The Salusburys of Lleweni, near Denbigh, were for a long time the most powerful family in the Vale of Clwyd, and branches of the family held land all around, including at Llanrhaeadr. The ghost in this story belonged to one of them: David Salisbury, son of a man known as Harri Goch, Red Harry, of Llanrhaeadr, and grandson of old Thomas Salisbury of Lleweni.
What he had done in life the tradition did not say, only that he was not at rest. Long after he had been laid in the grave he kept coming back. A man known as Mr Griffiths of Llandegla, described as a good old soul, said he had seen him: mounted on a white horse, galloping over hedges and ditches in the middle of the night, groaning terribly. Griffiths took the groans to be the weight of sin on the dead man's soul.
There had once been a Welsh ballad, "Ysbryd Dafydd Salbri", which claimed to tell the true story, but the writer of the letter, signing himself Goronwy Ifan, said he had searched for it for many years without success. Owen used the tale to lead into a wider point: spirits were usually thought to ride headless horses, and in the parish of Cyffylliog, west of Ruthin, people said that horses found sweating in their stalls at dawn, or muddy with tangled manes in the field, had been taken out and ridden all night by spirits.
The Griffiths of Llandegla named here may be the same conjuror, Griffiths of Graianrhyd, whom Owen credits with laying several spirits in the district, though the source does not say so.
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