The road from Llandudno towards the Conwy passes the old church at Llanrhos, and in the 19th century just beyond the village, at the first turning on the left, stood a dead and blighted oak. Local people called it the Devil's Tree. They believed it was haunted, and anyone nervous avoided walking past it at night.
The curate of the parish, the Rev. W. Arthur Jones, told Elias Owen that his horse shied every time it came level with the tree. His servant had a simple explanation: the horse could see something there that men could not.
The tree's reputation got worse after what happened to Cadwaladr Williams. He was a shoemaker who lived at Llansanffraid Glan Conwy and walked to Llandudno every Saturday night with a wallet over his shoulder, finished shoes in one end and, on the way home, groceries in the other. He liked a drink, and he generally called at the public house in Llanrhos on the way back so he would have the nerve to pass the tree.
One Saturday he had more nerve than usual. Instead of hurrying by on the far side he marched straight up to the oak and dared the Evil One to show himself if he was there. At once something dropped out of the branches onto his shoulders and took him by the neck with a grip like iron. He fought it and could not shake it off, so he had to walk on carrying it, and it grew heavier with every step. By the time he reached Towyn he was more dead than alive. He knocked at a friend's door, and before it opened the weight was gone. His friend, Owen says drily, knew perfectly well who Cadwaladr had carried from the Devil's Tree.
The tree has long gone and its exact site is not recorded beyond Owen's description.
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