To this account my friend a few days later added the following postscript.
"To add something to my last letter. I met our Archdeacon ... on Friday, and was telling him about the 'White Witch of T----n'; he had heard of her when he was Vicar of L----n; his account of her proceedings is slightly different from what I wrote to you;--the little bits of straw are more than eleven, and she moves them, not on a table, but on two chairs, transferring them from one to the other; and what the old man described as 'mumbling' is that she repeats passages from the Bible. This latter fact connects, in my mind, her 'hanky-panky' with the old ceremony of 'touching' for the King's Evil."
The slight discrepancy in the details of the witch's proceedings in nowise detracts from the central, most interesting fact, that such professional "charmers" should be still resorted to in the rural districts of Wales by invalids having apparently every faith in their ability to work cures.
It was the Rector of Llaw----n who kindly gave me many particulars of a very famous "wise man" known as Harries of Caio. These are real names; Caio is a parish in Carmarthenshire, and my clerical friend had formerly been Vicar there, though subsequent to Harries' death, which occurred some years ago. But he is well remembered and talked of in the country, and if all tales told of him are true he must have possessed considerable psychic powers, which in these days would by no means be thought supernatural by enlightened people, but which thirty or forty years ago would most certainly have impressed and awed an ignorant peasantry. Harries is described as a fine-looking man with a long beard and remarkably bushy eyebrows. He would occasionally tramp the country, carrying an enormous volume of astrological lore under his arm, leather-bound, with a strong lock attached. This, he said, was to prevent ignorant people reading the charms contained in the book, and thereby raising evil spirits.
Although often consulted as a healer it was on his powers as a seer or prophet that Harries' fame chiefly rested. If any one had a relation ill or in trouble, he would go to the wizard and ask what his friend's fate would be. Harries then put himself into a trance, and when he came out of it would say, "I am sorry for you, but your friend will die," or "he will recover," as the case might be.