Research source

I will now proceed in Mr. Davies' words, heading each incident with the title given it in the collec

Date of account: Published 1911
Source: Stranger Than Fiction: Being Tales from the Byways of Ghosts and Folk-lore
Reference: Stranger Than Fiction: Being Tales from the Byways of Ghosts and Folk-lore · selected passage 166
Rights: public_domain
Language: English
Record updated: 2026-08-24

Record summary

Only the other day, a Merionethshire woman told me of an extraordinary apparition seen by two men whom she knew well, on the bridge in her native village

Published source text

Read the available text below. Archive transcriptions may contain OCR errors; later context is labelled separately. A recorded claim is not a finding that it happened.

Source passage

Source text · mention only

Only the other day, a Merionethshire woman told me of an extraordinary apparition seen by two men whom she knew well, on the bridge in her native village. One of these men was a chapel deacon, respected and respectable, and, according to my friend, quite incapable of misrepresenting facts. Their houses were separated by the bridge, and on a certain evening, when one man had been visiting the other, he said jokingly to his friend, "Now, John, you must come out and see me home, for I'm afraid to cross the bridge alone." So the two started together. It was a bright moonlight night, and arrived on the bridge, what should they see but the figure of an enormous man, clad in white, standing in the middle of the road! Remembrance of their jesting words, spoken only a few minutes before, flashed across the deacon's memory, and with their hearts in their mouths they stood rooted to the spot. But the figure, whatever it was, made no movement, and at last with shaking limbs and clammy brows, they stole past it in safety. Then came the dilemma.

Historical context

Contextual commentary · mention only

This material belongs to a folklore tradition. Story type, collector, community, transmission and literary editing matter when comparing it with other sources.

Modern context

Contextual commentary · mention only

Lattice compares motifs and reported features without assuming that a traditional being is a biological species or that similar stories document one external cause.

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