Clwyd yr Helygan was an alehouse that had a sinister reputation in the 1700’s. A witness reported something unworldly emerging from it as he approached on horseback. His horse stopped and drew backwards as a “living thing round like a bowl, rolling from the right to the left… altering in size” came towards him. He could also see that it was a reddish tone with a “mixture of ash colour”. The traveller challenged it in the name of the Lord, and the thing vanished beneath the earth.

A schoolmaster named Henry Williams Hugh had an encounter with what he described as a “somewhat odd figure” that was next to a holly tree and a stile somewhere in Bedwas. It firstly appeared in the shape of a man, but then divided into two separate male forms and then vanished in what he called a “pillar of fire”.