t in the front of the rectory that protected the house from
charms. This was what he called, _Meipen Fair_. In some parts of
England the snapdragon is supposed to possess a like virtue, and also the
elder tree.

Mr. Davies, schoolmaster, Llangedwyn, informed the writer that at one
time hyssop was hung on the inside of the house door to protect the
inmates from charms.

15. The seventh daughter could destroy charms. The seventh son was
thought to possess supernatural power, and so also was the seventh
daughter, but her influence seems to have been exerted against
witchcraft.

16. The sign of the cross on the door made the inmates invulnerable, and
when made with the finger on the breast it was a protection from evil.

The sign of the cross made on the person was once common in Wales, and
the advice given by the aged when a person was in any difficulty was
"_ymgroesa_," cross yourself. The custom of crossing the door on leaving
the house lingered long in many places, and, I think, it is not
altogether given up in our days.

17. Invoking the aid of the Holy Trinity. This was resorted to, as seen
in the charm given on page 270, when animals were witched.

_The way to find out whether a Hag is a Witch or not_.

It was generally supposed that a witch could not pray, and one way of
testing her guilty connection with the evil one was to ascertain whether
she could repeat the Lord's Prayer correctly. If she failed to do so,
she was pronounced to be a witch. This test, as everyone knows, must
have been a fallacious one, for there are good living illiterate people
who are incapable of saying their _Pader_; but such was the test, and
failure meant death.

Some fifty years ago, when the writer was a lad in school, he noticed a
crowd in Short Bridge Street, Llanidloes, around an aged decrepit woman,
apparently a stranger from the hill country, and on inquiring what was
going on, he was told that the woman was a suspected witch, and that they
were putting her to the test. I believe she was forced to go on her
knees, and use the name of God, and say the Lord's Prayer. However, the
poor frightened thing got successfully through the ordeal, and I saw her
walk away from her judges.

Another manner for discovering a witch was to weigh her against the
Church Bible; if the Bible went up, she was set at liberty, if, on the
other hand, she were lighter than the Bible, she was a witch, and
forfeited her life.

Swi