As this familiar spirit got better acquainted with its quarters, it became more talkative, and used often to speak from out of an oven by the hearth's side. It also took to making music o' nights with Job's fiddle. One night as Job was going to bed, the familiar spirit gave him a gentle stroke on the toe. 'Thou art curious in smiting,' said Job. 'I can smite thee where I please,' replied the spirit. As time passed on the family became accustomed to their ghostly visitor, and seeing it never did them any harm, but on the contrary was a source of recreation to them, they used to boldly speak to it, and indulge in entertaining conversation. One old man, a neighbour, more bold than wise, hearing the spirit just by his side, but being unable to see it, threatened to stick it with his knife. 'Thou fool,' quoth the spirit, 'how canst thou stick what thou canst not see with thine eyes?' When questioned about its antecedents, the spirit said, 'I came from Pwll y Gasseg' (Mare's Pit, a place in the adjacent mountain), 'and I knew ye all before I came hither.' The wife of Morris Roberts desired one of the family to ask the spirit who it was that killed William Reilly the Scotchman; which being done, the spirit said, 'It was Blanch y Byd who bade thee ask that question;' and Blanch y Byd (Worldly Blanche) was Morris Roberts' wife ever after called. On Easter Wednesday the spirit departed, saying, 'Dos yn iach, Job,' (fare thee well, Job,) and Job asked the spirit, 'Where goest thou?' The reply was, 'Where God pleases.'[79]
There are other accounts of this Trwyn sprite which credit it to a time long anterior to last century; but all are consistent in this, that the goblin is always invisible. The sole exception to this rule is the legend about its having once shown a white hand to some girls in the kitchen, thrusting it through the floor of its room overhead for that purpose. Now invisibility is a violation of fairy traditions, while ghosts are very often invisible--these rapping and stone-throwing ghosts, always. It might be urged that this spirit was a Bwbach, if a fairy at all, seeing that it kept pretty closely to the house; but on the whole I choose to class it among the inhabitants of the spirit-world; and really, the student of folk-lore must classify his materials distinctly in some understandable fashion, or go daft.
