N I G H T B R I N G E R . S E
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A HORRIFIC HAG
Undoubtedly the most repulsive of Great Britain's omen ghosts is the Gwrach-y-rhibyn, a phantom that belongs exclusively to Wales.
Her name literaly means "hag of the mist," but it is more commonly translated "hag of the dribble" or "dribbling hag." She is said to appear as a hideous old woman who features masses of matted hair, a beak nose, penetrating eyes, ans tusklike teeth. Her long arms end in clawed fingers, and scaly black wings that are as leathery as a bat's sprout from the middle of her crooked back. Differens as she looks from Ireland's lovely banshee, the Hag of the Dribble keens and cries like the Irish spirit and has a similar function: She foretells death. The fearsome apparition is believed to serve as doom's emissary to families of old Welsh blood. Some Welsh inhabitants claim actually to have seen her gorgonlike visage. Others know the ominous crose as a dry rasp of claws on a windowpane or a baleful swish of wings that are too large for any bird.
One ancient family said to be haunted by the Gwrach-y-rhibyn was that of the Stradings of South Wales. For 700 years, until the middle of the eighteenth century, the Stradlings occupied Saint Donat's Castle on the seashore of Glamorgan. The family eventually lost the estate, although, it seems, the Dribbling Hag continued to associate Saint Donat's with the Stradlings.
One night a guest at the castle awoke to the sound of a woman wailing and moaning beneath his window. He looked outside but darkness veiled whatever lurked there. Then he heard a tapping against the window, followed by the flapping of enormous wings. Some eldritch quality in the sounds so frightened the visitor that he crept back to bed, but only after lighting a lamp to burn until morning. By the light of day, the guest asked his hostess if her sleep the previous night had been troubled by strange moans and scratchings. She replied that it had and that she knew the creature who made the noises was the Gwrach-y-rhibyn. As if to confirm her words, news soon came to the castle that the last direct descendant of the Stradling family was dead.
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