Some of the strangest apparitions in 18th century Welsh accounts have no shape at all. They roll, like a bowl or a ball of wool, and they alter in size. Edmund Jones, the dissenting minister of Pontypool who collected such stories, has several of them in his Relation of Apparitions of Spirits, and they sound more like weather or will-o'-the-wisp than like the dead.
The Caerwent story, as given by the Great British Ghost Tour, belongs to that family. In about 1757 a carpenter, David Griffiths, was walking near the river when he heard a sound like the braying of an ass, but with a quality he could only call hellish. Then he noticed something beside him: a dark roller, rolling along at his side. It went through a hedge, tearing it apart as it passed. He was so shaken that he took to his bed for a fortnight.
The Great British Ghost Tour credits the story to Edmund Jones. It is not in the Monmouthshire section of his Relation as printed in 1780 or 1813, both of which were checked for this record, so it may come from his earlier work or from a later retelling. It is tagged single report until the original can be traced.
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