Tradition relates that Sion Cent was a famous necromancer in Monmouthshire, who outwitted the devil, not once but many times. He lives in popular legend simply as a worker in magic, but in reality he was a worthy minister, the Rev. John Kent, who flourished from 1420 to 1470, and wrote several theological works in Latin. In his native Welsh he confined himself to poetry, and Sion Cent was his Cymric pseudonym. Like many learned men in those days, he was accredited with magical powers by the ignorant peasantry, and of his transactions with the devil many stories were then invented which still survive. One relates that he once served as a farmer's boy, and was set to keep the crows from the corn, but preferring to go to Grosmont fair, he confined the crows in an old roofless barn by a magic spell till the next day, when he returned. His compact with the devil enabled him to build the bridge over the Monnow, near Grosmont, which still bears his name. The compact gave the devil the man's soul, as all such compacts do--the stipulation being that if his body were buried either in or out of the church, his soul should be forfeit to the diawl. But the shrewd Welshman gave orders that he should be buried exactly under the chancel wall, so that he should lie neither in the church nor out of it; and the devil was made a fool of by this device. A precisely similar tradition exists concerning an old gentleman in Carmarthenshire.
A popular legend giving the origin of the jack-o'-lantern in Wales deals with the idea of a stupid devil: A long time ago there lived on the hills of Arfon an old man of the name of Sion Dafydd, who used to converse much with one of the children of the bottomless pit. One morning Sion was on his way to Llanfair-Fechan, carrying a flail on his shoulder, for he had corn there, when whom should he meet but his old friend from the pit, with a bag on his back, and in it two little devils like himself. After conversing for some time they began to quarrel, and presently were in the midst of a terrible fight. Sion fell to basting the devils with his flail, until the bag containing the two little ones went all to pieces, and the two tumbling out, fled for their lives to Rhiwgyfylchi, which village is considered to this day a very wicked place from this fact. Sion then went his way rejoicing, and did not for a long time encounter his adversary. Eventually, however, they met, and this time Sion had his gun on his shoulder. 'What's that long thing you're carrying?' inquired the devil. 'That's my pipe,' said Sion. Then the devil asked, 'Shall I have a whiff out of it?' 'You shall,' was Sion's reply, and he placed the mouth of his gun in the devil's throat and drew the trigger. Well; that was the loudest report from a gun that was ever heard on this earth. 'Ach!--tw!--tw!' exclaimed the smoker, 'your pipe is very foul,' and he disappeared in a flame. After a lapse of time, Sion met him again in the guise of a gentleman, but the Welshman knew it was the tempter. This time he made a bargain for which he was ever afterwards sorry, i.e., he sold himself to the devil for a sum down, but with the understanding that whenever he could cling to something the devil should not then control him. One day when Sion was busily gardening, the evil one snatched him away into the air without warning, and Sion was about giving up all hopes of again returning to earth, when he thought to himself, 'I'll ask the devil one last favour.' The stupid devil listened. 'All I want is an apple,' said Sion, 'to moisten my lips a bit down below; let me go to the top of my apple-tree, and I'll pick one.' 'Is that all?' quoth the diawl, and consented. Of course Sion laid hold of the apple-tree, and hung on. The devil had to leave him there. But the old reprobate was too wicked for heaven, and the devil having failed to take him to the other place, he was turned into a fairy, and is now the jack-o'-lantern.[86]