast of the doomed by the imposition of any terminable
punishment.

The most ancient instance of driving out a Spirit that I am acquainted
with is to be found in the Book of Tobit. It seems to be the prototype
of many like tales. The angel Raphael and Tobias were by the river
Tigris, when a fish jumped out of the river, which by the direction of
the angel was seized by the young man, and its heart, and liver, and gall
extracted, and, at the angel's command carefully preserved by Tobias.
When asked what their use might be, the angel informed him that the smoke
of the heart and liver would drive away a devil or Evil Spirit that
troubled anyone. In the 14th verse of the sixth chapter of Tobit we are
told that a devil loved Sara, but that he did no harm to anyone,
excepting to those who came near her. Knowing this, the young man was
afraid to marry the woman; but remembering the words of Raphael, he went
in unto his wife, and took the ashes of the perfumes as ordered, and put
the heart and liver of the fish thereupon, and made a smoke therewith,
the which smell, when the Evil Spirit had smelled, he fled into the
utmost parts of Egypt, and the angel bound him. Such is the story, many
variants of which are found in many countries.

I am grieved to find that Sir John Wynne, who wrote the interesting and
valuable _History of the Gwydir Family_, which ought to have secured for
him kindly recognition from his countrymen, was by them deposited after
death, for troubling good people, in Rhaiadr y Wenol. The superstition
has found a place in Yorke's _Royal Tribes of Wales_.

The following quotation is from the _History of the Gwydir Family_,
Oswestry Edition, p. 7:--

"Being shrewd and successful in his dealings, people were led to believe
he oppressed them," and says Yorke in his _Royal Tribes of Wales_, "It is
the superstition of Llanrwst to this day that the Spirit of the old
gentleman lies under the great waterfall, Rhaiadr y Wennol, there to be
punished, purged, spouted upon and purified from the foul deeds done in
his days of nature."

This gentleman, though, is not alone in occupying, until his misdeeds are
expiated, a watery grave. There is hardly a pool in a river, or lake in
which Spirits have not, according to popular opinion, been laid. In our
days though,