Llanymynech Hill

In England, most of the peasantry swallow with credulous avidity any ridiculous stories of ghosts, hobgoblins and fairies. There certainly is, however, in the Welsh, a greater inclination to credulity than an Englishman can discover among his own people. There are but few of the mountaineers of Wales, who have not by heart a string of legendary stories of disembodied beings.

The cavern in Llanymynech hill, not far from Oswestry, has been long noted as the residence of a clan of fairies, to whom the neighbouring villages attribute many surprising and mischievous pranks. Whilst they have stopped to listen at the mouth of the cave, the people state that they have sometimes even heard the little elves in converstation, but this was always in such low whispers, that the words which were reverberated along the sides and roof of the cavern could not be distinguished. The stream that runs across a distant part of this cavern is celebrated as the place where the fairy washerwomen and labourers have been heard frequently at work.