In the first decades of the 19th century, if you believed you had been bewitched anywhere in north Wales, one of the people you might go to was a woman in Denbigh known as Bella Fawr, Big Bella. Elias Owen, writing in the 1880s, called her one of the last and most famous of her kind. She was not feared as a curser so much as sought out as someone who could break curses laid by others.
Owen's detailed story about her takes place far from Denbigh, in the parish of Llanfrothen near Porthmadog, and came to him from the Rev. R. Jones, who was born there and had later been curate of Denbigh. Around 1815 an old woman who lived by begging, and was thought to be a witch, called at the farm of Ty Mawr and asked for milk. She was refused. The next time they churned, the milk would not turn to butter, however long they worked, and a foul smell came from the churn.
The farmer, John Griffiths, went to a conjuror near Pwllheli, who told him to plunge a red hot crowbar into the milk at the next churning. It worked for several weeks, then failed. The conjuror gave him a written charm to put under the churn, warning it was the last thing he could do. It failed too. Someone then advised Griffiths to go to Bella at Denbigh.
When he got there, Bella described the position of his house and named his fields without being told. Her instructions were to gather all the cattle into Gors Goch, the meadow in front of the house, and at night to hide with a friend under a particular holly in the hedge. He would see who had harmed him. They did as she said. The cows bunched together in fright and began bellowing. Then the suspected woman walked into the field, obviously in pain, said some words they could not understand, and went away. The cattle settled, and from then on the milk churned.
Owen adds that the holly tree was still standing in the hedge when he wrote. Nothing more is known of Bella herself from this source.
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