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Black Arts and Talismans: Huw Llwyd
Stories that Survive Around the Real Welsh Wizard, Medic, Minister, Military Strategist, and Man of Mystery
Huw Llwyd has been immortalised in the folklore and fairy tales of Wales, his fantastic exploits told and re-told down the ages, so many times perhaps that people have forgotten that he was, indeed, a real person: a mercenary, magician, bardic poet and bona fide ‘man of mystery’ — the genuine ‘Welsh Wizard’. Born during the first decade of Elizabeth I’s reign, he lived through the entire reign of King James (VI of Scotland, then I of England), and into the reign of Charles I, though did not live to see the upheaval of the English Civil War …or did he?
During the reign of King James, alchemy, magic, sorcery and the conjuring of spirits became closely associated with witchcraft. James adopted the ‘Christian Theory of Witchcraft’, which proposed that witches cannot act alone and must be taught by others. This meant that if one witch be found, then there must be other co-conspirators in the vicinity to be routed out. King James was paranoid that witchcraft was being used in attempts to assassinate him and studied the subject in detail. He wrote the extensive volume, Daemononlogie, in 1597, and passed the 1604 Witchcraft Act. Later, in 1611, he oversaw the translation, into English, of…
